NextiraOne Gives the Gift of Communication to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation
Monday June 6, 12:00 pm ET
Donation of Telephone System Will Help With Fund-Raising for the WTC Memorial


HOUSTON, June 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly four years after the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001, building a memorial to honor those who lost their lives has begun. Shortly after the attacks, NextiraOne helped to restore communications in the devastated area and has continued its support this week with a donation to the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the charitable organization charged with establishing a permanent memorial at the World Trade Center site.
"Words cannot express how honored we are for the opportunity to help the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation," said NextiraOne President and CEO Dale Booth. "It is a real privilege to provide the very communication system the foundation will use to raise funds for this worthy cause. While it is only a small piece of the healing process, we are humbled to be part of it and hope other companies will follow suit to equip the foundation to fulfill its mission."

NextiraOne's donation of telephone equipment included a Nortel PBX and Call Pilot voice mail system designed to support the foundation's users. The donation will also include installation and a full year of support and maintenance for the system.

"New York City, its businesses, its people and its communications are very important to NextiraOne," said NextiraOne Vice President and General Manager, Eastern Region Ed Kelly. "Just as we assisted with restoring communications after the attacks of September 11th, the NextiraOne team stands proud to be a part of the efforts of the foundation to remember, renew and rebuild."

NextiraOne has a rich history and reputation for providing reliable enterprise voice and data network equipment and solutions to more than 40,000 customer sites in North America and has a significant presence in and around New York City.

"The foundation is brand new, so NextiraOne's generous donation of equipment, labor and service is greatly appreciated," said Gretchen Dykstra, president of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. "These kinds of gifts make us optimistic about raising $500 million to establish a permanent memorial."

The World Trade Center Foundation, Inc. is a not-for-profit corporation established to honor the innocent men, women and children killed in the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993 through the creation of a permanent memorial at the World Trade Center site.

Honorary board members for the World Trade Center Foundation include former presidents George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, William J. Clinton and Gerald R. Ford. Honorary trustees include Governor George E. Pataki of the State of New York, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of the city of New York and former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of the city of New York.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050606/dam027.html?.v=13

The first version of the Freedom Tower was unveiled in 2003 and publicly embraced by city and state leaders, including officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site. The design placed the building as close as 25 feet from West Street-Route 9A. From a parallelogram base ringed by an arcade of exposed columns, the tower was to twist as it rose, culminating after 70 floors of occupied space in an open-air superstructure of cables, power-generating windmills and an off-center spire meant to echo the Statue of Liberty.

People who have been informed about the redesign discussions say that the architects will probably set the building back at least twice as far from the street to limit blast damage from a car or truck bomb, and untwist it. The new building is likely to have a square floor plan, with a different summit and several more occupied floors than were in the original design. Windows below the 150-foot level will almost certainly be fewer and smaller, and views will be limited. The arcade around the base may be eliminated.

Managers of the redevelopment insist that the trade center site can be made safe through a series of protective zones, with checkpoints, bollards and other barriers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/nyregion...ity.html?oref=login

Security at Symbol of Resolve: Many Demands on New Ground Zero Tower
By GLENN COLLINS and DAVID W. DUNLAP
Published: June 7, 2005

Once intended as a shimmering, soaring declaration of political resolve and architectural ambition, the Freedom Tower at the site of the World Trade Center is being reimagined as something more impregnable. So the challenge now faced by its designers is to keep it from looking like a high-rise bunker.

The Freedom Tower may end up with a structurally massive base that is distinctly different from the upper office floors. The designers may use stainless-steel cladding, reinforced glass or even translucent concrete, a new material embedded with strands of glass that transmits light and shadow through seemingly impervious walls.

The redesign, ordered by Gov. George E. Pataki last month in response to security concerns raised by the New York Police Department, will add tens of millions of dollars to the building's estimated $1.5 billion cost. Less than four weeks before the governor's deadline of the end of June, details of the redesign are still being worked out, said Silverstein Properties, developers of the Freedom Tower and 7 World Trade Center, and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the architects of both buildings.

The urgent push to fortify what had already been called "probably the safest building in the world" by its chief architect, David M. Childs of Skidmore, has raised broader questions about the site planning and architectural criteria for the trade center redevelopment project.

Today, two City Council committees will consider security concerns at the Freedom Tower and the larger issue of Police Department involvement in the design and construction of big buildings and development projects.

If antiterrorist security had been the one and only consideration at the trade center site, the first designs for the Freedom Tower and other projects would seem to flout some basic axioms put forth by the Defense Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Institute of Architects.

In publicly available reports, they advise that attention-getting architectural symbols are prime targets and should be located far from potential vehicle-borne bombs; glass facades can be lethal in a blast; train stations and underground garages are especially vulnerable to attack; and spacious, column-free interiors under other structures may be liable to collapse.

At the trade center site, planners have envisioned a defiantly tall skyscraper laden with symbolism on a site bounded by a heavily trafficked state highway; a memorial that is expected to draw millions of visitors; and a transparent, glimmering museum directly above the broad, column-free mezzanine of a busy commuter rail and subway station. City streets will lace the site. Below them will be a network of ramps, roadways, loading docks and parking spaces.

Officials still intend to follow this broad development outline, but the design of the Freedom Tower is being revised to provide a greater shield from vehicle-borne explosives. This is generally described as "the most important consideration" in antiterror structural design by the emergency management agency, even though the last attack on the trade center was an aerial assault. Cars and trucks have proven to be an effective way of delivering large explosive charges.

The first version of the Freedom Tower was unveiled in 2003 and publicly embraced by city and state leaders, including officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site. The design placed the building as close as 25 feet from West Street-Route 9A. From a parallelogram base ringed by an arcade of exposed columns, the tower was to twist as it rose, culminating after 70 floors of occupied space in an open-air superstructure of cables, power-generating windmills and an off-center spire meant to echo the Statue of Liberty.

People who have been informed about the redesign discussions say that the architects will probably set the building back at least twice as far from the street to limit blast damage from a car or truck bomb, and untwist it. The new building is likely to have a square floor plan, with a different summit and several more occupied floors than were in the original design. Windows below the 150-foot level will almost certainly be fewer and smaller, and views will be limited. The arcade around the base may be eliminated.

Managers of the redevelopment insist that the trade center site can be made safe through a series of protective zones, with checkpoints, bollards and other barriers.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/07/nyregion/07security.html?

End looms for damaged 9/11 tower
 
The end is drawing near for a dark, shrouded ghost of a building overlooking Ground Zero.
The Deutsche Bank tower, ravaged on 9/11 and long draped in protective netting, will be examined tomorrow by bidders on a contract to erect scaffolding prior to demolition.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which acquired the 42-story, asbestos-laden building on Liberty St. last summer, plans to award the contract on July 1 and later choose another firm for the demolition.

The work could begin this summer and take 18 months.

"For the building to come down will certainly be a plus," said Richard Kennedy, chairman of Community Board No. 1. "But it's important that the job be done in a sound, reasonable, environmental manner."

Under a 2004 agreement with Deutsche Bank, the LMDC's demolition costs will be capped at $45 million.

Meanwhile, a program to monitor air quality in lower Manhattan will be announced today by the new Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, formed by Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to coordinate rebuilding and demolition.
 
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/316591p-270846c.html

SILVER'S WASTELAND

Tue Jun 7, 4:53 AM ET

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno yesterday killed Mayor Bloomberg's cherished West Side stadium — and with it, the most reasonable plan for reclamation of a vast urban wasteland to come along in years.

And they likely killed the city's chances for the 2012 Olympic games, too.
There's a lot of blame to pass around.
Silver made it clear that, at the end of the day, he is as small-minded and parochial a pol as any of the hicks and hacks he supervises as Assembly speaker. The stadium was, in his pinched view, a zero-sum game: The West Side's gain was Downtown's loss — was his district's loss that is, and so that was that.
Meanwhile, Bruno's son, Kenneth, was a principal lobbyist against the stadium,
Enough said there.
But it wasn't just Silver and Bruno.
Bloomberg and his chief economic-development deputy, Dan Doctoroff, made the Olympic games the centerpiece of their pro-stadium pitch — unwisely downplaying the overall economic benefits of developing the West Side site.
And Gov. Pataki has earned disapprobation on two counts:
* He never became fully engaged in the debate. The governor rhetorically supported Bloomberg, but never threw his weight behind his arguments. And at a key moment last week, he offered to mediate the argument between the lawmakers and the mayor — signaling ambivalence as to its outcome. That signal wasn't missed.
* Meanwhile, Pataki's Pit — the gaping hole that is Ground Zero — is not only the product of his overall lack of post-9/11 leadership, but it gave Silver a perfect excuse to oppose the stadium.
"We will be, shortly, four years after Sept. 11, and there is not a brick in the ground yet on Ground Zero," said the speaker yesterday.
In other words, if my district Downtown has to live with an ugly hole in the ground, then no one else in the city should see any development, either.
Now, Silver is known for his hardball bargaining. But is making all of New York suffer fair?
Besides, rebuilding at Ground Zero can go forward side-by-side with the development of the West Side.
And let's face it — development of the West Side is what the stadium debate is all about.
The plan called for extension of the No. 7 train into the area and the construction of upwards of 24 million square feet of commercial office space — all in all, a property-tax bonanza for a chronically cash-strapped city.
And yes, the Olympics figures into the picture.
New Yorkers aren't blown away by prospects of the games, but they would have represented a windfall both in terms of cash and prestige. (And don't forget the 2010 Super Bowl, now a pipe dream, as well.)
Ironically, an International Olympic Committee
International Olympic Committee report yesterday essentially rated New York's bid equal to, or ahead of, all the other contenders.
Loss of the stadium changes that.
Alas.
The Jets were offering to invest $1.6 billion in New York City. They made only two requests:
* Give them something to build on — i.e., a platform over the Penn railyards.
* If the city and state wanted the stadium to be used with the Javits Center for indoor conventions, City Hall and Albany should chip in to put a roof over it.
These are legitimate requests — but even if they aren't, granting them would be a small price to pay for the tremendous economic boon the stadium would provide.
Now that's history.
How sad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nypost/20050607/cm...39swasteland/nc:742

Defeat of Stadium Plan Ignites Olympic Scramble

BY BRIAN McGUIRE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 7, 2005
 
ALBANY - The defeat yesterday of a plan to build a Jets stadium and potential Olympic venue on the West Side of Manhattan could trigger a scramble to find a new site for the project, possibly in Queens, in time to rescue the mayor's dream of having New York named host city of the 2012 Olympics.

The stadium, which had become one of the most controversial political issues here in a generation and the object of tens of millions of dollars in expenditures for political advertisements and lobbyists, was rejected as the two legislative leaders who have been holding up the project simply abstained from casting a vote on whether to provide state funds.

The decision by the majority leader of the Senate, Joseph Bruno, and the speaker of the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, to withhold their votes on a $300 million state subsidy followed a day of uncommon political theater in which Mr. Silver disclosed that he never intended to approve the $2.2 billion stadium and hordes of hostile union workers declared the Manhattan Democrat an enemy of organized labor.

The day belonged to Mr. Silver, who spent much of Sunday in apparent negotiations over the project with Mayor Bloomberg but who made clear early in the day that nothing could have won his approval for a project that he said he views as nothing more than a larger scheme to relocate New York's financial center from Lower Manhattan to the West Side.

Mr. Bloomberg and Governor Pataki fervently supported the plan for what they called the New York Sports and Convention Center. Yesterday, however, when Mr. Silver was asked if the West Side stadium is now dead, he said: "It's never been alive."

If Mr. Silver's earlier comments on the stadium suggested skeptical consideration, his comments yesterday suggested resolute defiance. Indeed, Mr. Silver's earlier reservations appeared mere shadows of the concerns that he outlined in an impassioned prepared speech just before the repeatedly postponed vote by the Public Authorities Control Board. On that board, unanimity in the votes controlled by Messrs. Pataki, Silver, and Bruno was needed for the state financing, and thus the whole stadium plan, to move ahead.

In the speech, Mr. Silver equated opposition to the stadium with solidarity for the victims of the attacks of September 11, 2001. He called plans to develop the West Side instead of Lower Manhattan a type of betrayal. And he said he could not vote in favor of the project as a matter of conscience. He cast the issue as moral rather than political.

"This is not about the Olympics," Mr. Silver said. "For me, this fight is about restoring New York City's soul. It's about honoring the sacrifices made on September 11. It's about a moral obligation each and every one of us committed to when we saw those towers come down."

Mr. Silver's latest comments on Lower Manhattan development were his most pointed, and they suggest that the recent criticisms he has made that Messrs. Bloomberg and Pataki have pushed the West Side stadium at the expense of ground zero will only intensify. The two Republicans made a highly publicized offer of $820 million in subsidies for the area in late May. If Mr. Silver is willing to reject the stadium even after such a package for his district, he is unlikely to be quiet now that the project is dead.

Those incentives included $300 million for the World Trade Center memorial, $220 million for waterfront parks, $20 million for a new school, $32 million for traffic improvements, and $90 million for other cultural projects.

Though Messrs. Silver and Bruno shared responsibility for blocking the Jets stadium, their tactics in doing so diverged slightly at the end. The two men had seemed to be sharing notes up until early yesterday afternoon, when Mr. Bruno - who, like Messrs. Bloomberg and Pataki, is a Republican - called a press conference in which he chose to express his support for the Olympics rather than stress his opposition to the Jets stadium.

The tactic manifested itself at the raucous meeting of the control board later that afternoon, when Mr. Bruno's representative, Mary Louise Mallick, proposed an amendment to a resolution that would guarantee state funds on the condition that New York is chosen as host of the 2012 games. When the resolution was not seconded by the representatives of either Messrs. Pataki or Silver, it died.

That the meeting took place at all was, to many, something of a surprise. Messrs. Bloomberg and Pataki have been trying to force a vote for months, saying the stadium must be approved before the July 6 meeting in Singapore at which the International Olympic Committee will vote on a host city for the games. The mayor and the governor argued that failure to secure a stadium would kill the city's chances, a point that seemed to find confirmation in a preliminary report on host-city applicants issued by the IOC evaluation commission yesterday morning.

Messrs. Bruno and Silver had postponed two previous special meetings scheduled by the governor for a variety of reasons, calling the governor's deadlines artificial and saying they lacked answers on a number of finance-related and legal questions. They lost one of those reasons Thursday, when a state Supreme Court judge, Justice Herman Cahn, ruled that the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had not violated the law in March when it accepted the Jets' $250 million bid to develop the stadium over the Hudson Rail Yards, rather than a richer bid submitted by the owners of Madison Square Garden.

Anticipating yesterday's vote, Mr. Bloomberg arranged to meet Sunday with Mr. Silver for what many suspected were negotiations. Yet the theory that Mr. Silver was looking to gain a package of incentives for Lower Manhattan in exchange for his vote evaporated late Sunday when Mr. Silver emerged from Mr. Bloomberg's office saying no progress had been made.

"I don't know that there's been any progress except for the fact that we are talking," Mr. Silver said.

The consensus yesterday among aides to Mr. Pataki was that Mr. Bloomberg had underestimated the Assembly speaker's abilities as a negotiator. One aide said Mr. Pataki had warned Mr. Bloomberg about Mr. Silver's tactics, to no avail.

"After the original meeting was postponed, it looked like Shelley and Joe were on the run," the aide said, referring to the legislative leaders. "We said make them vote against the stadium, and the mayor said we could sweet-talk them.

"I think at this point the mayor just wants this behind him," the aide continued. "He loses."

The actual vote of the control board took place in a pressure-cooker atmosphere, with roughly 200 union workers shouting in a humid conference room for more than two hours, as aides to the three voting members hashed out their plan. When one of the nonvoting members of the board, Senator Thomas Duane, Democrat of Manhattan, entered the room, he was circled on three sides and shouted down by an angry horde.

Mr. Duane, a vocal opponent of the project, later sought to delay the meeting by raising a series of concerns to the board's chairman, John Cape, who represented Mr. Pataki at the meeting. Mr. Duane's questions, aimed at establishing more reasons to oppose the project, drew loud shouts from the union laborers, who pressed in on the small table at which the voting members sat. After Mr. Duane was directed by Mr. Cape to refrain from asking additional questions, a motion was made to vote on the stadium proposal.

When the representatives of Messrs. Silver and Bruno refrained from voting, confusion ensued. Mr. Cape said he thought Ms. Mallick's amendment counted as a second to his resolution on the stadium vote. When she explained that the proposal was conditioned on an affirmative vote on the stadium, Mr. Cape called a two-minute recess to review parliamentary procedure.

After all parties agreed that no second had been made to Mr. Cape's original stadium resolution, Ms. Mallick and the representative for Mr. Silver, Steven Pleydle, chose to abstain from a vote. At that, Mr. Cape declared the issue dead.

"Pursuant to the statute that establishes the Public Authorities Control Board, all affirmative votes of the board must be unanimous. Since there are not three affirmative votes, I deem that the approval was not unanimous and therefore that the project resolution has been defeated."

As Mr. Cape and the other board members hurried out of the room through a back door, the crowed erupted into a chant: "Silver's got to go. Silver's got to go. Silver's got to go."

With the West Side project defeated, attention now turns to alternative sites for a potential Olympic stadium. The Jets have so far refused to consider a stadium outside Manhattan, a stance team officials repeated yesterday.

Mr. Silver indicated he would support an Olympic facility at Willets Point, Queens, which would be near Shea Stadium and the U.S. National Tennis Center, but Mr. Bloomberg's enthusiasm for the Summer Games could wane, an aide to the mayor said. The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bloomberg is now unlikely to press for the games at the Singapore meeting in four weeks.

The Jets, meanwhile, expressed outrage at yesterday's rejection. They blamed Cablevision, owners of Madison Square Garden, for defeating the project, and vowed to continue their fight for a stadium in Manhattan. Team officials hope to move from the Meadowlands in New Jersey for the 2009 season and to have the 2010 Super Bowl played in their Manhattan home.

"Today is a setback," the president of the team, Jay Cross, said in a statement. "But it is not the final chapter to be written in our quest to build a home for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Four years of hard work and planning will not be washed away in a single day."

It also was unclear yesterday what might become of the rail yards over which the Jets stadium was to be built.

A major redevelopment project planned for the area could go forward without the Jets stadium as a centerpiece. The City Council has already approved rezoning for much of the area that would be redeveloped, but a new bidding process would have to take place for the 13-acre parcel, where the Jets hoped to build a 75,000-seat stadium on a platform financed by the city and with a retractable roof financed by the state.

http://www.nysun.com/article/14996

Sept. 11 changed this family's life
They moved from New Jersey home to Upland

BY GEORGE DICKEN
reporter@comteck.com
 
UPLAND - Tom Jensen's life changed in a very profound way on 9-11. Now living in Upland, he was working just six blocks from the World Trade Center.

"I was just leaving my office," Jensen said. Across from our building was a big parking lot and the Twin Towers were right there.

"I was just passing a big picture window, when I heard a really big noise. I missed seeing the first plane by half a second. A big fire ball shot from the tower. At first I thought it was a natural gas explosion.

"It just didn't make sense. The sound was sort of like a large dumpster being drug down the street, only being magnified 1,000 times.

"We could see people hanging out of the windows waving table cloths signaling people.

"That's when the second plane hit the southeast corner of the second tower. I was going down to the subway. If I had started 10 minutes earlier, I would have been on the subway when it happened."

Jensen had a personal attachment to the World Trade Center, having gone there as a child with his father, Bob, who was in charge of the men installing escalators in the building for the Otis Elevator Company in 1976.

Cell phones were practically useless because the main transmitting towers were on the Trade Center. Jensen tried many times to call his wife, Eastbrook graduate Kelly Hess, in New Jersey without success.

He finally contacted his mother, Mary Anne Jensen.

She called Kelly to tell her that Tom was safe. Tom wasn't allowed out of his building and didn't arrive home until later that afternoon.

"When I finally got home I said to Kelly, 'Nobody's bombing barns in Indiana. I'm out of here.' But that was Sept. 11," Tom said.

Tom returned to work and tried to make a go of it.

He started having nightmares and his work was being affected. Some days he didn't show up for work until 11 a.m.

"It was very obvious that he had no desire to be back at that job because every day it got later and later," Kelly said.

The couple sold their New Jersey home in July, 2002, and set up housekeeping in Upland in September, just two weeks before the first anniversary of the attack.

They have since built a new home on property formerly owned by Kelly's parents, David and Barbara Hess.

"It's sad that something like that had to happen to make me move here. I don't know if we ever would have moved, but I love living here," Tom said. "To go to a movie and not have to wait in line or go to a restaurant and not have to fight the crowds.

"People seem to take a little more time out here. They're not so rushed. It's a wonderful place to raise your kids."

 http://www.chronicle-tribune.com/apps/pbcs...6070326/1031/NEWS01

 
WPCS Selected for New World Trade Center Project

EXTON, Pa., June 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- WPCS International Incorporated , a leader in wireless engineering services, has announced that through its WPCS/Heinz subsidiary, it has been selected as the design consultant for a wireless distribution system for the new 7 World Trade Center Building. WPCS/Heinz will be working as a consultant for Silverstein Properties (http://www.silversteinproperties.com/), one of the most respected real estate developers in New York City and under the direction of Jaros, Baum & Bolles (http://www.jbb.com/) the internationally known mechanical/electrical consulting engineering firm. The design will be to equip the new structure with an in-building wireless antenna system that will be used to support emergency radio communications on a multi-agency platform. These agencies include the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New York City Fire Department, the New York City Police Department, Emergency Management Services and Silverstein Properties. In addition, the system will be designed to mitigate the radio interference issues experienced during the September 11, 2001 emergency.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2005/Jun/1151864.htm

Ground Zero Tower to Be Demolished by Early 2007, Officials Say
June 7 (Bloomberg) -- The delayed demolition of Deutsche Bank AG's former 40-story office tower, contaminated with toxins by Sept. 11 debris, will begin in July and be completed by early 2007, officials of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. say.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concerns about containing the pollution, which delayed the project from starting in January, have been dealt with, said Amy Peterson, senior vice president of the New York state agency that oversees rebuilding at Ground Zero.

The Deutsche Bank tower must be razed to make way for New York Governor George Pataki's $12 billion revival of the trade center area, including 10 million square feet of new offices, a transportation center, theaters, shops and a memorial to those killed in the 2001 and 1993 terrorist attacks.

The EPA asked that the original demolition plans be altered because the skyscraper, torn open by the trade center's falling south tower, was permeated with asbestos, lead, dioxin and other hazardous substances released in the collapse and fire.

``The changes we made to the plan were all based on the comments they made,'' Peterson said, referring to the EPA, after a community meeting yesterday. ``We feel we've complied with all their comments.''

Though the EPA hasn't approved of the revisions, work on the scaffolding can proceed, Mary Mears, an EPA spokeswoman, said today.

``We are right now reviewing portions of the plan,'' she said. ``We don't have the whole plan.''

Details

The EPA wants details on asbestos abatement and the gutting of the building's interiors, Mears said.

Luis Mendes, a former assistant city commissioner hired to serve as the agency's director of construction, said they would ``wrap the whole project'' by December 2006 or January 2007.

The state agency bought the building from Deutsche Bank for $90 million in February 2004. Kevin Rampe, the agency's president at the time, said the cleanup could be finished in five to seven months.

In February, the development agency doubled the amount set aside for the project to $90 million, and said it would bill two of the tower's insurers, Axa SA and Allianz AG for the increase. Joanna Rose, spokeswoman for the development agency, said today in an e-mail those efforts are ``ongoing.''

In its January review of the project, EPA officials objected to plans to treat the cleanup of the toxin-laden interior and the removal of building materials as separate phases, with separate monitoring provisions. The revised plan unifies both aspects, along with the effort to monitor both the air that workers would be exposed to, and the air outside the building.

Apartments

There are apartment buildings across two narrow side streets from the tower. Residents have been pressing for the most careful demolition plan possible, along with an emergency warning system in case of an accidental release of toxins.

The development agency also agreed to treat all the tower's building materials -- the walls, the flooring, the carpeting, and everything else except the steel frame and concrete floor slabs -- as if it were asbestos, which has some of the most stringent regulations for removal, Peterson said.

Working from the top down, each floor of the tower will be sealed off and placed under ``negative air pressure,'' meaning if the sheathing is breached, inside air would not escape, said Ed Gerdts, a vice president with the agency's environmental consultant, TRC Solutions. Desk-size machines will change the air four times every hour, he said.

Four floors will be stripped at a time, Mendes said. Once enough floors are stripped to the steel to create a five-floor ``buffer,'' demolition work will begin from the top, he said.

Bids

The development corporation intends to seek bids for a general contractor in July, Peterson said. Earlier this year, the agency dismissed Gilbane Construction Co., which worked on the original plan.

The scaffolding work should be finished in October, according to Mendes, with the cleaning and stripping starting in November.

At its peak, about 100 workers will be involved in the demolition, Mendes said. Those in the first phase will wear full-body coveralls and respirators to filter the air they breathe, Gerdts said. Those working directly on removal and disposal of building materials will wear full face masks, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=100...vB5mSpwE4o&refer=us

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

Only controversy is building

New York political leaders and the lead developer of the Freedom Tower, the main building to be built on the former World Trade Center site, recently unveiled the design for a cultural center at the site and announced that the tower would be redesigned, in part to address concerns raised by the New York police about the building's security.

But the ambitious project, which includes a memorial, a transit hub, office and retail space as well as plans for a performing arts center to be designed by architect Frank Gehry, has been beset with obstacles and infighting.

Tower designer Daniel Libeskind and lead architect David Childs are famously incompatible and developer Larry Silverstein has openly complained that the site doesn't include enough retail space. On top of that a weak market for office space in lower Manhattan may be as big a threat to the project as security concerns.

Goldman Sachs & Company recently stepped back from plans to build a $2 billion headquarters across the street and so far the only tenant in the rebuilt 7 World Trade Center is the developer. Oh yeah, then there's The Donald (Trump) who publicly referred to the design of the 1,776-foot tall tower as "crap architecture".

Q&A



Q. So what was wrong with the existing design for the Freedom Tower?

A. NYPD officials felt that the skyscraper would be too close to surrounding streets - as little as 25 feet away - making it vulnerable to a truck bomb attack.


Q. How will the Freedom Tower be changed?

A. It will be set back farther from surrounding streets, less glass will be used in the lower floors and there will be a more elaborate system to screen vehicles entering the underground garage. But its symbolic height, 1,776 feet, will remain the same.


Q. How much was the Freedom Tower supposed to cost under the original design?

A.$1 billion to $1.3 billion.


Q. How much will the changes cost?

A. It's unknown, but it's a good bet it won't be cheap.

Q. Who's going to foot the bill?

A.That's a matter of dispute. Developer Larry Silverstein is said to be looking for taxpayer help, but government officials are balking.


Q. Who's to blame for all this?

A. No one is casting stones - at least not publicly. But the NYPD has said it has been raising security concerns for 16 months. It wasn't until an April 8 NYPD letter that the issue took on a new urgency.


Q. What has been done since the groundbreaking for the Freedom Tower last July 4?

A. Major foundation work was scheduled to begin in February, with concrete and steel to arrive last month. But neither has happened yet.


Q. When was the Freedom Tower originally scheduled for completion?

A. 2009.


Q. What's the new completion date?

A. 2010 - at the earliest.


Q. When will construction begin on the new transportation hub?

A. This summer.


Q. When will construction begin on the Ground Zero memorial?

A. 2007.


Q. That all seems so far off. What has been built at Ground Zero so far?

A. The $700 million, 52-story 7 World Trade Center is scheduled to be completed late this year or early next year.


Q. How much office space will be created eventually at Ground Zero?

A. There will be 10 million square feet in five office towers. Some 10.5 million square feet of office space was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001.


Q. How much will the total redevelopment of Ground Zero cost?

A. $12 billion, so far.



Timeline of the WTC Redevelopment Efforts


September, 2001: World Trade Center leaseholder/developer Larry Silverstein wants to rebuild the WTC for emotional and economic reasons. His initial plan includes four 50-story buildings and a memorial, with rebuilding to begin in 2002. He backs off plans to rebuild so quickly in response to community pressure.

November, 2001: Bipartisan Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) formed by Governor George Pataki and then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to coordinate rebuilding and memorial efforts, and the distribution of $2 billion in federal aid.

August, 2002: Facing criticism for plans submitted in May, over the amount of office space and the twin tower footprints, LMDC opens the competition up to architects worldwide. The six finalists, from among 5,200 entries, include an independent Berlin-based firm headed by Daniel Libeskind.

February, 2003: The Libeskind design is chosen, which includes a 1,776-foot tall Freedom Tower skyscraper that commemorates American independence and would be the tallest skyscraper in the world. The tower has 70 stories of office space, with airy "gardens of the world" and a sky-high restaurant above office level. It is surrounded by a cluster of five sloping angular buildings and several smaller cultural buildings around a 30-foot sunken memorial of the twin towers foundations that includes a museum. It also includes a space designed to capture a wedge of sunlight each year on September 11, from the moment the first plane hit until the time the last tower fell.

March, 2003: LMDC announces it will build a single memorial to the WTC victims, angering advocates who want special recognition for the hundreds of firefighters, police and emergency service workers killed in the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. Libeskind is named as the master design architect for the entire WTC main site.

July, 2003: The lead role in developing the Freedom Tower is given to architect David Childs, while Libeskind will serve as a contributing architect for the concept and schematic design of the tower.

October, 2003: Designer Daniel Libeskind refers to his collaboration with lead architect David Childs as a "forced marriage" because they cannot agree on the main tower design. Libeskind wants design to resemble the shape of the torch for the Statue of Liberty; Childs wants a design with a lattice structure at the top. Pataki orders Libeskind and Childs to reach a comprise on the tower design by December 15.

December, 2003: Libeskind and Childs unveil a modified, compromise design of the Freedom Tower. Overall, it still evokes the Statue of Liberty, but includes windmill technology proposed by Childs, which will generate most of the tower's electricity, instead of the gardens proposed by Libeskind. Design includes a glass tower of commercial space supported by criss-crossing cables that resemble the Brooklyn Bridge, topped by energy-generating windmills and a spire that evokes the Statue of Liberty torch. Will also include an observation deck and restaurant above the office space. Construction is estimated at $ 1.5 billion.

January, 2004: World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition jury announces "Reflecting Absence" as the winning design, submitted by architect Michael Arad and landscape architect Peter Walker. Their design consists of 2 reflecting pools and a large grove of trees, that will display victims' names in random order. Arad and Walker revise plans the same month to accommodate the competition jury's request to include more greenery and incorporate the surviving foundation of the twin towers.

July, 2004: Ground is broken on the Freedom Tower on the 4th of July, with the placement of an inscribed 20-ton granite cornerstone. Libeskind files suit against Silverstein claiming he is owed more than $843,000 for creative services.

April 2005: NYPD officials express concerns about safety of the Freedom Tower design saying it is vulnerable to attack.

May, 2005: Real estate tycoon Donald Trump, who has no official role in the project, proposes scrapping the Freedom Tower design - which he calls "crap architecture" - and reconstructing bigger twin towers. Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg unveil the Cultural Center design, which consists of a 5-story edifice suspended from a support bridge over Memorial Plaza, and its crystalline surface will be sprinkled with glass prisms pulsating with light. Construction is scheduled to begin in 2007 and be completed by the end of 2009 or early 2010. Governor Pataki announces the Freedom Tower must be redesigned to accommodate NYPD security concerns.

June 2005: Gov. Pataki's office is expected to release plans for the redesigned Freedom Tower later this month.

http://www.ocregister.com/ocr/2005/06/07/s.../article_549199.php

The Desecration of Ground Zero
By Michelle Malkin

Most Americans have not been paying attention to the bureaucratic wrangling and political jockeying that has plagued the construction of the World Trade Center Memorial at Ground Zero in lower Manhattan. But it’s not just New Yorkers and developers and 9/11 families who should care.

A good portion of the project is federally subsidized. All of us have not only a financial stake, but also a moral stake, in protecting the honor of the victims and the dignity of our country.

A Blame America Monument is not what we need or deserve. But it looks like one is already in the works.

In a startling op-ed printed in the Wall Street Journal on Tuesday, Debra Burlingame exposed the "Great Ground Zero Heist." Burlingame is on the board of directors of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation and the sister of Charles F. "Chic" Burlingame III, pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which terrorists crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11. She reports that the World Trade Center memorial will encompass a "cultural complex" whose primary tenant will be something called the "International Freedom Center."

According to an IFC fact sheet, the project "will be an integral part of humanity’s response to September 11."[PDF] An educational and cultural center will host exhibits, lectures, debates, and films "that will nurture a global conversation on freedom in our world today." Tellingly though, as Burlingame notes, early plans for the center that included a large mural of an Iraqi voter were scratched in favor of a photograph of Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson when the designs went public. So much for nurturing that global conversation.

The center’s "civic engagement network" will connect visitors to "service" opportunities. Translation: Left-wing activist recruitment center. As the fact sheet notes, "leading NGOs (non governmental organizations) will be offered outposts at the Center to reach out to its visitors."

On its face, the project may seem fairly unobjectionable enough (putting aside how far afield it all seems from the task of remembering the victims and heroes of 9/11)­until, that is, you take a closer look at the chief movers and shakers behind the project.

Tom Bernstein, a deep-pocketed Hollywood financier and real estate mogul, is the primary driver behind the IFC. Bernstein’s longtime friendship and business partnership with Yale classmate George W. Bush gives cover to his radical activism as president of Human Rights First. The group opposed Bush Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez over the administration’s preventive detention policies and has joined with the ACLU in mau-mauing the Pentagon over alleged prisoner abuse.

Among the many supposedly respectable scholars consulted on the project is Eric Foner. He’s the unhinged Columbia University professor who reacted to 9/11 by griping: "I'm not sure which is more frightening: the horror that engulfed New York City or the apocalyptic rhetoric emanating daily from the White House." The IFC’s list of scholars and advisors also includes left-leaning elites such as Henry Louis Gates at Harvard University; Stephen B. Heintz, Secretary; President of the Rockefeller Bros. Fund; Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute; and Michael Posner, Executive Director of Human Rights First.

Burlingame also reports that Anthony Romero, ACLU executive director, "is pushing IFC organizers for exhibits that showcase how civil liberties in this country have been curtailed since September 11." Then there’s billionaire Bush-basher George Soros, who Burlingame reports is an early funder and supporter of the IFC and whose spirit infuses this grievance-mongering enterprise.

Do we really want Ground Zero to be the playground of anti-war financiers, moral equivalence peddlers, and Guantanamo Bay alarmists? As Burlingame told me yesterday, "Ground Zero belongs to all the American people. If Ground Zero is lost, whether through negligence or malfeasance, it will be a loss that is felt for generations to come."

Richard Tofel, IFC president, is minimizing dissenters. In a statement, he told me that "we understand that a few do not" agree with the project’s stated mission of promoting the "cause of freedom." The question is not whether most Americans support a monument to freedom, but whether they will stand by while saboteurs convert it into The Ultimate Guilt Complex.

http://vdare.com/malkin/050607_ground_zero.htm

The Great Ground Zero Heist

Editorial by Whym Rhymer

The linked Wall Street Journal Commentary titled The Great Ground Zero Heist has all the Conservative columnists and talkers (and probably bloggers -- I haven't looked yet) tearing their virtual hair out. The commentary in question was written by DEBRA BURLINGAME who is the sister of the pilot of American Airlines fight 77, which was crashed at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Ms. Burlingame is also a member of the board of directors of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

Here's what all the passionate oratory is about: According to Ms. Burlingame the current plan for the World Trade Center Memorial consists of a "meager 50,000 square feet to exhibit its 9/11 artifacts" and, as a gateway to this exhibit, "300,000 square feet of space to teach us how to think about liberty." That is the apparent problem.

This 300,000 sq-foot space will be called the International Freedom Center and will contain exhibits that consists of, according to the developers, "a journey through the history of freedom." Here is Ms. Burlingame's description of this "journey:"


"To the IFC's organizers, it is not only history's triumphs that illuminate, but also its failures. 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."

I guess it's safe to say that the author wants only positive, inspirational messages at Ground Zero. That's a rather odd concept for the place that marks the site of a distinctly negative and deadly attack on the United States by foreign terrorists.

If the actual plans for this IFC complex are, as the author suggests, to portray the United States in a totally negative light, the hysteria this column has generated may be warranted but I get the impression that Ms. Burlingame is giving us an air-brushed, right-slanted version of the truth.

My advice: Time always tells the tale so don't get apoplectic yet.

http://www.legendgames.net/showstory.asp?p...ories/UN0000335.txt