9/11 memorial plans scrapped

Plans to entomb the unidentified remains of victims of the 9/11 attacks at the heart of the World Trade Center memorial have been ditched, it was reported today.

Instead, thousands of body parts will be kept in a climate-controlled room about 35 feet east of the special chamber where relatives will be able to mourn their loved ones, The New York Times said.

The change in plan means the remains will be easily removable for DNA testing, while family members will be able to see into the room where the containers are kept.

The 30-foot-square stone vessel in which the remains were to have been housed, which will stand 9 feet high in the centre of the change, will be purely symbolic.

Michael Arad, one of the memorial’s architects, told the newspaper the role of the vessel and surrounding rooms had evolved.

“We’re not burying the remains,” he said.

“They have to be kept for future identification. We’re essentially keeping them in medically controlled conditions.”

He added that the medical examiner had told him “many family members wanted to see where the remains were, how they were being stored”.

He said of the monolithic vessel itself: “It provides a touchstone, a centre, something that people can gather around.”
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=168952154&p=y6895z86x

Officials reverse stream on waterfalls

Gretchen Dykstra, WTC Memorial Foundation president, said Tuesday that the waterfalls in the memorial design by Michael Arad and Peter Walker would run during the winter. Last month the foundation said the falls would be shut during the winter

By Ronda Kaysen

Redevelopment officials devised a way to keep waterfalls cascading into the World Trade Center Memorial year round, a reversal from a previous decision that the waterfalls would be shut off during the winter months.
The fountains — a centerpiece of the memorial — will extend nearly 200 feet along each side of two square voids and cascade nearly 30 feet to reflecting pools below where the names of the victims of the 1993 and Sept. 11 attacks are listed. A mock memorial designed in Ontario, Canada concluded that a mid-winter trip to the memorial would leave visitors sodden with icy water and make for an unpleasant experience. Last month, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which will own and operate the memorial, decided to shut the fountains down in the winter, a development first reported at DowntownExpress.com.
After tinkering with the engineering, the foundation decided the waterfalls could work in winter after all, foundation president Gretchen Dykstra told Downtown Express Tuesday.
“This just shows how complicated this project is,” Dykstra said, standing inside the World Financial Center lobby Tuesday evening. “Every question has a gazillion engineering aspects to it.”
Winterizing the waterfalls, which involves incorporating heating mechanisms into the design, will cost the foundation an additional $300,000 to build and an extra $750,000 a year to operate because of energy costs.
The memorial, Reflecting Absence, is estimated to cost $330 million, and the underground memorial museum will cost $160 million. Construction will begin this spring.
“We’ll work to make sure that the visitor experience is as comfortable as possible no matter what time of year,” said foundation spokesperson Lynn Rasic.
The foundation is in the midst of a $500 million fundraising campaign to build the memorial. On Tuesday, Governor George Pataki earmarked an additional $80 million of his capital budget for the Snohetta building, ensuring the likelihood that the cultural facility, in some incarnation, will be built.
The Snohetta building, designed by the Norwegian architectural firm of the same name, was intended to house the International Freedom Center and the Drawing Center, two museums planned for the site. But after sustaining fierce criticism from some 9/11 family members critical of a cultural center near the memorial, the Drawing Center bowed out of the development and Pataki removed the I.F.C.
Dykstra has insisted Snohetta is too expensive to build. Some in the cultural community breathed a collective sigh of relief to see the project — which had received lavish praise from the arts community — funded with money that did not need to be privately raised.
“I’m thrilled to hear this news. I’m delighted that they could all agree on something and reach this kind of commitment,” said Drawing Center president George Negroponte in a telephone interview Wednesday. The Drawing Center is considering building a permanent museum in the South Street Seaport. “It leaves some profound options open for people to agree upon when the time is right, when all of the dust settles and the temperature of this is lowered to some degree.”
“The faster we can get the funds committed for the memorial and the museum the better,” said Community Board 1 chairperson Julie Menin, who was appointed to the Memorial Foundation board Tuesday. Cantor Fitzgerald chairperson and C.E.O. Howard Lutnick and Savita Bhan Wakhlu, managing director of Jagriti Communications, were also appointed to the board Tuesday. Former Disney C.E.O. Michael Eisner resigned from the board because of time constraints, Rasic said.
With both museums gone from the site, the building’s content is decidedly open for discussion. The building will be smaller than originally conceived and moved further away from the North Tower footprint. Aside from that, the details are vague. Redevelopment officials insist the programming will complement the memorial and the memorial museum.
“We know now that it [Snohetta] must be related to 9/11 and it will be related to 9/11, but it will try to get some inspiration, it will not just be a place of sadness,” foundation chairperson John Whitehead said at a press conference Tuesday. “We must find the positive aspect to 9/11.”
In the past, Dykstra has indicated a desire to see the building used for a visitors’ center and a bathroom facility. A gift shop will also be housed in the building, Whitehead said.
Many families that opposed the I.F.C. and the Drawing Center had hoped to see the Snohetta building turned into an additional museum of 9/11. A smaller Snohetta, moved further from the memorial, indicates they might not be getting what they hoped for. “It was not handed over to the families as they may have wished,” said Negroponte of the Drawing Center. “A decision has been made that flies in the face of what the families wanted.”
Indeed, the recent memorial decisions did not bode well with those family members. The group plans to hold a press conference on Thursday morning after the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation’s board meeting. “I don’t believe it’s their intention to bury 9/11, but that is essentially what has happened,” said Charles Wolf, whose wife died in the attacks. “Everything is going to be below ground. It’s as if they’re trying to hide it.”
Wolf learned about the $80 million Snohetta allocation from the Associated Press and about reinstating the waterfalls from Downtown Express. “They’ve already reached their conclusions and they haven’t even considered our thoughts on the matter… They’re inviting another fight.”
Content decisions for Snohetta have yet to be made public, said redevelopment officials, and the families will eventually have the opportunity to see the designs. “As we prepare for the memorial groundbreaking, the L.M.D.C. will continue to consult with and inform all constituencies regarding the design process,” said L.M.D.C. spokesperson John Gallagher in a statement to Downtown Express.
Despite Wolf’s frustration with the redevelopment process, he was one of the first people to participate in a new foundation project, Story Builder. His account of 9/11 is now part of a permanent digital archive on the foundation’s Web site, www.buildthememorial.org. It will eventually be incorporated into the Memorial Museum. He participated to help move the fundraising effort along, he said. “We need to encourage fundraising and press our points as the fundraising continues. If we don’t get some momentum going, it’s not going to happen.”

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/officialsreverse.html

4.65 billion reasons why I should rebuild, Silverstein says
 
W.T.C. developer Larry Silverstein said during an interview at 7 World Trade Center that the mayor is more interested in building apartments in Lower Manhattan than rebuilding offices.

By Josh Rogers

Larry Silverstein sits confidently in his empty office tower with views of the hole in the ground at the World Trade Center site as well as the two large buildings still damaged almost 4 1/2 years after the Sept. 11 attack. The mayor and the Port Authority, two of the W.T.C. power brokers, are not convinced that Silverstein is the man to develop all of the W.T.C.

But the building’s unclean windows also look out at the Hudson River and Downtown’s landmarks including the Woolworth and Municipal Buildings. Silverstein says he’s optimistic because the city and Port will realize that they won’t be able to redevelop the site unless they can find someone else who can get $4.65 billion in insurance money.

“We are the only ones with access to the money,” Silverstein, 74, said last Thursday in an exclusive interview with Downtown Express editors and reporters at 7 W.T.C. “Without the money you can’t build anything.”

Last month, Gov. George Pataki announced that he was inclined to issue Silverstein $1.67 billion of the remaining tax-free Liberty Bonds the state controls, but the mayor delayed a vote on the city’s $1.67 billion in remaining bonds, which were part of the federal government’s post-9/11 relief package for New York.

Silverstein does not need the city-controlled bonds for now and he said the vote delay will not set the redevelopment back. “We certainly do have some time,” he said. “There’s no question.”

  
A protective “bathtub” wall will have to be built near Church St. in this section of the World Trade Center site, where the permanent train station and Towers 3 and 4 are planned to be built.
  
The Bloomberg administration is negotiating conditions under which they would issue the bonds to Silverstein and is looking for assurances that he will meet design and construction timetables and the ability to “crawl back” the bonds if the developer misses a deadline.
Silverstein has enough money to begin building the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower at Vesey and West Sts. this April and Tower 2 at Church and Vesey Sts. next year, when the Port Authority is expected to have the site ready. Tower 2 has larger floor plates and he expects to fill the building with a few financial or communication firms in search of large trading floors or studio space. The Freedom Tower is likely to have a large number of tenants in need of smaller spaces and Silverstein expects both buildings to take at least a year to fill after they open in 2011.

He said Tower 2 is a better location because it will be closer to the W.T.C. PATH-subway station, but since it will take the Port Authority about a year to construct a protective bathtub there, he wants to begin building where he can first.

“Clearly the best place to start is where you’re closer to mass transit and Tower 2 is closest to mass transit,” he said. “However the realities being what they are, you cannot start Tower 2 until you excavate that major bathtub.”

The Port is now designing the bathtub and expects to begin building it this spring. Port officials have said the design could not begin until the plan was done for the train station, and places were found for the extensive amount of underground infrastructure and truck ramps needed at the site. The New York-New Jersey authority expects to have sites 3 and 4 ready for construction by the middle of 2008 although officials, say there is a chance that could be speeded up by six months.

Anthony Coscia, the Port Authority’s chairperson, told The New York Times last month that he has spoken to Silverstein about relinquishing control over much of the W.T.C. site in exchange for lowering Silverstein’s $120-million annual rent to cover just the Tower 1 and 2 sites.

Silverstein, who signed a 99-year lease with the agency for the Trade Center complex several weeks before the attack, denied anyone at the Port had raised the issue of exchanging control for a reduced rent. He refused to say last week whether or not the Port was trying to get back control of Towers 3, 4 or 5. Steve Coleman, a spokesperson for Coscia, said he had no reason to dispute his chairperson’s statement.

Pataki said Silverstein and the Port had 90 days to work out their remaining disagreements and Coleman said he thinks there will be an agreement in March.

“We’re following the governor’s timetable and we expect to have a resolution at the end of the 90 days,” Coleman said.

The Port is also arguing with the city over the retail layout at the W.T.C. The authority favors keeping Cortlandt St. closed off to create larger spaces for stores whereas the city wants to open the street to add liveliness and provide better views and access to the W.T.C. memorial. Silverstein said he would be happy with whichever idea prevails.

Mayor Mike Bloomberg told Downtown Express last month that market demand should dictate what gets built at the site and he has also spoken about considering hotels or housing there. The Liberty Bonds could be used for a hotel or retail space in addition to offices.

Silverstein said the site can’t be built entirely unless he gets all of the insurance money, which requires him to rebuild 10 million square feet of office space there. “If you stop and ponder the significance of that, you come to the conclusion that 100 percent of the office space needs to be built out,” he said.

A spokesperson for the mayor did not respond to a request for comment.

Silverstein said the mayor is “more of a supporter of residential down here than anything else.”

Bloomberg and others have questioned the demand for 10 million square feet of office space given Silverstein has only found two tenants for the 1.7 million square feet of office space at 7 W.T.C., which is expected to open in April

Silverstein said one of the reasons he has not found more tenants yet is public skepticism about the rebuilding pace.

“When you have major uncertainties, and you have major controversies it is difficult for people to relate to what’s really happening,” he said. “The constant question is, ‘is it really going to happen?’”

It will, Silverstein says, because he expects agreements with the mayor and the Port Authority. “I think at the end of the day we’ll get this resolved together.”

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/465billion.html

City Wins in Ground Zero Case
By Jarrett Murphy

Afederal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit charging that the city's Office of Emergency Management helped cause the collapse of Seven World Trade Center on 9-11 by storing diesel fuel for its emergency generators in the 47-story building.
The Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein are still on the hook in the suit, which was filed by insurers for Con Edison, which had a substation under WTC7 that was severely damaged.

The city Law Department hailed the ruling, which it says is the last property damage claim against the city related to 9-11. A statement from the department says the move by District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein "allows New York City to better plan for events like September 11th without being subject to liability based on hindsight."

WTC7 was the last building to fall on 9-11. No one was killed there. Compared to the twin towers it was a relative nobody among New York skyscrapers, but it has enjoyed posthumous notoriety because of the mystery of why exactly it fell. Thanks to the neat and sudden collapse of the building, WTC7 is central to alternative theories about what happened on 9-11—and particularly to the notion that the buildings in lower Manhattan were brought down by planned demolitions.

Mainstream inquiries also find puzzlement on WTC 7. The national investigation of Ground Zero building collapses has yet to issue its final report on building seven. An earlier study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency punted on trying to explain the collapse definitively. Not struck by planes, WTC7 appears to have collapsed solely because of fire—apparently a first for a steel-framed skyscraper. The diesel fuel was the most likely culprit, even though FEMA said this "best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence."

The city's OEM command center used a 6,000-gallon diesel tank; this was one of several in the building. Hellestein's ruling doesn't delve into whether the diesel fuel caused the collapse, or if it was a particularly bright idea to have it there, but finds that the city is immune under a state law, the New York Defense Emergency Act:
Although there may be some dispute in the record as to the details of how the OEM and generator system were designed and built in their particulars, the undisputed facts are clear: the Mayor decided that the City needed an OEM and command center to facilitate civil defense functions, and City officials, pursuant to that decision, engaged in a series of good faith negotiations and contracts with property holders, architects, engineers and outside consultants to design an effective and self-sufficient command center. Further, there is no allegation that the City acted in bad faith in carrying out its activities related to civil defense.
The Port Authority argued it should be cut out of the suit, partly on the grounds that the decision by FDNY to stop fighting the fire in WTC7 was the reason it collapsed, not the diesel tanks. But while he removed the Port from part of the suit, Hellerstein refused to grant the request in full, saying that putting blame on FDNY or anyone else "is a determination that can emerge only after a full factual record has been developed." Citigroup, whose subsidiary Salomon Brothers had an office and a diesel tank at WTC7, is also still on the hook.
Silverstein is rebuilding WTC7. He just signed his second tenant. So far, a mere 100,000 of the 1.7 million square feet in the new building is spoken for.

The Con Ed insurance suit is far from the only case concerning WTC7 on the docket. Federal courts are still trolling through a bunch of cases concerning Silverstein, his insurance company, the airlines, and others who blame or are blamed for the myriad pains inflicted when Mohammed Atta and company struck their targets.

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002322.php

/m2041
An empty black cube and two towers in the middle of a structure with arched windows. What does that evoke?
http://911memorials.org/?p=348

Indian nominated to WTC Memorial Foundation
 
LALIT K JHA
          
NEW YORK, JANUARY 12: An Indian woman, a victim of terrorism in the Kashmiri valley, has been nominated to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation Board of Directors.

Savita Bhan Wakhlu, a successful New York-based entrepreneur, became the first Indian and the first international woman in the 32-member board of directors.

The mandate of the foundation is to build and operate a memorial and memorial museum at Ground Zero of the World Trade Centre site, demolished on September 11. Construction is slated to begin in spring 2006 and opening scheduled for 2009.

Wakhlu is managing director of the Jagriti Communications, a training and development firm specialising in individual and organisational learning. A mechanical engineer and graduate from the National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, Wakhlu relocated to New York in 2003.

‘‘Members of Savita’s family and her in-laws have been victims of terrorism in India, so she acutely understands the need to create a memorial which not only commemorates those we lost in the terrorist attacks, but also stands as a symbol of our resolve to end hate and foster tolerance,’’ said the CEO of the foundation.

In her first reaction, Wakhlu said: ‘‘It is humbling to be a part of the creation of the World Trade Center Memorial. This edifice will be a constant reminder for humanity to strive for global peace, tolerance and harmony.’’

http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=85809

Metro Briefing

NEW YORK

MANHATTAN: DESIGN REVISIONS TO 9/11 MEMORIAL There may be some fine tuning added to the design of the World Trade Center memorial to meet security concerns, the state's top antiterror official, James K. Kallstrom, said yesterday. Mr. Kallstrom, a senior adviser to Gov. George E. Pataki and director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, said that the plans were reviewed months ago by the Police Department and that he did not foresee significant changes, but added that the design might be modified "so that we can react to whatever threat we're at here in the city." At the same corporation board meeting, John C. Whitehead, the chairman, said the waterfalls within the twin memorial voids would be able to run year round. Construction of the memorial is to begin in March.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/13/nyregion/13mbrfs.html

WTC MEMORIAL A SECURE THING

January 13, 2006 -- Work on the World Trade Center memorial, set to begin in March, won't be halted by last-minute gaffes over security similar to what happened to the Freedom Tower, Gov. Pataki's top adviser for Ground Zero security vowed yesterday.
"There may be some fine-tuning, but I don't see anything major happening that will dramatically change the design," said James Kallstrom.

He said the memorial has been scrutinized by security consultants and the NYPD.

"We have the best minds working on this and we will bring in the best products and procedures when it's all said and done," Kallstrom said.

His assurances didn't appease a group of relatives of 9/11 victims, who called on Pataki yesterday to put the brakes on the project because of security and design concerns.

"America is going to end up with a memorial that does not honor the victims of 9/11," said Anthony Gardner, whose brother died in the terror attacks.

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/59204.htm

Remaking a landmark

90 West St., the Cass Gilbert building facing the World Trade Center site, was tapped as the “Project of the Year: Adaptive Reuse” by New York Construction magazine. The 23-story landmark office building from 1907 was carefully cleaned and restored after sustaining heavy damage on 9/11. The Beaux-Arts tower re-opened last year as a 410-unit luxury rental complex, with the help of $106.5 million in Liberty Bonds.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/undercovre.html

oork to demolish damaged Fiterman Hall may actually begin
x
By Ronda Kaysen

City University of New York has taken steps to demolish a contaminated building damaged in the World Trade Center disaster and will present its plans to the Environmental Protection Agency as early as this week.

Fiterman Hall, a 15-story Borough of Manhattan Community College building, has stood shrouded in black, with large gaping holes torn into its southern façade, since 9/11. Until last year, the school, a CUNY institution, had been unable to secure enough money to demolish the structure and build anew.

The community has long expressed outrage that such a contaminated eye sore has remained in their midst with no end in sight.

In May, the university cobbled together the last of $185 million it needed for the project and announced its intentions to move forward with the cleanup. Since then, the university has been working with environmental experts to hash out a cleanup and demolition plan that will meet regulatory standards.

University officials will present their plan to E.P.A. this month—possibly as early as this week, a CUNY environmental consultant said—and begin cleaning the building in May. CUNY expects to finish cleaning the building by September and demolish it by February 2007, making way for a new $125 million Pei Cobb Freed & Partners-designed structure.

“Isn’t that nice? After all this time we’re getting ready to send the plans to the E.P.A.,” said Claudia Hutton, a spokesperson for the New York State Dormitory Authority, the agency overseeing the demolition and rebuilding of Fiterman Hall.

Downtown Express photo by Elisabeth Robert
The Borough of Manhattan Community College’s Fiterman Hall, across the street from 7 W.T.C., was badly damaged Sept. 11, 2001 and work to prepare it for demolition could begin as early as this May.
   
Fiterman Hall stands on the corner of West Broadway and Barclay St., gashed and shrouded behind the new 7 World Trade Center. Its façade was damaged when the original 7 W.T.C. collapsed, blasting Trade Center debris into the building’s interior.
The building is likely contaminated with a similar cocktail of toxins that plague other Trade Center-damaged buildings: lead, mold, asbestos and dioxin. Because the building was in the final stages of a $50 million renovation project at the time of the attack, it was cleared of its own asbestos before the disaster.

For four and a half years, little has happened at the building. In the initial weeks after the attack, the gaping holes were filled in from the inside, protecting the outside environment from seeping toxins, and black netting was erected. Since then, it has become one of a handful of 9/11-damaged buildings that remain standing Downtown, a glaring reminder to residents and workers of the slow pace of the redevelopment. In 2004, CUNY settled a lawsuit with its insurers for about $90 million, but it took the university until May 2005 to secure the remaining funds necessary from the state, city and Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

“Fiterman Hall has been the bane of my existence,” said developer Larry Silverstein, sitting on the 25th floor of 7 World Trade Center last week. The Trade Center developer has designed and rebuilt a 52-story tower overlooking Fiterman and the Trade Center site that will open before the first wall of Fiterman is wiped clean.

Silverstein has been slow to lease 7 W.T.C., renting only one and a half floors of the 1.7 million sq. ft. building since leasing began.

“The government has not dealt with Fiterman Hall,” Silverstein said, gesticulating, his soft-spoken voice rising in timbre. “In the time it took to build this building they have not been able to get that building down. Something’s wrong. There isn’t anybody who I bring to this building who doesn’t look across the street and say ‘What’s that?’ That’s really governmental failure.”

The cleanup of Fiterman will begin around the same time Silverstein dedicates a new park opening next to 7 W.T.C. “That’s pretty sad,” he said of the delay.

For nearby residents, Fiterman’s stalled demolition is a reminder of a redevelopment process that has been marred by delays and setbacks. “You’re constantly reminded of 9/11 by looking at this awful building,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, chairperson of Community Board 1’s World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee and a Financial District resident. “It’s unfortunate that Fiterman was not able to address the demolition of this building until a design for a new building was determined…. It’s too bad it’s taken this long.”

Hutton insists CUNY did what it could to move the process along — it could not begin work on a building until all the money was secured. “It’s a great disappointment to everyone how long this has taken, but we had to do the right thing and get an insurance settlement,” she said, adding. “We’ve never had a building that got hit by piece of a falling jet.”

Submitting plans to E.P.A. is no guarantee that a demolition process will happen anytime soon. The agency has to approve the plans, which could take many rounds of reviews. “We expect that the approval process will take a few reviews, it generally does,” Benn Lewis, a vice president for Airtek Environmental, an environmental consultant for Fiterman, told Downtown Express.

Similar buildings have endured a painstaking E.P.A. approval process as they attempted to secure approval. E.P.A. rejected a demolition plan for 130 Liberty St., a contaminated building on the opposite side of the Trade Center site, last February. L.M.D.C., which owns the building, didn’t receive a go ahead from the agency until September. When the corporation purchased the building in August 2004, it had intended to begin demolition within the year. And developer Haysha Deitsch, owner of 133-135 Greenwich St., two buildings near the site, had his demolition permits revoked last spring after the city Department of Environmental Protection deemed his cleanup plan inadequate. Deitsch received E.P.A. approval in November.

CUNY will select a contractor in March. Whoever is chosen must also submit a plan to E.P.A. for approval. The cleanup will begin after that plan is approved.

Fiterman will likely come down in a similar fashion to 4 Albany St., a privately owned building that was cleaned and demolished early last year. Scaffolding will be erected around the building, and then it will be cleaned from top to bottom. Once it is fully cleaned, Fiterman will be dismantled floor by floor, making way for a new building. “We’re going to clean it, and once it’s cleaned and tested and cleared, then we’ll take it down,” said Lewis.

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_140/worktodemolish.html

Three men who responded to the World Trade Center on September 11th have died over the last seven months of what their families and colleagues say are respiratory illnesses directly caused by their work at ground zero.

Robin Herbert, who directs a medical-monitoring program at Mount Sinai Medical Center for more than 14,000 ground zero workers, said it's not inconceivable that a person could die of respiratory disease related to September 11th.

Police Officer James Zadroga spent 16 hours a day toiling in the World Trade Center ruins for a month, breathing in the toxic air. Emergency Medical Technician Timothy Keller said he coughed up bits of gravel from his lungs after the towers fell. And EMT Felix Hernandez spent days at the site searching for victims.

Donald Faeth, an emergency medical technician and union officer, says he thinks that several rescue workers "died that day and didn't realize that they died that day.''

He added that both Keller and Hernandez, each with a decade on the job, were nonsmokers and had no previous health problems before September 11th.

Doctors running different health screening programs say it will take decades to get a clear picture of the long-term health effects of working at ground zero.

The city department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which is tracking the health of 71,000 people exposed to September 11th dust and debris, said it's too soon to say whether any deaths among its enrolled members are linked to trade center exposure.

David Worby, an attorney representing more than 5-thousand people who are suing those who supervised the 9/11 cleanup over their illnesses, said 21 of his clients have died of September 11th-related diseases since the middle of 2004.

He's not authorized to release their names, but said he represented people who toiled at ground zero, at the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island where trade center debris was moved, and at the city morgue.

Worby called it "just the tip of the iceberg.'' He predicted that "many, many more people are going to die from the aftermath of the toxicity.''

Congressman Jerry Nadler, whose district includes the trade center site, blames some of the illnesses on the failure to provide some workers with proper masks or respiratory protection. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found in 2004 that only one in five workers wore respirators to block out the dust laced with asbestos, glass fibers, pulverized cement and other chemicals.

Nadler said all the people exposed should be monitored for life.

http://1010wins.com/topstories/local_story_013160226.html

After 9/11, here is new york


By PATRICIA C. JOHNSON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

On Sept. 12, 2001 — the day after 9/11 — Mike Shulan installed a single photograph of the World Trade Center in a storefront 15 blocks away from Ground Zero.

That single photo was the beginning of here is new york, a photographic memorial that grew into more than 7,000 images by both professionals and amateurs.

This month, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, received a cache of 494 digital prints from that collection.

Here is new york donated the 7,000-plus digital-image archive to the Library of Congress, and more than 1,500 prints to the New York Historical Society. The gift from the nonprofit (501c3) hiny came with a string attached: The library and historical society would in turn present 10 sets of print images, selected by hiny and duplicated for the purpose, to the 10 museums hiny designated — among them, the MFAH and the Museum of Modern Art and International Center of Photography, both in New York.

Charles Traub, a photographer and co-founder of hiny, said the 10 sets are similar, "give or take an image or two."

Anne Wilkes Tucker, the MFAH's curator of photography, described the set of images as "truly one of the most democratic and noble attempts at telling a story about a tragedy."

The gift to the MFAH honors Houston FotoFest principals Fred Baldwin and Wendy Watriss, who presented here is new york as part of Houston's official 9/11 commemoration in 2002.

The memorial is an "outstanding example of the democratic promise inherent in the practice of photography," Watriss said. "The MFAH, because of the quality and importance of its photography collection, is the right place for this archive."

Six of the photographs are on view through Feb. 5 in the MFAH's Lower Brown Corridor of the Caroline Wiess Law Building. The complete digital archive can be seen in the museum's Hirsch Library and will be available at www.hereisnewyork.org.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/3583989.html

Family Member Group Press Release
January 12th, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 12, 2006
MEDIA ONLY - Contact: Anthony Gardner
(973) 216-2623

Alliance of 15 Major 9/11 Family Groups Calls on Governor Pataki to Stop the LMDC’s War Against 9/11

New York, NY - January 12, 2006 - Hoping to counter criticism of mismanagement, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), at Governor Pataki’s behest, is moving forward with its misguided plans for Ground Zero. LMDC plans to break ground on the 9/11 memorial March 13 regardless of the fact their botched process and mismanagement has resulted in a poorly thought out and unlivable memorial design, one that is unwisely being expedited in the hopes that the end, however poor will justify the means. (See Anna Papageorge’s Public Lives, NY Times, January 6, 2006.)

But the facts cannot be ignored.

FACT: If LMDC proceeds with this design, the footprints of the towers at bedrock will be obliterated.
FACT: We do not know what the LMDC is building.
FACT: We do not have the money to pay for its construction.
FACT: We do not have the money to maintain it.
FACT: We do not know if it will provide for the safety and security of visitors.
FACT: What is being offered to the public as the 9/11 Memorial is NOT what the LMDC’s jury selected.
FACT: Governor Pataki has the power to stop this before America is stuck with a bargain basement memorial.

It is only because of public pressure that LMDC will now run the memorial’s signature waterfalls year round. That they even contemplated shutting them off for several months a year shows how out of touch they are. The current LMDC plan: obliterates the tangible remains of the twin tower footprints; has visitors pay homage to an empty box (symbolic mortuary vessel); and it aggrandizes a rock wall (slurry wall) that may very well be structurally unsound and will require huge sums of money to fix. LMDC will quarter the North Tower footprint at bedrock into rooms to house infrastructure, exhibit and office space. This act will rob future visitors of the ability to grasp the true scale of the Towers and the enormity of the attacks. The planned underground Memorial provides the visitor a claustrophobic and potentially life-threatening experience as they look for randomly placed names that cannot be found without a map or guide. All this, LMDC proposes, for the unseemly price tag of $500 million dollars.

In 2001, Governor Pataki gave the LMDC two tasks: redevelop lower Manhattan and build a dignified and respectful memorial to those killed on September 11, 2001. Enough time and money has been squandered in the name of “process”. Pouring concrete in two months is fiscally irresponsible, will do irreparable damage and will do nothing to further the complimentary goals of redevelopment and remembrance. We understand the desire to show tangible progress, but just for its sake, LMDC cannot be allowed to build an empty Memorial founded on empty promises. The design problems must be solved by LMDC before construction commences. Build the Memorial chosen by the jury, or admit the problems cannot be fixed and go back to the drawing board. In either event, a step back must be taken before more good money is thrown after bad and America ends up with a bargain basement memorial that dishonors the memory of the 9/11 dead.

For more information on our efforts and the Take Back the Memorial alliance, visit www.takebackthememorial.org.

Many Believe Toxic Ground Zero Site Responsible for Growing Number of Deaths among Cleanup Workers
 
Last week we reported on the death of James Zadroga, a 34-year-old homicide detective who was believed to be the first New York City police officer to die from a respiratory disease caused by exposure to dust and toxic debris during his hundreds of hours of rescue and cleanup efforts at ground zero.

Now, however, the New York Daily News is reporting that 22 other relatively young men may also have died from respiratory-related illnesses caused or accelerated by their exposure to the same toxic environment while aiding in the post-9/11 cleanup.

Like Zadroga most of the 22 men were only in their 30s and 40s. According to their families, they have died as a result of the deadly mixture of chemicals they were exposed to as they searched for survivors in the ruins of the World Trade Center or aided in the clean-up efforts in the days and weeks following the terrorist attack.

While the attack was immediately responsible for killing almost 3,000 innocent victims who were in and around the WTC, it now appears 9/11 has had, and will continue to have, far reaching effects on possibly thousands of other individuals who responded to the catastrophe that day and in the weeks that followed as part of the massive rescue, recovery, and cleanup efforts, without any regard to their own personal safety.

Many medical experts have already expressed serious concern that the first responders, rescue and recovery workers, volunteers of all kinds, and construction workers at the scene will inevitably suffer significant, if not fatal, health consequences as a result of their protracted exposure to all types of dust, debris, toxins, and other dangerous substances that polluted the WTC disaster site for several months following the collapse of the WTC buildings.

More than four years later Detective Zadroga, who devoted some 400 hours to searching for victims died of a respiratory disease that the Detectives’ Endowment Association (DEA) believes was caused by his exposure to dust and debris at the disaster site

Zadroga developed black lung disease and mercury on the brain according to Michael Palladino, president of the DEA. For a month after the collapse of the towers, Zadroga worked up to 16 hours a day on rescue and recovery efforts.

Several months after 9/11 Zadroga developed shortness of breath and other respiratory problems and, as a result, he retired on disability in 2004.

Among the additional 22 who have died are private employees, a sanitation worker, a correction officer, a utility worker, transit workers, firefighters, and police officers. Some, like Zadroga, suffered from black lung disease, while others died from cancers of the esophagus and pancreas.

David Knecht, a Lucent Technologies employee, worked for two months to re-establish communications at businesses near Ground Zero. At 35 he was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in March 2005, leaving behind two girls, now ages 3 and 4.

His wife Cathleen Knecht, 38, of Berkeley Heights, N.J said "He was a nonsmoker and a swimmer."

Knecht was one of many who have claimed to have been sickened with debilitating and potentially deadly ailments related to their presence at the WTC site. Thousands are sick and suffering from respiratory illnesses. Nearly 400 firefighters and paramedics have left the job because of career-ending illnesses that followed their work at Ground Zero.

David Worby, the attorney for approximately 5,200 Ground Zero workers says that rescue and clean-up workers were not properly protected for the dangerous job they had to perform. "This was a toxic waste site. People should have been walking around in moon suits."

He anticipates there will be many more deaths and illnesses from worker’s exposure to deadly waste at ground zero. It is estimated that as many as 40,000 people worked at the site in the months after 9/11.

Worby's firm has filed a class-action lawsuit, which is pending in United States District Court in Manhattan. The suit alleges that government officials and construction contractors negligently exposed workers to dangerous levels of toxins at the cleanup site.

Presently, attorneys for the City of New York deny any direct medical link between exposure to debris and the respiratory illnesses and cancers. Doctors treating Ground Zero workers are also skeptical because cancers resulting from toxic exposure can take up to 15 to 20 years to develop.

They are disturbed, however, by the substantial number of young people who have died or become ill following similar exposure to the same environmental conditions.

"It's still too early to say if WTC responders are at increased risk for cancer," said Dr. Robin Herbert, director of the World Trade Center Health Effects Treatment Program at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. "But we remain very concerned."

Another death involved Bob Shore, a city correction officer, who worked at the makeshift morgue at Ground Zero for at least two weeks, wearing only a paper mask. At the end of his first day handling body parts, Shore climbed into the shower fully dressed and cried for two hours.

Shore, a 53-year-old father of two died last August from pancreatic cancer. His doctor attributes his disease, which caused the once 300-pound bodybuilder to waste away to 110 pounds and to have his gallbladder, spleen and pancreas removed, to his work at ground zero.

Shore's widow, like many families of 9/11 recovery and rescue workers, says she now faces the impossibility of paying the medical bills, as much $200,000 for all her husband’s treatments.

Nevertheless, Michelle Shore remembers her husband’s selfless contribution to the recovery efforts: "He never regretted doing it," she said "He was my hero, the city's hero."

http://www.newsinferno.com/storypages/01-16-2006~002.html

NYT: No Free Speech at Ground Zero Because Left-Wing Museum Had to Move?
 
A Saturday New York Times editorial, “A Home for the Drawing Center,” celebrates the fact that a left-wing museum, originally to be located at Ground Zero, has found a new home in Manhattan, and accuses opponents of the project of opposing free speech.

“The Drawing Center, of course, was once part of other plans to rebuild Lower Manhattan. It was going to inhabit a planned cultural center at ground zero, until, in a memorable spasm of apparently unscripted patriotism, Gov. George Pataki made it impossible for the center to remain. If nothing else, the battle over culture at ground zero made it perfectly clear that Governor Pataki favors free speech, but only if it takes place in another part of town.”

The Times doesn’t mention that its heroine Sen. Hillary Clinton has joined Pataki in opposing the plan.

“The real question is what ground zero has lost by losing the Drawing Center. The answer depends on many things, especially the perplexing fate of the memorial design and the character of the inchoate memorial museum. At best, ground zero has lost the ability to stand for freedom of speech, that most American principle. At worst, it risks becoming a deeply fragmented place, divided between mourning and shopping.”

This isn’t the first Times editorial to hail the Drawing Center while attacking its opponents as anti-free speech -- or worse.

On July 29, the paper hit out at Debra Burlingame for leading a fundraising boycott of the left-wing cultural center at Ground Zero. The Times didn’t bother noting that Burlingame is a family member of a 9-11 victim (her brother was a pilot on the plane that was flown into the Pentagon).

“It is a campaign about political purity -- about how people remember 9/11 and about how we choose to read its aftermath, including the Iraq war. On their Web site, www.takebackthememorial.org, critics of the cultural plan at ground zero offer a resolution called Campaign America. It says that ground zero must contain no facilities 'that house controversial debate, dialogue, artistic impressions, or exhibits referring to extraneous historical events.' This, to us, sounds un-American."

Burlingame had the audacity, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, to question what left-wing activists had in mind for the Ground Zero space, including the Drawing Center:

"The public will have come to see 9/11 but will be given a high-tech, multimedia tutorial about man's inhumanity to man, from Native American genocide to the lynchings and cross-burnings of the Jim Crow South, from the Third Reich's Final Solution to the Soviet gulags and beyond. This is a history all should know and learn, but dispensing it over the ashes of Ground Zero is like creating a Museum of Tolerance over the sunken graves of the USS Arizona."

http://newsbusters.org/node/3614