World Trade Center Developments [Archive] - Page 23

ZippyTheChimp

June 14th, 2011, 11:10 AM

06.13.2011

Access Denied

Stiff security at the World Trade Center site will include restrictive wayfinding

http://archpaper.com/uploads/image/wtc_wayfinding_02.jpg
Gertler & Wente's design for a temporary security screening room at the WTC site.
Courtesy Gertler & Wente, 9/11 Memorial and Museum

On September 11 all eyes will be on the World Trade Center site, where the 9/11 Memorial and Museum will open with ceremonies commemorating the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York City. In addition to a subterranean museum and memorial space, the much-anticipated complex includes an aboveground museum pavilion and a landscaped plaza with reflecting pools in the footprints of the Twin Towers. However, due to extensive crowd control and security concerns, visitors who make a spontaneous trip to the site may find themselves not standing in these new public spaces but stuck at the site’s perimeter looking at photographs of them stretched across a chain-link construction fence instead.

Eventually, the memorial plaza will be open on all sides, but for now as construction continues at the site over the next two to three years (the Snøhetta-designed museum pavilion won’t be completed until September 2012) a temporary wayfinding system will restrict public access. Not only will standard construction fences stay in place around the greater sixteen-acre site, but the plaza itself will also be ringed by a fence of 2-foot-8-inch concrete barriers topped by 8 feet of chain-link. To enter the site, which officially opens on September 12, visitors must have a ticket and be processed through a gauntlet of intermediary spaces. (Tickets are free, and starting in July visitors may register for a day and time on the 9/11 Memorial and Museum’s website.)

http://archpaper.com/uploads/wtc_wayfinding_01.jpg
Map of temporary wayfinding system now under construction at the WTC site.

Ticketed visitors will enter at Greenwich and Albany streets at the southeast corner of the site, be funneled along a 900-foot path to a security screening room inside 90 West Street, and finally enter the memorial site at the plaza’s southwest corner, explained Jeff Gertler of Gertler & Wente Architects, designers of the holding pens and pathway barriers (graphics are by Graham Hanson) of the wayfinding plan. Gertler said screening would consist of airport-style x-ray machines and metal detectors. A separate entrance and reception area on West Street will be available for family members of 9/11 victims. Outside of the secure zone, a retail space at 90 West Street will be open to non-ticketed visitors and offer memorabilia currently available at the 9/11 preview site at 20 Vesey Street, which will transition into an exhibition about the new museum.

“Depending on how construction is going, up to 1,500 people will be allowed on the plaza at one time,” said Lynn Rasic, a spokesperson for the 9/11 Memorial and Museum, noting that visitors will be allowed to bring in cameras and backpacks. Some of the temporary security measures will be invisible to visitors. For example, the individual concrete barriers of the plaza fence will be linked internally by a massive steel cable for extra protection.

The fences will eventually vanish and the x-ray machines will move into the new museum. But for the moment, at the twice-attacked WTC site safety trumps all. “There’s no overdoing the security here,” said Gertler.

Molly Heintz

Copyright © 2003-2011 | The Architect's Newspaper, LLC

Daquan13

June 14th, 2011, 12:11 PM

I'll wait until all this heat blows over before I even make the attempt to go there.

Guess that I was right - Fort Knoxx or a bank vault!

lofter1

June 14th, 2011, 02:06 PM

“There’s no overdoing the security here,” said Gertler.

That remains to be seen.

NYatKNIGHT

June 14th, 2011, 02:29 PM

You're right, though with construction on all sides there are safety as well as security concerns. I'm more curious about what it will be like after the fences come down.

Daquan13

June 14th, 2011, 07:24 PM

I understand that security will be tight there, but my God, looks like it'll be worst than security at the airports!

And it is the gov't's fault for not being as protective of the place when the other 2 attacks had occured, as they are now.

lofter1

June 20th, 2011, 09:59 AM

Liberty Street just west of Greenwich starting to get a new surface ...

What looks like a wall bordering the underground entry into what will rise at Deutsche Bank site can be seen along the north side:

13366

13367

Daquan13

June 20th, 2011, 12:47 PM

Lofter1, you the man! Great and interesting observation!

BiggieSmalls

June 20th, 2011, 11:25 PM

The PA FIRST QUARTER 2011 Report is late. IT's June 20th.. The 4th Quarter 2010 report came out March 15th. First Quater 2010 report came out June 4th 2010

BStyles

June 21st, 2011, 12:12 PM

That was a year ago.

325ccr

June 23rd, 2011, 10:04 PM

Does anyone know why the KPI TV cam doesn't update at night anymore?

lofter1

June 23rd, 2011, 11:26 PM

Only 1 of the cams there (positioned on 7 WTC) has been functioning for the past ~ 2 weeks. The others haven't had an update since June 8.

325ccr

June 28th, 2011, 09:39 AM

Now its even worse, this is what happens when you go to it
13414

HAN

June 28th, 2011, 02:28 PM

FIRS QUARTER REPORT WAS JUST POSTED!!

http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/roadmap-forward.html

HAN

June 28th, 2011, 02:31 PM

SORRY. ther was some kind of error in the PA site......the report doesn't seem to be there anymore

Daquan13

June 28th, 2011, 03:55 PM

Yeah, that IS definitelty old. The newest one IS not there, like you said. Not your fault though.

According to the PDF, the latest one there now, is the one from'09. It shows the North & South Pools as not having been completed yet, when we all know that they are because they are now testing the water. One WTC doesn't even look like it's been started yet with the rising of the steel frame.

What stark-raving idiocy!!!

infoshare

June 28th, 2011, 08:04 PM

SORRY. ther was some kind of error in the PA site......the report doesn't seem to be there anymorehttp://mobile.twitter.com/randydeutsch randy is a good guy to follow on twitter for all things AEC, he will help keep you up to date via his terrific tweet links.All are welcome at http://mobile.twitter.com/randydeutsch

windoof

June 29th, 2011, 08:15 AM

@HAN: did you download it?!?

BrooklynLove

July 5th, 2011, 09:03 PM

It was an awesome sight this morning from Brooklyn as steel beams levitated in the air simultaneously above towers 1 and 4. Now if only towers 2 and 3 could hit the gas and make it a foursome.

ZippyTheChimp

July 6th, 2011, 10:48 AM

Project Rebirth

14 cameras in and around the WTC site have been taking time-lapse photographs for 9 years. The film will be released in NYC on August 31st, 2011 at:
The IFC Center
323 6th Ave, near W 3rd St (The Waverly)

The film will premier on Showtime Sept 11th, 2011.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTgpm9eeUjM

Project Rebirth (http://projectrebirth.org/)

Daquan13

July 6th, 2011, 10:55 AM

BL, Word is out that Silverstein might have a big prospective tenant ready to sign on the dotted line for occupancy in Tower 2. It's not afficial yet though.

Once it IS officially confirmed, we could see Tower 2 rise from the ashes to its full planned height. It'll be great!!

lofter1

July 6th, 2011, 04:10 PM

Gov. could give Ward the boot; C.B. 1 protest

Downtown Express (http://www.downtownexpress.com/?p=1743)
July 6, 2011

When Christopher O. Ward became executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in May 2008, the buildings at the World Trade Center site under the Port Authority’s jurisdiction were years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. In addition, the Port seemed locked in an intractable conflict with Silverstein Properties, holder of the lease on the World Trade Center site, as to how many towers Silverstein would build and who would pay for them.

Ward, appointed by then-governor David Paterson, established a new, realistic timetable for the reconstruction of the site and led the Port through more than a year and a half of tense negotiations with Silverstein Properties that culminated in a financing agreement signed in August 2010.

U.S. Congressman Jerrold Nadler, whose district includes the World Trade Center site, has described Ward as the Port Authority’s “great executive director.” At a meeting of the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance on May 16, 2011, Nadler said jocularly, but not in jest, “He’s the first executive director of the Port Authority in 30 years with whom I haven’t feuded and who I haven’t found it necessary to oppose on major issues and either that’s a tribute to my getting mellow with age or with our agreeing. Probably the latter.”

Now, however, rumors have been surfacing that New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants to replace Ward this fall, following the ceremonies marking the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center attack. The New York Post said in an article published on May 27, 2011 that Cuomo won’t take Ward’s phone calls and cited an unnamed Cuomo source as saying “removing Ward has always been part of the administration’s plan.”

Ward, who is not under contract, supervises a budget of more than $7 billion a year and earns more than $300,000 a year in salary — one of the highest paying jobs that the governor is authorized to fill. On June 3, the governor’s office issued a terse statement saying, “There are no plans to replace Chris Ward at this time.”

The words “at this time” worry the members of Community Board 1’s World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee. The committee framed a resolution supporting Ward, which it presented to C.B. 1’s full board on June 28, and which was ratified unanimously ...

Daquan13

July 6th, 2011, 09:20 PM

That is so ridiculous how this guy strung things along with the rebuild, creating more problems than could be resolved. I think that it's high time that someone put their foot down and has decided to oust this guy!! Remove the dead weight!!

What stark-raving idiocy!!

lofter1

July 7th, 2011, 12:24 AM

What are you talking about? Ward is the one that pulled the whole site together and got everything coordinated so that the progress is now ahead of schedule.

Why Cuomo would want him ousted is a mystery.

Daquan13

July 7th, 2011, 06:52 AM

If you're source is saying that the place was in turmoil BEFORE Ward was appointed to the program, then my bad.

But there HAS been a lot of finger pointing since the rebuild began. Even before that.

ramvid01

July 8th, 2011, 11:06 AM

The thought the Ward's removal was a rumor that had unsubstantiated claims that Cuomo was not answering his phone calls.

lofter1

August 3rd, 2011, 01:13 PM

Looks like we've lost the HD webcam that overlooks the site from 7WTC :mad:

The link to that cam now shows this:

This account has been suspended

windoof

August 3rd, 2011, 01:17 PM

The same message already appeared 2 or 3 weeks ago for some days when the cam was down.. so not all hope is gone :) Really miss the cam(s) from this website :(

ZippyTheChimp

August 3rd, 2011, 01:33 PM

My guess is that it's a money problem. Bill not being paid.

BrooklynLove

August 3rd, 2011, 09:23 PM

Or supporting the concrete workers.

arcman210

August 4th, 2011, 05:33 PM

It's working now for me... shows X's on the calendar for the days it was down, seems to be an image from today on there:

http://evsdatacenter.netfirms.com/kpitv/silver.htm

infoshare

August 25th, 2011, 09:28 AM

Thanks to archdaily for the reminder - program on rebuilding GZ on tonight.
http://www.archdaily.com/163639/rising-rebuilding-ground-zero-steven-spielberg/

mariab

August 25th, 2011, 01:46 PM

^My listings show 3 "New" episodes starting at 8, although 2 have the same title with different descriptions. DVRing all 3 just in case.

Music Man

August 28th, 2011, 08:51 PM

Hmmm... looks like the KPI TV cam at Tower 7 got bumped. There's a nice view of the mechanical penthouse.

*takes a screenshot before it gets fixed* :)
13904

mariab

September 6th, 2011, 09:16 PM

Ground Zero’ is a term that no longer applies, according to NYC mayor

By Jess Wisloski | The Upshot (http://wirednewyork.com/blogs/upshot/) – 9 hrs ago

Ten years after the terrorist attacks, and less than a week from the ribbon-cutting at the new World Trade Center, the New York City mayor says it's time to retire Ground Zero.
In a speech delivered this morning on Wall Street, Michael Bloomberg said the new construction and memorial on the site has made the name no longer fitting, news site DNAinfo.com reports. (http://www.dnainfo.com/20110906/downtown/world-trade-center-site-no-longer-ground-zero-bloomberg-says#ixzz1XBPRr3hV)
"We will never forget the devastation of the area that came to be known as 'Ground Zero' -- never," Bloomberg told the Association for a Better New York at a breakfast appearance, adding that the "the time has come for us to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum." (Read more and see photos of the memorial at DNAinfo.com (http://www.dnainfo.com/tags/911-10th-anniversary))
His call for the name change isn't the first: For years Downtown residents have asked officials to stop calling the two rising skyscrapers and eight-acre memorial "Ground Zero," according to the article, saying that moniker recognizes only the past destruction rather than the promise of recovery.
The largest tower at the new World Trade Center will reach 1,776 feet, becoming the tallest building in the country when completed, while towers two, three, and four will each be successively shorter.
Despite the years of construction delays and cost overruns, Bloomberg says the half-finished office complex on the site of the former twin towers is the center of a growing and vibrant neighborhood, which boasts its highest population since the 1920s. (http://news.yahoo.com/ny-mayor-says-city-moved-9-11-140318343.html)
Bloomberg pointed out that Lower Manhattan gained 4,000 new school seats, 19 new hotels, $260 million in new parks, and more new residents in the past decade than Atlanta, Dallas, and Philadelphia combined, DNAinfo.com reports.
"New York has come roaring back faster than anyone thought possible," Bloomberg told his audience of community leaders.
In addition to the skyscrapers, the site's eight-acre memorial consists of two sunken foundations at the exact spots where the towers used to stand. Inside the foundations are reflecting pools, and bronze protective walls atop the pools are etched with victims' names (http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-05-05/local/29530228_1_names-memorial-president-joe-daniels-cantor-fitzgerald). The memorial and the museum are set to open Sunday, on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
"I believe the rebirth and revitalization of Lower Manhattan will be remembered as one of the greatest comeback stories in American history," Bloomberg told the group. "And I believe it will stand as our greatest monument to those we lost on 9/11."

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/upshot/ground-zero-term-no-longer-applies-according-nyc-160024481.html

Daquan13

September 6th, 2011, 10:04 PM

It is still called that by the news media though.

BigMac

September 6th, 2011, 10:08 PM

True, though I think that will gradually change. I hope so, anyway.

Daquan13

September 6th, 2011, 11:13 PM

Once everything is completed there, that name should disappear.

lofter1

September 7th, 2011, 12:28 AM

Oh, yeah right, Mike, it really rolls off the tongue:

"... the time has come for us to call those 16 acres what they are: The World Trade Center and the National September 11th Memorial and Museum."

The lame duck midget is corporate to the core. Feeling the need to brand everything and control things the way he sees fit.

Different folks see it different ways.

It's the WTC and the Memorial and Ground Zero and the Freedom Tower. It's all that and will be that.

mariab

September 7th, 2011, 08:51 PM

I think his comments were directed towards the media. As the media says, so does most of the public. This-gate, that-gate, Ground Zero. Many people will always call it that. If the media can get in the habit of calling it the World Trade Center, or the World Trade Center Memorial, most people will start calling it that too.

I'm thinking that Bloomberg meant to separate the two names, as either/or. Even the news media wouldn't want to eat up that many seconds pronouncing that whole thing.

lofter1

September 7th, 2011, 09:14 PM

Daquan13

September 7th, 2011, 09:29 PM

You're so right, Lofter1!!

I've been just calling it The Memorial.

As with other things, such as 7 WTC, 1 WTC, 4 WTC, 2 & 3 WTC and so on. Or Towers 1 thru 7. Not 175 or 200 Greenwich Street.

And since when have THEY mustered up the nerve to become so prim & proper? Seven words. That's to long for me to pronounce. Everyone pretty much knows what you're talking about when you say The Memorial or GZ. Or even T1 or T2. Or the Freedom Tower, which it was being called at first.

Who am I to correct their speech or to even insist that people get it straight and call it was it is now? I just said to a friend the other day; "I want to go to New York and see the Memorial someday". He knew what I meant. I don't think that anyone would be arrested for not calling any part of the complex the "new" names that it now has over what it was once addressed as.

dtolman

September 7th, 2011, 11:05 PM

Did anyone else watch Engineering Ground Zero on PBS tonight? Great overview of the rebuilding focusing on WTC 1 and the memorial. Too much to be covered in depth during a 50 minute program, but saw some great stuff that I'd never seen before - going through the core (elevators and staircases), the view from the 40th floor, putting in a corner node, testing the super-strong concrete, the failed safety tests that doomed the prismatic glass (it shattered into dangerous shards), installing and testing the pools, putting in the first piece of glass, and much more. Great interviews and behind the scene stuff with Childs and Arad - they have more on the website that I have yet to watch:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/engineering-ground-zero.html

I think everyone on this site whose interested in the WTC rebuilding would enjoy this (even if they do scream at how quickly they move over stuff that deserves more depth).

Sherpa

September 7th, 2011, 11:09 PM

The folks at the Memorial pretty much insist that anyone referring to the place use the entire name:

The National September 11th Memorial and Museum

Too many syllables. Guys and gals on the street will never use it.

So we have the Museum of Modern Art, known to most New Yorkers (and tourists) as "MOMA".

Will we be able to come up with something like: SELMM ? (perhaps?)

Or: S11MM?

Daquan13

September 7th, 2011, 11:18 PM

I'm going to have to buy the DVD. Hopefully, there will also be more eps in the series.

dtolman

September 7th, 2011, 11:20 PM

PBS will have it posted for free on their website soon along with a transcript and more in-depth interviews and mini-documentaries - they always do for NOVA and Frontline.

HoveringCheesecake

September 8th, 2011, 12:08 AM

It was ok, but it felt like an abridged version of the Discovery program. The prismatic glass safety test was new, though. A big OOPS on that one.

Merry

September 8th, 2011, 08:06 AM

Engineering Ground Zero is being screened here this Sunday, followed by Rebirth (http://projectrebirth.org/film/). Looking forward to seeing them.

lofter1

September 8th, 2011, 12:45 PM

Some terrific time lapse + CGI imagery combined with real time construction footage in a new vid from Silverstein Properties:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU5g3BdeWUA

Daquan13

September 8th, 2011, 05:56 PM

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Construction continues on 1 World Trade Center, right, as the memorial footprints of the twin towers are seen in New York City.

More about sept. 11 (http://wirednewyork.com/newyork/keyword/sept._11)
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9/11 first responders denied at memorial service (http://wirednewyork.com/newyork/local/article/963010--9-11-first-responders-denied-at-memorial-service)

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Weekend lockdown downtown (http://wirednewyork.com/newyork/local/article/963005--weekend-lockdown-downtown)

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Yankees Notebook: Levine talks rain delay, vets remember 9/11 (http://wirednewyork.com/newyork/sports/article/962926--yankees-notebook-levine-talks-rain-delay-vets-remember-9-11)

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Rangers visit 9/11 first responders (http://wirednewyork.com/newyork/sports/article/962881--rangers-visit-9-11-first-responders)

The museum

The 9/11 Memorial Museum, a separate structure which houses artifacts, is scheduled to open in September 2012. The exhibit includes photographs, video tapes and a fire truck ruined the day the towers fell.

ALISON BOWEN/METRO
NEW YORK
Published: September 07, 2011 6:21 p.m.
Last modified: September 07, 2011 6:27 p.m.

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During the decade since the 9/11 attacks, controversy has reigned at every step of the rebuilding process at Ground Zero.

In 2002, Rudy Giuliani, New York City’s mayor during the attacks, suggested turning the site into a memorial, saying, “Ground Zero is a cemetery.”

Many families at first refused the idea of building on the footprints of the towers, but warmed to architects’ plans for a soaring memorial.

But throughout the years, opinions on what crafted a meaningful memorial clashed — along with competing ideas, including a narrowing in 2003 of eight designs competing to create the memorial.

Years after the tragedy, survivors and family members were irate that the city had nothing but an empty construction site for them to pay their respects.

In 2005, the entire design was scrapped because officials said that it did not meet anti-terror standards.
And officials in charge of the project also reported infighting, with developer Larry Silverstein bringing in a new architect and re-hashing designs several times.

Now, 1 World Trade Center, originally known as the Freedom Tower, is the tallest building downtown and promised to be completed in 2013. It will eventually rise 1,776 feet, become America’s tallest building, and include office spaces — Conde Nast recently signed on to move in — with an observation deck and restaurants.

The “Reflecting Absence” memorial pools are visible, with trees dotting the giant footprints of the two towers. Names of the 3,000 victims are engraved around the edges.

A spokeswoman for developer Silverstein Properties said three other skyscrapers will be finished by 2016, and a transit hub planned for underneath the space will be completed in 2014.

Follow Alison Bowen on Twitter @AlisonatMetro (http://www.twitter.com/alisonatmetro).
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Found this article on www.metro.us (http://www.metro.us).

It might be a little bit sloppy, but please bear with me, as this is the very first time that I've ever copied and pasted an article here or anywhere.

Thanx.

lofter1

September 8th, 2011, 08:01 PM

The formatting of copy & paste with the new version of whatever it's called remains a chore at times.

ZippyTheChimp

September 8th, 2011, 08:28 PM

DQ seems to have it down.

Daquan13

September 8th, 2011, 11:52 PM

DQ seems to have it down.

I did it through Microsoft Office.

I think I still have some perfecting and tweaking to do, but hey, first time for everything. Beats retyping in the whole thing. It's too time-consuming to do it that way!

mariab

September 9th, 2011, 01:34 PM

Anyone catch Discovery Channel's "The Rising"? Good documentary spanning the 18 months leading up to, but not including the ten-year anniversary. There are interviews with David Childs, Daniel Liebeskind, & Michael Arad as well as many of the construction workers from the tower. A few of those workers had fathers who worked on the original WTC, & one of the original workers now works at the new site. Everyone seems to have the same commitment: Rebirth, rebuild, & remember (3 Rs not intentional).

The construction details are fascinating, particularly the elements they wanted from the original buildings. Such as the shaved corners from the twins, which will also be present on the new tower in a different way, present on the graduating corners.
The "spiral" arrangement of the new buildings was another interesting detail.

Having to pour 500 yards of cement per day before stopping, & as they get higher it gets more difficult getting it pumped that far.

They also interview Steve Plate from the PA, who has regular meetings with the different trades' leaders, & is one tough dude but without having to raise his voice one decibel or use one foul word. He doesn't want fluff. He wants to know when they're going to catch up & if they have to triple their output, so be it. During the snowstorms, they had to shovel the snow off the workinf floors by hand. What a drag.

The rivalry with the Mohawk Indian workers - who travel 400 miles from Canada weekly to work there - & the other guys.

They document some of the pavilion construction (especially in the area of the tridents, which they didn't want to get lost within the pavilion structure), the arrival of the tridents as well as the arrival of fire truck 3 & insertion down into the museum, which is also covered in this program. Down in the museum, they show the actual original footprints from the twins, as well as outlining where the beams went into the bedrock.

Ed Harris narrates with that distinct voice of his. Worth the watch.

lofter1

September 9th, 2011, 07:53 PM

Reflecting Eventide ...

13997

lofter1

September 9th, 2011, 08:16 PM

Seems the GZ earthcam has been frozen as of ~ 7:30 PM

Wonder if we'll get any new images from now until after the commemorative activities on 9/11??

The KPI TV cam uploaded an new image at 20:00.

Merry

September 9th, 2011, 10:27 PM

The Rebirth of the World Trade Center (and New York)

In the decade following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site took many turns while the rest of the city underwent a building boom.

[ Page 1 of 3 ] http://archrecord.construction.com/images/page_current.gifhttp://archrecord.construction.com/images/page_others.gif (http://archrecord.construction.com/features/2011/New-York/City-Rebuilds/timeline-2.asp)http://archrecord.construction.com/images/page_others.gif (http://archrecord.construction.com/features/2011/New-York/City-Rebuilds/timeline-3.asp)http://archrecord.construction.com/images/page_next.gif (http://archrecord.construction.com/features/2011/New-York/City-Rebuilds/timeline-2.asp)

By Gregory Wessner

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/2011/New-York/City-Rebuilds/images/Timeline-1.jpg

http://archrecord.construction.com/features/2011/New-York/City-Rebuilds/timeline-1.asp

Merry

September 9th, 2011, 10:52 PM

Shaping The Void

How successful is the new World Trade Center?

by Paul Goldberger

You get a sense of how different things are now from the way they felt the first couple of years after 9/11 when you look back at various master plans that were proposed for rebuilding the World Trade Center site. The runner-up proposal, by a consortium of architects working under Rafael Viñoly, suggested replicating the profile of the original Twin Towers with a pair of steel skeletons. A few cultural institutions would have been inserted into the gargantuan latticework, but the real point of the structure was to evoke the buildings that were no longer there. I remember thinking that the concept looked powerful. Yet if the emotions of that time had led to its being chosen—as it almost was—we would probably now find it bizarre, and disquietingly obsessed with the past. Then, there was Norman Foster’s proposal, a pair of towers with the opposite problem: they reinterpreted the architecture of the World Trade Center with exquisite finesse, but they were all business, and left little room for commemoration.

The master plan that was eventually selected, by Daniel Libeskind, split the difference, arranging a number of office towers around a memorial space occupying the footprint of the Twin Towers. This failed to satisfy some relatives of the dead, who wanted the entire sixteen acres preserved as a memorial, and also people who thought that the Twin Towers should be replaced with a new business district as quickly as possible. But Libeskind saw how wrong both these attitudes were. Declaring a permanent void in the heart of lower Manhattan would only have crippled the city’s recovery—hardly the best way to honor people who died as they went about their work. And it would have been unthinkable to rebuild Ground Zero as a purely commercial site, as if nothing at all had happened there. Libeskind’s plan struck a careful balance between commemorating the lives lost and reëstablishing the life of the site itself.

The plan has been followed, more or less, as construction has stumbled forward over the past decade, but, after winning the competition for the master plan, Libeskind never managed to get a commission to design even a single building himself. His rough ideas for the layout were accepted, and then politics and horse-trading took over. Ten years on, the long-term shape of Ground Zero is coming into focus. It is turning out to be one part Daniel Libeskind to several parts Larry Silverstein, the real-estate developer who held the lease on the World Trade Center. Silverstein asked various architects to build skyscrapers on the site, none of whom, at least so far, have produced anything close to their best work.

It says something about the interminable wrangles over Ground Zero that, of the towers planned for the site, only two are currently far enough along to be visible aboveground: 1 World Trade Center, once known as the Freedom Tower, by David Childs, of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and 4 World Trade Center, by Fumihiko Maki. Even these are a couple of years away from completion. Others—2 World Trade Center, by Norman Foster; 3 World Trade Center, by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners—have yet to reach street level, and it’s not clear when they will get built.

Some of the early versions of 1 World Trade Center showed promise. There was one with wind turbines; others had sky gardens. But the design has been whittled away, until it has become not much more than a big version of a typical New York developer’s skyscraper. It will be the tallest building in New York, and it still has the subtle taper and the elegant octagonal ascent that David Childs gave it. But the reflective glass skin is the sort of thing you see everywhere. It’s unclear how the Port Authority and the developer Douglas Durst, who took over the building from Larry Silverstein, will decide to cover up the fifteen stories of concrete that security officials have insisted are necessary to protect the building’s base. Childs had planned for an ingenious coating of prismatic glass, which would animate the base on the exterior, but it was recently jettisoned, on practical grounds, and no one is talking about what will take its place. Given that this tower’s base has to be as solid as a bunker, it seems odd that Maki’s 4 World Trade Center, close by, is permitted to have a bright, welcoming four-story lobby made of glass.

Only a few feet away from the memorial space of the Twin Towers’ footprint is a trapezoidal entry pavilion, designed by the Norwegian firm Snøhetta, for an underground museum designed by Aedas. The pavilion, which will not open until next year, is a kind of tilted box; it’s covered with a striped metal sheathing, and one end is largely of glass. The shape is a little discordant; from some angles, the building looks like a metallic whale beached beside the memorial. I didn’t realize from the original plans how intrusive a building would seem right there. It will be better, I suspect, from the inside. The glass end, an atrium that bears a resemblance to Libeskind’s work, will house enormous steel pieces salvaged from the base of the façade of the World Trade Center; the result may well feel like an uneasy marriage of historical artifact and monumental sculpture.

A performing-arts center, designed by Frank Gehry, is planned for just east of 1 World Trade Center, but there isn’t a final design yet, because planning can’t begin until a new transport hub is finished and more money is raised. The site is far from ideal, since it is over the PATH train tracks, which means that the arts center will cost much more to build than it would elsewhere. The Port Authority controls another site, just south of Ground Zero, where the Deutsche Bank Building damaged on September 11th once stood, and which is designated for another office tower. It would make more sense to build the arts center there, and to hold the site beside 1 World Trade Center for the office building, which couldn’t begin until the market improves anyway.

It’s far too early to know how good the new transport hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava, will be, and whether the extraordinary amount of money it has cost—more than two billion dollars, at last count—will be worth it. Calatrava has a way of creating swooping, curving forms that many people find exhilarating, and which at their best are convincing attempts to convey a new kind of civic monumentality. Other times, as at the Bilbao Airport, they can look like warmed-over versions of Eero Saarinen’s great T.W.A. terminal, at J.F.K. But there’s a hope that Calatrava’s design may be the most successful work of architecture at the World Trade Center. Right now, that title would have to go to a building that isn’t even on the main site: 7 World Trade Center.

Across the street from Ground Zero, it was designed by David Childs and finished five years ago. It’s more refined than the big tower, and it reminds you how many good things have happened outside the sixteen acres of the main site since 2001. After September 11th, it looked as if the future of lower Manhattan would depend entirely on what we managed to do with Ground Zero.

But the past ten years have proved the opposite. Lower Manhattan healed more quickly around its gaping wound than anyone would have thought possible, with a flourishing of housing, restaurants, cultural facilities, and parks. While politicians, developers, bankers, architects, and almost everyone else quarrelled over the future of Ground Zero, the rest of lower Manhattan, as well as most of the rest of the city, quietly pulled itself together.

This month, a small portion of Ground Zero will open to the public, to mark the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Because so much of the site is unfinished, the main thing on view will be the memorial to the victims of the attacks, built on and around the footprint of the two World Trade Center towers. This is chiefly the design of Michael Arad, a young architect whose entry was chosen, in 2004, from among fifty-two hundred entries, the largest such contest in history. Early on, public officials made the sensible decision that, whatever happened at the site, nothing new would rise exactly where the Twin Towers had stood. Arad didn’t tiptoe around the footprint; instead, he made it the basis for a strong, almost minimalist design, turning the footprint of each tower into a square hole, with waterfalls running down the sides into a reflecting pool below. At the center of each reflecting pool is another, smaller square, into which water tumbles, as if it were flowing to the center of the earth. Arad figured out how to express the idea that what were once the largest solids in Manhattan are now a void, and he made the shape of this void into something monumental. The names of those who died are inscribed in inch-and-a-half-high letters cut into bronze panels that surround both pools. The lettering will appear dark during the day, and by night will glow, with lighting hidden below the panels.

Early in the design process, Arad was teamed with the landscape architect Peter Walker, who shares his minimalist sensibility, and they have made the space around the two footprints a handsome and restrained civic square, with oak trees, benches, and light poles giving the place a kind of quiet, firm order. You wouldn’t mistake it for an ordinary park or urban piazza, but it isn’t a cemetery, either. You feel a sense of dignity and repose, and you see the shapes of the renewed city in the rising skyscrapers, as you should. Ground Zero can’t be a place where your thoughts escape completely into history, as at Maya Lin’s extraordinary Vietnam Veterans Memorial, or on the battlefield at Gettysburg. You are in the middle of the city, part of an urban life that was as much a target of the terrorists in 2001 as the lives of three thousand people. The people will not come back, but the life of the city has to. When you stand in Arad and Walker’s park and look toward the footprints ringed by names and the new towers behind them, you feel the profound connection between these two truths.

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2011/09/12/110912crsk_skyline_goldberger#ixzz1XVwRX700

Merry

September 9th, 2011, 10:55 PM

http://www.metropolismag.com/phpAdsNew/www/delivery/lg.php?bannerid=997&campaignid=667&zoneid=78&loc=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metropolismag.com%2Fstory %2F20110909%2Fmemory-holes&cb=b586b2d8e9
Memory Holes

Two ongoing wars and many controversies later, the search for meaning at Ground Zero still proves painfully elusive.

By Philip Nobel

I remember that I was on a subway platform, but I can’t tell you which one. I remember a woman approaching me, map in hand, a tourist, but I can’t tell you what she looked like. I remember she detached herself from a group, conspicuously static in a flow of New Yorkers who knew where they were going, but I can’t tell you how large a group it was, whether it contained a retiree husband, a sniffle of grandchildren, or the balance of her bingo-night girlfriends. Memory is selective, fungible. The many details of that brief encounter four or five years ago have all been erased by the one detail that made it memorable at all—a question she asked me: “How do we get to nine-eleven?”

Surprise, edging into disgust; I will also admit to a touch of delight at being chosen for the query. How do we get to nine-eleven?! So innocently delivered, so corrupt in its implications. Was it a slip of the tongue? An ideological elision of time and space? A confusion learned on TV? The rebranding of the event into an all-ruling meme—a creative idea that spurred unity, also destructive, regressive, manipulative, used to start wars and quell dissent—had been completed in a single news cycle many willfully forgotten years before. And here we had the terminal conflation: the place and the day as one.

Whatever its inspiration, the strange question was all too easy to answer in New York: take the train downtown to the station still clearly marked “World Trade Center.” That is where two out of four of the intended or completed aerial attacks of September 11, 2001, took place, and the lion’s share of that day’s death. “Nine-eleven” has lived elsewhere, in the public imagination, an efficient mnemonic construction created by media impulse, sustained by political need and perhaps, too, by a shared desire to shelter ourselves from the full scope of the event. They are not the same thing: what happened on that site and what we remember of that day via the compression of a headline-ready nickname. I’ve always resisted saying or writing 9/11. It limits. It defines. It sanitizes. It simplifies. And nothing about that day, how we think about it, was, is, or should be simple. For sowing complexity and chaos, for obviating any possibility of a satisfying marker—on the ground or in language—the target and timing of the attack could not have been better chosen. The killing happened in and above a thriving, intricately programmed commercial development, in America’s foremost city, at a moment of deep domestic political crisis (Florida, we must remember, was still a very fresh wrong). It has been grieved with difficulty since, at an active construction site for a replacement commercial complex, and through ten years of international political strife, compromised local decision-making, and disputed creative and financial control. Now, with the opening of the official memorial, the event is destined to be contemplated subject to prejudices that do not arise directly from the fact of the attack—or the need to directly remember its victims—but from the long, braided paths of political and real estate least-resistance that got us from one very bright, very real September morning to the endless artificial twilight of 9/11.

Follow my group of tourists into the abyss. They say a quick thank you for the directions, probably, then are off to do what people did when visiting the World Trade Center before a memorial was built. I see them now, that group of earnest visitors that is every group of earnest visitors. They climb up from the subway. They find the edge of the site (a high steel-grid fence hung with photos and slogans). They join the flow of other pilgrims, instinctively circling—down Church Street; right on Liberty; a scan of the tables laid with black-market souvenirs (picture books, paperweights) if the hawkers have not yet been chased away for the day; a stop for a moment at “Ten House” to honor those firemen, the first of all the first responders, who did not return from the disaster across the street; then over the enclosed footbridge (the last in situ relic of the original World Trade Center, impact scars pocking its topmost edge); and right again into the heart of the World Financial Center, where it has been possible, since the glass-roofed Winter Garden Atrium reopened, clean and new in late 2002, to pause at certain windows and look back across busy West Street (partially rerouted after the very late discovery of additional human remains) to the various states of emptiness and industry on the ground of the catastrophe itself. For a time, security guards would shoo people away. Then they gave up.

The main feeling, the primary means of paying one’s respects—the theme, if you will, of a visit in the pre-memorial years—was searching. Hence the ritual circumambulation around the rim of the ruined super-block, anticipating at every corner a chance fence crack or unscreened elevated view that might allow a peek in, hoping for an experience that would indicate in what direction meaning might be found. As if such an elusive thing could be located in this or any place. The site itself could offer nothing but raw presence: a pile of truly awful proportions, and later a hole in the ground deep enough that its bottom was rarely seen. The touching human habit to seek a vector for emotional resolution in architecture (standing, impending, or lost) can have only one end: disappointment.

Yet here we have the new memorial: two square pools, elaborately hydro-engineered with record-setting waterfalls, two huge square depressions that only roughly correspond in size and position to the two squares drawn in the mid-1960s by the Japanese-American architect chosen by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to build its proud home and great symbol. Minoru Yamasaki was just a man; he led an interesting life (investigated for treason after Pearl Harbor, he went on to build naval training stations), but there is nothing magic about the shapes he sketched one workaday moment long ago. If not openly derivative, they are certainly rote for the time, hearkening to the geometries of certain Mies towers and artistic operations endemic to the Bauhaus. The figure of two dancing squares as we know it now was never visible in the finished buildings. Each tower met the elevated plaza level with membranes of glass and a dotted line of mock-Moorish columns. A mezzanine floated out to meet the false ground, the space beneath opening wide in a shopping mall that honeycombed the site, with connections to the surrounding streets and the many trains below, and to passages linking the towers and a half-ring of thoroughly forgotten outbuildings. What we all call “the footprints” are really an opportunistic half-memory of the towers’ roof plan, projected down on to the site plan with cartographic temerity.

The footprints are to the World Trade Center what “9/11” is to the experience of September 11, 2001. Their current state of putative sanctity is a product of the rampant political opportunism that drove and defined the redevelopment process. When then-Governor George Pataki declared in the summer of 2002 that the footprints would be held sacred forever, “from bedrock to infinity,” it was not an act of grace but a forced concession—an election was coming that fall, the victims’ families had been noisily demanding a much larger terrain, and the perceived inaction on the site had been reflexively politicized by his opponent, Andrew Cuomo, months before. Pataki’s attention may also have been focused, in those years of his ascent, on pleasing certain Republican colleagues in Washington; in April 2003, in an infamous speech, he deliberately linked the rebuilding of the World Trade Center to the war in Iraq that had been falsely sold in its name. His eternal gift of the footprints to the site’s primary mourners was meant to keep the process going at a time of gathering stasis, meant to bring closer to completion a reconstruction that, after George Bush’s first visit to Ground Zero on September 14, 2001—bullhorn in hand, openly threatening vengeance on the nation’s attackers—was dedicated as a shrine to the malicious strain of American patriotism. The acceptance of the footprints as sacred ground—ghettoizing the locus of sanctity—was also essential for big business; it was the final sprocket that needed to be installed so the place could be built up again as a powerful machine for commerce. The choice to harbor memory at the World Trade Center in the confines of a hastily repurposed, politically tainted, commercially endorsed, creatively mundane architectural idea—even in representations of its “absence,” as the memorial’s designer, Michael Arad, originally intended—has always been a red flag. If this is the best we can do, we may not be ready to build a memorial at all.

And to what end has our memorial been built? The names of the victims are there, inscribed on the edges of both pools. But they will always be seen against the immensity of the footprints, which are the buildings mourned. Each visitor may decide for him or herself, as visitors to the World Trade Center once did, whether the scale of the architecture, relative to our own, belittles or aggrandizes human life and action. I always found the doubled hugeness of the Twin Towers uplifting, as Yamasaki argued it should be—“Man had built it and man could comprehend it,” he wrote in 1979—but the context through which we filter that experience of monumentality has changed.

Below the parklike memorial plaza, in the underground world of the truck ramps, rail tunnels, and service vaults, a museum is being built. When it opens next year, it will showcase the twists of steel and smashed fire trucks that the Port Authority, acting unilaterally, chose to collect during the cleanup. The morbid cache was stored in a hangar at Kennedy Airport, ensuring its eventual return to the site (against the desires of various designers considering the memorial experience with professional detachment) by the fact of its preservation alone. The presence of a repository for unidentified human remains in the same catacombs begs uncomfortable questions about equivalence.

Part of the future museum, an entry pavilion wedged between the footprint pools, is now visible. The architects of the little building made the extraordinary decision—a poor, poor one—to mimic in its structure and the lines of its metal-and-glass skin a diving, angular calamity. It is a time-worn contemporary effect, to evoke the unstable, to eschew the steady and true. Perhaps Snøhetta, a firm that has done responsible work elsewhere (and has released many renderings of more responsible designs for this site), was paying homage to similar buildings sketched in one or another of Daniel Libeskind’s master-plan concepts? Those designs, in Libeskind’s own sensationalist style, died on the vine, then were deliberately swept away by the selection of Arad’s memorial in its original pristine form (pointedly, powerfully bare; free of all encroachment by gentrifying museums or comforting trees). I can’t imagine why that look should be revived. Truly, in this place, now and probably forever, aping collapse is a despicable, morally empty way to build.

As it stands—deeply compromised, existentially confused, and flawed by bad taste—the purpose-built memorial will never equal in quality the spontaneous one we are now losing. A search for meaning enacted as a circular walk around a forbidden center, a quest with high expectations ending in futility, was an excellent, instructive, fitting (if accidental, unscripted) mechanism to aid in processing an event, like all fresh violence, that has no inherent message or palliative truth.

I mourn here the end of that decade-long processional. The gates of the site are finally open to all. Other, highly processed, more deliberate stories will be told there. Human stories. Civic stories. Humbling stories. Jarring stories. They are all, by the fact of their active curation, political stories—told in water, video, glass, and stone. After a decade fending off the inevitable, stubbornly fighting inclusion into a delimited culture of remembrance, the World Trade Center site has finally given itself up to that thing we call 9/11. Go to the memorial. See where it takes you.

But remember the free-wandering pilgrims of the recent past: their observance had a natural, uncanny, unmediated ability to express in action a dim truth that most, left alone, would repress. There is no sacred ground at Ground Zero.

http://www.metropolismag.com/story/20110909/memory-holes

BigMac

September 10th, 2011, 12:06 AM

Ouch.

lofter1

September 10th, 2011, 12:49 AM

Revelling in negativism, and apparently enjoying every syllable. Mr. Nobel needs to give himself a really long break.

ZippyTheChimp

September 10th, 2011, 01:15 AM

Not all negative.

He likes the Free Range Fargo People.

Daquan13

September 10th, 2011, 08:27 AM

Very interesting articles, Merry!

In Lofter1's pic above that, note the setting sun reflecting hard on Tower 4's glass facade.

Sort of an erie reminder of one of the exploding impact spots on the former towers on 09-11! Makes it look as though a plane flew in low and hit the building!

Sherpa

September 10th, 2011, 08:50 AM

8:46am September 10, 2011

lofter1

September 10th, 2011, 11:01 AM

In Lofter1's pic above that, note the morning sun reflecting hard on Tower 4's glass facade.

That is actually a reflection of the setting sun.

Daquan13

September 10th, 2011, 12:11 PM

Oops, my bad. Thanx.

But it does have an erie looking glare on T4. Might be nice to some, but I just can't help thinking about what it reminds me of.

I corrected it in my post.

scumonkey

September 11th, 2011, 02:50 AM

http://www.thegreatspiritinthesky.com/#!synopsis (http://www.thegreatspiritinthesky.com/#%21synopsis)

Sherpa

September 11th, 2011, 08:48 AM

Daquan13

September 12th, 2011, 08:55 PM

RebuildingBy CHRIS ERIKSON
Last Updated: 9:53 AM, September 12, 2011
Posted: 12:07 AM, September 12, 2011

New York Post.

In early September 2001, Geoff Newson was a Marine stationed on a warship in the Pacific Ocean. He and his crewmates were docked in Australia for training and a few days of R&R when the planes hit the World Trade Center, and their lives took a sudden turn.
By the time the sun rose over the smoking ruins of the Twin Towers on Sept. 12 — 10 years ago today — Newson’s ship was steaming toward Pakistan. Months later, he’d be among the first boots on the ground in Afghanistan.

When the US invaded Iraq in 2003, Newson was on the front lines again, working security operations for bomb squads and supply convoys. A second tour in Iraq ended when his unit was ambushed near Fallujah, and he was seriously hurt in a grenade blast.
Several months later, Newson was discharged with a Purple Heart and a sergeant’s rank. As a civilian, though, he’s still confronting the aftermath of 9/11, and still on the front lines of a communal mission. As an apprentice steamfitter for Local 638 — a job he landed through the Helmets to Hardhats program, which places vets in construction jobs — he arrives early each weekday at Ground Zero, where he’s one of several thousand workers who are building gleaming towers literally from the ashes.

A native of Portland, Ore., Newson lives with his wife and four young children in Auburn, Maine, commuting to a shared Harlem apartment for the workweek. (His oldest son, now 15, lives in Oregon with his mother.) Broad-shouldered and lean, he’s got a Marine insignia tattooed on his right forearm; alongside it sits a smaller image of a grenade, marked with the date he was attacked.
After quitting time one day last week, Newson, who’s now 33, took a seat in a pedestrian plaza across from the Tower 4 site, and spoke about the path that brought him to Ground Zero and why rebuilding the site is more than just a means to a paycheck.

I signed up when I was 18. My father had retired from the Army, so growing up I was an Army brat. I was proud of him, but I wasn’t one of those people who are like, “I always wanted to be a Marine.” It never crossed my mind.
I found out I was going to be a dad, and that was the catalyst. I was just getting out of high school, and all my friends were going to college. But when that happened, it was like, OK, it’s not college, it’s not partying, it’s time to man up. You’ve got to do something you can make a career out of, and I knew this could be a path. I graduated in June of 1996, I signed up in August, and I shipped in February of 1997.

I went to the Middle East, to Korea, doing training missions. Then I got an offer to go on a “float,” where you’re on a ship for six months, going through the Pacific. We stopped in Australia and did four days of training in the bush, then we had a few days of relaxation. And that’s where I was on Sept. 11.
COMPLETE 9/11 ANNIVERSARY COVERAGE (http://www.nypost.com/news/local/september11)

It was kind of surreal. We were out at the bars, when all of a sudden the lights come up, the music comes off, and they tell everybody to report back to the ship. We get back and they say, they just bombed the World Trade Center.
We knew what was coming. And literally, we got on the ship, they took a count, and we pulled out of port. We stopped in East Timor, and then it was a straight shot to Pakistan. We went into Pakistan to set up, and after Thanksgiving, we went into Afghanistan. Besides the special forces, we were the first major troops that were in country.

I got home in April 2002. Then at the end of 2002, word came that we were going into Iraq. I went over in January, and the night of the invasion, March 21, I was in Iraq. I was there nine months, doing security operations. In January of ’04, I went back; I got married right before I left.

In March, we were on a security convoy around Fallujah, and got ambushed. I ended up taking shrapnel from a hand grenade. A 5-millimeter piece of metal went through my face and buried in the back of my skull. I got medevac’d through Baghdad all the way to Germany. I was there five days, then came back to the states. I got out in November.
When I left the service I had no clue what I wanted to do. My wife is from Maine, and we wanted to start a family, so we moved back here. I didn’t know anybody, and I struggled for a while. Finally, a friend of a friend gave me a job digging foundations. I did that for five months, then my wife’s uncle said, “Hey, I can get you in as a carpenter,” so I did that for three years.

One of the guys I’d served with was from New York, and his whole family is in Local 638 — it’s a generational thing for them. In 2008, they were doing a tribute to veterans in the Labor Day parade, and he said come down and walk with me. I came for a visit, and I met some of the union leadership.

In two weeks I got a call, and they said we’d like you to come join. They gave me a number for Helmets to Hardhats, and I got into the apprenticeship program.
Normally, there’s a test, and you have to wait — there’s a whole process. But with Helmets to Hardhats, they’re putting you right into the pipeline and putting you to work. And the union is so pro-military, which makes the transition easy. They love to get military because they know they’re going to get people who take pride in what they do, who want to be the best at whatever we’re doing, whether it’s pushing a broom or welding a steam pipe.

I came into the union in December, and by the end of January, I was working down here. ConEd has steam lines that run throughout the city, and what we do is, we tie into their lines, and branch off into lines that heat and cool a building. The pipes come in 40-foot sections, so we’ll put it in 40 feet at a time. We take the steam lines up through the building, building up on each floor.

Coming down here, I really didn’t know what to expect. I had no context of the magnitude of it. I walked to the side and looked down into this massive hole and I didn’t know what to say. I’d never seen a hole that big anywhere, let alone in the middle of New York City. I couldn’t fathom it.

After 9/11, we didn’t have time to allow the emotions everyone was feeling here. It was like, what we trained to do, we are now going to do. This is the real deal, and you have to have your mind straight.
Now, working down here, I feel like I’m starting to go through those emotions. Especially as you see actual buildings coming out of the skyline. To me, what it says is, no matter how bad we think things are or how bad they might get, as Americans, we’ll always rise, we’ll always come out.

I was talking to my mother a few days ago, and I was saying how few people have those times where you can stake your name in history. And I have a couple of those. I was in Afghanistan, I was in Iraq, and now being here, I look at it and say, I’m building something that the whole world is looking at. Tourists come here every day to see this. They’re amazed that from the ashes, from the rubble, we’re building these beautiful buildings.

It makes coming to work special. You have a purpose. I’d say the vast majority of people working down here feel that way. And I think it’s especially true for the vets. Like, this is something special that I’m doing, this is not just my job. You’re almost continuing your service to the country, because we’re not just building this for New York, we’re building this for all Americans.
My hope is to stay here until it’s all done. After this building goes all the way up, our company has Tower 3, and I want to go right over there and take that one to the top.

My oldest kid is 15, my 5-year-old just started first grade. And when the textbooks are written and they start teaching this, they’ll know: I was there. People are going to come in from all over the world and look at those buildings in awe, and they’ll be able to say, yeah, my dad built those.

chris.erikson@nypost.com

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Merry

September 13th, 2011, 08:34 AM

Downtown’s Rebirth, 10 Years and $24 Billion Later

By CHARLES V. BAGLI

A DECADE after the Sept. 11 attack, downtown Manhattan is resurgent. The residential population has doubled. Two skyscrapers — 1 and 4 World Trade Center — are rising at ground zero, due to open in 2013. The next year, the exuberant PATH transit hub is scheduled to come online. The national memorial is open; two streets have been built. A far more diverse array of businesses call downtown home today, including a large cluster of media companies, law firms and nonprofit organizations. And just last week, both the northbound and southbound platforms of the Cortlandt Street subway station were open.

That is not what most people expected.

“I had a lot of skepticism about whether the World Trade Center area could be recreated as a vibrant, 24-hour place,” said John H. Mollenkopf, director of the City University of New York’s Center for Urban Research. “But I have to say that despite much botched planning, the delays, posturing and bureaucratic politics, things are actually coming along very well.”

But progress does not come cheap. The cost of rebuilding the trade center, several related projects and the downtown public transportation system will run close to $24 billion — probably not all that surprising given the institutional rivalries, the political squabbling and the complexity of building 26 interdependent projects on a cramped 16-acre site next to a river and with two transit lines running underneath.

Financing the reconstruction has been equally complex. After the terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush promised more than $20 billion in federal aid for New York. But slightly more than $6 billion was spent on the clean-up and emergency aid. Of the remaining $14 billion, only $8 billion was actual cash for rebuilding — the rest came in the form of tax incentives. The insurance proceeds from the site itself came to $4.5 billion.

The state provided tens of millions of dollars in additional tax breaks for downtown tenants and employers.

One World Trade Center (the former Freedom Tower) alone cost $3.2 billion to build. New security concerns in the post-Sept. 11 world contributed to the building’s being redesigned three times over the past decade. Still, this year, that building landed a glamorous lead tenant, the media company Condé Nast Publications. But it cost taxpayers plenty: $47.5 million in rent rebates and millions more in sales tax and commercial rent tax exemptions.

Goldman Sachs’s new tower across West Street from the World Trade Center site, a relative bargain at $2.4 billion, received $1.65 billion in tax-free Liberty Bonds, which saved the bank millions in financing costs. Goldman threatened to abandon the project after the state botched negotiations for the tower. That led the state to enlarge its incentive package to include $115 million in tax breaks and cash grants, in what critics described as the most egregious example of corporate welfare in city history.

Goldman’s share of the Liberty Bonds illustrates the size of its taxpayer bounty. The bonds accounted for 69 percent of the project’s cost. But the developer Larry Silverstein got only $2.6 billion in Liberty Bonds, or 41 percent of the $6.3 billion projected cost of building three towers on the trade center site itself.

Other developers, meanwhile, got a total of $1.6 billion of the tax-free bonds for 15 luxury buildings containing a total of 5,700 apartments to repopulate Lower Manhattan. Fewer than 5 percent of those units were set aside for poor and working-class New Yorkers.

Fearing the loss of businesses in Lower Manhattan, the Pataki administration provided dozens of companies with $313 million in cash grants for staying downtown, although there was little chance that the American Stock Exchange, Century 21 or the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan would leave.

But nothing in the area can compare with the transit hub, with its white-winged super-structure designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The hub’s cost has swelled to $3.44 billion from $1.9 billion over the past decade, though it will serve only 80,000 PATH riders daily. Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan serves seven times that number, and yet its planned renovation has largely stalled.

Still, given the area’s remarkable rebirth, people may be willing to overlook that. “If you had told me the day after 9/11 that downtown would be doing as well as it’s now doing in attracting businesses and so many residential tenants, I would have said, ‘Get out of here,’ ” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, who was instrumental in getting the $20 billion in federal aid.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/national/sept-11-youtube-thumbs/banner.jpg (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/sept-11-reckoning/viewer.html)
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/09/08/us/sept-11-reckoning/decade-span/decade-span-custom1.jpg (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/sept-11-reckoning/viewer.html)
Ten years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a special report on the
decade’s costs and consequences, measured in thousands of lives, trillions
of dollars and countless challenges to the human spirit.
Go to The Reckoning » (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/sept-11-reckoning/viewer.html)

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2011/09/11/nyregion/20110911moneyg/20110911moneyg-popup.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/11/nyregion/10-years-after-911-downtown-area-is-thriving.html?_r=1

Daquan13

September 14th, 2011, 10:59 PM

Very interesting!

lofter1

September 15th, 2011, 12:27 AM

Compare how much Goldman Sachs sucked out of the money pool.

BigMac

September 15th, 2011, 09:32 AM

The New Yorker
September 12, 2011

Shaping The Void

How successful is the new World Trade Center?

By Paul Goldberger

http://www.newyorker.com/images/2011/09/12/p233/110912_r21259_p233.jpg
The new site strikes a careful balance between commerce and commemoration.
Photograph by Robert Polidori.

You get a sense of how different things are now from the way they felt the first couple of years after 9/11 when you look back at various master plans that were proposed for rebuilding the World Trade Center site. The runner-up proposal, by a consortium of architects working under Rafael Viñoly, suggested replicating the profile of the original Twin Towers with a pair of steel skeletons. A few cultural institutions would have been inserted into the gargantuan latticework, but the real point of the structure was to evoke the buildings that were no longer there. I remember thinking that the concept looked powerful. Yet if the emotions of that time had led to its being chosen—as it almost was—we would probably now find it bizarre, and disquietingly obsessed with the past. Then, there was Norman Foster’s proposal, a pair of towers with the opposite problem: they reinterpreted the architecture of the World Trade Center with exquisite finesse, but they were all business, and left little room for commemoration.

The master plan that was eventually selected, by Daniel Libeskind, split the difference, arranging a number of office towers around a memorial space occupying the footprint of the Twin Towers. This failed to satisfy some relatives of the dead, who wanted the entire sixteen acres preserved as a memorial, and also people who thought that the Twin Towers should be replaced with a new business district as quickly as possible. But Libeskind saw how wrong both these attitudes were. Declaring a permanent void in the heart of lower Manhattan would only have crippled the city’s recovery—hardly the best way to honor people who died as they went about their work. And it would have been unthinkable to rebuild Ground Zero as a purely commercial site, as if nothing at all had happened there. Libeskind’s plan struck a careful balance between commemorating the lives lost and reëstablishing the life of the site itself.

The plan has been followed, more or less, as construction has stumbled forward over the past decade, but, after winning the competition for the master plan, Libeskind never managed to get a commission to design even a single building himself. His rough ideas for the layout were accepted, and then politics and horse-trading took over. Ten years on, the long-term shape of Ground Zero is coming into focus. It is turning out to be one part Daniel Libeskind to several parts Larry Silverstein, the real-estate developer who held the lease on the World Trade Center. Silverstein asked various architects to build skyscrapers on the site, none of whom, at least so far, have produced anything close to their best work.

It says something about the interminable wrangles over Ground Zero that, of the towers planned for the site, only two are currently far enough along to be visible aboveground: 1 World Trade Center, once known as the Freedom Tower, by David Childs, of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and 4 World Trade Center, by Fumihiko Maki. Even these are a couple of years away from completion. Others—2 World Trade Center, by Norman Foster; 3 World Trade Center, by Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners—have yet to reach street level, and it’s not clear when they will get built.

Some of the early versions of 1 World Trade Center showed promise. There was one with wind turbines; others had sky gardens. But the design has been whittled away, until it has become not much more than a big version of a typical New York developer’s skyscraper. It will be the tallest building in New York, and it still has the subtle taper and the elegant octagonal ascent that David Childs gave it. But the reflective glass skin is the sort of thing you see everywhere. It’s unclear how the Port Authority and the developer Douglas Durst, who took over the building from Larry Silverstein, will decide to cover up the fifteen stories of concrete that security officials have insisted are necessary to protect the building’s base. Childs had planned for an ingenious coating of prismatic glass, which would animate the base on the exterior, but it was recently jettisoned, on practical grounds, and no one is talking about what will take its place. Given that this tower’s base has to be as solid as a bunker, it seems odd that Maki’s 4 World Trade Center, close by, is permitted to have a bright, welcoming four-story lobby made of glass.

Only a few feet away from the memorial space of the Twin Towers’ footprint is a trapezoidal entry pavilion, designed by the Norwegian firm Snøhetta, for an underground museum designed by Aedas. The pavilion, which will not open until next year, is a kind of tilted box; it’s covered with a striped metal sheathing, and one end is largely of glass. The shape is a little discordant; from some angles, the building looks like a metallic whale beached beside the memorial. I didn’t realize from the original plans how intrusive a building would seem right there. It will be better, I suspect, from the inside. The glass end, an atrium that bears a resemblance to Libeskind’s work, will house enormous steel pieces salvaged from the base of the façade of the World Trade Center; the result may well feel like an uneasy marriage of historical artifact and monumental sculpture.

A performing-arts center, designed by Frank Gehry, is planned for just east of 1 World Trade Center, but there isn’t a final design yet, because planning can’t begin until a new transport hub is finished and more money is raised. The site is far from ideal, since it is over the path train tracks, which means that the arts center will cost much more to build than it would elsewhere. The Port Authority controls another site, just south of Ground Zero, where the Deutsche Bank Building damaged on September 11th once stood, and which is designated for another office tower. It would make more sense to build the arts center there, and to hold the site beside 1 World Trade Center for the office building, which couldn’t begin until the market improves anyway.

It’s far too early to know how good the new transport hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava, will be, and whether the extraordinary amount of money it has cost—more than two billion dollars, at last count—will be worth it. Calatrava has a way of creating swooping, curving forms that many people find exhilarating, and which at their best are convincing attempts to convey a new kind of civic monumentality. Other times, as at the Bilbao Airport, they can look like warmed-over versions of Eero Saarinen’s great T.W.A. terminal, at J.F.K. But there’s a hope that Calatrava’s design may be the most successful work of architecture at the World Trade Center. Right now, that title would have to go to a building that isn’t even on the main site: 7 World Trade Center. Across the street from Ground Zero, it was designed by David Childs and finished five years ago. It’s more refined than the big tower, and it reminds you how many good things have happened outside the sixteen acres of the main site since 2001. After September 11th, it looked as if the future of lower Manhattan would depend entirely on what we managed to do with Ground Zero. But the past ten years have proved the opposite. Lower Manhattan healed more quickly around its gaping wound than anyone would have thought possible, with a flourishing of housing, restaurants, cultural facilities, and parks. While politicians, developers, bankers, architects, and almost everyone else quarrelled over the future of Ground Zero, the rest of lower Manhattan, as well as most of the rest of the city, quietly pulled itself together.

This month, a small portion of Ground Zero will open to the public, to mark the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks. Because so much of the site is unfinished, the main thing on view will be the memorial to the victims of the attacks, built on and around the footprint of the two World Trade Center towers. This is chiefly the design of Michael Arad, a young architect whose entry was chosen, in 2004, from among fifty-two hundred entries, the largest such contest in history. Early on, public officials made the sensible decision that, whatever happened at the site, nothing new would rise exactly where the Twin Towers had stood. Arad didn’t tiptoe around the footprint; instead, he made it the basis for a strong, almost minimalist design, turning the footprint of each tower into a square hole, with waterfalls running down the sides into a reflecting pool below. At the center of each reflecting pool is another, smaller square, into which water tumbles, as if it were flowing to the center of the earth. Arad figured out how to express the idea that what were once the largest solids in Manhattan are now a void, and he made the shape of this void into something monumental. The names of those who died are inscribed in inch-and-a-half-high letters cut into bronze panels that surround both pools. The lettering will appear dark during the day, and by night will glow, with lighting hidden below the panels.

Early in the design process, Arad was teamed with the landscape architect Peter Walker, who shares his minimalist sensibility, and they have made the space around the two footprints a handsome and restrained civic square, with oak trees, benches, and light poles giving the place a kind of quiet, firm order. You wouldn’t mistake it for an ordinary park or urban piazza, but it isn’t a cemetery, either. You feel a sense of dignity and repose, and you see the shapes of the renewed city in the rising skyscrapers, as you should. Ground Zero can’t be a place where your thoughts escape completely into history, as at Maya Lin’s extraordinary Vietnam Veterans Memorial, or on the battlefield at Gettysburg. You are in the middle of the city, part of an urban life that was as much a target of the terrorists in 2001 as the lives of three thousand people. The people will not come back, but the life of the city has to. When you stand in Arad and Walker’s park and look toward the footprints ringed by names and the new towers behind them, you feel the profound connection between these two truths.

The New Yorker © 2011 Condé Nast Digital. All rights reserved.

BigMac

September 15th, 2011, 10:25 AM

Architectural Record
September 2011

Smoke and Mirrors

By Michael Sorkin

Ground Zero is a buzzing hive of activity — cranes and construction everywhere, crowds of tourists and vendors. Projects are shaping up, too. David Childs’s One World Trade Center (WTC) — the erstwhile “Freedom Tower” — has passed 78 stories en route to 104, the Fumihiko Maki tower at the southeast corner of the site is more than 30 and heading for 72, and the National September 11 Memorial opens this month.

Although Santiago Calatrava’s bony train station — morphed by budget cuts, according to wags, from bird to stegosaurus — has yet to emerge from the ground, it remains the only piece of architecture with any real ambition on the site. But its price tag — about $3.4 billion — strikes some observers as a tad dear.

The Norman Foster and Richard Rogers towers — two tepid snoozers — are stuck on hold, awaiting word from the market, although the podium of the Rogers tower will be built as a retail “taxpayer.” And Condé Nast has announced it will move its publishing empire and its 5,000 employees to One WTC from Times Square. Those of us in the neighborhood surely look forward to flocks of queuing town cars and many delirious new places for lunch. Anticipating the influx, commercial rentals in the neighborhood are on a dramatic upswing. The two towers under way (by Childs and Maki) will be hyper-bland corporatist products that might have been designed decades ago. Both deploy similar formal strategies, chamfering and carving rectilinear volumes in a wan attempt to burnish imaginative nothingness.

As the two new skyscrapers receive their hermetic skins (some of the dreariest-looking curtain wall in the catalogue) it’s clear that the scale of the complex will be huge and the effect glassy. Because of their load-bearing walls, the original Twin Towers were read as opaque, solid.

The new buildings are shiny, reflective, thin-walled, veneered, and smooth. Their ensemble will be a Monsieur Hulot confusion of mirrors, of uniformity — an infinitely regressive back-and-forth, trying to pick up the reflection of something actually authentic. (Already, Ralph Walker’s beautiful, noble Barclay–Vesey Building of 1926 has been dwarfed by the looming hulks that now butt against it.) This blinding misdirection is the architecture of paranoia. By obliterating their own interiority, by concealing their structures, by an endless gasketing against the foreign gaze (and substance), by laying in a monster infrastructure of surveillance and “security,” this is going to be one very strange and unpleasant place, overscaled and aggressively bereft of humane meaning.

The concealment offered by this nominal transparency has also been pointed up by the announcement that the base of One WTC will not receive the coating of special shimmery prismatic glass originally intended (and on which $10 million had already been spent). This veneer was meant to hide the fact that the building’s massive, 187-foot-high base is designed as a bombproof bunker, a thick concrete redoubt against any future assault. The glass camouflage proved technically beyond its Chinese manufacturer’s ability and so the skin will be more conventional. However, it will presumably still efface the difference between the more vulnerable upper stories (with their actual windows) and their impregnable footing, all in service of an uninterrupted visual ascent up this Everest of bad design and a steady lowering of architectural expectations.

To be sure, we can be grateful that what’s being built has largely been pared of the overwrought semiotics of the original master plan, although its less controversial reinstatement of Greenwich and Fulton Streets remains. The one visible remnant of Daniel Libeskind’s manic cloak of angularity is the little building — by the usually excellent Snøhetta — that will serve primarily as entry for the subterranean memorial museum. Can’t say what it will be like inside, but outside it is shaped and decorated in homage to the otherwise vanished spirit of skew, which the more symmetrical chamfering of the two towers in no way evokes. Along with several extremely obtrusive service structures along the West Side Highway, it seems cruelly placed — smack between the two dignified and apt footprint-fountains. Its relationship to the horizontal serenity of the memorial plaza is carbuncular, disruptive, needless. The mechanicals made us do it!

A controversy that broke out this summer concerns admission to the September 11 Museum, which may not be free and could be as much as 20 bucks. Here’s a small reprise of the crisis at the root of the entire redevelopment, one that garishly represents the nature of the split between public benefit and private aggrandizement. One of the hallmarks of American polity is the increasing pervasiveness of so-called “public-private partnerships” and with them the idea that public space must pay for itself directly, that a park must have a café or a condo in it to cover its costs. At Ground Zero, the melding of memory and profit will, in fact, be the “theme” of the site. As the disproportion between the gigantic exclusionary skyscrapers, the hemmed-in memorial, the pay-to-enter museum, and the upmarket shops in Towers 2, 3, and 4 makes legible, it will be a record of much that is wrong, ungenerous, and crass about American culture today. And I keep wondering when the pious rage that thwarted the proposed Islamic center nearby will turn on the cadre of halal kebab carts that dot the periphery of the site.

As someone who had advocated that the site remain unconstructed, I think wistfully of what might have been, the development that might have been directed elsewhere in the city, the creation of a magnificent and useful civic space, and an expansive act of reverent commemoration. The memorial will surely be noble but it will be overshadowed by too much that is not.

©2011 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

HoveringCheesecake

September 15th, 2011, 11:33 AM

Compare how much Goldman Sachs sucked out of the money pool.

I knew they had gobbled up a ton of Liberty Bonds to build their ugly-ass building, but I had no idea the amount was that substantial. What kind of sketchy backdoor deal allowed that to happen? We could have another WTC tower if it wasn't for G$.

lofter1

September 15th, 2011, 11:48 AM

Bloomberg loves developer / financial guys. Hey, they were going to move to Jersey if they didn't get that $$, remember?

HoveringCheesecake

September 15th, 2011, 01:10 PM

Bloomberg loves developer / financial guys. Hey, they were going to move to Jersey if they didn't get that $$, remember?

Ugh. And the sad fact is that their tower in Jersey City is nicer anyway.

No offense to any low level person on here who works at GS, but the knowledge that their tower used more of those bonds than any of the actual WTC towers disgusts me. Greedy bastards.

Vengineer

September 19th, 2011, 11:57 AM

http://vimeo.com/28783919

Daquan13

September 19th, 2011, 08:16 PM

Nice video!

BigMac

September 20th, 2011, 09:57 AM

MarketWatch
September 20, 2011

SightLogix Outdoor Video System Deployed at the World Trade Center

ORLANDO, FL, Sep 20, 2011 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) -- The SightLogix outdoor video system has been deployed to secure the World Trade Center perimeter in New York City. The perimeter security solution, which leverages SightLogix thermal video analytic cameras, is part of an integrated security system designed by engineers from Ducibella, Venter & Santore (DVS) and integrated by Diebold.

"SightLogix was founded to create an effective outdoor video analytic solution after observing video technology limitations at Ground Zero shortly after 9-11," said John Romanowich, President and CEO, SightLogix. "We are honored to have our vision fulfilled through our selection to secure this key national asset."

Recognized as a leader in intelligent video surveillance systems that provide efficient, cost-effective management of outdoor areas, the SightLogix Outdoor Video System uses image processing to deliver reliable, cost-efficient outdoor security. The company's video analytic security camera systems function with a high degree of accuracy amid the many variables of the outdoor environment, and the Clear24 thermal cameras provide superior images 24-hours per day in all operating environments.

SightLogix is featuring a live demonstration of their Outdoor Video System this week at ASIS International in Orlando, Florida, booth 3557.

The SightLogix solution includes Thermal and Visible SightSensor(R) video analytic cameras, Clear24(TM) thermal cameras, SightTracker(TM) automated PTZ/Dome camera controllers for target identification, and SightMonitor(R) coordination and GPS target location topology map display software. Portable solutions include the Video Security Trailer (VST), a self-contained rapidly deployable perimeter security solution for temporary or long-term surveillance applications, and the Rapid Deployment Kit for first responders.

For more information on SightLogix perimeter security and outdoor surveillance solutions, call (609) 951-0008, email info@sightlogix.com or visit www.sightlogix.com .

About SightLogix, Inc. SightLogix automated outdoor surveillance systems protect critical infrastructure and key assets of the transportation, energy, utility, chemical, datacenters, public safety, school and religious campuses, and defense industries. The company's open-architecture, Intelligent Video Surveillance system provides full situational awareness to increase both the effectiveness and efficiency of security manpower. For more information, visit www.sightlogix.com .

*EDITORS' NOTE: All photos are available upon request by emailing Sara Chaput at LRG Marketing Communications sara.chaput@lrgmarketing.com.

Copyright © 2011 MarketWatch, Inc.

BigMac

September 21st, 2011, 12:48 PM

SecurityInfoWatch.com
September 21, 2011

Integrating security at the new World Trade Center site

BY JOEL GRIFFIN
ASSISTANT EDITOR

The sheer size of the new World Trade Center site in New York, which consists of 5 towers, a memorial site, a transit hub and a performing arts center spread across 16 acres is enough to create numerous challenges for any security director.

However, when you consider that each facility on the site is operates independently and employs the use of disparate technologies, the task of integrated all of those systems seems impossible.

Such was the task assigned to Louis Barani, World Trade Center security director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Like any security executive, Barani began the job of integrating security at the WTC site by conducting a risk assessment.

Three of the things that Barani said security executives should remember to make a part of their risk analysis is the number of casualties that could result from a certain threat, loss of income from the potential event and the cost of replacing what is lost.

One example Barani cited was the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attacks in which the port authority decided to close the George Washington Bridge for three days, nearly resulting in a complete loss of fuel for Long Island.

Even after conducting an exhaustive risk analysis, which included the usual threat of acts of terrorism and natural disasters, Barani still would have to convince stakeholders that the investment was warranted, which is why he also did cost-benefit analysis.

“The biggest challenge with any assessment like this is how you are going to present it to your executive,”

Helping Barani to develop a comprehensive security plan for the site was Philip Santore, principal at the security consulting firm of Ducibella Venter & Santore.

According to Santore, there were essentially two options that could be implemented at the WTC site that would result in a truly integrated system. The first option, which wasn’t feasible, was a site-wide mandate that required a single manufacture’s technology be used for each system. The second option, which was later opted for, was the use of a Situational Awareness Platform Software (SAPS) that was eventually developed for the site by physical security information management (PSIM) systems developer VidSys and identity management and access control firm Quantum Secure.

When the site is eventually finished in 2015 or early 2016, Santore said it will have nearly 50,000 access card holders, 4,000 surveillance cameras, 20,000 fire alarm points, 5,000 building management system points, 2,000 elevator points, and 1,000 CBRN points. Due to the vast amount of technologies being used and because each site works as its own separate silo, it was decided to integrate all of the systems together using the SAPS platform created by Quantum and VidSys at a Sitewide Operations Coordination Center (SWOCC), which is located in one of the buildings on the site. Click here to read how Diebold addressed the system integration challenges at the World Trade Center.

The integration of all of these systems allows information to be distributed to the proper personnel in a short of amount of time. “We’re sharing information quickly to the right people for the right responses,” Santore said.

For example, if there is a fire alarm somewhere on the site, Laurie Aaron, vice president of sales and business development at Quantum Secure, said that the VidSys platform can pull up a live video where the incident occurred, at which point the Quantum platform will pull up a the number and identities of people that are located in the affected area. The operator at the SWOCC can then analyze the situation and review the action plan checklist, at which point it may be determined that an evacuation is in order for the affected area.

“It really is the Mount Everest of security integration projects,” said Timothy Galvin, northeast regional sales director at VidSys.

Copyright 2004-2011 All rights reserved.

ZippyTheChimp

September 21st, 2011, 10:19 PM

Shoeless on Fulton St?

BigMac

September 23rd, 2011, 07:43 AM

Charlie Rose interview from last Tuesday featuring Daniel Libeskind, Larry Silverstein, David Childs, Chris Ward, and Paul Goldberger:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11888

BigMac

September 27th, 2011, 08:56 AM

The Bond Buyer
September 27, 2011

Port Authority Goes Long for World Trade Center

By Paul Burton

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has some tailwinds at its back Tuesday when it sells a record $1 billion of taxable 40-year bonds to finance World Trade Center reconstruction.

“Interest rates are at a record low and contractors are desperate for work. This is when public agencies should be investing in capital projects. It makes enormous economic sense,” said Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center for Transportation Policy and Management at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.

The authority will use the proceeds to help rebuild the 16-acre site in lower Manhattan, which includes One World Trade Center, a vehicle-security center, and a transportation hub, according to the preliminary official statement.

Citi will manage the negotiated sale of the Port Authority’s 168th series consolidated bonds, which Moody’s Investors Service has rated Aa2 with a negative outlook.

Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings have each rated them AA-minus with a stable outlook.

The bonds have a final maturity in 2051.

Moss sees no problem with the agency selling 40-year bonds.

“The Port Authority is wise to go long,” he said. “Most of the money will go to Ground Zero. Forty years is a smart time frame, especially with the opportunity to get money at this rate.”

Condé Nast, publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker magazines, has signed an agreement to lease one million square feet of office space at One World Trade Center for 25 years, with renewal options for up to an additional 20 years.

Construction of the building is expected to finish by the end of 2013.

The World Trade Center’s Twin Towers were leveled in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Last week, the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that the Port Authority is immune from claims that it failed to avert the earlier 1993 parking garage bombing.

“The authority’s rating is well-positioned at Aa2,” Moody’s said in a report, citing the agency’s implementation of toll and fee adjustments that enhance self-sufficiency, and debt-service coverage ratios well above two times.

Moody’s added that more clarity about the 10-year capital plan could stabilize the rating outlook and “exert positive credit pressure.”

The authority’s board of commissioners last month approved toll and fare hikes for several New York-area bridges and its Port Authority Trans-Hudson, or PATH, trains between Manhattan and New Jersey.

Those multi-phased increases “should stabilize the authority’s finance profile as it continues with its complex and costly capital plan,” Fitch said.

Standard & Poor’s said it could lower its ratings if the authority’s liquidity and financial margins erode considerably.

“We do not expect to raise the ratings during the next two years due to the authority’s significant additional debt needs,” Standard & Poor’s said.

© 2011 The Bond Buyer and SourceMedia Inc., All rights reserved.

BigMac

September 28th, 2011, 07:50 AM

According to today's Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576597300824625950.html), Time Warner is considering options for relocating their headquarters, including the World Trade Center.

Daquan13

September 28th, 2011, 08:26 AM

Good news! Great to hear!!

BigMac

October 6th, 2011, 05:26 PM

All About Bikes
October 6, 2011

Mayor Bloomberg Rides a 9/11 Tribute Chopper

http://www.allaboutbikes.com/images/articles/administrator/473/2011_Assignments/bloomberg_chopper.jpg

For many people, the motorcycle is a symbol of freedom. In order to celebrate, honor, and remember the freedoms that our soldiers fight for every day, Paul Teutul Jr. of the Discovery Channel's "American Chopper," created two custom motorcycles as a tribute to the new World Trade Center. And who better to ride them than Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"As I know you've all heard me say a million times before," Bloomberg said. "There's nothing like strapping on your brain bucket, kickstarting your chopper, and riding high and tight with your bros. Back in 1969, when Easy Rider came out, there wasn't a guy my age who didn't consider chasing freedom on the open road! Still today, all kidding aside, the bike remains a symbol of the freedom we cherish as Americans and nobody makes bikes like the American Chopper family."

Teutul then took the mike and described the bike's design. Teutul said that the hand poured glass wheel that were specifically created to honor 9/11.

"There are lines at the top. 9 vertical lines at the top of the tower and 11 at the bottom," Teutul said. "There are 50 horizontal lines through the glass representing our 50 states.... If you look at in the front, we have the 9/11 memorial in the headlight. All in gold. We actually built the front end to represent the free world trade center.... It's something we're very proud of."

Here's the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b74yxaiHBgw

The Huffington Post reports that Teutul created two 9/11 tribute choppers. The second motorcycle will be raffled off to benefit the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. You can enter the raffle, which ends in January, for $50 here (https://www.911memorial.org/catalog/paul-jr-designs-wtc-motorcycle-raffle.html).

Daquan13

October 6th, 2011, 07:12 PM

I could be wrong, but is the top middle of the bike just behind the handle bar reminiscent of the wings of the new PATH Station kiosk?

scumonkey

October 6th, 2011, 08:43 PM

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb276/scumonkey/1238409599_nom_nom.gif

TallGuy

October 7th, 2011, 02:47 PM

The wheels were also made to be round circles to represent the circularity of life and the rebirth of the World Trade Center.

Staten Island Love

October 7th, 2011, 03:13 PM

Every time DQ13 posts something, I am reminded by one of my favorite quotes;

"Are you really that stupid or do you just act that way?"

Music Man

October 7th, 2011, 04:55 PM

One wrong move hopping on that bike will be painful...

Daquan13

October 7th, 2011, 05:59 PM

Every time DQ13 posts something, I am reminded by one of my favorite quotes;

"Are you really that stupid or do you just act that way?"

I've had just about enough of this crap from you, also your nasty smirky remarks!

Use the IGNORE button if you don't want to read them.

Are you really THAT stupid that you don't know how to use the ignore button? You first two posts have been nothing but personal attacks toward me.

Instead of harassing and bullying me about what I post, why won't you try to add something a little bit worthwhile and constructive about the rebuild? Not for you to b***h about what I post.

ZippyTheChimp

October 8th, 2011, 11:44 AM

@Staten Island Love: You have 2 active posts, but 12 total; almost all are insults directed at Daquan. The others you deleted yourself. I don't know if you're playing some sort of game here, thinking you can leave these up for a few days and it doesn't matter.

You've been here less than a month; not enough time for you to get pissed at anyone.

One more post like the last one, and you're gone.

BrooklynLove

October 8th, 2011, 12:31 PM

Shaolin in da house!

ZippyTheChimp

October 8th, 2011, 01:41 PM

I've been reading for a long time and I never really cared to post anything.Then you won't mind...

lofter1

October 8th, 2011, 01:43 PM

I was actually looking to remove myself, that's why I deleted all my posts.

Once you get on board WNY you're here for eternity.

Not possible to remove your presence deep inside the WNY machine (although a Mod could probably do that).

The other option is just to stop posting and continue reading.

ZippyTheChimp

October 8th, 2011, 04:28 PM

^
Don't think this is some sort of license for you to continue in the same manner.

The criticism of your posts by others isn't without merit. I'm getting annoyed with all the PMs I get (from you and others), and having to chase down all these little arguments. When several people are complaining about you, maybe some of it is your fault.

There's no need to respond to every post, especially when it's a question and you don't know the answer.

There's no need to respond to this post, either. Just take the advice.

lofter1

October 8th, 2011, 10:26 PM

Aye aye, Sir :cool:

(I know, I know ...)

ZippyTheChimp

October 8th, 2011, 11:31 PM

That "^" was directed at a post that was later deleted.

I can't tell if you already knew that and it's just sarcasm. I think I'll put it back so it makes sense, and go read something else.

lofter1

October 9th, 2011, 12:39 AM

[i knew that]

BigMac

October 13th, 2011, 10:08 AM

wtc.com
October 12, 2011

WTC Construction Updates, October 2011

By LMCCC

4 World Trade Center

Concrete core wall complete up to the 34th Floor. Steel erection up to the 53rd Floor and will be at the 56th floor at the end of the month. The curtain wall installation is currently on the 17th floor of the building.

3 World trade Center

Formwork and rebar at the eastern portion of the core walls are on the 2nd and 3rd Floor. Continue scaffolds with decking platforms for the B2 slab on the north and west sides.

2 World Trade Center

Core and perimeter steel are up to street level. Rebar is being placed for the core walls at the B1-ground level and the B1M slab level.

1 World Trade Center

Steel is currently at the 83nd floor, 1000 feet above grade. Curtain wall is up to the 58th Floor and the application of fireproofing is complete on the 65th floor.

9/11 Memorial and Museum

The structural steel contractor is substantially complete in the Pavilion and the installation of duct and piping throughout the Pavilion is currently underway.

© 2011 Silverstein Properties, Inc.

mariab

October 14th, 2011, 01:08 PM

Excellent update, although I was under the impression that 1 was up to the 86th. Wtc.com cleared it up at least.

BigMac

October 18th, 2011, 10:53 AM

New York Post
October 17, 2011

EXCLUSIVE

PA chief blowing bucks on G. Zero

Fredric U. Dicker

http://www.nypost.com/rw/nypost/2011/10/17/news/web_photos/chris_ward--300x300.jpg
'The economics of this are going to be terrible for New York for decades to come as the bills keep coming in.' - A source, on Ground Zero spending by PA chief Chris Ward (above)

Hundreds of millions of dollars in “unnecessary spending’’ were authorized by outgoing Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward to accelerate the rebuilding of Ground Zero, an explosive new audit will show.

The audit, ordered by Gov. Cuomo, found Ward engaged in “extravagant overspending” after he was named head of the bi-state agency by then-Gov. David Paterson in May 2008 in an effort to step up the rebuilding in time for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a source close to the Cuomo administration told The Post.

“There is no doubt Ward got a lot of the construction going, and that he has a network of people he’s pleased as a result, but at what cost?” the source said.

“But you can’t credit Ward with accelerating the construction without holding him liable for the bill. The economics of this are going to be terrible for New York for decades to come as the bills keep coming in.”

A second source said Ward was “more concerned about what Mayor Bloomberg thought of the reconstruction timetable than he was about the cost to the state he was supposed to be working for.”

Cuomo plans to replace Ward within the next few weeks.

While Cuomo’s deputy secretary for economic development, Patrick Foy, is widely seen as the leading contender, an administration source insisted that others were still under consideration.

The PA audit is expected to be made public within the next few weeks.

Copyright 2011 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

BigMac

October 19th, 2011, 02:31 PM

Downtown Express
October 19, 2011

Port, Silverstein say W.T.C. construction is on track

BY ALINE REYNOLDS

Construction at the World Trade Center is forging ahead as planned. That was the message the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and Silverstein Properties conveyed at the Community Board 1 W.T.C. Redevelopment Committee meeting on Monday, Oct. 17.

“There was a great deal of coordination [involved] for the success of the opening of the 9/11 Memorial on the 10th anniversary,” said Quentin Brathwaite, the Port Authority’s assistant director of W.T.C. construction. “With those dates behind us, the Port Authority has continued its renewed focus to the perimeter of the site.”

One W.T.C., which is slated to be topped out sometime next spring, is now 86 floors high. With close to 1,000 workers on the project, the building, Brathwaite said, has become a “city within a city.”

“What’s really amazing is that the building is really commanding even more of a presence in the community,” said Brathwaite. “From almost every vantage point, you see the tower rising — not only from within Community Board 1, but as far west as New Jersey and as far east as Queens and Brooklyn.”

The Port Authority is completing foundation work in the area just north of Cedar Street for the future Vehicle Security Center, which is set to open in 2013. Installation of the steel for the V.S.C. is underway, as is the continued excavation of the 130 Liberty St. site.

“The removal of the soil will lead to the construction activity where we will blast in the vicinity of the [Number One subway line] box,” said Brathwaite — an endeavor that will require a great deal of coordination with the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

Meanwhile, below-grade work for the W.T.C. Transportation Hub is also underway without interruptions to the temporary PATH station, Brathwaite noted. The transit center, once completed, will be roughly the size of three football fields.

The building’s interior is congruent architecturally with its glass-and-steel “wings” exterior, according to Brathwaite.

“The choice of Santiago [Calatrava] as an architect for this project is so fitting,” he said, “because his building above grade really embodies the sense of freedom that’s associated with the doves and wings in flight.”

The transition from one subway platform to the next will be seamless, Brathwaite assured. “

With respect to Route 9a, the Port Authority plans to make an “appropriate detour” for the bicycle route that once aligned with the west side of the highway.

“As we move closer to the end of the year,” said Brathwaite, “the Port will complete its construction of an underpass — which will be the east-west connector — then turn over ownership of the bike path and the remaining construction to Brookfield [Office] Properties.”

Towers Two, Three, Four and Seven

Malcolm Williams, construction manager for Silverstein Properties, the developer for Towers Two, Three and Four, said Tower Four is the farthest along among the W.T.C. buildings, with over 60 percent of the construction work already completed.

“We’re starting to see the building taking the shape in the skyline of New York City,” said Williams.

The building’s steel skeleton is 54 stories high, and its below-grade mechanical system is 90 percent complete. The building will be finished in late 2013.

Construction of Two W.T.C., meanwhile, is currently above grade and continuing on schedule, according to Williams. Phase one of the project, he said, is slated for completion in the second quarter of 2012.

“Coordination is continuing every day in terms of structural and mechanical coordination [with the Transportation Hub], and in terms of making sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit,” said Williams.

Tower Three is progressing equally well, Williams said, and is being built differently from Towers Two and Four. The building’s concrete core is being built out prior to the floors and steel framing. The tower’s concrete is now above grade, said Williams, and the second floor will be finished by the end of October.

Tower Seven, meanwhile, which was completed in 2006, is now fully occupied by tenants, according to Williams, since the recent lease-signing by investment firm MSCI for the building’s 48th floor.

“We’re very proud of that building — not only as a company, but as an anchor part of the W.T.C. site,” said Williams. “It shows that companies have come back down and want to have a place here in Lower Manhattan.”

Published by: Community Media, LLC

USSManhattan

October 19th, 2011, 04:15 PM

So... is it hopelessly hemmoraging money or right on track? Mixed signals, I think.

ZippyTheChimp

October 19th, 2011, 04:17 PM

One leads to the other.

BigMac

October 21st, 2011, 08:21 AM

Bloomberg
October 20, 2011

World Trade Center Bonds to Be Repaid After Port Authority Debt

By Michelle Kaske

Investors in a planned $1.3 billion bond deal to help rebuild the World Trade Center will be paid only after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which oversees the project, pays off other debts in an agreement to let the sale proceed.

The New York Liberty Development Corp., created to help finance construction of the Lower Manhattan complex, plans to sell the tax-exempt revenue bonds as soon as next month. The securities to finance 4 World Trade Center may yield about 5.25 percent, according to a resolution that the authority’s board approved today.

While rent from the Port Authority will help repay the corporation’s so-called Liberty bonds, the agency must first pay principal and interest on its own debt, according to the resolution.

Holders of $1.2 billion in Port Authority bonds said this year that their contracts keep the agency from paying other bondholders before them.

Liberty, an arm of the state-created Empire State Development Corp., in April delayed a $900 million bond deal for the tower, citing market considerations.

--With assistance from Esme E. Deprez in New York. Editors: Stephen Merelman, Ted Bunker

To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Kaske in New York at mkaske@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Tannenbaum at mtannen@bloomberg.net

©2011 BLOOMBERG L.P. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

BigMac

October 25th, 2011, 12:13 PM

New York Post
October 25, 2011

Andy, Mike fight over WTC $ecurity check

By JOSH MARGOLIN

There’s a new battle at Ground Zero, pitting Mayor Bloomberg against Gov. Cuomo over who is going to pick up the tab for the hundreds of millions of dollars in security projects to safeguard the streets around the World Trade Center, sources have told The Post.

The dispute is playing out -- so far -- behind closed doors and has intensified in recent weeks as the Bloomberg administration grapples with a budget gap expected to worsen next year.

Bloomberg dispatched one of his top lieutenants, Deputy Mayor Robert Steel, to lead City Hall’s negotiating team. His assignment: get the Port Authority, which controls the WTC site, to pay between $300 million and $500 million that was supposed to be covered by the city for security improvements to city streets.

“The city insisted on these measures, but they don’t want to pay for it,” one PA source told The Post. “They just figured that the Port would cover it, but there’s no money and that’s been the message. And that’s coming right from Albany.”

Cuomo spokesman Josh Vlasto insisted that the dispute does not involve his boss, who has a strained relationship with the mayor.

“The governor’s office is not familiar with this issue and does not have a position,” Vlasto said.

Bloomberg spokeswoman Julie Wood said only “we work in close partnership with the Port Authority on all aspects of the World Trade Center site, including the plan to keep it safe and secure.”

Approved three years ago, the “WTC Campus Security Plan” calls for making the 16-acre trade center -- twice the target of terror attacks -- a high-tech modern-day fortress complete with retractable barricades, radiation detectors and an elaborate network of surveillance cameras.

The agency refused to release the plan, saying it has to be kept confidential because it details security methods.

When the city and PA inked the blueprint in 2008, one PA source said, “It was wink, wink, nod, nod. It was pretty clear back then that the city thought the PA was going to pay.”

Since then, the PA -- controlled jointly by Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie -- has seen its fortunes dwindle, leading the agency to push through a controversial toll hike over the summer. Now auditors are combing the books in the wake of criticism from both governors.

And this month, Cuomo booted Bloomberg’s key ally at the PA, executive director Chris Ward.

jmargolin@nypost.com

Copyright 2011 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

lofter1

November 2nd, 2011, 10:55 AM

Crane Info, from the November 2011 PANYNJ WTC Progress Report:

14395

EugeneNYC

November 8th, 2011, 09:23 AM

Go to Google Maps, locate the WTC, switch to the Google Earth view, and make sure you have extra underwear.

DMAG

November 10th, 2011, 09:34 AM

Go to Google Maps, locate the WTC, switch to the Google Earth view, and make sure you have extra underwear.

Oh yeah........niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice

14419

BigMac

November 21st, 2011, 11:39 AM

Wall Street Journal
November 21, 2011

9/11 Museum Is Delayed

By JENNIFER MALONEY AND ELIOT BROWN

http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NY-BI082_museum_G_20111120191738.jpg
Construction has slowed on the Sept. 11 museum, foreground.

The planned 2012 opening of the Sept. 11 museum at the World Trade Center is in jeopardy amid a dispute over hundreds of millions of dollars in unexpected costs related to redeveloping the site, people familiar with the matter said.

Construction on the sprawling museum has slowed considerably since September, when the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey stopped approving new contracts and extensions of existing contracts, people familiar with the matter said. Its planned September 2012 opening will likely be pushed back, the people said.

The $800-million-plus project is the latest pressure point in a series of funding disputes at the World Trade Center site, where the redevelopment tab has reached more than $11 billion.

The fight puts the Port Authority—controlled jointly by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie—at odds with the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the chairman of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum foundation.

Fueling the battle is $156 million that the Port Authority—which is building the museum—says the foundation owes for construction costs. Port Authority officials have said privately they are concerned about the museum having enough money to finish the job, people familiar with the dispute said.

The foundation denies it is responsible for the cost overruns, and for its part believes it is owed more than $100 million on account of delays, a person familiar with the matter said.

The two sides are negotiating a set of conditions for arbitrating the dispute outside of court.

Representatives for all sides on Sunday said the issues would ultimately be resolved.

"The Port Authority, the city and the museum are working collaboratively to resolve these matters," said Patrick Foye, the Port Authority's executive director.

Julie Wood, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bloomberg, said in a statement that funding disputes have been overcome before. "We're confident we will work them out again," she said.

The World Trade Center redevelopment has been plagued by near-constant disputes among public agencies as well as with private developer Larry Silverstein, who has the rights to develop three towers.

Most of the billions in added costs over the years have been absorbed by the Port Authority, which owns the site and is in charge of the rebuilding.

The overruns at the museum have been in dispute for months, but those and other problems were left unresolved until now, in part because officials wanted to avoid a public fight before the 10th anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks, people familiar with the discussions said.

The city and the Port Authority also have recently been fighting over who will pay for up to $300 million in security costs related to the site, people familiar with the discussions said.

Mr. Cuomo has begun to take a more active approach with the Port Authority, a typically cash-rich agency that has been weighed down by the costs of rebuilding. He recently installed Mr. Foye, a former economic development aide, as its new executive director, and put four new appointees on the agency's board.

The agency appears to have taken a more aggressive approach with funding issues lately, and it has added pressure on the memorial foundation by not approving the contracts for the museum.

The dispute is partially over whether the $156 million in overruns are the responsibility of the museum, or whether they are broader infrastructure that the Port Authority should pay for. Generally, the foundation is responsible for the museum's cost. The Port Authority is paying for site-wide infrastructure.

The Port Authority claims the foundation is responsible for such unexpected costs. But the foundation denies it is responsible and is preparing a claim of more than $100 million against the Port Authority, for additional costs caused by construction delays and the operational complications of opening the memorial when the surrounding streets and sidewalks weren't yet open, one person familiar with the situation said. Talks have been active. Mr. Foye met Friday with city officials including Deputy Mayor Robert Steel.

The Port Authority has raised broader concerns about the foundation's ability to pay for the full cost of the museum. Mr. Foye told members of the agency's board earlier this month that Joseph Daniels, the foundation president, said he expected a "cash squeeze" early next year, a person familiar with the board meeting said.

Michael Frazier, a foundation spokesman, said it "has reached its funding commitments and will continue to do so."

Copyright ©2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

RoldanTTLB

November 27th, 2011, 11:05 AM

I should think the removal of cranes from 2wtc shows just how high it will be reaching into the sky (hint: not at all).

BigMac

November 27th, 2011, 11:26 AM

Business Insurance
November 27, 2011

WTC reconstruction: Many companies, one goal

Safety tracking, data tools help developers manage risks

By Matt Dunning

http://www.businessinsurance.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/storyimage/CB/20111127/NEWS05/311279965/AR/AR-311279965.jpg&maxw=250&maxh=250
The reconstruction of the World Trade Center is being performed by more than 3,500 workers, 435 subcontractors and eight general contractors.

The sheer volume of the work being done at the World Trade Center site in New York can be daunting.

There are 13 integrated “megaprojects” predicted to cost between $15 billion and $20 billion in total, approximately 435 subcontractors employing some 3,500 on-site workers, and more than 167,300 tons of structural steel—enough to build Yankee Stadium 15 times over.

And the work—much of it done by mid-market companies—is being done in a space no bigger than a few football fields, on top of three active subway lines, in a neighborhood packed to capacity with residents, commuters and tourists.

“It's one of the most complex redevelopment projects in the world because of the combination and co-location of so many separate projects,” said James Keane, general manager of inspection and safety risk management for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site and is one of two principal developers in its rebuilding. “It's become quite a complicated and intricate formula that we're working with each and every day.”

One of the more effective ways the Port Authority and Silverstein Properties Inc.—the site's other principal developer—have gone about mitigating the ever-shifting constellation of safety, security and other risks associated with the WTC rebuilding has been to implement comprehensive incident, claims and observation-tracking systems for their respective projects on the site.

Since putting in place their Safety Management Systems Tracking Tool three years ago, risk managers for the Port Authority and Chartis Inc.—the agency's principal insurer for World Trade Center projects, including the 1,776-foot-tall tower at 1 WTC and the sprawling underground transportation hub—said they've have seen workplace injuries, reported hazards and workers compensation claims at the site “trending downward.”

“Prior to 2008, the World Trade Center was being handled like a normal construction site,” said Michael Castelli, a senior vp and World Trade Center site manager for Chartis. “You would see a whole bunch of claims come in, and there was really no control of that system.”

On most conventional construction projects, electronic site safety and performance records usually are segmented according to the individual insurers of the project, meaning most projects have separate databases for things such as workers compensation, property claims, injury and on-site medical reports, site safety observations and payroll. By combining all of these fields into a single, multichannel tracking system, Mr. Castelli said the Port Authority -has been able to more accurately assess and prevent injuries and accidents on its projects by enabling analysts to cross-reference corresponding entries.

“Our goal is to investigate every incident on the site, not only from a safety standpoint but from a claims standpoint,” Mr. Castelli said.

Mr. Castelli said combining payroll figures with incident reports, safety observations and insurance claims gives the Port Authority a much more thorough view of the projects' overall performance by tracking construction progress against workforce safety and spending trends.

“In the real world, as production goes up, safety goes down,” Mr. Castelli said. “What we've tried to do is find the point at which those two lines intersect, so that we're operating at peak efficiency while maintaining our safety performance. That's a challenge not only at this site, but across the industry on the whole.”

Similarly, risk managers at Silverstein Properties, itself a midsize company by virtue of its employee head count, said they recognized the need for comprehensive data monitoring when work began in earnest on the company's three skyscrapers in 2007.

By 2009, Silverstein and its broker, Willis North America, had developed through San Diego-based eSafety Systems a program that closely resembles the Port Authority/Chartis model.

“The powerful thing about the eSafety program is that it pulls everything on the site from a data perspective together,” said Robert Azarian, safety and loss control leader at Willis North America, noting that their system also tracks on-site medical incidents, insurance claims, payroll and site safety observations. “It's a living document that we're constantly reviewing and trying to make better.”

Like their counterparts at the Port Authority, Mr. Azarian and Shari Natovitz, Silverstein's vp of risk management, said the payroll metric becomes particularly important when combined with other performance indicators, “because it's part of the measure of how well they're doing from a safety standpoint.”

“If you don't know how many work hours you've got and what kind of payroll you're generating, you can't really correlate that with the number of incidents you're having,” Ms. Natovitz said. “We need those numbers to help us understand what we're seeing at the job site.”

Because of work delays in 2009 caused by financial disagreements between Silverstein and the Port Authority, Mr. Azarian said the company has yet to determine the actual year-over-year effects of the program. However, he said, predictive modeling based on work hours and claims data indicate “positive results.”

“The key thing about this is it allows us to close these incidents and these claims out much faster and more accurately,” Mr. Azarian said. “On a project of this size and scope, it's very easy for things to get lost in the shuffle if you're not tracking things.”

Copyright © 2011. Crain Communications, Inc.

mariab

November 30th, 2011, 04:05 PM

Because they need the money for the higher PA salaries.

Conflicting Statements About Port Authority Using Toll Increase Money For World Trade Center

November 30, 2011 2:19 PM

http://cbsnewyork.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/gwbtolls_110923_620_1.jpg?w=300 Vehicles approach the George Washington Bridge toll plaza – Fort Lee, NJ – Sep 23, 2011 (credit: Paul Murnane / WCBS 880)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Are Port Authority toll hikes being used to rebuild the World Trade Center (http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/11/16/port-authority-shows-off-glass-for-one-world-trade-center/)? That’s what the agency claimed when it argued for the increases.

WCBS 880′s Peter Haskell On The Story“In an August 5th press release, they said that the money needed for the toll hikes would be used for redevelopment of the World Trade Center site,” said Robert Sinclair, Jr., a spokesman for AAA.
The drivers’ group is suing the agency (http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/27/aaa-sues-port-authority-over-toll-hikes/), contending that all toll money should go toward transportation.
“As we see it, the World Trade Center is not a transportation facility and as such toll money should not be used for its redevelopment,” Sinclair told WCBS 880 reporter Peter Haskell.

Now, in court papers defending against the lawsuit, the Port Authority claims the money will not be used at the World Trade Center.
“Well, the Port Authority is submitting documents that are completely contrasting to things that they have said before,” Sinclair told Haskell.
“I think it’s a good thing that we’re seeing that money go more towards transportation infrastructure and I think it’s a good thing that it’s drawing attention so that we can look at the way the Port Authority does things and more closely monitor it and make sure that we have those checks and balances moving forward,” AAA public affairs director Cathleen Lewis told 1010 WINS.
Because of the ongoing lawsuit, the agency indicates it won’t comment on the discrepancy, but says the complaint from AAA is without merit.
Yesterday, it was announced that the firms of Navigant Consulting and Rothschild will conduct a massive audit of the Port Authority (http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/11/29/two-firms-set-to-perform-port-authority-audit/).
On September 18, tolls on the six Port Authority crossings – the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, Bayonne Bridge, Goethels Bridge, and Outerbridge Crossing - went up to $12 ($9.50 for E-ZPass users) (http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/18/port-authority-toll-and-fare-hikes-take-effect/).

http://cbsnewyork.wordpress.com/2011/11/30/conflicting-statements-about-port-authority-using-toll-increase-money-for-world-trade-center/

BigMac

December 16th, 2011, 10:13 AM

WTC.com
December 12, 2011

WTC Construction Update, December 2011

4 World Trade Center

Steel erection is progress on the 57th floor. Concrete core walls are complete up to the 50th Floor, with concrete on metal deck complete to the 53rd floor. Curtain wall installation complete to 38th floor (except hoist areas and tower crane 3 areas, which are complete to 32nd floor).

3 World Trade Center

Concrete core and concrete slab work continue to progress on schedule. Concrete in the west core walls has been placed up to level 3, and the majority of the B1 level concrete slab has been poured. Jumping operations for the east tower crane are expected to occur within the next month.

2 Work Trade Center

The major below grade concrete superstructure elements are nearing completion, with the erection of the ground floor deck in progress. Installation of the PDC's (Power Distribution Centers) has begun and will continue into the early part 1Q 2012.

1 World Trade Center

Structural Steel erection is currently at the 90th floor. Floor slabs have been cast through the 80th floor and core shear walls are up to the 79th floor. Curtain wall installation is complete up to the 63rd floor.

9/11 Memorial Museum

Electrical, Mechanical, Fire Protection, and IT work continues in the Pavilion and underground museum. The carpentry contractor is installing sheetrock at the west side of the 2nd floor of the Pavilion, and has also begun to frame out the interior ceiling.

© 2011 Silverstein Properties, Inc.

HoveringCheesecake

December 16th, 2011, 10:31 AM

I figured they were going to skip the podium part on Tower 3. I'm glad to see that I assumed incorrectly.

lofter1

December 16th, 2011, 12:05 PM

WTC Construction Update, December 2011

9/11 Memorial Museum

Electrical, Mechanical, Fire Protection, and IT work continues in the Pavilion and underground museum. The carpentry contractor is installing sheetrock at the west side of the 2nd floor of the Pavilion, and has also begun to frame out the interior ceiling.

STOPPED ...

9/11 Museum Construction Grinds to Halt Amid $300M Fight

DNA Info (http://www.dnainfo.com/20111215/downtown/911-museum-construction-grinds-halt-amid-300m-cash-fight)
December 15, 2011

LOWER MANHATTAN — Construction on the Sept. 11 Memorial Museum (http://www.dnainfo.com/places/911-memorial-museum) has “come basically to a halt” because of a bitter dispute over $300 million in cost overruns that Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday is on the verge of ending up in court.

The Port Authority now says that the National September 11 Memorial & Museum Foundation (http://www.911memorial.org/) owes the amount for cost overruns at the site — nearly double the $156 million that sources said they were originally seeking.

Spokesman Steve Coleman said the new figure surfaced after a recent review of infrastructure spending.

“This is a dispute that has been ongoing for years," he said. "Last year, the issues became critical and the Port Authority is actively negotiating with the city to resolve it."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who serves as chair of the foundation, had already acknowledged the spat threatened to delay the museum's opening beyond its Sept. 2012 target date.

But on Thursday, he said the Authority had cut off payments to workers, halting construction.

HoveringCheesecake

December 16th, 2011, 03:44 PM

I have noticed that the top of the memorial building has not progressed much in the last 6 or so months. I'm sure they have been doing interior work, but these developments are interesting. Rumors on other sites have suggested that some workers at Tower 1 are also going on strike for at least some period of time.

Merry

December 22nd, 2011, 06:29 AM

Port Authority Pictures 'Sphere' in Park Near WTC Site

By Carl Glassman

(see article (http://tribecatrib.com/news/2011/december/1177_port-authority-pictures-wtc-sphere-in-park-near-where-it-stood-for-30-years.html) for renderings)

The Port Authority has yet to announce a permanent home for the battered 22.5 ton sculpture “The Sphere,” the iconic Sept. 11 memorial that now resides in Battery Park. But renderings prepared for a possible presentation, obtained by the Trib, show the Authority’s concept of how the sculpture might look in the future Liberty Park—near the World Trade Center site but not on it.

The renderings show two possible sites for "The Sphere" on the elevated park, to be constructed above the Vehicle Security Center on Liberty Street. According to one image, "The Sphere" would be visible from the Memorial Plaza across the street.
Whether the renderings will become part of a formal presentation to the community is unclear. A Port Authority spokesman declined to comment to the Trib on its plans for the sculpture. “We are in ongoing discussions with family members about the placement of the Sphere," Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said in an email statement. A spokesman for the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum responded with a similar statement.

Fritz Koenig's "The Sphere," which has stood in Battery Park since March 2002, must be moved by next summer to make way for construction. No one involved with the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site—not the Port Authority, the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum nor Silverstein Properties—has expressed interest in returning the sculpture to the World Trade Center site, its home for 30 years.

But some victims' family members continue to advocate for bringing it back to what they see as its rightful place. Michael Burke, the brother of a firefighter killed on Sept. 11 who leads the campaign, said he has gathered 7,700 supporters in an online petition.

"It survived the terrorist strike, the terrorist attack upon civilization and humanity and world peace. And now we are moving it somewhere else, because somehow it disturbs the integrity of the Memorial design," said Burke, who was shown the renderings by the Port Authority and rejects Liberty Park as a site for the sculpture. "Well, what does that tell us about the Memorial design?"

According to its renderings, the Authority appears to be choosing between two locations within the new park. The "West Side" option shows the brass-and-steel sphere near the Liberty Street bridge. The "Center" option places it closer to the site of what will be the rebuilt St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Though a rendering indicates it can be seen from the Memorial plaza, Burke said it will hardly be noticed from there.

"If it is visible, it sure as hell won’t be prominent," he said. "It will be mildly noticeable, perhaps, when the trees are bare. But no one is going to notice it."

Not having received a presentation by the Port Authority, Community Board 1 has yet to weigh in on where "The Sphere" should go. Catherine McVay Hughes, chair of the board's World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee, said she is not yet taking sides in the controversy but calls the artwork a significant reminder of what happened at the World Trade Center. "It's the largest unvarnished artifact that will be open to the public," Hughes said. "It's important that people can see it."

http://tribecatrib.com/news/2011/december/1177_port-authority-pictures-wtc-sphere-in-park-near-where-it-stood-for-30-years.html

BStyles

December 30th, 2011, 02:58 PM

Apparently they found a whole bunch of earthcams atop the Millennium Hilton(or just one with different lenses) by playing around with the links, over at SkyscraperCity. This gives full views of the entire site.

Main HD Earthcam:
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc/gzmpr/gzrobotic1.jpg

3WTC/Hub/2WTC HD Earthcam:
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc/gzmpr/gzmpr288_4.jpg

VSC/Memorial HD Earthcam:
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc//gzmpr/gzmpr2.jpg

WFC/1WTC/Memorial HD Earthcam:
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc/gzmpr/gzmpr288_7.jpg

And of course the set of five KPI TV HD cams:
http://www.video-monitoring.com/construction/kpitv/silver.htm

Top of 1WTC HD Earthcam:
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc/gzmpr/gzmpr288_3.jpg

4WTC HD Earthcam(Tier 2):
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc/gzmpr/gzmpr288_2.jpg

4WTC HD Earthcam(Street level):
http://archives.earthcam.com/archives5/ecnetwork/us/ny/nyc/gzmpr/gzmpr288_8.jpg

On the hub earthcam, you can clearly see its oval shaped outline. You could probably find more links by playing around with the URL's, but I think that's all for now.

HoveringCheesecake

December 30th, 2011, 05:10 PM

I thought it was no secret? They are all from:

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/worldtradecenter/

However, it is nice to have the links to the actual jpg images. They are the full resolution without the Flash interface. Much better! Thank you!

T.DEE

January 24th, 2012, 05:42 PM

14798
January 24th 2012
from Jersey City

scumonkey

March 13th, 2012, 05:47 PM

this sounds like a nightmare:eek:

Taxis and Delivery Trucks Get Locked Down Under WTC Security Plan
Updated 2 hrs ago
March 13, 2012 3:43pm | By Julie Shapiro, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

(http://www.dnainfo.com/20120313/downtown/wtc-security-plan-will-lock-down-residents#ixzz1p2HKKx00)LOWER MANHATTAN — Cabs, delivery trucks and residents' cars heading toward the World Trade Center site will soon have to run a gauntlet of new security checkpoints, raising concerns about how small businesses will get deliveries and how residents will get home.
The NYPD's controversial new security plan for the World Trade Center (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/counterterrorism/wtc_campus_security.shtml) will place stringent vehicle checkpoints and barricaded secure zones on all four sides of the complex, locking down several neighboring blocks lined with residential buildings and businesses beginning as soon as next year, police revealed.

Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20120313/downtown/wtc-security-plan-will-lock-down-residents#ixzz1p2HRCFR8

(http://www.dnainfo.com/20120313/downtown/wtc-security-plan-will-lock-down-residents#ixzz1p2HKKx00)

ZippyTheChimp

March 13th, 2012, 06:03 PM

Getting rid of the Twin Weasels can't come soon enough.

arcman210

March 13th, 2012, 10:23 PM

That security plan is an absolute joke. Abuse of power, waste of money, ruination of a city grid. Give me a freaking break.

GordonGecko

March 13th, 2012, 10:47 PM

What about the airplane checkpoints, can cinderblocks reach that high??

lofter1

March 14th, 2012, 12:22 AM

This draconian plan should be no surprise to long time readers of WNY. We've been commenting for years that exactly such a plan is what is inevitable for roads running through and along the WTC site -- although the security encroachment into the surrounding area is more invasive than contemplated.

But, Hey! Gotta make use of the Billion$ in Federal Security Funds that our tax dollars are paying for!

The NYPD plan sorta kills the idea of re-instating the grid. Better to ban cars entirely from Greenwich, Fulton & Vesey. Given the current stance of NYPD / NYC, those big glass lobbies along Church look like a really expensive design error.

All Hail the Super Block!

arcman210

March 14th, 2012, 08:46 AM

They just need to tone it down. Do they really need checkpoints before entering the VSC? Isn't that the entire point of the VSC?

DMAG

March 14th, 2012, 10:12 AM

All Hail the Super Block!

Seriously, at this point, why even bother with the roads if nobody can drive on them? They should have just stuck with the superblock format at this point and had nice walking paths.

Granted, 5-10-20 years from now, the security may be laxed to the point these roads are "all access" again....

GordonGecko

March 14th, 2012, 10:27 AM

This just demonstrates to me that the NYPD has no confidence in their terrorism prevention measures as well as safety engineering at the site. That's not a good signal to send to the public

ZippyTheChimp

March 14th, 2012, 10:32 AM

Seriously, at this point, why even bother with the roads if nobody can drive on them?You can have streets without cars. I don't think the problem is just vehicle access; it's an overbearing police presence.

ZippyTheChimp

March 14th, 2012, 10:41 AM

This just demonstrates to me that the NYPD has no confidence in their terrorism prevention measures as well as safety engineering at the site. I think it's simply turf war between two police agencies.

Is this the only prime terrorist target in the city? What about Hudson Yards, sitting over the #1 transit hub in the country?

lofter1

March 14th, 2012, 10:49 AM

Imagine the security requirements they'll install before folks can walk the High Line Section 3 :eek:

http://www.cntraveler.com/daily-traveler/2011/11/how-to-jump-the-line-at-airport-security/_jcr_content/par/cn_contentwell/par-main/cn_colctrl/par-col2/cn_blogpost/cn_image.size.airport-security-lines.jpg

GordonGecko

March 14th, 2012, 11:05 AM

The plain fact of the matter is that anyone who has the will to cause harm can do so. How much harm depends on the resources at their disposal. The best prevention measures are to monitor these resources, whether they be raw material movements for explosives, cash movements to fund operations, gun & ammo purchases, etc etc and surveillance of suspicious activities. That's all you can do because you can't lock down every subway entrance, overpass, prominent building, etc...

At any time, anyone can walk in to a crowded area and kill multiple people. There is absolutely NOTHING that can be done to prevent that

lofter1

March 14th, 2012, 11:15 AM

Bottom line: Billion$ have been allocated for security costs, and all the agencies have to show they need the $$ and are putting it to use.

lofter1

March 14th, 2012, 02:31 PM

World Trade Center Campus Security Plan: Draft Scope of Work for an EIS (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/counterterrorism/WTC-Campus-Security-Plan-Draft-Scoping-Document.pdf) [pdf; 32 pages]

Sherpa

March 14th, 2012, 04:26 PM

They just need to tone it down. Do they really need checkpoints before entering the VSC? Isn't that the entire point of the VSC?

And next it will be a checkpoint of the checkpoint of the checkpoint.

(I sometimes wonder about the trucks checkpoint on Lower Broadway at Zuccotti that is supposed to protect the Wall St area from truck bombs.. what if a bomb went off at Broadway and Zuccotti?)

BPC

March 15th, 2012, 08:29 PM

The NYPD has recently put up these hideous spy-tower contraptions in two of the street entrances to BPC South. I was hoping we would eventually be getting rid of them, but it seems like they are simply the sign of things to come.

Sherpa

March 15th, 2012, 09:34 PM

NYPD need to be treated to some sort of Occupy protest IMO. They are in the process of Occupying the residential community of Lower Manhattan themselves, we (residents) should perhaps fight back?

lofter1

March 15th, 2012, 10:57 PM

After that ^ they'll have their eyes on you :cool:

Nexis4Jersey

March 16th, 2012, 12:27 AM

And they wonder why there having such a hard time finding tenants...no one wants to work in a high rise prison.... I wouldn't be surprised if we see even more lower Manhattan businesses flee to Jersey City later this decade. Theres certainly no rush to move back over and what about tourism. I can see that dropping....

ZippyTheChimp

March 16th, 2012, 12:37 PM

And there's the "Mobile Command Center" that's been immobile on Battery Place for years.

Sometimes it's just a parking lot for police cars.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=battery+place,new+york,ny&ll=40.705005,-74.017602&spn=0.000786,0.002064&hnear=Battery+Pl,+New+York,+10004&t=h&z=20&layer=c&cbll=40.705083,-74.017709&panoid=UcabZLtdbOPU2B7WZVKUQg&cbp=12,298.44,,0,-0.76

O' Daniel

March 20th, 2012, 08:26 PM

In the News: World Trade Center Fortress

http://tribecacitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/wtc-security-plan.png

“Cabs, delivery trucks and residents’ cars heading toward the World Trade Center site will soon have to run a gauntlet of new security checkpoints, raising concerns about how small businesses will get deliveries and how residents will get home. The NYPD’s controversial new security plan for the World Trade Center (http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/counterterrorism/wtc_campus_security.shtml)will place stringent vehicle checkpoints and barricaded secure zones on all four sides of the complex, locking down several neighboring blocks lined with residential buildings and businesses beginning as soon as next year, police revealed. Residents were in an uproar after learning of the NYPD’s preliminary plans—unveiled at a Community Board 1 meeting Monday night—that will not only close off all the streets running through the World Trade Center site but will also close portions of Liberty Street, Vesey Street, Church Street, Washington Street, Greenwich Street and West Broadway. [...] The NYPD will hold a public hearing on the plan March 14 from 4 to 8 p.m. at 22 Reade St. and will continue accepting public comments through March 26.” It’s disappointing that Greenwich Street won’t be a through street; so much for weaving “Greenwich South” back into the fabric of the city. —DNAinfo (http://www.dnainfo.com/20120313/downtown/wtc-security-plan-will-lock-down-residents)

See documents of the World Trade Center Campus Security Plan
http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/html/counterterrorism/wtc_campus_security.shtml

BPC

March 20th, 2012, 11:02 PM

Absurd.

HoveringCheesecake

March 20th, 2012, 11:38 PM

I like all of the "Barriers - Default Up" placed everywhere. And what the hell is with the credentialing zones placed everywhere? Ihre papiere siehen, bitte!

USSManhattan

March 21st, 2012, 12:35 AM

...and all of this would have done jack on 9/11.... how.

ZippyTheChimp

March 21st, 2012, 08:35 AM

^
One of my favorite topics.

Real security work, or policing in general, is boring. The boring work - Intelligence - would have stopped 09/11 before anyone got on a plane. But the nature of that work makes it invisible to the public.

What I see going on at the WTC is two things:
1. Justifying a security budget. Spend it or lose it.
2. Cover your ass. If anything happens, the police can say, "Hey, we did what we could, but you can't protect everything."

And that's the point. Curiously, with bollards and other barriers in place, the significant damage a truck bomb would do is to people on the street. The real threat to the buildings is from trucks in the underground loading docks. Hence the VSC, which makes sense.

So a terrorist has a choice. Run the security gauntlet at the WTC in order to kill people, or do it some place else. You could do that to a greater degree on a summer day in Times Square. And you would kill a lot of visitors, which would hurt the city's image as a tourist attraction.

lofter1

March 21st, 2012, 10:20 AM

Anyone know the amount / budget for the security component of the WTC rebuilding?

TallGuy

March 21st, 2012, 10:57 AM

The sad reality is that in almost every way imaginable, the 9/11 terrorists won. Our society has become a police state, we have become more socially fractured than in recent history, our debt is beyond belief, our economy is in shambles. The housing bubble can even be indirectly blamed on 9/11 as the strategy for our economy was to spend, spend, spend, and to do so required the fake equities in the housing market....we couldn't even remove the Taliban from Afghanistan (like that was a real prospect if the Soviets couldn't). Sorry, the moderators can delete this thread if it inflames too many people.

ZippyTheChimp

March 21st, 2012, 11:13 AM

^
I don't agree with that on economic issues. Maybe you can make the case for the Iraqi War, but the economy was headed for this long before 09/11. And it's happened outside the US as well.

There is truth to it on social issues, like a police state.

Ironic that the language immediately after 09/11 was that we needed to build skyscrapers to be free. What's become apparent is that how we live our lives, in small and big buildings, is what's important.

Maybe the smartest thing the PA did in regard to the WTC is change the name of building #1.

BPC

March 21st, 2012, 12:31 PM

Can someone tell when exactly this become known as the WTC "campus"??? I had not heard that term used in any of the rebuilding discussions. The NYPD seems to have introduced it in an Orwellian fashion to advance the notion of the separateness of the site from the rest of Manhattan.

ZippyTheChimp

March 21st, 2012, 12:57 PM

I heard the term for the first time in this forum, but not sure where, or when - although I'm almost certain that it was less than a year. It may have been in relation to the WTC Memorial.

And what was always referred to as "the WTC site" was clearly defined as PA property. There was only ambiguity as to the ownership of Greenwich St.

This "WTC Campus" is larger than the "WTC site." The bollards along Church St will be in the center of the street, and the NYPD checkpoints, except maybe the one on Fulton and West, will be off PA property.

Several years ago when the issue came up, I thought it would be proper for the NYPD to have control of streets within the WTC site rather than the PAPD; the theory being that it would better integrate the complex into the rest of Manhattan.

But the actions of the NYPD since that time has led me to change my mind. They seem to be transforming themselves into a miltary-like police force. Take my word for it; MPs are the worst choice to police civilians.

USSManhattan

March 21st, 2012, 01:23 PM

You could do that to a greater degree on a summer day in Times Square. And you would kill a lot of visitors, which would hurt the city's image as a tourist attraction.

As someone who was walking by Faisal Shazad's car bomb when it should have gone off, I fully see where you're coming from on that.

ZippyTheChimp

March 24th, 2012, 01:06 PM

A nicer walk to the World Trade Center.

http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/4750/wtc419c.jpg

scumonkey

March 24th, 2012, 03:16 PM

gorgeous! :D

BPC

March 27th, 2012, 10:49 AM

I wish they would hurry up and add the skin for the base already.

ZippyTheChimp

March 27th, 2012, 11:03 AM

I'm worried about the look.

mariab

March 27th, 2012, 07:15 PM

World Trade Center construction workers flip on massive power switch
System will provide electricity to skyscraper, transit hub & 9/11 memorial

By The Associated Press (http://wirednewyork.com/authors?author=The Associated Press)

Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 3:04 PM

http://assets.nydailynews.com/polopoly_fs/1.1051586.1332874968!/img/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_635/image.jpgMark Bonifacio/New York Daily News

1 World Trade Center, seen here from the street below, is quickly rising to an eventual 104 stories.

NEW YORK — The slow but steady march to rebuild the World Trade Center in New York has reached another milestone.
Workers switched on a massive power system at the site Tuesday. It eventually will provide electricity to the center’s signature skyscraper, a transit hub and the 9/11 memorial and museum.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey says the system of electrical feeders will supply 100 megawatts to the site.
That’s enough juice to power 64,000 typical New York City apartments.
The unfinished One World Trade Center is now one of the city’s tallest structures.
If construction continues at its current pace, it will pass the Empire State Building sometime this spring.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/world-trade-center-construction-workers-flip-massive-power-switch-article-1.1051587#ixzz1qMVNz1fO

LeCom

March 30th, 2012, 03:39 PM

BStyles

March 30th, 2012, 07:48 PM

Well it's only in the proposal stages. The WTC superblock was actually smaller than its 16 acre footprint, being that there was a street along Church and Liberty to provide for parking. The whole point for the new WTC was to reopen the street grid, so the chances of this proposal being put into play is very unlikely.

One, there's a reason 1WTC's base is a fortress. This just makes it redundant.

Two, there will be medium-sized bollards already in place around the perimeter of the towers and the memorial. Again, redundant.

Three, changing the direction of the streets does not make traffic flow any easier, especially if there are security checkpoints on streets that never had any. Lower Manhattan's traffic problem will forever be ruined with this plan. This also almost eliminates the need for a Vehicular Security Center, if it is enclosed within the security checkpoints, or, it means that a single delivery truck will have to be checked and scanned five or six times before it can ever get to its destination, decreasing the tenant's reliability on the manufacturer and also driving tenants away from the towers.

manhattanscout

April 4th, 2012, 10:30 AM

It's incredible how fast the progress has become in the last 2 years.

mariab

April 29th, 2012, 10:54 AM

There is a comparison graph with the link to this article. Would have been nice to have the roof height taller than Sears but ok, WTC still gets the glory. And "money pit" is too harsh. The originals weren't filled immediately. Not even after they were completed.

One World Trade Center will soon be West's tallest tower

By Larry Higgs, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press
Updated 1d 3h ago
NEW YORK – Soon the iconic Empire State Building (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/Landmarks,+Landforms/Empire+State+Building) will no longer be the king of the city skyline.
By Monday, the rising steel frame of One World Trade Center (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/Landmarks,+Landforms/World+Trade+Center) is expected to surpass the 1930s vintage skyscraper, passing the title of tallest building in the city — and in the Western Hemisphere (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Western+Hemisphere)— to lower Manhattan.
Weather permitting, the heir to the title of tallest building in New York (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/States,+Territories,+Provinces,+Islands/U.S.+States/New+York), which was held by the Twin Towers (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Twin+Towers) from the early 1970s until the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, will change hands, said Patrick Foye, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/States,+Territories,+Provinces,+Islands/U.S.+States/New+Jersey) executive director.
"One World Trade Center (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Places,+Geography/Landmarks,+Landforms/World+Trade+Center) will be the tallest building in Manhattan in days," he said Thursday, after the Port Authority's board of commissioners meeting.
At 1,776-feet and 104 floors, the new tower will be 408 feet taller than the Twin Towers, according to data from the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, a not-for-profit group that tracks the building industry.
Once completed, One World Trade Center would surpass the 1,451-foot Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) in Chicago to become the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, according to council spokesman Kevin Brass. The tallest building in the world remains the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, at 2,717 feet.
Construction of One World Trade Center is on track and won't be completed until the fourth quarter of 2013 or the first quarter of 2014, Foye said. He added the structure is about 55 percent leased and is "poised to be a commercial success."
Foye also reported "incredible progress" on the PATH transportation hub, which will connect with the World Financial Center (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/World+Financial+Center) and subway lines at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Fulton Street (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Fulton+Street) Transit Center.
"The hub is coming along nicely. It is at grade level in places," Foye said. "Steel continues to be fabricated and erected; the underground hallway from (World Financial Center) to Fulton Street is being worked on."

Bright spot
The news of One World Trade Center reclaiming the sky was a bright spot for a World Trade Center redevelopment project that has been plagued by cost overruns, delays and headaches for the agency.
A report by Navigant Consulting Inc. and Rothschild Inc. found that World Trade Center redevelopment costs grew from an estimated $11 billion in 2008 to a current estimate of some $14.8 billion. Port Authority officials reiterated that after reimbursements from third parties are factored in, the estimated net of that cost increase grew from $6 billion to approximately $7.7 billion at the site.
A second report that examines the Port Authority's $25 billion capital program is due midyear, Foye said.
"People from Navigant are stationed here and working quite hard," he said.
Another issue for the project -- getting reimbursement from third parties for work done on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum and other improvements made at the WTC site -- is still under negotiation, but Foye sounded an encouraging note.
The Navigant report identified $1.57 billion in additional costs at the WTC site attributed to "add-on" projects being built by the Port Authority on behalf of other agencies, for which the authority is seeking reimbursement.
So far, the Port Authority has received $40 million from the Battery Park City Authority (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Battery+Park+City+Authority), $2 million from Lower Manhattan Development Council, $100 million from Durst Corporation for a minority equity interest in Tower 1 Joint Venture LLC and a $2.6 billion federal grant for the WTC Transportation Hub, officials have said.

'Money pit'?
Founders of the Twin Towers Alliance, which lobbied for reconstruction of a modern set of towers and serves as a watchdog group on the project, continued to press the Port Authority for information about redevelopment decisions that cost time and billions of dollars at the WTC site.
"You're using the money of the taxpayers and commuters of New York and New Jersey to fill this money pit with billions and billions of dollars," said Richard Hughes (http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Richard+Hughes), a co-founder of the alliance.
He questioned whether incentives were extended to companies that have leased space in the tower, and what will happen to tolls and fees if the remaining space can't be rented.
The Port Authority's board of commissioners also approved an agreement Thursday with the Durst Organization, to partner with the Port Authority in construction, operation and leasing of the 408-foot broadcast antenna that will top One World Trade Center.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-04-27/world-trade-center-tallest-nyc-west/54580254/1