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New ‘Times’ HQ: Mo’ Subcontractors, Mo’ Problems

Photo: Corbis

The new New York Times tower is shiny and pretty and environmentally friendly and all that. But, as it turns out, it’s also a hulking mass of conflicts of interest. For the last year or so, every time the paper so much as passingly mentions the Atlantic Yards project it feels compelled to make the ritual disclosure that, indeed, Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Ratner was also responsible for the new 52-story headquarters. And now that it’s turning out that at least some of the blame for the botched Deutsche Bank dismantling that led to two firefighters’ deaths belongs to a company called Safeway Environmental, a new standard disclaimer was introduced today:

(Safeway Environmental was one of the subcontractors used in the development of a new headquarters for The New York Times, across Eighth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.)


What’s coming next? Did Roger Stone lobby for tax breaks on the new building? Did Joe Bruno fly down for the day to have a meeting about it? Do employees feel violated as neighbors peer through the glass walls at what’s going on inside? We so hope David Berkowitz used to deliver mail to whatever stood on the Eighth Avenue site back in the seventies. That’d be an awesome disclaimer.

Obscure Company Is Behind 9/11 Demolition Work [NYT]

New ‘Times’ HQ: Mo’ Subcontractors, Mo’ Problems