May 2006 News Stories

Razing of Downtown Tower Should Pause, Regulators Say, by David W. Dunlap, New York Times, May 13, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/13/nyregion/13rebuild.html

Federal and state regulators asked the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation yesterday to stop work on the former Deutsche Bank building opposite ground zero.

An inspector from the Environmental Protection Agency witnessed the removal yesterday of debris from the building that had not been properly cleaned, said Mary Mears, a spokeswoman for the agency.

"This was certainly not the first time," she said. "Now that it appears to be a pattern, we feel compelled to ask them to stop work until we can fix the problem in general."

Deconstruction of the 41-story former bank tower at 130 Liberty Street is not set to begin until next month. The current work involves abatement of asbestos and other hazardous substances.

Besides the federal agency, the state's Department of Labor and the city's Department of Environmental Protection are monitoring the project.

"We agree with the regulators that we need to adhere to the highest standards on this sensitive job," said John P. Gallagher, a spokesman for the development corporation. "However, we need to obtain greater clarity regarding what is and isn't considered full compliance with these standards, and have asked for a meeting at the site with the regulators on Monday."

The development corporation owns the building and is overseeing the demolition.

Yesterday's debris largely involved floor tiles from around the 35th floor. Work had already stopped for the day by the time the regulators made their recommendation.

Cleaning work is performed within sealed areas before the debris is taken downstairs. Ms. Mears said there were at least three prior occasions when inspectors required that debris bins be returned for further cleaning.

Last month, the rooftop cleanup was halted after a fragment of asbestos-containing material was found in the ballast. Hundreds of small fragments of human remains have also been found on the rooftop.

Tracing Lung Ailments That Rose With 9/11 Dust, by Anthony DePalma, New York Times, May 13, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/13/nyregion/13symptoms.html?hp&ex=1147492800&en=30f92dafb18d9966&ei=5094&partner=homepage

As they push their investigation into the health risks to workers in the recovery and cleanup operations at ground zero, medical detectives are focusing on a group of lung diseases that can lead to long-term disabilities and, in some cases, death.

After nearly five years, it is still too early for these doctors, scientists and forensic pathologists to say with certainty whether any long-term cancer threat came with exposure to the toxic cloud unleashed by the trade center collapse. But there are already clear signs that the dust, smoke and ash that responders breathed in have led to an increase in diseases that scar the lungs and reduce their capacity to take in and let out air.

The Fire Department tracked a startling increase in cases of a particular lung-scarring disease, known as sarcoidosis, among firefighters, which rose to five times the expected rate in the two years after Sept. 11. Though that rate has declined, doctors worry that the disease may be lurking in other firefighters. Experts who regularly see workers who were at ground zero in the 48 hours after the towers' collapse expect monitoring to show many more cases of lung scarring disorders among that group.

New evidence also suggests that workers who arrived later or worked on the periphery may also be susceptible to debilitating lung ailments.

"We have thousands of people who were down there with unprotected exposures," said Dr. Stephen M. Levin, a director of the World Trade Center Worker and Volunteer Medical Screening Program. "Many will develop asthma and a few will develop this terrible lung scarring that leads to disability or death."

But even in diseases closely related to dust, making a binding connection to ground zero exposure is hard. For instance, the Fire Department has linked sarcoidosis to working at the trade center site, while the Police Department has not.

The clues that led to this new area of medical investigation were stark reminders of what was lost on Sept. 11. They are drawn from cases of statistically unexpected respiratory disease among young responders.

The ailments now seen are far more serious than the general hacking and congestion known as "World Trade Center cough" that initially hit most responders. Rather, these are a set of diseases and disorders that typically take a few years to develop, and in some cases get progressively worse.

The most worrisome to medical experts are granulomatous pulmonary diseases, which show a particular type of swirling marks left on the lungs by foreign matter like dust. Doctors say the severity of the disease is often dictated by a patient's genetic makeup. The diseases include pulmonary fibrosis and sarcoidosis, the sometimes fatal disorder that can be set off when exposure to dust causes the body's immune system to attack itself.

Some people can live with the scarring if they limit their activities, but in others the exposure to foreign material sets off a cascade of ailments that can lead to more debilitating conditions and, eventually, death. Detective James Zadroga, 34, died in January when his badly scarred lungs weakened and his heart gave out. The coroner's report gave the cause of death as "granulomatous pneumonitis," and the autopsy found swirls throughout his lungs caused by foreign material consistent with dust.

Detective Zadroga's death was the first to be officially linked by an autopsy report to exposure to the ground zero dust, although the electronmicroscope comparisons that could have proved the match beyond a reasonable doubt were not done by the coroner's office.

The Uniformed Firefighters Association earlier this year linked the deaths of two firefighters and a battalion chief — from lung disease and respiratory ailments — to the air at ground zero, although the Fire Department itself has not formally acknowledged that those deaths were connected to ground zero work. And three young emergency medical technicians who worked in the dust and smoke at ground zero have died from pulmonary diseases and coronary problems aggravated by their battered lungs, according to the public employees union that represented them.

The use of respirators and dust masks might have reduced the incidence of respiratory ailments, but the most effective ones issued to firefighters are meant to last only 20 minutes. Other responders and volunteers who arrived after the first two days did not use dust masks at all or were only given paper masks, an issue raised in a pending class-action lawsuit against the city and private companies involved in the cleanup.

Although the reported cases of lung disease affect a tiny portion of the 40,000 people who responded to the trade center collapse, they have already caused widespread concern among the survivors, lending urgency to medical efforts to understand the risks and illnesses involved.

"When these cases come to public attention, every individual down there who has some problem breathing thinks, 'I'm next,' " said Dr. Levin, a professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Dr. Levin's screening program offers the most complete picture of the health consequences of Sept. 11, apart from statistics maintained by the Fire Department on the firefighters. Nearly 12,000 union employees and other workers who were exposed to the trade center dust and debris have been examined.

Dr. Levin said that more than 60 percent of those people developed respiratory problems like sinusitis. He said continued monitoring was beginning to suggest that more serious lung problems might follow; he will complete a new epidemiological study of responders in a few months.

In testimony before a Congressional committee in February, Dr. Kerry J. Kelly, chief medical officer of the Fire Department, outlined the department's concerns about lung diseases. She said one responder awaiting a lung transplant had died of pulmonary fibrosis. And the department was alarmed to find that 20 firefighters had come down with sarcoidosis in the first two years after Sept. 11, "a substantial increase from prior years" that was believed to be linked to "massive dust inhalation" at ground zero.

The high rate, five times the expected level, has since returned to the expected range — a clear sign, doctors say, of a link to Sept. 11. But there is still cause for concern. The disease may take longer to develop in some people than others, doctors said, just as certain groups — including Northern Europeans and African-Americans — have been shown to have a higher incidence of sarcoidosis than the general population.

Medical experts say that proving that exposure to a known toxin caused an illness is notoriously difficult, even in situations where the hazards are as obvious as the thunderhead of dust and smoke that rolled through Lower Manhattan on Sept. 11 and lingered over the rubble pile for weeks.

In some cases, making such links causes so much discord that government agencies have come to conflicting conclusions, extending the misery of those involved.

For example, firefighters who have developed sarcoidosis since Sept. 11 are thought to have contracted the disease because of their work at ground zero. Yet the Police Pension Board has ruled that working at ground zero did not cause the death of a police officer who developed the disease.

"This rift between the Police and Fire Departments is ridiculous," said Michelle Haskett-Godbee, whose husband, Police Officer James J. Godbee Jr., died in December 2004. She said that Officer Godbee, who had worked at or near ground zero for more than 850 hours, suddenly developed a hacking cough and grew progressively weaker, although he had to keep working.

After his lung collapsed in March 2004, Officer Godbee, a former marine and 19-year police veteran, grew frail and listless. In the weeks before he died, he could barely get out of an easy chair at his Stuyvesant Town apartment, Mrs. Godbee said.

The autopsy done by the New York medical examiner's office found that Officer Godbee's lungs were pitted with the blisters and scars caused by sarcoidosis.

Despite the Fire Department's well-researched information on sarcoidosis, the Police Pension Board last June denied Mrs. Godbee's application for a line-of-duty death benefit, which would have provided her widow's benefits — equal to half her husband's annual salary — every year for the rest of her life. The board said that sarcoidosis is "not known to be related to employment in the police force."

Mrs. Godbee said her husband worked multiple shifts over several months in the area below Canal Street that was clouded in dust from the collapsed buildings. He often came home with the stench on his clothes, and he was never given anything but a paper mask to protect him.

"There's no way you can't get sick after smelling all that dust and dirt," said Mrs. Godbee, a guidance counselor at a New York City public school.

Her lawyer, John Patrick Rudden, is trying to force the Fire Department to open the medical records of the firefighters with sarcoidosis in the belief that such information would strengthen Mrs. Godbee's legal challenge of the pension board decision.

Michael T. Murray, general counsel of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, said he expected the appeal to succeed because "the government can't treat two similarly positioned people differently."

Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, did not defend the board's decision, but he said police officers were usually not exposed to the same smoke and dust as firefighters. He said it was the board, which includes medical experts, and not the department that made pension decisions.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Protestors gathered at 1 Liberty Place on Monday to demonstrate the Deutsche Bank demolition, by Ronda Kaysen, Downtown Express, Volume 18 • Issue 51 | May 12 - 18, 2006

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_157/deutschebankdemolition.html

The 40-story tower at 130 Liberty St. was badly damaged and contaminated with World Trade Center debris on 9/11. It is being cleaned and demolished by the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. to make way for the new World Trade Center.

The deconstruction has come under heavy scrutiny in recent weeks. Workers recently stopped a painstaking search for human remains on the building’s roof after asbestos was found in areas previously deemed clean. The Environmental Protection Agency, which approved the cleanup and demolition plan, has not signed off on the floor-by-floor demolition phase of the building, which is expected to begin next month, because of changes to the plan.

Workers have fallen in two separate incidents and the subcontractor, the John Galt Corp., has been criticized for its connection to the Safeway Environmental Corp., a construction company with reported links to organized crime.

Concerns about the environmental impact of 9/11 reach beyond Deutsche Bank. On Wednesday, the City Council voted unanimously in favor of a resolution criticizing the E.P.A. for a testing and cleanup plan for Lower Manhattan. The plan does not go far enough in testing residences and businesses for remaining Trade Center dust, councilmembers maintain. “It sent a clear message to the federal government that the city is not satisfied with its efforts to date,” said City Councilmember Alan Gerson, who represents the area. “We’re not going to accept Russian Roulette with the health and safety of residents and workers.”

Downtown Express -- Downtown Express is published by
Community Media LLC.

Tribecans try to block project on environmental grounds, by Ronda Kaysen, Downtown Express. Volume 18 • Issue 51 | May 12 - 18, 2006

http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_157/tribecanstry.html

Local residents and elected officials asked the city to halt the demolition of a stand of North Tribeca buildings, fearing they might be contaminated with World Trade Center dust.

The six squat, one- and two-story buildings at Watts and Washington Sts. are being demolished to make way for a new residential tower, which has born the brunt of virulent criticism from local residents who say that the new development will be too large for the neighborhood.

The Jack Parker Corp., which owns the property, finished testing the building for asbestos and has applied for asbestos removal permits from the City Dept. of Environmental Protection. But on May 4, elected leaders led by U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler sent letters to D.E.P. and the City Dept. of Buildings, urging the agencies to oversee the demolition and not to issue demolition permits until the site can be deemed safe from W.T.C.-related contamination.

“We want to address the possibility that there may be contaminants from the World Trade Center,” said Andrew Neale, a member of the Tribeca Community Association and Community Board 1. “The community is asking the Parker Corp. to do things properly.”

The site, which is bounded by Watts, Washington, Desbrosses and West Sts., is one mile north of the World Trade Center site. Critics fear that toxic Trade Center dust might have impacted the building and the demolition should be monitored by regulatory agencies.

The demolition is only one part of a larger project. Jack Parker purchased the buildings four years ago with the intention of developing them. Last month, the city certified the corporation’s application to rezone a four-block swath of the area for commercial and residential use. Parker vice president William Wallerstein insists the latest environmental concerns are little more than a stalling tactic on the part of angry residents.

“It seems like a ploy to delay the demolition,” said Wallerstein. “I have to question whether this level of scrutiny has been placed on every single demolition project in the past four years. It seems arbitrary.”

Some residents closely involved with the community have privately voiced doubts that the buildings pose a 9/11-related health risk and say that this is the latest move by a community angered that the city certified Jack Parker’s rezoning application, a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, without a full Environmental Impact Statement.

“This is no Deutsche Bank, this is no Fiterman Hall,” said one resident who requested anonymity, referring to two large buildings near the Trade Center that were heavily damaged on 9/11 and are facing an Environmental Protection Agency-controlled demolition.

The ULURP, which must be approved by the City Council and the City Planning Commission, would allow four blocks of North Tribeca to be rezoned for commercial and residential use and allow for 160-ft. buildings that local residents say are far too bulky for the low rise waterfront neighborhood.

Local residents would like to see the entire North Tribeca neighborhood rezoned — not just the blocks near the Parker site. The community’s plan calls for stricter limits on how large buildings could be. Residents were outraged that the city certified the Parker application without calling for a full E.I.S. to determine impacts on light, air, traffic and soil.

“Since they have not done an E.I.S., you really don’t know what it is that’s going on down here,” said Albert Capsouto, a C.B. 1 member and co-owner of Capsouto Frères, a restaurant located directly across the street from the Parker site. “It there had been an environmental study then this would be a moot point.”

The city appears reluctant to take steps to increase oversight of the buildings. “We will enforce the law as we do for any asbestos removal project in the city,” said Ian Michaels, a city D.E.P. spokesperson, adding that Jack Parker has applied for an asbestos removal permit. The corporation has not applied for a demolition permit from the Dept. of Buildings yet, but according to Wallerstein, they plan to do so soon.

C.B. 1 plans to send a letter to the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, the office overseeing the Downtown construction projects, to add the Parker site to its list of charges. The Command Center sent an inspector out to the site to look at the site “and he is in the process of compiling his findings,” said Command Center spokesperson Jennifer Nelson in an e-mail. She declined to say if her office would consider monitoring the demolition.

The E.P.A. insists the Parker buildings are out of their jurisdiction. “We’re not involved with that building and we don’t expect that we will get involved with that building,” said Mary Mears, an E.P.A. spokesperson.

Nadler’s office was outraged that E.P.A. declined to get involved in the Parker site. “They are forced to deal with those sites [Deutsche Bank and Fiterman Hall,] but they don’t want to deal with anything further away, despite the fact that they are going to start a sampling plan” to test and clean Lower Manhattan residences for any remaining Trade Center dust, Arturo Garcia-Costas, an aide to Nadler, said.

In the meantime, the Jack Parker Corp. is moving forward with its own cleanup and demolition of the North Tribeca buildings as it waits for word on its rezoning application.

“The ULURP clock is ticking,” said Wallerstein. “Whether we demolish the buildings or not the ULURP is going to happen.”

But City Councilmember Alan Gerson, who represents the district, said he plans to vote against the application—a move that could derail it—if it arrives at City Council in its current form. “If it were to come to the city council as it stands now, yes, I would oppose it,” said Gerson, adding that he has spoken with the Parker Corp. about reducing the bulk of the buildings. “I hope they will reconsider” the proposal.

Ronda@DowntownExpress.com
Downtown Express -- Downtown Express is published by
Community Media LLC.

The State Legislature has introduced a bill amending a state pension law to give line-of-duty death benefits to public employees who die from 9/11-related illnesses.

Detectives' Endowment Association President Michael J. Palladino said the intent was to "close a gap" in the presumptive disability law signed by Governor Pataki in June 2005.

That law awards disability pensions to public employees who fall ill due to their clean-up and recovery work at numerous sites related to Ground Zero, but doesn't provide line-of-duty benefits to the families of workers who succumb to 9/11 related illnesses.

The DEA has been pushing to reclassify some 9/11 deaths as line-of-duty since one of its retired members, Det. James Zadroga, 34, died in January from a combination of diseases that a New Jersey Medical Examiner tied to exposure to toxic substances at Ground Zero.

Detective Zadroga worked for nearly 500 hours at the site after it was declared a crime scene by Federal investigators. He, like many of the city's Detectives, sifted through rubble at Ground Zero, the morgue and the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island looking for evidence and other remnants. He retired in 2005 on a tax-free three-quarter disability pension that his family can continue to receive for the next eight years.

If the law introduced in the Legislature is approved in both houses and signed into law by Mr. Pataki, the Zadroga family would be eligible for full death benefits, including a monthly tax-free payment based on 100 percent of Detective Zadroga's salary the last year he worked. His four-year-old daughter Tylerann could collect the benefit until she turned 19, or 23 if she was a full-time college student.

DEA Legislative Director Lou Matarazzo said the proposal was a "complicated piece of legislation" because it seeks to cover all public employees.

According to the fiscal note attached to the bill by the union's actuaries, the yearly cost would be approximately $3.5 million. Mr.

He said he didn't anticipate a struggle with the Bloomberg administration over the bill, even though the Mayor had adamantly opposed the 9/11 Disability Law because of the potential financial implications for the city.

The line-of-duty bill has the support of both Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. It would grant line-of-duty death benefits to those Ground Zero workers who retire with a disability pension as a result of ailments they developed from their 9/11-related work, but then later die because of those ailments. The bill would officially recognize that the deaths of these workers were directly related to their efforts at Ground Zero.

"I am gratified to see that this important issue has been so well received by our legislative leaders," said Mr. Palladino. "The passage of this bill would be a landmark decision to recognize those who sacrificed their lives for 9/11 and would properly compensate the families for their tragic loss."

In addition to pushing Albany to act on behalf of public employees, the DEA and leaders from several other uniformed unions met April 27 with the newly appointed Federal 9/11 Health Czar, Dr. John Howard to discuss 9/11-related health issues.

Mr. Matarazzo called the meeting "productive," and said the unions had been gratified by Dr. Howard's interest in learning about the health and safety conditions workers encountered in the aftermath of 9/11.

So What Is Going on Here? Shelly Silver to Demand Answers as He Calls for Special WTC Hearing, by Paul D. Colford, NY Daily News, May 11, 2006

Declaring the public is "tired of blame and tired of scapegoats" at Ground Zero, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver vowed yesterday to find out exactly what's planned at the troubled site — and when.

He has scheduled a May 18 Assembly hearing opposite Ground Zero at which he'll grill officials from the city, state, Port Authority, Lower Manhattan Development Corp. and World Trade Center Memorial Foundation.

He's renting space for the hearing in developer Larry Silverstein's 7 World Trade Center office tower, overlooking the mostly barren 16 acres.

"We can say, ‘Let's look at Deutsche Bank,'" he added, referring to the shrouded, contaminated building still awaiting demolition.

"What's going on with Fiterman Hall?" he went on, citing the ravaged City University building that mars the streetscape near 7 World Trade Center's front door.

The powerful Democrat, whose district includes downtown, brushed off the criticism that Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Pataki directed at the WTC Memorial Foundation this week after the group halted fund-raising, with the project overbudget and in need of an apparent design overhaul.

"First, Larry Silverstein was the problem," Silver said. "Now, suddenly, it's the memorial committee."

Silver said the hearing will be "consistent with the Legislature's role of oversight of government agencies."

Silver's questions also will focus on the details of Silverstein's newly restructured lease with the Port Authority for the WTC site, the timetable for rebuilding and the allocation of government funds.

Meanwhile, Silver, Manhattan Assemblyman Herman (Denny) Farrell and other lawmakers introduced legislation that would provide accidental death benefits for municipal employees exposed to toxins while responding to the WTC attacks.

At the same time, Dr. John Howard, the federal Ground Zero health czar, told the Daily News Editorial Board it will be a painstakingly slow process to draw solid conclusions about the impact of toxic dust kicked up by the WTC's collapse.

But Howard also warned that the "World Trade Center cough," and other symptoms might be the first signs of more serious ailments — and perhaps even deaths like that of retired NYPD Detective Joseph Zadroga, whose January death was linked to the time he spent in The Pit.

"We want to address unmet needs," Howard said, "and get the best possible science and methods of treatment in place."

Dr. John Howard, the government's new 9/11 health coordinator, discussed the tracking of health problems connected to the Ground Zero site with the Daily News Editorial Board.

QUESTION: A growing number of people are worried that exposure to the air around Ground Zero after 9/11 is now causing cancer and other fatal diseases. How will you figure out if that's true?

ANSWER: We hope to get a tracking system going. We hope to learn from each of the post-mortem cases what we can do in terms of treatment.

We'll look at cases like NYPD Detective James Zadroga [a 9/11 first responder whose recent death was ruled related to the attacks by a medical examiner]. He died of an inflammation of the heart muscle ... in a 34-year-old who isn't in the age group where you'd see coronary artery disease and heart failure.

That is a warning. In the language of epidemiology, we often call those "sentinel cases." Is there some kind of a pattern here? Are they dying of something related or are they not?

Even though some of those cancers may be due to other causes, it's important that we know that they occur. And right now we don't have a method to bring them together. So we're going to try to work on that.

Many first responders and residents are reporting something that's being called World Trade Center cough. What is it?

Most ordinary coughs are four-six weeks, then they go away. But a year, two years, five years - no. That's a chronic cough.

We call it World Trade Center cough because it seems to appear in large, prevalent numbers in people who were at Ground Zero. But we don't know what it is, specifically.

Could it be asthma? Chronic bronchitis? Chronic inflammation of the airways? People can have lung conditions that are tumors.

You have to work those people up medically to figure that out. So it's a convenient term that describes, other than mental health issues, seemingly the most prevalent medical effect that appears in people who were exposed.

There is serious concern about lung problems, particularly among firefighters and others who spent lots of time on or near the site.

Lung function degrades with age. You can compare smokers to nonsmokers, for example. Their lung function degrades faster with age.

What Fire Department doctors may report in their next paper is that those exposed firefighters have an accelerated aging process to their lungs. ... In other words, their lung function may be degrading a little faster.

The big question that I think we're all asking is, "How persistent is this problem going to be?"

We're almost five years after. People are still symptomatic. Will this be going on in five years or 10 years?

Leader of Post-9/11 Revival Says He Will Step Down, by Charles V. Bagli, New York Times, May 11, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/11/nyregion/11resign.html

John C. Whitehead, the former investment banker who has presided over the city's effort to rebuild downtown after the attack on the World Trade Center, is stepping down at the end of this month after more than four years as chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation.

Mr. Whitehead said yesterday that he planned to make the announcement this morning at the 54th board meeting of the corporation, which has been instrumental in luring companies back downtown, expanding residential communities in the district and developing a master plan for rebuilding at ground zero.

But Mr. Whitehead's latest job also may have required more fortitude and than his career on Wall Street, or his time as a diplomat.

He has had to wring money out of governments and juggle the often sharply competing interests of local residents, business leaders, cultural groups, the city, two states, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the families of 9/11 victims. His decision comes a month after the city, the state and the Port Authority finally put together a financial plan to build four towers at the site.

"It's an emotionally charged site with a great deal of political and private interests," said Gov. George E. Pataki, who appointed Mr. Whitehead three months after the attack. "But he always kept his eye on the public interest, and we can thank him for a job incredibly well done."

Mr. Whitehead, who turned 84 last month, will continue to serve on the board of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, but he will turn over the chairmanship to Thomas S. Johnson, chairman of the executive committee. Mr. Johnson, the former chief executive of GreenPoint Financial, lost a son at the trade center.

Mr. Whitehead's goal of building a monument that would rival the Lincoln, Jefferson or Vietnam Memorials is proving difficult. The foundation is currently trying to rein in costs, with estimates as high as $1 billion, without fundamentally changing the design. He said he was optimistic that construction will begin by Sept. 11.

"This is the toughest leadership job I've ever had," he said yesterday. "We've accomplished a lot. Lower Manhattan is a very different animal today than even before 9/11. I wish there weren't as many problems right now. But I'm 84, and I need to be relieved."

Mr. Whitehead, an avuncular man with a head of white hair, has led a storied life. A World War II Navy veteran, he rose to co-chairman at Goldman Sachs in a 37-year career.

He was deputy secretary of state in the Reagan administration, and a New York Times profile at the time said he "startled a number of aides by his preferences for straight talk and crisp decisions."

Mr. Whitehead, who brought his own press agent to the development corporation with him, could be somewhat imperial. But he quickly established that he took the independence of the development corporation seriously, sometimes to the chagrin of the Pataki administration.

Three months after the attack on the trade center, Congress agreed to provide New York with $8.2 billion in emergency aid for downtown, including $2 billion for the new development corporation. State officials, who had expected the money to go to the Empire State Development Corporation, were dumbfounded. Still, he did not always have the full authority to make things happen.

"When New York City was experiencing some of the toughest times in its history, John Whitehead stepped up to the challenge and played an integral role in downtown's resurgence and revitalization," Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday. "The city is grateful for the wisdom, experience and sensitivity he has provided, and we are committed to honoring his efforts by completing the plans he helped to create."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

Little by Little, an Overnight Success, by Lisa Chamberlain, New York Times May 10, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/realestate/10downtown.html

Square Feet

As in a wilderness area damaged by fire, the recovery in Lower Manhattan since Sept. 11, 2001, started small and grew imperceptibly until, seemingly overnight, it is starting to burst into bloom.

In part, the recovery seems linked to the diversification of Lower Manhattan commercial tenants. The market has been dominated by large financial-related firms, but in the last year or more there has been an influx of smaller nonprofit organizations, design and creative industries, media companies and law firms. Some have been drawn in part by rents that are lower than those in Midtown.

With that groundswell under way, there was a jump in the first quarter of 2006 in the leasing of larger spaces, and in some Class A buildings surrounding the World Trade Center site, rents have increased by 15 percent.

All of this has taken place despite the uncertainty at ground zero and the struggle to lease the newly opened 7 World Trade Center, the first new building to go up at the 16-acre site that was devastated nearly five years ago.

Just north of ground zero in TriBeCa is 32 Avenue of the Americas, between Walker and Lispenard Streets. It is a historically significant Art Deco building that was built in 1932 by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and its revival might serve as a microcosm of Lower Manhattan's comeback story.

Shortly after Sept. 11 and through the economic downturn that followed, 32 Avenue of the Americas was nearly 25 percent vacant. A major tenant, the telecommunications company Global Crossing, declared bankruptcy in 2002, and a handful of other smaller tenants went out of business or left downtown.

Starting about a year ago, however, leasing activity at the building increased sharply, and the site is now almost totally leased. New tenants, many coming from Midtown, include the Rai Corporation, an Italian broadcasting company; Gazes L.L.C., a small bankruptcy law firm; and Cambridge University Press, which will move in later this year.

Light Reading, another new tenant, is an example of a different driving force in Lower Manhattan's vibrancy. The company, an online publisher, was already downtown but had outgrown its old space.

"I've been saying for a year now that the fundamentals in Lower Manhattan are strong," said William C. Rudin, president of the Rudin Management Company, which purchased 32 Avenue of the Americas in late 1999. "What goes on at the World Trade Center is important, but life goes on around it."

The diversification of Lower Manhattan has played a critical role in its resurgence. Financial industries once represented 75 percent of commercial tenants downtown. That has dropped below 50 percent, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, a global real estate investment and management company.

"The conversion of older office buildings to apartments and condos and the increasing diversity of tenants have driven vacancies down," said John Wheeler, managing director of Jones Lang LaSalle. "It's a very healthy marketplace."

The Alliance for Downtown New York reports that the total number of businesses in Lower Manhattan increased by nearly 6 percent in 2005 from 2003, while more than two-thirds of signed leases at the end of 2005 were for 20,000 square feet or less.

In 2005 and the first quarter of this year, relocations from Midtown accounted for 459,445 square feet of space, while total moves into the area totaled 875,952 square feet.

Rai, which had been in Midtown for 37 years, moved to 32 Avenue of the Americas to take advantage of lower rents, sweeping views and the fact that the area is becoming a round-the-clock neighborhood.

"We are a news broadcasting company, so people are working nights and weekends," said Guido Corso, president of Rai. "Midtown at night is a ghost town. This has become a 24-hour environment."

Indeed, Lower Manhattan is the fastest-growing residential neighborhood in New York City, and many of the people moving in also make decisions about company locations.

Ian J. Gazes and his legal and life partner, Serge D. Krawiecki, moved their law office from Midtown at the same time they were also purchasing a condo three blocks away, where they live with their daughter, Julia Krawiecki Gazes.

"Out this window, I have a great view of where we don't want to be," Mr. Gazes said as he pointed north to Midtown. "And out of this window, I have a great view of the Hudson River, looking toward our condo. We love being able to walk to work and have our daughter close by."

The first tenant to sign a lease at the 7 World Trade Center was the New York Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization, whose president, Ellis Rubinstein, moved from the Upper East Side to a condo downtown.

Other new downtown nonprofit tenants include the International Center for Transitional Justice, which took 19,000 square feet, and the American Red Cross, which leased 34,000 square feet, both at 5 Hanover Square. At 52 Broadway, Vocational Foundation Inc. leased 17,000 square feet, and the Y.W.C.A. took 22,000 square feet.

Publishing and media companies with new leases include Bowne & Company at 55 Water Street, William H. Sadlier Inc. at 14 Wall Street and Lifestyle Media Inc. at 110 William Street.

Education, legal and government agencies are leasing considerable space in buildings like 29 Broadway, which had a 35 percent vacancy rate in 2004 but is now 100 percent occupied. Similarly, 32, 39 and 45 Broadway all had vacancy rates above 20 percent in 2004 and are now 98 percent leased.

"When you get a lot of smaller businesses, you get more diversification and more job growth," said Eric J. Deutsch, president of the Downtown Alliance. "People are voting with their feet, coming from Midtown, and we think that's part of what's pushing up the rents downtown."

Indeed, rather than a trickledown effect, demand for smaller spaces is helping to push prices up at the top. Brookfield Properties, which manages 10 million square feet of space around the World Trade Center site, recently increased rent at the World Financial Center by $4 a square foot, about 15 percent.

"At the beginning of the year, from a leasing standpoint we didn't know what was going to happen," said Richard B. Clark, chief executive of Brookfield Properties. "We had 900,000 square feet in play. We were a little worried, but we've since leased 650,000 square feet, which is considerable activity."

While downtown real estate brokers and property owners are singing the praises of diversification, the financial sector has not become totally dormant. Morgan Stanley and American Express both renewed and expanded their downtown space in 2005.

The finance, insurance and real estate industries are still the largest categories of tenants downtown. Overall absorption in Lower Manhattan was more than a million square feet in 2005, the first year since 2000 that a surplus of space has shrunk, as new leases exceeded space newly put on the market. In the first quarter of 2006, 950,000 square feet of space has already been leased. Not included in that figure is the recent announcement by the Aon Corporation, an insurance brokerage, of a deal to sublease 200,000 square feet from Wachovia at 199 Water Street. For the first time since Sept. 11, all of Aon's employees will be downtown.

Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association of New York and New Jersey, an independent metropolitan research and advocacy agency, attributes the overall health of Lower Manhattan to three things: the price advantage compared with Midtown, the influx of smaller businesses and the resurgence of residential life in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, whose residents have an easier commute to downtown than Midtown.

"Lower Manhattan is an astounding story," Mr. Yaro said. "It's a more interesting place now than it's been since Manhattan was founded."

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

'A completely unacceptable situation', by Heather Moyer, Disaster News Network, May 9, 2006

http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=3150

NEW YORK CITY (May 9, 2006) —

Protesters shouted, "What do we want? Cleanup! When do we want it? Now!" in front of the headquarters of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Monday.

The activists and community members were protesting the demolition plan for the 130 Liberty Street skyscraper in Manhattan, a building severely damaged during the terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2001. The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) owns 130 Liberty and is planning the demolition.

The community has long criticized the LMDC demolition plan for 130 Liberty Street, saying it's a poor plan that does not properly account for the massive contamination inside the building caused by the toxic cloud of dust released on Sept. 11.

Congressman Jerrold Nadler also joined the protest and spoke about what he calls "the inept manner" in which LMDC has handled the demolition.

"What makes this building so scary is its contamination with (World Trade Center) dust, a toxic cocktail of asbestos, heavy metals, PCBs, and other hazardous substances," said Nadler, the Congressional representative from New York's 8th district.

"It is beyond comprehension and an absolute failure of the public authorities charged with taking it down that so little progress has been made since September 11th. And whatever progress has been made is marred by unnecessary secrecy, bad judgment, and incomplete disclosure of crucial information to the public and to regulatory agencies. Unfortunately, demolition of this building has been and continues to be plagued with poor planning, questionable contracting practices, dangerous work conditions, and apparently shoddy performance by the prime contractor and its subs."

Nadler and others have heavily criticized LMDC's demolition plan and choice of demolition contractors since the company bought the building in August of 2004. The groups argue that LMDC has not taken into account public comments on the demolition and is trying to alter demolition plans without approval from the correct agencies.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has also been at odds with LMDC over the demolition plan several times as well, recently stopping work at 130 Liberty Street due to the "improper cleaning of the roof." The EPA also slammed the LMDC in early April for altering the demolition plan and not having the changes approved by the regulatory agency. The EPA also stopped the demolition work twice in March - once due to exceedances in silica in the air and another time when a worker was seriously injured after a fall.

LMDC has two phases set for the demolition of 130 Liberty Street, with Phase 1 being the cleaning of the contaminated sections and Phase 2 being the actual disassembling and demolition of the building. Controversy arose in the past two months when EPA officials expressed concern over changes made to the Phase 2 plans originally agreed to in September 2005.

In a letter from March 2006, EPA World Trade Center Coordinator Pat Evangelista stated that "As you know, it is our view that LMDC is now planning a deconstruction which apparently has significant differences since our review and acceptance of LMDC's abatement plan last September."

After more letters about Phase 2 were exchanged between the EPA and LMDC, Evangelista sent another letter in April expressing concerns over the continuing differences. He noted that the "EPA and its regulatory partners have not been provided with sufficient details about these proposed engineering changes to evaluate them fully.

"(The) EPA's principal objective in assessing the Phase 2 structural deconstruction plans is to identify instances where safeguards must be strengthened for the prevention of releases into the environment of hazardous substances and contaminants that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to worker and public health and the environment. Our regulatory team wants to reiterate that work on the structural deconstruction of 130 Liberty shall not commence until such time as the regulatory team has agreed that LMDC has provided them with an acceptable plan for such work."

LMDC responded with a message of its own, stating in a public email that the deconstruction work had not been delayed, but rather that the agencies were all working together to evaluate the plans. "In recent days, you may have read or heard news accounts claiming that a disagreement between LMDC and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is delaying the deconstruction of 130 Liberty St," said Michael Haberman, LMDC's Vice President for Community Development. "We want to assure you that this is not true and that the project remains on schedule for completion in the spring of 2007."

Haberman reiterated that the EPA and other regulatory agencies approved the deconstruction plan back in September, but also noted that some changes had been made and are now being reviewed.

"In addition, more detailed plans have been developed for Phase II, which is scheduled to begin in June. These plans are under review by the (New York) Department of Buildings in consultation with EPA and other regulatory agencies. EPA has, in fact, asked for more details about the techniques that will be used during Phase II. We are now working with EPA and the other regulatory agencies to address any remaining questions and concerns in a manner that ensures the health and safety of the community and the workers."

In addition to the ongoing discussion between the EPA and LMDC over Phase 2, community activists are now worried that the current demolition contractor for the project is not qualified to deal with asbestos removal. "Our concern is very high - this is a completely unacceptable situation," said Kimberly Flynn of 9/11 Environmental Action, who applauds the EPA's actions in response to the LMDC demolition.

"We think the EPA understands the seriousness of the questions here. They understand the community's right to be informed. We're encouraging the EPA to become even more aggressive."

Jonathan Bennett agreed. "The next step is to keep the pressure up," said Bennett, director of public affairs for the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. "(The LMDC) has closed the curtain on public input, so now we have to depend on the EPA even more than before."

Nadler echoed the sentiment during his speech at Monday's rally. "We simply cannot take a business-as-usual approach to this challenge. The fact is, demolishing a 40-story building as contaminated as this one in the middle of a densely populated neighborhood has never been attempted.

"The fact is that taking down the scariest building in New York requires the best possible planning, the most experienced and responsible contractors, and the most open and transparent process possible. Everyone is eager to see this eyesore removed from the city's skyline, but we must not sacrifice public health and safety on the altar of expedience."

Copyright © 2005-2006 Disaster News Network Inc. All Rights Reserved

‘Toxic Tower’ Fears: Downtown Residents, Workers Say Contractor Unfit for Deutsche Bank Project, by Amy Zimmer, Metro New York, May 9, 2006

GROUND ZERO Some residents call it the "toxic tower" and they fear that the $52 million decontamination and demolition of the 41-story Deutsche Bank building is being done improperly by a subcontractor without experience in such projects.

"We know the deal all too well: That building has the same dust that gave us asthma and nosebleeds after the [Twin Towers] fell," said Mary Perillo, a resident of 125 Cedar St., which is across from the shrouded building. "We don’t want to go through that again."

Perillo, several neighbors and Downtown workers who are worried about the possible release of asbestos, lead, PCBs and other harmful toxins protested yesterday in front of the headquarters of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is overseeing the demolition project.

"The LMDC is supposed to be a watchdog agency, but who is watching them?" Perillo asked. "They talk a good game, but it’s all PR. You really need the EPA to oversee this." Residents want the LMDC to provide an emergency plan for the community and re-establish the public process for addressing their concerns.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raised concerns with the project after inspectors found contaminated materials on the building’s roof, which was supposedly already cleaned. The LMDC halted the roof cleaning, though it has continued interior abatement.

The EPA also found the LMDC’s demolition plan lacking and have requested the agency re-submit detailed plans before greenlighting that phase. The U.S Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration sent three serious violations to the subcontractor, the John Galt Co., last week in response to a worker’s 40-foot fall in March.

"We believe that a company like John Galt that has no experience should be taken off the job," said Kimberly Flynn, an advocate with the World Trade Center Community-Labor Coalition. "This is the most dangerous demolition in town and it should be a responsible contractor-only demolition."

Yesterday, Joel Kupferman, a environmental lawyer representing a group of residents, delivered an "intent to sue letter" to the LMDC, the Empire State Development Corporation and the Port Authority for their "handling, storage, transportation and disposal of the solid wastes in the abatement and deconstruction of 130 Liberty Street, which may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment."

According to LMDC spokesman John Gallagher, "The unique nature of this project has resulted in a higher level of scrutiny than on other construction jobs in New York, and while we welcome public scrutiny and input, we regret that some groups feel it necessary to continually exploit and exaggerate problems that arise on a job of this complex nature."

The Air down There: Deutsche Bank Demolition Sparks Fears about the Quality of Subway Air, by Patrick Arden, Metro New York, May 9, 2006

LOWER MANHATTAN Environmental lawyer Joel Kupferman pointed up at the Deutsche Bank building, but what troubled him last week ran underground.

The 1 train rolls through the World Trade Center site, Kupferman noted, and 20 feet behind the heavily contaminated office tower are two ventilation plants with industrial-strength fans meant to push air into the tunnel in case of a fire or other emergency. On the street, open grating offered a straight shot into the 1 and nearby R and W lines.

"The takedown of this building poses imminent and substantial danger," said Kupferman, who’s worried that no steps are being taken to protect subway riders.

In the aftermath of 9/11, federal, state and city agencies monitored the air outdoors for harmful chemicals, but no mention was ever made about the air in the subway. The Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center continues to test air outside but not air in the subway. Annual asbestos tests are performed in "randomly selected high-density stations," said NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges, but no measurements were available for Downtown. The last test occurred in July 2005.

The best-known test of subway air quality was released last year by researchers at Columbia and Harvard universities, but that study concentrated on steel dust.

"It’s been a concern to workers for a long time," said the lead researcher, Dr. Steven N. Chillrud. "But it’s not been on the radar of anybody else until relatively recently." No sampling was done in Lower Manhattan.

Contaminants can travel through the subway, Chillrud said. "Particles will move — trains are like pistons moving through tubes."

Kupferman fears that no one is worried about the air in the subways of Lower Manhattan.

"All those lessons learned from 9/11," he said, shaking his head, "and what scares me is that the same agencies that told us everything is OK are telling us now everything is OK."

Near Ground Zero, a Resurgence, by Julie Norwell, New York Times, May 7, 2006

http://www.time.com/time/insidebiz/article/0,9171,1191834,00.html

Stefan Pryor knows what a neighborhood back from the brink looks like. Five years ago, taking a Sunday stroll from his home near the World Trade Center meant jostling among the tourists. Today, he says, he bumps into neighbors. "There are many more residents now and a sense of community," says Pryor, president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. "We even have a new coffee shop."

Spared the political turf war at ground zero, the surrounding areas--Wall Street, Battery Park City, Tribeca and Chinatown--have forged ahead. After 9/11, hazardous air quality and broken infrastructure pushed people out of the area in droves, especially from the blocks nearest ground zero, displacing 100,000 jobs and sending residential occupancy rates plunging to 60%. Since 2003, jobs are up 11%, and residential occupancy is above 95%. Lower Manhattan also has more than a dozen new or refurbished parks and open spaces, with six more on the way.

The biggest success story is the booming residential population. Early on, officials were worried that no one would want to live in the shadow of ground zero, so the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., which coordinates the rebuilding of the area, dedicated $300 million to housing grants: rent or mortgage subsidies of as much as $12,000 for people who committed to living downtown for two years, as well as one-time payments of up to $1,000 for existing residents who stayed put. The sweeteners brought in new residents, who revitalized big apartment complexes like Battery Park City and pushed developers to convert old office buildings in the financial district into apartments, a trend already under way before 9/11. More than 36,000 people now live in lower Manhattan, up 58% from 2000. Those young, affluent newcomers have attracted posh new stores like Sephora and Hermes and new restaurants like Bobby Van's Steakhouse, lighting up streets that once went dark at 5 p.m.

It is perhaps a testimony to the success of lower Manhattan's rebuilding that the city is scrambling to provide infrastructure to match the huge growth. The area needs more retail stores and relief for crowded schools, and an overhaul of the subway and commuter-rail systems is moving slowly. "We have only one full-service hospital below 12th Street, and it has serious financial challenges," says Alan Gerson, a lower Manhattan city councilman. Of all the neighborhoods, Chinatown has shown the least improvement. The garment industry there never fully recovered, existing zoning laws inhibit residential development, and the area is struggling to make the most of the hundreds of small businesses that dominate the area. But Chinatown has a new leader for its business district: Wellington Chen, who promises to boost tourism and marketing and clean up the streets.

While lower Manhattan has further to go, Pryor and his new neighbors have already done the hardest work. They turned what was once just a massive center of commerce into something that, for now, seems much more precious--a neighborhood.

Copyright © 2006 Time Inc. All rights reserved.

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May 7, 2006 -- The insurance company created with federal funds to cover the city and its contractors for claims from the World Trade Center cleanup has spent $30 million on overhead - including more than $20 million on lawyers, The Post has learned.

Records show the WTC Captive Insurance Co., a nonprofit that manages $1 billion approved by Congress, has not paid any claims by 9/11 recovery workers.

Both the insurance company and the city declined to discuss how many lawyers were hired, at what hourly rate, and what work they have billed for the $20 million in fees.

Kekst and Company, a public-relations firm hired by the insurance company, called the litigation to fight more than 5,300 illness and injury claims filed by 9/11 workers "costly and time-consuming."

Annual reports obtained by The Post show that WTC Captive - a self-insurance company formed in 2003 by state legislation pushed by Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg - spent about $3.6 million in 2004 and $25.6 million in 2005.

Other expenses include $1.3 million in corporate legal fees for the law firm of McDermott, Will & Emery. The other legal fees were paid to the firms of Latham & Watkins and Patton Boggs to defend the city and its contractors against mounting lawsuits by 9/11 workers.

Sources said the lawyers have helped write a motion to dismiss all recovery-worker claims on the grounds the city was responding to a civil emergency. Lawyers in such cases typically earn $350 to $850 per hour, the sources said.

The company's expenditures have outraged Rep. Carolyn Maloney of Manhattan, who said she pushed for the $1 billion in insurance not only to protect the 9/11 contractors from liability, but to compensate workers harmed during the hazardous cleanup.

"More than 5,000 claims have been filed, but zero paid. I think that's preposterous, given that thousands of people have documented illnesses from 9/11," she said.

The Rev. Stephen Petrovich spent 11 days at the Ground Zero's makeshift morgue administering last rites to people and parts of people.

Demolition Sparks Landmarking Effort, by Carl Glassman, Tribeca Trib, May 3, 2006

http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/newsmay06/landmarking.htm

Just five stories tall and a century-and-a-half old, the building at 16 Warren Street was taken down quickly and easily last month. As workers pried apart brick sidewalls and pulled up ceiling joists, Lisa Lim watched grimly from a rear window of her apartment at 80 Chambers Street.

"It's being demolished floor by floor," she said, looking down at the building, now two stories shorter. "When they take it apart it's heart-wrenching. It's a beautiful building."

Sixteen Warren Street will be replaced by a building nearly twice its size, and neighboring structures could share the same fate. A set of similar 19th-century buildings line Warren and Chambers Streets, between Broadway and West Broadway, a stone's throw from the city-protected Tribeca South Historic District.

Lim organized a group of her neighbors, the Conservancy Committee of the Tower 270 Condominium, to try to save those buildings from demolition and prevent the construction of large rooftop additions, which the group says are inappropriate. The residents identified 15 nearby buildings on the "historic corridor" of Chambers and Warren Streets that are similar in style, vintage and size to those in the landmark district and, they insist, deserve the same protections.

"I'm really afraid that one by one these buildings will be demolished," said Vincent Cangelosi, an architect and a member of the conservancy group. He and other preservation-minded residents warn of the possible acquisition—and destruction—of several buildings by one developer.

The group has joined forces with the Landmarks Committee of Community Board 1 to try to convince the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) that the Tribeca South Historic District should be expanded to include the blocks where these buildings stand.

"I was shocked when I saw it demolished," Marc Donnenfeld, a member of CB1's Landmarks Committee, said of 16 Warren Street. "Now, with people tearing buildings down, I see the urgency of the expansion of the district. Speed is of the essence."

Last month, CB1 hastily drew up a resolution that calls on the LPC to hold hearings on the expansion of the Tribeca South Historic District and the historic district in northern Tribeca, to include an area bounded by Canal, Hubert, West and Hudson Streets.

The board, which passed a similar resolution last July, noted that since then, 16 Warren Street was demolished and three other unprotected buildings on Warren Street have been altered.

Simeon Bankoff, executive director of the Historic Districts Council, a preservation advocacy group, warned that the loss of 16 Warren Street could lead to a domino effect.

"Suddenly it will become obvious to other owners that maybe their building should be leveled," he said. "You could have a whole row of 10 buildings, crowding each other out."

Local preservationists who fought in the 1980s to save Tribeca's architectural fabric had wanted the LPC to protect a wider swath of the neighborhood than the agency eventually included when it created Tribeca's four historic districts in 1991 and 1992. The boundary of the Tribeca South Historic District went only as far south as the north side of Chambers Street.

In November 2002, the LPC expanded the southern district to include 28 more buildings on the south side of Chambers Street and on Murray and Warren Streets, but that was still far fewer than preservation advocates recommended. At that time several members of the LPC said they hoped to see additional areas of the neighborhood protected. Sherida Paulsen, then the chairwoman of the LPC, told the Trib that the commission's research department was "actively evaluating" proposals to further expand the district.

Last month—three-and-a-half years later—an LPC spokeswoman told the Trib that the most recent request for an extension of the district was "being evaluated." Robert Tierney, the LPC's chairman, and Mary Beth Betts, the commission's director of research, declined to be interviewed for this article.

Vibeke Lichten and Joel Assouline are a Philadelphia-based husband and wife team who are developing 16 Warren Street. They had intended to add six floors to the exisiting building but their first architect, Lichten said, made a "bad mistake" in his zoning analysis. "We based our purchase of the property on that faulty zoning," she said. "We were left without much choice but to build a new building." Lichten emphasized that the design will take its cues from successful new buildings in the historic district, such as 116 Hudson Street, between North Moore and Franklin Streets.

Sixteen Warren Street is the first building in the proposed expanded historic district to be demolished. But for preservation advocates, the alarm sounded seven years ago when a five-story mansion was built on the roof of 60 Warren Street, a five-story former champagne warehouse.

"We have philistines coming down from the hills who are out to destroy these historic buildings and make a profit," Carole De Saram, head of the Tribeca Community Association, warned at the time.

Since then, other so-called "lollipop" additions have freely sprung up in the area. Had they been proposed for buildings in the nearby historic district, the LPC almost certainly would not have allowed them.

While building owners often rail against restrictions placed on them by LPC oversight—whether for the size of a rooftop addition, the choice of a window replacement or the alteration of a storefront—preservationists argue that a building's landmark status or a neighborhood's designation as a historic district rewards landlords with higher property values. As an example, they point to the skyrocketing value of real estate in Tribeca's historic districts.

Without those protections, said Bankoff of the Historic District Council, "Pretty soon you've lost the feeling of Tribeca and it becomes an anyplace. Not the neighborhood that drew people to it in the first place."

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Two Big Demolitions Raise Air Concerns, by Barry Owens, Tribeca Trib, May 2, 2006

http://www.tribecatrib.com/news/newsmay06/airconcerns.htm

In a neighborhood once coated with dust and toxins from the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, any threat—real or imagined—of more dust-tainted air is enough to raise alarm. So red flags went up last month at two locations near Ground Zero, 130 Liberty Street and 189 Broadway, where the pending demolition of buildings has environmental regulators and neighbors nervous.

Demolition plans for the shrouded former Deutsche Bank building on Liberty Street, which was severely damaged by the collapse of the trade center towers, raised concerns among government regulators last month, and the federal Environmental Protection Agency requested more details about how contractors plan to dismantle the structure and crush and cart off demolition debris. Workers have begun cleaning the interior and they are scheduled to begin dismantling the building in June.

Pat Evangelista, World Trade Center coordinator for the EPA, wrote in an April 11 letter to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which owns the building, that regulators were concerned about a contractor’s plans to use concrete crushing equipment at the site, to build an external chute to move debris, and to use some of that debris as backfill on the site.

“It is not clear to the regulators why the LMDC did not provide information to the regulators about the use of concrete crushing equipment long before,” Evangelista wrote. He requested that the agency explain why there appeared to be a change in the demolition plan.

The LMDC insisted that there had been no change in the plan, which all along has called for two phases of work—a cleaning of the building's interior, followed by the dismantling of the building floor by floor.

“The EPA requested additional information about the implementation of the deconstruction plan they approved in September of 2005,” an LMDC spokeswoman told the Trib in an e-mail. “We have and will continue to provide any necessary and requested information and documentation. We do not anticipate that this will cause delays in the project.”

The apparent confusion between the agencies prompted Community Board 1 to draft and adopt an “emergency” resolution during its public meeting last month. The community board called on the EPA to take a more active role overseeing the building’s demolition and requested that the LMDC revise its plan in accordance with the environmental agency’s recommendations.

“There has to be more oversight and accountability on the part of the LMDC,” Julie Menin, chairwoman of CB1, told the Trib. “They don’t have experience in environmental matters.”

A block away, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority last month halted demolition work at 189 Broadway, which was emptied of tenants in December to make way for the Fulton Street Transit Center, until the EPA could appraise the plan.

A CB1 member who lives in the area alerted regulators about the demolition work, which was begun without an environmental review.

“We shouldn’t have to rely on a neighborhood watch system,” Congressman Jerrold Nadler said in a statement.

Community board members had further cause for alarm last month as a New Jersey coroner’s report found that the death of a Police Department detective was caused by his exposure to toxic dust at the World Trade Center site.

Workers have discovered nearly 600 bone fragments on the roof of 130 Liberty Street since work began on the building, but the search for remains was halted April 27 when the EPA discovered traces of asbestos there as well.

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Deutsche Bank Cleanup Halted, by David W. Dunlap, New York Times, May 2, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/nyregion/02mbrfs.html

The rooftop cleanup at the former Deutsche Bank building opposite ground zero has been suspended by the federal Environmental Protection Agency until regulators meet with the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which is overseeing demolition of the heavily contaminated tower. On March 31 and April 19, inspectors found "visible debris and residual fines commingled with the roof ballast" in areas that were supposedly clean, said Pat Evangelista, the agency's World Trade Center coordinator, in an April 27 letter to the corporation. (Fines are tiny particles.) The corporation said it voluntarily stopped the cleanup on April 20 after a "fragment of asbestos-containing material" was discovered in the ballast during the search for human remains from 9/11. The corporation's spokesman, John P. Gallagher, said that the finding should not pose a health risk to workers.

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S.I. Beep: 9/11 Ills May Have Killed My Son, by Stephanie Gaskell, New York Post, May 2, 2006

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/67855.htm

Stephen Molinaro had his blood tested for 9/11-related illnesses just before he died suddenly last week, his father revealed yesterday at his funeral.

"I was the only one who knew - his family never knew," Staten Island Borough President James Molinaro said while delivering an emotional eulogy at his 40-year-old son's funeral at St. Mary's Roman Catholic Church.

Molinaro said his son, who was found dead in his kitchen early Saturday morning, had done some construction work near Ground Zero after the World Trade Center attacks.

It's unclear whether he had been sick and results of an autopsy are pending.

Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.

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9/11 First Responder Dies: Paramedic Deborah Reeve Succumbs to Asbestos Disease as Ground Zero Casualty List Continues to Grow, by Alfredo Alvarado, Public Employee Press, May 2006
http://www.dc37.net/news/pep/5_2006/9_11responder.html

Paramedic Deborah Reeve recently became the third Local 2507 member to die of an illness tied to toxic exposures at the 9/1l disaster site.

The 17-year veteran was one of hundreds of DC 37 members who worked at Ground Zero Sept. 11 — rescuing victims and searching for survivors of the terrorist attacks — and in the subsequent recovery effort. To do their jobs, they breathed the noxious smoke that saturated the asbestos-laden air, but in the early weeks city agencies provided no breathing protection.

During the eight-month recovery period, Reeve was assigned at various times to the morgue at Ground Zero, where she helped medical examiners identify body parts from the rubble.

Death toll climbs

By 2003, she began having respiratory problems — difficulty breathing and a persistent cough. Doctors later discovered cancer in her lungs and diagnosed it as mesothelioma, which develops after exposure to asbestos. After waging a two-year battle with the malignancy, Paramedic Reeve passed away on March 15; she was 41 years old.

"She was an amazing Paramedic, a wonderful wife and mother and a good friend," said Pat Bahnken, president of Local 2507.

The collapsing towers killed four DC 37 members. Paramedic Carlos Lillo, Paramedic Lieutenant Ricardo Quinn of Local 3621 and Fire Dept. Chaplain Mychal Judge of Local 299 all died doing their city jobs. Chet Louie, a Betting Clerk in Local 2021, had a second job in the WTC.

But the death toll didn’t end on 9/11. The price of doing good was an early death for Emergency Medical Technicians Felix Hernandez and Tim Keller and Paramedic Reeve.

Hernandez was one of the dozens of heroic members of Local 2507 who answered the call of duty Sept. 11, 2001, at the World Trade Center. He returned to Ground Zero to work in the recovery effort. There he was exposed to the asbestos that is believed to have contributed to the lung disease that took his life Oct. 23, 2005. Hernandez joined the Fire Dept. in 1995 and was 31 when he died.

Heroes forgotten

Keller was among the first rescue workers to arrive at Ground Zero, where he witnessed the collapse of the Twin Towers. Working around the clock to save lives, Keller breathed toxic smoke and asbestos dust as he sifted through mangled steel beams and burning wreckage. He died in his Long Island home on June 23, 2005. Keller was 41 and is survived by his two sons and a former wife.

Last January the Uniformed Firefighters’ Association an-nounced that three more Firefighters had died from similar causes.

Despite her heroics at Ground Zero, Paramedic Reeve, who worked at Station 20 at Jacobi Hospital, had to spend a year fighting the city for disability benefits. After her Workers’ Compensation claim was rejected, the New York City Employees’ Retirement System made Reeve the first city worker to get a line-of-duty-injury disability pension under the new 9/11 disability law, but she did not live long enough to receive a check.

"This should not be happening," said Bahnken. "She should have been treated like the hero that she was. Andit’s happening not only to our members, but also to construction workers and everybody that worked down there.

"The problem is that the city treats this like an accident instead of an illness. If you don’t get sick within two years you’re out of luck. This is bureaucratic bull."

Reeve is survived by her husband, David, who is also a Paramedic, and two children, Elizabeth, age 10, and Mark, age 6.

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