Background on Non Intrusive Preparatory Work

On July 27, 2005, LMDC requested approval to 1) Install sidewalk bridges and perimeter site fence, 2) Install a concrete pad for the hoist, and 3) Install hanging rigs support frames. LMDC and the Regulators discussed the merits of this request and the Regulators have approved the installation of the sidewalk bridges and the concrete hoist pad, as these tasks pose no threat of disturbing the building, the exterior netting, or any regulated materials. The Regulators denied LMDC's request for the third item pending approval of the completed Deconstruction Plan.

The program was hosted by NYCOSH Public Affairs Director Jonathan Bennett,and featured Kimberly Flynn, Co-Coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action.

Huge tax breaks, new building, by Pradnya Joshi, New York Newsday, August 12, 2005

City and state officials believe they are close to getting the high-profile Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs Group to recommit to building its new headquarters in Manhattan, but critics say officials are giving away too much to make an enormously profitable firm happy.

Goldman Sachs reportedly will receive $1.6 billion in low-cost, tax-exempt loans in the form of bonds plus $150 million to $200 million in New York City and state tax credits if the firm agrees to build a new 40-story headquarters across the street from the World Trade Center site.

According to Good Jobs New York, that deal would give one firm alone 25 percent of the $6.4 billion in Liberty Bonds that Congress set aside to help finance commercial offices after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks (another $1.6 billion is earmarked to build housing in lower Manhattan).

In addition, Goldman will be eligible for additional incentives available to businesses locating downtown, including a five-year break on $6 million in commercial-rent taxes as well as $3,000 a year for every employee that it brings in from other cities.

"I think it's very troublesome, particularly that our elected officials are not mindful of the careful use of limited resources," said James Parrott, deputy director of the Fiscal Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization that studies budget issues.

Indeed, Goldman Sachs is one of the most sought-after investment firms for graduates of the elite business schools, and the firm reported pre-tax profits of $6.7 billion last year.

Goldman Sachs was originally promised $1 billion in tax-free financing for its $2 billion headquarters building that was to go up on a plot called Site 26 in Battery Park City, directly across the street from Ground Zero. However, the Wall Street firm said in April that it was putting those plans on hold after it raised issues about security, traffic and other problems hampering World Trade Center rebuilding.

Parrott points out that it was lack of progress at Ground Zero and not a shortage of tax incentives that drove Goldman Sachs' decision, but now taxpayers will have to pay to keep the firm. "The city and the state lacked commitment and weren't able to point to any progress being made in redevelopment of lower Manhattan," he said.

Andrea Raphael, spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, yesterday declined to comment on the discussions. Goldman Sachs is expected to consolidate 9,000 employees into the new building.

Deputy mayor for economic development Daniel Doctoroff declined to outline the specifics of the incentives, but defended the negotiations as a proper use of the city's resources. "It's a $2 billion investment in a site that is directly across the street from the World Trade Center site," he said.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan), who has also been pushing for more attention to downtown, said Goldman's presence sends "a message to the rest of the financial community that Ground Zero, downtown, is a great place to be."

Silver also thinks Goldman Sachs will help lure tenants to Silverstein Properties' 7 World Trade Center and the planned Freedom Tower.

Goldman Sachs has a gleaming new tower in Jersey City that was opened in 2004, but elite traders and high-ranking officials objected to being stationed away from the heart of New York's financial district.

"Goldman doesn't deserve it," said Bettina Damiani, director of Good Jobs New York. "Companies don't make location decisions based on tax breaks."

Many of its top employees are scattered around downtown, including at its 85 Broad St. headquarters, One New York Plaza, 180 Maiden Lane and other facilities. Those buildings will go vacant, creating a new glut of vacant office space, real-estate experts say.

Silver and Doctoroff acknowledged that vacant office space will be created by Goldman's consolidation, but said they believe the office market could absorb it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/nyregion/12deutsche.html

The two-year contract was approved by the board of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which acquired the 41-story building opposite ground zero to raze it as part of the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site. Last month, the corporation awarded a $13.1 million scaffolding contract to a joint venture of the Regional Scaffolding and Hoisting Company and the Safeway Environmental Corporation.

The deconstruction project should take 16 months after completion of a final plan, said Irene Chang, the corporation's general counsel.

The estimated time and cost of demolishing 130 Liberty Street have steadily increased in recent months as the extent of contamination has become clear. Consultants to the corporation have confirmed that the tower has excessive levels of asbestos, dioxin, lead, silica, quartz, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, chromium and manganese. An earlier $45 million deconstruction contract was canceled in May.

"It's more difficult to tear down a building than to build a building," said Roland W. Betts, a member of the corporation board.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/nyregion/12goldman.html

So Goldman's executives did what they were trained to do: They traded their way out of a bad situation and wound up with a much more favorable one.

City and state officials said on Wednesday that they had agreed to grant the company at least $150 million in tax breaks and to provide a total of $1.6 billion in federally subsidized Liberty Bonds to revive Goldman's plan to build a $2 billion tower in Battery Park City.

Though the deal is not yet sealed, the sweetened package of incentives, served up to a company that made $4.5 billion in profit last year, appeared to defy Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's claim to have "essentially ended corporate welfare." Some critics said they believed Goldman had simply bluffed its way into a much better hand by threatening to relocate to Midtown.

"It's probably the case that Goldman really was playing the city and had no intention of leaving Lower Manhattan," said Jonathan Bowles, research director for the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit group that analyzes economic development programs.

Charles Brecher, research director for the Citizens Budget Commission, a business-financed watchdog group, questioned the fairness of subsidizing a company's choice of one location in the city over another.

"If they moved to Midtown, so what?" Mr. Brecher said. "Our perspective in the past on these things has been that it's about the city's tax base, not about one part versus another, whether it's Brooklyn or downtown."

But city and state officials, who have endured years of criticism that they have allowed downtown to languish in the wake of the 2001 terror attack, said the deal was necessary to eliminate the prospect of Goldman's moving thousands of workers to Midtown, which the firm's executives started threatening to do in the spring. In March, Goldman said it had scrapped plans for the new building in part because it did not like the state's plan for a West Street tunnel ending outside it.

By pulling out, Goldman seized the leverage in its negotiations with city and state officials. Immediately, virtually all talks with companies considering a presence at or near ground zero came to a halt, downtown officials said.

"Every financial-services firm said, 'We want Goldman here at any cost,' " said Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the New York City Partnership, a business group. "Not because Goldman's competitors all want Goldman to get a good deal, but because their commitment is going to be a magnet for re-tenanting downtown."

Nonetheless, Sheldon Silver, the State Assembly speaker, whose district includes Lower Manhattan, said he had no doubt that Goldman had been serious about finding a different location.

"It wasn't a play," Mr. Silver said yesterday. "Goldman was very concerned about the tunnel. Even if they weren't leaving downtown, this is a reaffirmation by a major international business that they were committed to downtown."

Mr. Silver said the package of incentives offered to Goldman included about $6 million in commercial rent tax breaks that were made available, by legislation he pushed through in Albany this year, to any company leasing space downtown. It would also include the elimination of city and state sales tax on all computers and furnishings for the new building and credits of about $3,000 for each job Goldman adds downtown, although Goldman is not pledging to bring more jobs to the city.

Wrapping up a deal to bring Goldman downtown would be a political triumph for Mr. Bloomberg and Gov. George E. Pataki, said Steven Cohen, a professor of public administration at Columbia University.

"Politically, it's very important to both the governor and the mayor to make it at least appear that the redevelopment at ground zero isn't completely stalled," Mr. Cohen said. "Obviously, it took a lot of money to make this happen."

Mr. Bloomberg's opponents in the mayoral race would be unlikely to criticize either the offering of incentives to Goldman or their cost, Mr. Cohen said.

"I don't see a political force that's going to make an issue out of this," he said. "It's only going to be a political benefit now."

Even Mr. Bowles, who said he had generally praised the mayor for using corporate tax breaks sparingly, said he was pleased that Goldman had been lured back to the site.

Safeway Environmental has been under investigation since July when an upper West Side building it was demolishing caved in, burying an infant under tons of debris. But that hasn't stopped Extell Development from tapping the firm, which has ties to a reputed Gambino crime family associate, to finish the botched job.

Opponents of Extell's plans to build a high-rise tower on the old Gristede's site at Broadway and W. 99th St. are outraged Safeway wasn't booted.

"This supports Extell's total lack of regard for the community they're building in," said Miki Fiegel of West Siders for Responsible Development.

The city Buildings Department halted demolition after the July 14 collapse, but is poised to give Extell permission to complete the work next week. Buildings spokeswoman Jennifer Givner said the agency has no power to bar Safeway.

"It's the developer's decision who they utilize as a demolition contractor," she said. "They're not licensed by the department."

The city will monitor the work, and the use of heavy equipment will be limited. The sidewalks will also be closed.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/west/chi-0508120249aug12,1,4266611.story?coll=chi-newslocalwest-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

Herman Calloway Sr., 74, died of traumatic head, neck and chest injuries June 6 when the walls of a 12- to 13-foot trench collapsed on top of him, an autopsy said.

Two lawsuits recently have been filed against the project contractors, seeking compensation for Calloway's death. The lawsuits said the required safety trench box wasn't in use when the collapse occurred.

The victim's son, Herman Calloway Jr., 51, also was injured in the incident and remains disabled.

It is still unknown why the trench collapsed, the jury was told.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/11/nyregion/11goldman.html

The firm had balked earlier at building there after being dissatisfied with the security and traffic plans proposed by the state. Changing Goldman's mind, however, did not come cheap. Both the city and the state had to offer many new inducements that they did not present the first time.

Under the new agreement, which still requires approval of the firm's board, the city comptroller and some state authorities, Goldman would get at least $150 million in new city and state tax credits, as well as $600 million of new Liberty Bonds to add to the $1 billion in previously issued bonds, the officials said. Liberty Bonds, which reduce private borrowing costs at government expense, are intended primarily for commercial tenants in Lower Manhattan.

In addition, the city has agreed to change the streetscape around Site 26, where the two-million-square-foot office tower would rise on West Street. For example, the bike lane and sidewalk on the street would be narrowed to accommodate bollards to protect the building from truck bombs. The direction of traffic on Murray Street would probably be reversed to reduce the number of vehicles whizzing by the buildings.

The city and state were willing to make the concessions, however painful, because Goldman Sachs is not just any tenant. Officials have considered it crucial to revitalizing commercial downtown. The firm's decision is likely to encourage other businesses that have avoided coming into Lower Manhattan since the attack on the trade center, and officials hope its return will secure Lower Manhattan's primacy as a financial powerhouse.

"This is the biggest shot in the arm for downtown in a very long time," said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, who has been highly critical of the lack of progress this year in Lower Manhattan. "Hopefully, it is a harbinger of things to come. Businesses have been on hold waiting to see what Goldman would do. The only regret is that it took so long."

Edward Skyler, the communications director for Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, said the mayor has remained optimistic that Goldman would remain in Lower Manhattan, adding that discussions were continuing. Asked how the firm reached its decision, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, Andrea Raphael, declined to respond. Joanna Rose, a spokeswoman for Gov. George E. Pataki, said, "Talks are continuing, and we are making progress."

Goldman, which has been the only major concern to agree to locate its headquarters at the trade center site, has worked on plans for an elaborate new headquarters for nearly a year. It hired the architectural firm Pei Cobb Freed & Partners to design a tower that would be distinguished from the older, boxy office buildings in the area.

The building would consolidate the 9,000 workers in Goldman's trading and sales operations, now spread over 10 offices in Lower Manhattan. The firm had hoped to start construction by 2008.

Those plans fell apart this spring, when, in numerous meetings with city and state officials, Goldman Sachs executives became deeply concerned that plans at the trade center site were badly stalled.

The firm was particularly rankled by the state's plan to bury West Street in a tunnel that would have ended at its headquarters' front door, creating an abundance of traffic and related security concerns. In April, after failing to persuade the state to abandon the tunnel idea, the investment firm pulled the plug on its plans, and hired a commercial real estate firm to begin scouting the city for a new location, possibly in Midtown.

The Pataki administration, facing criticism over Goldman's retreat as well as other stalled projects downtown, quickly moved to limit the damage. The governor made his chief of staff, John P. Cahill, the point man for all Lower Manhattan matters, including Goldman Sachs. He abandoned the tunnel idea. He pleaded with the firm to reconsider.

For his part, Mayor Bloomberg made several overtures to the firm's chairman, Henry M. Paulson, to come back to the bargaining table. He made weekly phone calls directly to Mr. Paulson, and met with him several times to make the case that Goldman was one of the city's most important corporate citizens and was needed downtown to help the city recover. "I think frankly once people realized that there were going to be political consequences for it not happening, everyone got their act together," Mr. Schumer said.

http://www.nycosh.org./UPDATE/view_updates.php?updateid=108

The owner of the building, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC), plans to hire Safeway Environmental to monitor the air outside the building for contamination while a scaffold is erected that will enclose the building on all sides. The proposal to hire Safeway attracted little attention until July 14, when a supermarket being demolished by Safeway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, collapsed, sending seven people to the hospital.

It quickly became evident that the collapse had been caused by Safeway’s flouting the conditions of their demolition permit. For example, just before the collapse Safeway hoisted a piece of equipment that was substantially heavier than the permit allowed onto the building's roof. The city Department of Buildings issued three citations to Safeway for violations of the city’s demolition regulations.

As a result of Safeway’s new notoriety, it was soon discovered that Safeway has a long record of OSHA and EPA violations and enforcement actions.

In addition, Safeway has what appears to be a clandestine relationship with another demolition company, Big Apple Wrecking, which has an even worse safety record. Big Apple was listed by NYCOSH as one of New York City’s "ten worst OSHA violators" in both 1999 and 1998.

Big Apple and Safeway have their offices in the same Bronx building. When a reporter from the New York Times called Safeway’s telephone number, an answering machine said that he had reached Big Apple Wrecking. A great deal of Safeway’s equipment is leased from Big Apple, which owns it.

The owner of Big Apple Wrecking has been convicted twice of crimes relating directly to the demolition business, once for bribing an inspector to ignore asbestos violations and for wire fraud in a bid-rigging scheme that involved members of the Gambino crime family. As a result, Big Apple is disqualified from bidding on public contracts. When Safeway bid on a school construction job in 2003 and the city’s School Construction Authority began to investigate Safeway’s ownership, Safeway abruptly withdrew the bid, bringing an end to the investigation.

As a result of Safeway’s poor safety record and its apparent connection with organized crime, residents and workers in Lower Manhattan are questioning the decision to hire it to monitor the air for contaminants. "If the demolition is not done right, Lower Manhattan could be recontaminated with toxic debris," said Kimberly Flynn, co-coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action. "It’s no place for a company with a long track record of serious safety violations."

"It’s unacceptable that workers who were honored as heroes cannot get medical care for the conditions they now have as a result of their bravery and selflessness," said Lee Clarke, safety and health director of District Council 37, who organized the New York participants in the lobbying day. "Not to mention that another reason they are sick is that the government told them that the air was safe."

"It’s ridiculous that the government would give New York $175 million to help pay the cost of the emergency created on 9/11 and then take $125 million back because it hasn’t been spent," said Clarke. "The fact that it hasn’t been spent is no indication that it won’t be badly needed. We’re talking about people who are going to need medical care for years, some of them for the rest of their lives. They’re crazy if they don’t think the federal government should pay for it."

The chance that Congress will restore the $125 in this year’s budget are very slim, "but" says Clarke, "the need is not going to go away. Many of these people have badly damaged lungs. They are going to need care next year and the year after that and the year after that. As long as the care is needed, we will not let Congress forget it."

Workers at the World Trade Center site are eligible to participate in a free comprehensive medical monitoring program, but many, especially undocumented immigrants, have not participated or have only received an initial checkup, according to a Queens scientist who helps run the program.

Nearly four years after 9-11, many of the people who participated in cleanup and rescue efforts at Ground Zero still have health problems or suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder due to their exposure to the site, said Dr. Steven Markowicz, director of the Center for Biology and Natural Systems at Queens College.

Less than 900 out of the estimated 3,000 Ground Zero workers who live in the borough have participated in the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program, Markowicz said. The program offers free, comprehensive medical examinations over a five-year period.

"We want people who have symptoms to participate," he said, "but we also want people who are concerned they may develop something in the future and need to be monitored for early protection. We want to do more outreach among Hispanic workers in Queens who worked around Ground Zero and weren’t availing themselves of program."

Roughly 1,000 undocumented workers, mostly from Queens and Staten Island, have worked at the site of the former World Trade Center, said Luzdary Giraldo, occupational safety and health coordinator for the Latin American Integration Center, a non-profit organization with offices in Woodside and Staten Island that provides free services for the Latino community.

"They never received a baseline test because many were undocumented, so they were afraid to go and have these tests," she said.

The undocumented workers, many of them paid only $5 or $6 an hour to work at the dangerous site, were picked in groups from street corners and taken in large vans to Ground Zero. "A lot of construction agencies took advantage of the population," Giraldo said.

Out of 50 undocumented workers, her group has contacted since last month, all have reported illness, mostly respiratory problems. Three have stomach ulcers, one has been vomiting blood and two are permanently disabled.

In addition to physical ailments, some suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Surveys by the center show increased incidents of alcohol abuse and domestic violence among undocumented immigrants who worked at Ground Zero.

"Some of them couldn’t take it because in the process of cleaning up they would find parts of bodies," she said. "Even now, they cry when they talk about it."

Unlike previous efforts to give checkups to Ground Zero cleanup and recovery workers, patients will not be required to show I.D. Instead, they will be given the option of answering a few questions to determine if they worked at the site.

"People who never reached for any help and who are suffering from the effects of 9-11 now have an opportunity to receive the help that they need, both physically and psychologically," Giraldo said.

Those found to have incurred a serious, work-threatening disability related to exposure to the site will be eligible, along with their families, to apply for free benefits.

The Latin American Integration Center is also working to establish emotional support groups for Ground Zero workers and their families.

Although her group is focusing on spreading awareness of the free medical program among undocumented workers, Giraldo said that anyone who worked there including those who already have medical benefits, such as police officers and firefighters is eligible and should participate in the program.

Even people who feel fine should call the program and schedule a checkup, Markowicz said. "We want to know why some people came out fine and others are sick. It will help us understand catastrophes like the World Trade Center."

For more information or to schedule an appointment, call the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Programs phone bank at 888-702-0630 or visit the web site at wtcexams.org. The program has six testing locations in New York City and Long Island, including one at Queens College.

Plans to look for toxic World Trade Center debris and clean it up, which have been debated by an EPA advisory committee for more than a year, are still incomplete. Representatives of workers and residents in Lower Manhattan have criticized the EPAs draft program as being unworkable.

The EPA says that it will only take samples where landlords and employers volunteer to participate, and EPA refuses to join in an effort to encourage people to volunteer. That is a sampling plan that is guaranteed to fail, said NYCOSH Executive Director Joel Shufro.

At the last meeting of the EPA advisory committee, on July 12, the EPAs draft plan was harshly criticized, not only by members of the public, but also the three non-governmental members of the committee. EPA representatives on the panel, who appeared to be caught off guard by the criticisms, were not able to fashion a coherent response to them.

Soon after the meeting, however, EPA announced that it would no longer provide any funds for a community based participatory research (CBPR) program, which had allowed the World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalition to hire a part-time staff person and pay for expert assistance and consultation. Experts hired by the community with EPA funds produced a detailed examination of the EPA sampling plan, including proposed ways to improve it.

When asked to explain the reason for cutting off the funding, an EPA spokesman said the process didn’t work.

"It's hypocritical of EPA to say the process didn't work," said Micki Siegel de Hernandez, who is a community liaison on the EPA advisory committee and safety and health director of Communications Workers of America District 1. "On numerous occasions the community requested meetings with EPA to discuss ways to make the process work better, and EPA always refused to meet."

"The CBPR money made it possible for us to educate and mobilize the community, and to produce multiple technical critiques of EPA proposals," said Rachel Lidov, Co-Coordinator of 9/11 Environmental Action. "I can only assume that the EPA's idea of a successful program is one that pacifies the community so that it endorses whatever EPA says."

"I'm embarrassed by the staggering lack of priorities in Washington," said U.S. Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) at a news conference at the Central Islip Fire Department.

"By rescinding the $125 million: Is this our heroes' reward?"

Congress had provided a $175-million pool for the nearly 6,000 rescue workers who are sick or suffering from injuries incurred in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. But the U.S. House of Representatives on June 23 passed a bill that cuts the fund by $125 million in its version of the Labor Health Human Service bill.

The Senate also plans to cut the spending, and the president's 2006 budget proposal calls to cut the funds from $175 million to $50 million, which has almost been spent.

Jon Sferazo, a steel worker who cut through the twisted metal in search of bodies following the attacks, gasped Tuesday as he said, "Our government has left us behind."

The Huntington Station resident lost 31 percent of his breathing and lung capacity during the World Trade Center cleanup. "By failing to help our heroes in their darkest hour sends the wrong message to America," Sferazo said.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan), Vito Fossella (R-Staten Island), and John Sweeney (R-Clifton Park) were also on hand to urge the restoration of the funds.

The administration blamed budget constraints for the cuts. Furthermore, the administration has said the New York delegation was promised $20 billion after Sept. 11, and that money has made its way to the state.

Israel's office said the state has received $18 billion but was promised another $700 million for World Trade Center mass transit.