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World Trade Center

  1. intel
    Giuliani Blames Aide for Poor Emergency Planning Republican presidential front-runner Rudy Giuliani — whose campaign is based on his reputation as “America’s Mayor,” the hero of 9/11 — is famous for a lot of things. Letting bygones be bygones is not one of them. Thus Giuliani is blaming an old aide turned adversary Jerry Hauer, the city’s first director of the Office of Emergency Management, for the much-criticized decision to locate the emergency command center at 7 World Trade Center instead of a site in Brooklyn. After terrorists flew planes into the Twin Towers, 7 WTC burned and collapsed, and the 23rd-floor command center was rendered useless. “Jerry Hauer recommended that as the prime site and the site that would make the most sense,” Giuliani claimed this week on Fox News Sunday. “He recommended that site as the site that would be the best site. It was largely on his recommendation that that site was selected.”
  2. ground-zero watch
    Once More Into the Service Road — and Into West Street, TooIn 2002, with the “primary cleanup” of ground zero barely over, the city quickly built and paved a service road connecting the World Trade Center site to West Street. Only gradually, and without much help from the media, it is becoming clear exactly how massive a screwup it was. Since Mayor Bloomberg reordered the search for human remains last October, medical examiners freed 445 “potential” body parts from beneath the road. Finally, after months and months of new grisly discoveries, the city is facing the obvious: A new, large-scale excavation is in order.
  3. ground-zero watch
    Still With the Names? Of all the delays, scuffles, and tantrums besetting the ground-zero reconstruction effort, none is as fundamentally embarrassing as the general inability to settle on the order of names for the 9/11 memorial. Last we checked, the families of first responders demanded that the cops and firefighters be separated from the “regular” victims, and the original random placement gave way to a bizarre system wherein civilians would be grouped by employer, without naming the employer. Mayor Bloomberg, who chairs the WTC Memorial Foundation, has long been saying he considers the matter closed; that’s why a recent Spitzer remark suggesting “future discussions” threatened to start the whole ordeal anew. But today some good news: The governor and the mayor had a nice long talk yesterday, and they got their positions in sync. Spitzer now says he subscribes to the foundation’s plan. One would think that would be the last hurdle, but no. Some “family and firefighter groups” are still lobbying for the inclusion of victims’ ages and ranks. Yes, let’s introduce rank into this equation, shall we? Mayor Says Spitzer Now Agrees With Him on Listing of 9/11 Names [NYT] Earlier: 9/11 Name Fight Drags On
  4. the morning line
    Wanna Buy the Freedom Tower? • Guess what Port Authority is going to do with the Freedom Tower once the construction is over? What every owner of a half-built property dreams of doing: Flip it. By its completion in 2011, the skyscraper may be up for sale, say Spitzer and Corzine. [Metro] • Meet Mathieu Eugene, the City Council’s newest member and the first Haitian to fill the seat. Eugene won a low-profile, low-turnout special election in Brooklyn after his predecessor, Yvette Clarke, moved on to Congress. [NYP] • Busta Rhymes, on trial for kicking a fan and beating up a former chauffeur, rejected a deal that would land him in jail for a cred-building six months. The alternative: probation, anger management, and two weeks of lecturing kids about violence. [NYDN] • In New York, we wage our war on Christmas all year round — and we’re winning it, too. The U.S. Supreme Court washed its hands of the Brooklyn-filed case that challenged the citywide ban on school nativity displays. (Menorahs and Islamic crescents, however, are totally okay). [FoxNews.com] • And in New Jersey, a similar battle with a techie twist: A public-school history teacher is in hot water after a student taped him proselytizing (“If you reject [Jesus], you belong in hell,” etc.) and saying that dinosaurs were on Noah’s ark. [NYT]
  5. ground-zero watch
    Now Calatrava’s Transit Hub, Too, Isn’t Quite Working Out as PlannedWe’ve always been partial to Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center transit hub; the building, a kind of spiny origami piece with movable wings, is the most genuinely exciting structure on the site. It’s also the only one that, for a long time, seemed to be getting anywhere. So it’s with a heavy heart that we report the following: The damn thing is suddenly a billion dollars over budget. The projected cost for the hub is now a jaw-dropping $3.4 billion. (And that’s the kind of money, as we learned today, that will buy you about 120 apartment towers in Brooklyn.) The contractors are embarking on a “major value engineering effort” to steer the project back to its original $2.2 billion price-tag. We think we know what that means — dumbed-down form and Plan-B materials — although the builders swear the “overall integrity of the design” will be intact. Screw integrity. Give us the movable wings. $3.4B For WTC Hub a Rail Shock [NYP]
  6. developing
    Brits Beat Us to 9/11 Memorial Believe it or not, you’ll actually be able to visit a 9/11 memorial in lower Manhattan this summer. But, naturally, it’s not ours, of course (don’t be silly). The British Memorial Garden at Hanover Square is nearly finished; it’s just awaiting a planting ceremony — complete with 65 singing Welsh children — scheduled for March 1 (a mere 22 months after construction began). Tonight, the “Anglo-American community” will gather at Cipriani 42nd Street to toast the near-completion. So how’d it get done so quickly? Garden president Camilla Hellman diplomatically praises the U.S. Embassy in London and the city’s Parks Department, which helped find the sloping site. We credit stiff upper lips. “We never tried to list all the victims’ names,” says Hellman. Instead, a fence line and finials represent the 67 British 9/11 victims, stone from the Isles reflects heritage, and the garden explores the entirety of Atlantic-alliance history. “I thought about families going to ground zero as a harrowing experience, and wanted them to come to Hanover Square and understand New York a bit better,” says Hellman. One way to understand New York: Visitors to the Garden will be able to look uphill at that recently opened beacon of freedom towering over it, William Beaver House. —Alec Appelbaum
  7. ground-zero watch
    The Freedom Tower Exists for Anyone Who Truly Believes in It How starved is the city for any tangible progress at ground zero? Well, consider this bit from today’s Times: Stand on Vesey Street, between Greenwich and Washington Streets. Look through the chain-link fences and over the Jersey barriers. The tops of six columns of the tower’s south perimeter are now visible, sprouting from the depths of ground zero. A seventh column, standing alone nearby, is where the Freedom Tower’s east plaza will be … They are visible from the sidewalk now because a second tier of steel has been added to each column, bringing them up to about 8 feet below street level. That’s right, reporter David Dunlap gives you step-by-step instructions on where to stand, which way to face, and how hard to squint to see the thicket of steel that will eventually become the foundation for the Freedom Tower. Imagine the corks that will pop when the construction actually reaches sidewalk level. What a View to Behold, and It’s Really Something [NYT]
  8. the morning line
    One Day, Everything Will Be Named for the ‘Daily Show’ Host • The Post has “Mob scion” Chris Colombo on tape waxing nostalgic about the days of former New York A.G. Dennis Vacco: “Spitzer is the worst. Vacco was the best. He didn’t care about anything. I had a hook in him.” Oh, the election ad that would have made. [NYP] • So there’s JFK, La Guardia, Newark and … Stewart? With the Spitz’s blessing, the Port Authority is about to buy an underused airport 60 miles north of the city and turn it into the region’s fourth international hub. Pataki, apparently, hated the idea. [NYT] • We suppose it was inevitable: The issue of how to list the names of WTC victims on the 9/11 memorial — alphabetically, at random, in weird associative clusters — is now fodder for hysterical TV ads running on NY1. [amNY] • So there’s this $140 million police-radio system the MTA had been installing in the subways for ten years. It’s done, but the cops won’t use it: Everything sounds “as if you’re talking through a glass of water.” A $140 million glass of water. [NYT] • And the Daily News somehow “learned,” unprompted by any recent developments, that Thor Equities is planning to redevelop Coney Island as a “glitzy playground” — a plan in the works for years. Let’s not tell the paper about the whole WTC memorial thing; it might upset them. [NYDN]
  9. the morning line
    39 More at Ground Zero • The most recent search for human remains at Ground Zero has yielded 39 more bones — as well as computer parts and other World Trade Center debris. Most were hidden under a service road that was hastily constructed in 2002 after the original cleanup. [amNY] • Two girls were stabbed — one in the back — in the course of a teenage rumble at Landmark High School, a block away from Carnegie Hall. According to the police, the girls, with their boyfriends, were settling a beef. Both are in stable condition; the stabbers remain at large. [NYP] • Add this to the bizarre scrapbook of factoids from the Freak Winter of 2007: Dolphins have been splashing around in Sag Harbor. It has happened before — but, you know, in the summer. [Newsday] • Two people — a moving contractor and his mother-in-law — are under arrest for stealing two Picassos from a late collector’s house they were hired to clean out. Ironically, the collector in question was the infamous William Kingsland, most of whose art was “hot” in the first place. [NYT] • And a theft at once far more and far less impressive: someone swiped 500,000 pounds of concrete and brick from the future Ikea site in Red Hook. The stuff is valued at about $2,000. Cheap and hard to assemble — it’s like we have an Ikea already. [NYDN]
  10. ground-zero watch
    More Real, Actual Freedom Tower Progress In 2003, George Pataki expected the superstructure of Freedom Tower to have reached its full 1,776 feet by this September. In 2004, he presided over the cornerstore-laying for the building. And yesterday, finally, the first steel beams were installed there. (How is this different than that other first-things-being-installed ceremony a few weeks ago? We seem to recall that one involved concrete rather than steel.) Two beams were the result of yesterday’s work — there’ll be 27 in total — and they top out some 40 feet below street level. So thanks, Pataki, for that awesome leadership. You’ve shown the terrorists! Pataki Finds Satisfaction in New Roots at 9/11 Site [NYT]
  11. ground-zero watch
    9/11 Name Fight Drags OnBecause nothing that concerns ground-zero development is easy, and because nothing about 9/11 commemoration is easy, and because any perception that some victims are being memorialized more than others is taken as a slight by civilian victims’ families, and because any perception that cops and firefighters aren’t being more thoroughly memorialized is take as a slight by their families, well, that’s why 2006 is winding down with people still arguing over a nonexistent memorial. In the latest bit of incremental progress, the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation thought up a new arrangement of victims’ names on the memorial. (The original plan was random placement.) Firefighters and cops will now not be ranked but grouped by command, precinct, or company. Civilians workers killed in the attacks will be listed by employer, but the employer will not be named. Spouses and siblings will be put together. The plan also, somehow, accommodates the names of the Pentagon and United 93 victims as well as the six people who died in the 1993 bombing. Firefighters’ reps are okay with the new order, but the Cantor Fitzgerald Relief Fund isn’t. (And that’s before we hear from everyone else.) Mayor Bloomberg, who is clearly beginning to lose patience, responded: “There is no ‘right’ answer. Nevertheless, it is time to move forward.” You think? Plan Is Changed for Arranging Names on Trade Center Memorial [NYT]
  12. ground-zero watch
    More Actual Progress at Ground Zero! Could it be? Yes, it could. A mere three weeks after real, genuine construction started at ground zero — the concrete foundation was finally poured for the much-delayed Freedom Tower — there’s set to be some more real, genuine progress today. Five years after it was badly damaged and rendered uninhabitable by the attacks, the long-shrouded Deutsche Bank building is finally coming down. The AP is reporting that the building’s façade is being removed starting this morning; once that is gone, the steel-and-concrete infrastructure comes next. One of the new WTC towers is set to be built on the site, plus a new Greek Orthodox church. Don’t start rushing to say your Greek prayers, though: It’ll be a year till the current building is gone. Work Begins Friday to Take Down Damaged WTC Skyscraper [AP via Newsday] Earlier: Freedom Tower Construction Finally Begins, Boringly
  13. the morning line
    Don’t Stop Thinking About, Oh, Roughly Nine O’Clock Tonight • Let’s see in what spirit the three papers sent us off to the voting booth. Daily News: “Dems Expected to Sweep State.” Post: “Dems Dimming Celebration; A Bitty Less Giddy As Polls Tighten Up.” And Times: “For Democrats, Even a Gain May Feel Like a Failure.” Jeez, Adam Nagourney, every silver lining’s got a touch of gray, eh? [NYDN; NYP; NYT] • The opening date for the World Trade Center [Memorial Museum] is getting quietly pushed back from 2009 to [mid-2010]. The brackets are for our own use, as we’re probably just going to be copying and pasting this one in the future. A lot. [NYDN] • The teacher’s union reached a deal with the City Hall on a new contract a year before the old one expires, circumventing the tedious ritual wherein one side threatens a strike, the other acts scared, and both incrementally slouch toward compromise. Oh, well, next time. The teachers’ salaries may rise over 7 percent under the deal. [NYS] • But maybe not for this one: Another teacher-student affair, and this time, just to make matters that much more sordid, the school’s principal is getting fired for a full-blown cover-up. The assistant principal may get the boot for not cooperating with the investigation. [NYT] • And the AP reports that more and more New Yorkers are getting their marijuana delivered to the door by courteous, well-organized, corporate-style couriers, “even on Christmas.” Now that’s quality of life. [AP via Boston Herald]
  14. ground-zero watch
    Seek and Ye Just Might FindIt’s only two days since Mayor Bloomberg vowed — for the second time — to devote more attention, time, and manpower to sweeping lower Manhattan for 9/11 debris, including human remains. And today brings a brutal reminder that more than mere conscience-cleaning formality is at stake: Three more victims were identified from remains found at ground zero. The city released the names of two; one of them, miraculously, turned out to be Karen Martin, a flight attendant on American 11 stabbed by the hijackers for putting up resistance. The other, Douglas Stone, was a passenger on that same flight. Their families had submitted DNA samples back in 2001 but hadn’t heard anything in years; their reactions, as told to the Daily News, betray mostly surprise. “This is really nice,” said one relative. “This comes out of the blue,” said another. So why isn’t the Bloomberg administration trumpeting this news as a major forensic success and a large step toward closure — all thanks to our managerial mayor? Because the city appears to have had all the pieces of the puzzle in place for quite some time – the remains and the families’ DNA samples – without bothering to do anything about it. Oh, wait. The Bloombergians are trumpeting it anyway. We’ll spare you the unseemly chest-beating, but read the last paragraph of the News article if you just can’t help yourself. More 9/11 Vics ID’d [NYDN] Earlier: Bloomie Promises a Thorough Search, Again
  15. ground-zero watch
    Stations of the Cross The bad news at ground zero today: The site has temporarily lost its only existing memorial, an eighteen-foot-tall cross made out of WTC beams. The good news: Officials are moving it because it’s in the way of construction. Repeat: They’re moving it for construction. The cross, which was found fully formed by first responders on September 13, 2001, is a familiar sight. Though multiple parties have argued every detail — from acreage to font size — of the World Trade memorial-to-be, the cross has been quietly serving as the focal point of ground zero. It will now be stowed at St. Peter’s Church, three blocks away, rather than in a JFK hangar, as the always-sensible Port Authority first proposed. The move was executed with all the expected pomp (“God Bless America” performed? Check), but it raises a question: Exactly what construction was the cross getting in the way of? The Times avoids the subject entirely. We’d hazard a guess, considering the cross’s former placement, that it has something to do with the new PATH station. Perhaps they should have moved it a couple of hundred feet west, to the Freedom Tower site. It wouldn’t be in anyone’s way there for quite a while. Brief Journey for an Icon of the Attack on New York [NYT]