November 2006 News Stories (page last updated November 9, 2006, 2006) (Back to Previous Month) (Back to Archived News Stories) (Back to Main News Page) (Forward to Next Month)(subscribe to N&A, 9/11 EA's bulletin)
9/11 responders seek options for care, by T.W. Farnam, Newday, November 12, 2006
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-nywtcvr4972450nov12,0,7496420.story?coll=ny-health-print
Special to Newsday
Leslie James has spent two years appealing his workers' compensation claim for injuries he suffered fleeing from the World Trade Center and returning a week later to clean up toxic dust from the kitchen nearby where he worked.
The burning around his heart, his difficulty breathing and the plastic kneecap that makes his left leg swell - all stemming from Sept. 11, 2001 - have kept him from working since then.
"This is almost five years going, and I have to live with my three kids, my wife and myself," said James, 52, adding that the only income for the family is his 4-year-old son's $627-monthly disability check. "We use that for wash. We use that for travel. We use that for food."
James, of Crown Heights, and about 400 workers who helped clean up 1.8 million tons of trade center debris, gathered in lower Manhattan yesterday to learn about options for health care and fill out forms guaranteeing their eligibility.
Many said they are hopeful the new Democratic Congress will extend funding for monitoring and treatment.
"We have a large task ahead of us," Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) said.
"But I'm hopeful that with the election returns last Tuesday, we will have a less-deaf Congress and a less-deaf administration."
Without congressional action, federal funds for the treatment of 9/11 first responders will run out in July. Funds to monitor the ill workers are expected to last less than two years.
"The response of the government to the health effects of 9/11 has been disgraceful in the extreme," Nadler said. "The attitude of government has been 'Help us clean up the mess and then we'll throw you overboard.'"
Two bills are pending before Congress: The Remember 9/11 Health Act and the James Zadroga Act.
The first would provide $1.9 billion over five years for monitoring and research, and would provide Medicare benefits for patients. The James Zadroga Act - named for the New York City police officer who was the first 9/11 responder whose death was directly attributed to Ground Zero toxins - would reopen the September 11th Victims Compensation Fund.
Yesterday's event was organized by the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring Program based at The Mount Sinai Medical Center, which published findings in September showing that 60 percent of Ground Zero workers still suffer health effects, including reduced breathing capacity, pulmonary fibrosis and asbestosis.
Doctors said the worst effects may not surface for years. Prior to the study's release, the program had examined nearly 12,000 first responders.
Thousands more workers have entered the monitoring program since the study was published, bringing the total number of patients to 17,600.
"People coming in now are much sicker," said Dr. Jacqueline Moline, a co-author of the Mount Sinai study. "They've waited five years."
The program will have to notify patients of an impending lack of services in a few months without more funding, she said.
In the meantime, James is surviving day to day, using sample medications from his doctors.
"I have to pray to God that something good will happen," he said.
"When I asked [my doctor] what is happening, she said, 'You are like a ticking time bomb.'"
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
Gathering of Heroes & Help at Last, by Paul H.B. Shin, Daily News, November 12, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/470567p-396064c.html
For many World Trade Center responders who have fallen ill after toiling in the toxic haze of 9/11, getting medical care and paying those bills has been a struggle.
But hundreds of Ground Zero heroes got a helping hand yesterday at a conference that provided one-stop shopping for medical and legal services.
The gathering - a block from Ground Zero at the headquarters of DC 37, the city's biggest union - also empowers ailing workers because they realize they are not alone in their suffering, said Dr. Stephen Levin of Mount Sinai Medical Center, which has been monitoring and treating thousands of first responders.
"If it weren't for the existence of these treatment programs, many of these people wouldn't have access to care," Levin said.
Among the estimated 40,000 Ground Zero responders, thousands have been stricken, according to a landmark study unveiled by Mount Sinai in September.
Among them is Andy Scallo, 45, a heavy equipment operator who worked for three months on the smoldering pile.
Scallo now suffers from multiple sclerosis and may soon have to quit his job, he said.
"I was here to help my country. Now I'm sick," Scallo said. "My doctor tells me in two years, I won't be walking."
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) said the federal government must do more to treat Ground Zero heroes. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently released the first batch of federal funds - $40 million - for treatment, not merely health monitoring.
Nadler is pushing legislation to provide medical care for responders through Medicare, "so that the heroes of 9/11 are treated like heroes and not inconvenient people to be forgotten."
Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) has introduced legislation to reopen the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund to pay for their medical bills.
With Democrats set to take over of both houses of Congress in January, "we really have an opportunity to do right by the heroes of 9/11," said Maloney's spokesman, Joe Soldevere.
Ghosts of 9/11 Shadow Pit, by Greg B. Smith, Daily News, November 12, 2006
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/470689p-395993c.html
Noxious gray dust covers the green plastic student desks inside CUNY's Fiterman Hall, an unwelcome reminder of that terrible morning five years ago.
A massive pile of debris clogs the lobby of the former Deutsche Bank tower, a dust-choked swamp that has yet to be searched for human remains.
Five years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, all is silent inside the ghost buildings of Ground Zero. It is as if time itself has stood still.
"It pretty much exists today in the state that it existed back then," said Benn Lewis, vice president of Airtek Environmental, a consultant who recently toured Fiterman's locked-down halls and classrooms.
Inside one Fiterman classroom, a video cassette sits on a dust-covered desk. A pen sits on another desk, a smashed lightbulb on another. A black leather sofa is caked with dust so thick it looks white. Desks face a chalkboard that's blank except for somebody's nickname, "MUZ," scrawled in the corner.
Visitors who've been inside found a plaque awarded to a student for poetry - left behind in the rush to escape.
Both Fiterman and Deutsche Bank are strictly off-limits to the public. The state, which owns both, has denied journalists entry because the dust inside is considered toxic.
Photos obtained by the Daily News of the interiors of Fiterman and the former Deutsche Bank structure make clear just how dangerous those buildings are.
The photos of Fiterman, on West Broadway at Barclay St., were taken by state Dormitory Authority workers last month; the photos inside the Deutsche building at 130 Liberty St. were taken in June 2005, but the areas remain unchanged, sealed off from the outside world.
Inside a thick layer of dust created by the collapse of the twin towers covers floors, walls and furniture. That dust - a mix of asbestos, cadmium, benzene and other toxins - is the reason both buildings have been left frozen in time for years.
Fiterman is especially jarring. The morning of the attacks, CUNY students and teachers evacuated minutes after the first plane struck the north tower a block away.
Five years later, Fiterman remains unfit for human habitation. A fight over who would pay for demolition and a replacement building has delayed the cleanup.
Next week, the city medical examiner plans a walk-through, with a full-press search for human remains commencing in the spring. The Dormitory Authority will then begin tearing it down.
"It's considered a contaminated space," Lewis said, noting that nothing comes in or out of the building that "has not been contaminated."
The most powerful sign of 9/11 inside Fiterman is the gash that opened up the southwest corner when its neighbor, 7 World Trade Center, collapsed in an apocalyptic heap.
A similar scenario haunts the ex-Deutsche Bank building on the southern edge of Ground Zero, a 40-story tower that was ruined when the collapsing south tower ripped an 18-story gash down its facade.
In the lobby, a waist-deep pile of debris looks like the landfill that time forgot: pipes, electrical wires, drywall, all caked in dust and dumped in a heap where bankers once rushed to their offices.
A collapsed sheet-metal tube lay on an office desk, where someone scrawled "14" in the WTC dust. Metal air ducts are piled against a neatly tiled wall; a nickel-sized dent in a brass column looks like a bullet had struck.
The state - which bought the Deutsche Bank tower in 2004 - has begun the difficult process of cleaning and taking down the dust-choked building without releasing dust into the neighborhood. The process - slowed by the discovery of more than 700 human bone fragments on the building's roof - is expected to continue into next fall.
GOING BACK
September 2005
Demolition workers inspecting roof of 130 Liberty St., the former Deutsche Bank tower, find a half-dozen human bones on the roof.
April
City launches full-scale search for human remains after more bones are found at the former bank building. Within weeks, 760 bone fragments are discovered in roof ballast.
April 7
Federal officials begin talks with New York State authorities about safe demolition of CUNY's Fiterman Hall at 80 West Broadway.
This month
City medical examiner plans walk-through at Fiterman, first step in full-scale search there for human remains.
Fall 2007
Former Deutsche Bank tower and Fiterman Hall are scheduled to be demolished.
Help for WTC Workers: Institute Gives $1.1M to Queens College Program So it Can Better Treat Illnesses Related to 9/11 Cleanup, by Zachary R. Dowdy, Newsday, November 11, 2006
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywtc114971333nov11,0,6758377.story
A Queens College health program has been given $1.1 million to expand its monitoring services and actually treat rescuers and recovery workers who responded to the World Trade Center disaster site.
The Queens World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program will provide diagnostic evaluation and treatment of World Trade Center-related health conditions because of a grant funded by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
The Flushing facility has already treated some 1,000 workers since 2004, officials said.
"This new grant allows us to move beyond simply documenting WTC-related illnesses to offering concrete medical assistance to people in need," said Dr. Steven Markowitz, director of Queens College's Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, which houses the monitoring and treatment program.
The grant is one of several from the national institute totaling $40 million that are being given to New York and New Jersey institutions.
Men and women who responded to the Sept. 11 attacks have developed symptoms and illnesses including breathing disorders, such as chronic sinusitis and asthma, stomach ailments, such as gastrointestinal reflux disease, and psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
They also have been diagnosed with lung scarring. Cases of cancer have cropped up, though experts are unsure whether to attribute cancers to exposure to Ground Zero toxins.
The new diagnostic evaluation and treatment services include occupational health evaluation as well as references for pulmonary, gastrointestinal and other specialty care.
It includes medical tests, medications and inpatient hospitalizations for WTC-related health conditions specified by the occupational safety institute.
Funding runs through May, while patient monitoring continues through May 2009.
The program is open to all World Trade Center responders eligible for enrollment in the WTC Medical Monitoring Program.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
Discovery of More 9/11 Remains Proves Tough for Some Families, by Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press, November 11, 2006
Mary Jane Waring has waited for five years for someone to find her brother, so she can bury a small part of what she lost on Sept. 11, 2001.
But since workers began discovering hundreds of bones in long-buried places at ground zero, she has become afraid of the emotions that could be unearthed with them.
"If they do find something, it would be very upsetting for everybody," said Waring, whose brother, James Waring, died in the top floors of the World Trade Center's north tower. "What would it be? Would it be his finger? Would it be his leg?"
The hope for the return of remains to families of the 2,749 people who died at the trade center - more than 40 percent who have never been identified - has grown in recent weeks, as the renewed search for remains continues and forensic experts say that advances in DNA technology could lead to new identifications for many victims.
Some family members who never received any remains are uncertain about what they want to find. Others, who have already buried what remains were found, are faced with the possibility of another funeral or burial.
"I'll tell you the truth, I couldn't go through exhuming his body again," said Bruce De Cell, whose son-in-law, Mark Petrocelli, was killed in the north tower. The family has received remains five times and buried him twice, the last time in 2003. "As far as I'm concerned, I hope I don't hear any more."
The fact that the city is still searching for unidentified body parts five years later is a rare thing for disasters. For example, all the 230 victims of TWA Flight 800, which crashed into the ocean in 1996, and the 168 Oklahoma City bombing victims were identified.
While Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,300 people in Louisiana, about 30 bodies remain unidentified. Frank Minyard, the Orleans Parish coroner, says he has not received calls from many families who don't know their loved ones' fate. He suspects many of the unidentified victims may not have had close family who knew their whereabouts.
The city medical examiner's office has stored more than 9,000 unidentified remains that were recovered after the terrorist attacks at the trade center, but couldn't be matched to victims. Nearly 1,000 remains were added to those in the past year after renewed searches on the roof of a skyscraper near the destroyed towers, and then in recent weeks in abandoned manholes on the western edge of the site. City officials plan a yearlong search for remains that haven't yet been found in and around ground zero.
The most recent finds are in good condition, and forensic experts told family members this fall that improved technology for finding DNA could yield to many new identifications.
"We try to match whatever DNA profiles that we manage to create to whatever DNA profiles that were in our database," said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office. "We're waiting on them anxiously."
In September, Joan Greener received word for the first time that her niece, Karen Martin, was positively identified - news that brought back all sorts of emotions.
"It was like a knife in your chest again," said Greener, of Salem, Mass. "You spent a couple of days bawling your eyes out and feeling that pain again. But then you thought, you know, this is a good thing."
Greener's family had buried dust from ground zero in 2001 to remember Martin, 40, of Danvers, Mass., a flight attendant on the first hijacked jet to crash into the trade center. Since then, Greener's daughter, also 40, has died, of a heart attack. She is buried in a memorial rock garden at a New Hampshire camp named after Martin, and Greener said Martin's remains will be put there as well.
"We know we can bring her to a resting spot that she would love to be at," said Greener.
In New York, Sept. 11 families have sued the city to create a memorial from material in a landfill where they say remains exist. They want a wider, federally led search for their loved ones than the city is planning.
For Nancy Mee, who lost her firefighter brother on Sept. 11, finding all that can be found of their loved ones is crucial, especially because of where they're being found now.
"If there's a piece of my brother laying on the street or laying on a rooftop somewhere, that's not acceptable to me," said Mee, whose family has received some remains of her brother, Firefighter George Cain. "People deserve to be put someplace sacred, not just cast about."
Bob O'Mahony prefers not to think about finding his brother, Matt O'Mahony, after five years. He worked on the top floors of the north tower at the Cantor Fitzgerald bond brokerage, and "my vision is that he went to sleep. After that, it didn't really matter."
He fears how that story may change, depending on where and how he is found.
"You're talking about slivers of bones and fragments and DNA. What does that really mean?" O'Mahony said. "The phone call comes in, it opens up a Pandora's box. A hard scab has already been formed. Do you really want to open it?"
© 2006 The Associated Press.
Salon owner looks to raise money for struggling businesses, by Priya Idiculla, Downtown Express, Volume 19 | Issue 26 | November 10 - 16, 2006
Vince Smith knew exactly where he wanted to open his own salon after he saw the scale model of Battery Park City in the then-newly opened World Financial Center. That location was South End Ave. and Smith opened his business, Vince Smith Hair Experience, there in 1990. Smith has been a Battery Park City business owner for 16 years now. He lost 36 clients and friends on Sept. 11, 2001.
The salon was able to re-open two weeks later, though Smith knew the trauma of 9/11 would be lasting. He contacted Project Liberty to help his staff and clients heal. Glenn Healy, a trauma specialist, came to the salon bi-weekly for the next two years to help everyone cope.
Smith’s salon continued to grow. Unfortunately, Smith has found that a lot of the businesses in the Downtown area have not been faring as well.
Smith will address that need by putting on the second annual September 11th Small Business Benefit Concert Nov. 16. “I have found that I have an extremely supportive audience in my friends, clients and neighbors,” he said. “I hope to sell out the concert so I will be able to help more than one business owner that evening.”
Healy’s samba group will be performing at the concert. “I think it is admirable what Vince is doing,” Healy said. “I admire his spirit for putting everything together.”
Smith was a musician from a young age, and took classical voice lessons as a form of therapy after 9/11. He started to write poetry, which later morphed into song lyrics. He wrote “The Brothers: A Tribute to the Twin Towers” in April of 2004. He performed the piece with four-part choir for the Downtown neighborhood at an informal outdoor observance on Sept. 11 in 2004. The performance generated CD sales and gave him a fundraising idea.
Smith formed the Lower Manhattan Small Business Fund in 2005 so small businesses could receive some financial help. He organized the first benefit concert last year with Linda Belfer, chairperson of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 and the president of the Gateway Plaza Tenants’ Association. They raised around $5,000 last year for the fund by ticket sales from the concert and Smith’s CD sales. Smith said there were donations from Councilmember Alan Gerson and Michael Fortenbaugh, owner of Manhattan Sailing School. This year, with the help of corporate sponsors, there are hopes to raise another $10,000 and Smith plans to begin awarding the grants.
The grants will be to help small businesses that were below Chambers St. before 9/11 get out of debt. “We all had to incur additional debt to stay in business after 9/11,” he said. “It doesn’t go away on its own, it just grows. I plan to make this an ongoing effort and will continue to raise money. My goal is to help everyone who has applied.”
Belfer said that though Lower Manhattan received some financial aid after 9/11, a lot of the funds were dispersed throughout the country instead of specifically the Downtown area. Smith said that the businesses just south of the World Trade Center site and east of West St. are having the hardest time.
“For a Small Business Administration loan, business owners would have to put up their own home as collateral,” he said. Currently, Smith has received five applications and a few inquiries. He expects additional applications and plans to advertise more after the concert.
Smith will be performing a new version of the song he wrote and performed at last year’s concert with his group Angels and Heroes. There will also be a rock group, Healy’s samba group, and a youth choir, Smith said.
“The main purpose of the concert is to gather the community together and to give some assistance to those businesses that are treading water,” Belfer said. She also thinks the concert’s date near Thanksgiving is fitting. “We get to give thanks that we survived and thanks that we can help others survive.”
The second annual September 11th Small Business Benefit Concert will take place on Nov. 16th at 7:30 p.m. at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park City. Tickets ($20 - $250) can be purchased at Smith’s salon. Visit www.vincentsmithmusic.com for more info.
Search for Remains: 9/11 Families Want Feds to Check Site, by Ginger Adams Otis, The Chief-Leader, November 10, 2006
Family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001 rallied at the World Trade Center Nov. 2 and renewed their demand that the city turn over to Federal authorities the search for human remains. Echoing a request initially made by U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer, they called upon the Defense Department to deploy a team from the Joint POW/MIA Accountability Command to Ground Zero.
Forensic Specialists
JPAC teams are made up of specially-trained forensic scientists assigned to recover remains of U.S. military personnel from conflict zones around the globe.
Mr. Schumer first called for a JPAC team in April, when workers dismantling the Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero found human remains while removing the roof ballast.
Last month, more remains were found in an abandoned manhole by Con Edison workers. Since then, the Bloomberg administration has begun re-examining other sections of the area where additional bone fragments might be found. The search is being overseen by Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, the Department of Design and Construction and the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.
More than 200 shards of bone and other remains have recently been discovered, according to the latest reports.
The results could help the Medical Examiner's Office identify more 9/11 victims. Because so little DNA evidence was found at Ground Zero, the ME's Office was able to identify only 1,151 of the attack victims - about 40 percent of those who died.
Many groups, such as 9/11 Families of Firefighters and WTC Families for a Proper Burial, have argued for years that the city's post-9/11 searches were perfunctory. They also protested the city's decision to send much of the waste from the area to the Fresh Kills landfill in Staten Island without properly sifting for human remains.
"We first got involved in this battle over the Fresh Kills landfill," said Diane Horning, president and co-founder of WTC Families for a Proper Burial. "It never occurred to us that they had also left remains behind at Ground Zero."
'Bring in JPAC'
Ms. Horning said her organization had concerns about the city's ability to properly oversee a recovery project at Ground Zero, which is scheduled for ongoing development for the next 10 years.
Across the street from the area is Fiterman Hall, which, like the Deutsche Bank, was damaged on 9/11 and is scheduled for demolition. The groups want JPAC to be involved in that as well. "The city keeps telling us what wonderful people they have in the ME's office, and that's true. But they aren't in charge," said Ms. Horning. "They keep telling us what wonderful workers they have, and that's true. But they also aren't in charge."
The agencies currently spearheading the search efforts at Ground Zero are "the same ones who said to pave over the remains before," Ms. Horning said.
"JPAC has no other ax to grind; it's not interested in building down there or the culture down there," she added. "They are only interested in human remains. We're not asking for a work stoppage. We're asking for a team that will bring focus and managerial skills."
The families' positions were supported by local elected officials and union leaders. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who represents the 8th Congressional District that encompasses lower Manhattan, and Uniformed Fire Officers' Association Peter L. Gorman both attended last week's rally.
Mr. Gorman recalled the days after 9/11 when then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani had a group of firefighters arrested because they resisted his order to stop recovery efforts at the site. The union leader thanked the firefighters, Police Officers and Port Authority officers who led the searches and continued to push for better excavation and recovery efforts long after city and Federal officials had declared there was nothing left to find.
Bitter Towards Giuliani
Even though he later expanded the search effort, "Mayor Giuliani was wrong," Mr. Gorman said simply.
Sally Regenhard, a member of 9/11 Families of Firefighters and the mother of Firefighter Christian Regenhard, who died along with all the members of his company that day, said the decision was "the shame of the Giuliani administration."
As plans move forward to build on the site, the city needs "a comprehensive expert assessment of what the situation is in Fiterman Hall and certainly in the surrounding areas," Ms. Regenhard asserted. "We've lacked that since 9/11."
WTC Worker Losing His Breath: Elmont Man's Fight for Disability Pension, by Brian Zanzonico, Long Island Herald, November 9, 2006
http://www.liherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=17445282&BRD=1601&PAG=461&dept_id=477736&rfi=6
Despite working in the rescue and recovery effort at ground zero, Vito Valenti has been denied benefits to treat his pulmonary fibrosis, a lung condition he said he developed after breathing the toxic air.
With a nasal cannula supplying his scarred, dying lungs with oxygen, Vito Valenti stops in mid-sentence and starts choking.
He lurches forward, puts one hand on his thigh to brace himself as his body lurches, and covers his mouth with his other balled-up fist. His face reddens, and veins in his neck bulge as he tries to catch his breath. His teenage son hurries from the kitchen with a glass of water. Valenti waves his hand in front of his face to apologize for the coughing fit. When he gets it under control, his body relaxes and he slumps back in his living room chair.
On the wall above him in his Elmont home are numerous citations for his rescue and recovery work at ground zero after Sept. 11, 2001. The one that holds the most meaning is a plaque from his union, Local 372 (Board of Education employees). He received it at a breakfast in November of 2001 that was held for him and a coworker who also helped at ground zero.
Valenti's work came at a price. Months after his time at ground zero, he developed what he initially thought was a cold-related cough. When it persisted, he had it checked, and he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis -scarring of the lungs - which, without a double lung transplant, is a death sentence. Valenti has no health insurance. It ran out before he completed a series of tests that would have put him on the lung transplant list.
With no money to afford refilling the 25-plus pills he is required to take each day, he is running out. His financial ills, at least in the short term, would be helped by the World Trade Center Disability Pension, which would give him access to the care he needs. In order to meet the qualifications for the pension, public employees must have worked at least 40 hours at ground zero. Valenti said he worked for two straight days, which should make him more than eligible. But union officials told him they could not prove he spent 40 hours there, because he and union Vice President Santos Crespo, the only coworker with him at ground zero, were separated and there is no official documentation of Valenti's service.
"I'm not looking for a lawsuit," he said. "All I want is a little disability [insurance] and I'll ride off into the sunset."
Sandra Davis, Valenti's union representative, did not return a call for comment.
Valenti, 42, a grievance representative for Local 372, was at union headquarters, at 125 Barclay St., just steps from the World Trade Center, on 9/11. It was primary day in the city, and he was assigned to work the phones at headquarters. He was in his office when he heard a bang.
"I thought it was the air conditioning ducts clicking on," Valenti recalled. "Who would have dreamt of a plane hitting a building?"
He went outside and saw the second plane crash into the south tower. Then, before long, he found himself trying to outrun the debris cloud that chased New Yorkers through Lower Manhattan after the south tower fell. "It was like a monster - it kept coming at us, picking up speed," Valenti said. "I turned around to look and it hit me. Day went to night."
He was covered head to toe with chalky, pulverized remnants of the tower. He choked on the dust, and a police officer nearby offered Valenti his bottle of water. He washed out his mouth and splashed his face.
With people on the streets in a panic, the second tower collapsed. Now people were running in every direction, and Valenti saw an elderly woman knocked to the ground and nearly trampled in the chaos. "I got on my knees and sheltered her so she wouldn't get hurt," he said. "I told her, 'Everything's going to be OK. I won't leave you.' Then I saw a cop and called him over. We got her over to the sidewalk and out of danger."
Later in the afternoon, there was an announcement that first responders were looking for volunteers to help with rescue and recovery. He turned to Crespo and asked if they should help. Crespo was hesitant, Valenti said. Valenti was not. "I wasn't about to sit around and do nothing," he said.
Valenti went to help, and Crespo followed. Valenti was assigned to one team of rescuers, Crespo to another. Valenti pulled fire hoses, gave water to exhausted firemen, helped unload medical supplies. But he wasn't prepared for what he was going to see.
At one point, a fireman walked over to Valenti with his hand on his neck complaining of bleeding. Valenti told him to take his hand away, and blood began spurting out. Valenti walked him over to the triage at Stuyvesant High School.
Near 7 World Trade, a police officer came to him holding what looked like a flattened piece of metal, Valenti said. The officer held it at arm's length and refused to look at it. He handed it to Valenti, who upon closer inspection discovered that it was a baby carriage. Like the officer, he didn't want to look at it, afraid of what might be inside. Valenti walked the carriage over to a nurse at the triage, who also didn't know what it was. Valenti told her and walked away.
He saw a woman still alive under a steel beam, her skin fused to the metal.
Valenti said he worked around the clock on Sept. 11 and 12. After taking a day to rest, he returned to work on Sept. 14. Headquarters were closed, so he reported to the union's building on 5th Avenue.
Weeks passed and everything seemed fine. Then one morning, he went to work ... and broke down. "I don't remember it, but [coworkers] tell me I was nervous and shaking and picked up a staple gun and flung it against the wall and screamed, 'I can't take it.'"
Valenti was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and was out of work for eight months. "It wasn't so much the plane hitting the building as it was the bodies falling and what I saw at ground zero," he said. "And those sirens. I heard them all day long."
In late November of 2001, Valenti and Crespo were honored by the members and executive board of Local 372 with a breakfast and plaque in recognition of their work at ground zero.
In February 2002, Valenti began to develop a cough. He didn't have the symptoms of a cold, but the cough was persistent and he couldn't shake it. He went to his doctor, who listened to his lungs and said he didn't sound like he had a cold, but his lungs weren't clear.
Valenti's doctor sent him to a pulmonologist, and he had a CAT scan and X-rays were taken. The CAT scan found a spot, and doctors took a biopsy of his lung. They said they thought it was pulmonary fibrosis. He was recommended to Mt. Sinai Hospital, and a doctor there took a quick test and said immediately that Valenti needed oxygen. In March 2004, he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a lung scarring that does not allow the body to oxygenate blood. It has afflicted many firefighters and police officers who worked at ground zero.
The condition worsened. Valenti had to stop working, because his job often took him inside old school buildings that don't have elevators. Walking up a few steps taxes him. Climbing three or four flights is impossible.
His doctor told him to file for disability. He applied for medical leave with pay, which lasts six months. Once that was exhausted, he applied for leave without pay for another six months. That expired.
Now Valenti has no insurance. He had his oxygen taken away because he couldn't afford it. The oxygen that keeps him alive now is donated by Homecare Concepts in Farmingdale, which has promised him a lifetime supply.
Many city workers who got sick after working at ground zero are eligible for three-quarter-pay pensions under the 9/11 pension legislation, which was enacted in 2005. Though the law recognizes that workers' conditions were caused by exposure to the toxic air at ground zero, Valenti failed to meet the criteria. He did not take part in the city retirement system before the World Trade Center attacks, which may leave him ineligible for the 9/11 disability pension. He also can't prove that he served at ground zero for the requisite 40 hours.
There is a 9/11 health crisis conference scheduled for Nov. 21 at the New Jersey Expo Center, with physicians, elected officials and ground zero workers expected to attend.
"I work hard with Congress to try to show there are a couple of things out there that can be done for these people, but the government needs to move on it," said the event's organizer, Angela Clemente, a forensic analyst dealing with cold cases of terrorism and government misconduct.
On the local government level, state Sen. Michael Balboni has also gotten involved on Valenti's behalf, writing a letter to the head of the New York State Workers' Compensation Board. "He asked that this be reviewed as quickly as possible," said Kelly Cummings, Balboni's communications director.
In addition to dealing with his own illness, Valenti has had his share of heartbreak since developing pulmonary fibrosis. After a brief battle with lung cancer, his mother, Pauline, died Feb. 10. A spot that turned out to be cancer was found on his father's lung seven days after Pauline's death. Neither Valenti, his mother nor Joe, his father, were smokers. But the three visited ground zero after Valenti's breakdown to bring him some closure, and Joe is convinced that he and his wife got sick there.
"When it rains it pours," Joe said, rolling his eyes. "It's no coincidence."
As cancer further depleted Pauline's lungs, she also depended on around-the-clock oxygen. "He was on oxygen, she was on oxygen," said Vito's son, who's also named Joe. "They shared the same tank."
The average life expectancy of someone with pulmonary fibrosis is five years, Valenti said. His diagnosis is nearly three years old. He knows the clock is ticking. "When I'm by myself, I break down and cry," he said. "Why is this happening to me?"
Despite his struggle to survive, Valenti said he has no regrets about doing his part at ground zero. He insists he'd do it all over again. "In a heartbeat," he said. "Just to see a little old lady thrown to the ground and people just jumped over her. How can I watch something like that? I'd do it again in a heartbeat."
Valenti said sometimes the physical pain of pulmonary fibrosis pales in comparison to what he has experienced from Local 372. The plaque that hangs on the wall is a daily reminder. "My job just forgot about me," he said. "To this day, three years later, no one has called me. I could've been dead a year ago and no one would know."
Comments about this story? FSeditor@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 240.
©Herald Community 2006
More WTC bones recovered in new search for Sept. 11 remains, by Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press, November 9, 2006
http://www.boston.com/news/local/new_hampshire/articles/2006/11/09/more_wtc_bones_recovered_in_new_search_for_sept_11_remains/
NEW YORK --Seven more bones were found in a ground zero manhole Thursday in the ongoing search for Sept. 11 victims' remains.
In all, 210 body parts -- ranging from small fragments to full arm and leg bones -- have been recovered from three manholes in the service road that had been used to bring construction trucks in on the western edge of the World Trade Center site.
Most -- 199 -- were found in the first nonworking manhole that utility workers came across Oct. 19 while doing a routine excavation.
The seven bones found Thursday were at the bottom of that manhole, which was checked again in a final sweep, said Ellen Borakove, spokeswoman for the city medical examiner's office. The bones were 1 to 4 inches long; it couldn't be determined which parts of the body they came from, she said.
Workers have found four other bone fragments in two other manholes along the service road this week, and they completely excavated four of 12 manholes and service boxes that officials said were missed during the initial recovery of remains that ended in 2002.
City officials have said they hope to finish searching manholes on the 16-acre lower Manhattan site in the next few weeks. They plan a yearlong search that includes at least one more area on the site, manholes along dozens of blocks close to ground zero and nearby rooftops and buildings.
Sept. 11 family members have called for a much wider search, saying the entire service road was never dug up thoroughly in the first year after the 2001 terrorist attacks. City officials have said they plan spot checks of different sections of the road and will dig further if they need to.
The medical examiner hopes to use DNA technology to match the remains to more than 1,100 victims at the trade center who have never been identified. The identifications of three more victims, including Douglas Stone, were announced last week, although they were not matched to the recent finds at ground zero.
Albert Stone, of Dover, N.H., had almost given up on ever finding a part of his brother, a passenger on the hijacked plane that crashed into the first tower.
"My family assumed that everything was just vaporized," said Stone, who had collected ashes from ground zero to bury if no remains were found. "We had just decided to bury those about a month before I heard from the medical examiner's office."
© Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
A MessageFrom Chancellor Goldstein, Office of Media Relations, Borough of Manhattan Community College, November 8, 2006
http://www.bmcc.cuny.edu/fitermannews/#
Dear Members and Friends of the Lower Manhattan Community,
The revitalization of Lower Manhattan after the events of 9/11 remains one of New York City’s highest priorities, and The City University of New York is a strong supporter of those efforts, particularly through the rebuilding of Fiterman Hall.
Fiterman Hall, located at 30 West Broadway, is a 15-story building that was donated to the University’s Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) in 1993 by Miles and Shirley Fiterman. On September 11, 2001, 7 World Trade Center collapsed into Fiterman Hall’s south side, causing significant damage and rendering it uninhabitable.
The College serves more than 19,000 degree-seeking students and an additional 19,000 students in continuing and professional education courses. Nationally recognized for its outstanding academic program, the College is an important resource for the Wall Street and Lower Manhattan communities. The new Fiterman Hall will greatly enhance the scope and quality of educational, cultural, and community programs offered by the College.
CUNY and BMCC, led by President Antonio Perez, are committed to working in close collaboration with government agencies and community organizations to provide the safe remediation and deconstruction and subsequent rebuilding of Fiterman Hall. In recent months, progress on several fronts has been realized.
In June 2005, Pei Cobb Freed & Partners Architects, and its team of proposed consultants, was selected to remediate, deconstruct and design the new building. Design and documentation for both phases has proceeded simultaneously.
In January 2006, the consultant team submitted a preliminary project to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for review. This submittal and ensuing comments have been posted on www.epa.gov and www.lowermanhattan.info. Remediation and deconstruction bid documents, including EPA’s comments on the preliminary submission, were subsequently released to fully vetted, pre-qualified bidders. The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York (DASNY) and the University selected PAL Environmental Safety Corp. to perform the remediation and deconstruction of Fiterman Hall.
In October, PAL submitted designs for scaffolding erection operations to EPA for review and comment by the involved regulatory agencies. The scaffolding erection submittal was posted on www.lowermanhattan.info following an October 25, 2006 meeting convened by New York State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, where we presented a progress report to elected officials, heads and representatives of county organizations and agencies. Work to construct the scaffold will begin upon approval of the submitted plans. We anticipate that remediation and deconstruction documents will be ready for submission before the end of 2006. These documents will be posted for community review and comments before submittal to EPA. We plan to begin remediation immediately upon approval by EPA and all other regulatory agencies. The remediation and deconstruction work should be completed within 10 to 12 months. Deconstruction will commence when the building is fully cleaned and abated.
Our team has also drafted an Emergency Action Plan to address the steps that will be taken in the unlikely event that the remediation or deconstruction work causes unsafe conditions. This draft plan has been made available to the community and sent to the New York City Office of Emergency Management and the police and fire departments for review. When comments from concerned parties have been received and incorporated into the document, we will re-issue the plan.
As we prepare for the remediation and demolition of the existing Fiterman Hall, work is also proceeding on the design of a new building for the site. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners recently completed the design development phase and is now preparing construction documents. Construction of the new classroom building is scheduled to begin in 2008. We anticipate a construction period of approximately two years.
Regarding searches for potential human remains, we are working with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to make diligent efforts to perform new searches. Initial contacts were made this summer, and on September 25 a meeting was held at the site with both the chief medical examiner’s office and the City’s Office of Disaster Management Operations to discuss search plans and inspections.
Even after our remediation process begins, we will maintain open communication with the Chief Medical Examiner’s office to provide access to the roof levels for any necessary inspections. Remediation on the roof levels will be performed only after the interior remediation and abatement is complete, thus allowing for approximately five months for the Chief Medical Examiner’s office to perform inspections of the roof and at the site in general.
We appreciate the involvement and interest by the community in the plans for Fiterman Hall, and DASNY and the University will continue to maintain open and frequent communication with residents and workers in the area.
Since June 2005, there have been regular updates both to the World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee of Community Board 1 and at the bi-weekly Community Outreach Meetings of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center. Speaker Sheldon Silver hosted well-attended meetings on September 7 and October 25 at which the University and DASNY provided project updates to a wide spectrum of legislators and representatives of elected officials, community, business and labor leaders.
Most recently, a public information session co-sponsored by Community Board 1, was held on October 30 at BMCC, with representatives from DASNY, the University, the environmental consultant, the construction management firm, and the contractor providing updates and answering questions.
As we move forward and enter this important juncture, BMCC and the University have enhanced outreach to ensure that all stakeholders receive news and information as soon as it becomes available, and to provide an interactive space for community questions and concerns.
The College and the University are launching on November 10th a new e-mail newsletter, “Fiterman News: Keeping Our Community Informed.” More newsletter updates will follow. We have also created a comprehensive new website, www.bmcc.cuny.edu/fitermannews. This site will host the e-newsletter and anchor news about Fiterman from a variety of sources. The site hosts a special subscription link to regular e-mail delivery of Fiterman News updates. Visitors will be able to view architectural slideshows of the exciting new Fiterman Hall. The site will also serve as an archive for important technical and design information. Other interactive features include special podcast subscriptions of future public forums and meetings as soon as they become available.
The site will also have a “Questions…and Answers” feature which will enable visitors to e-mail questions and obtain responses from college administrators. Please visit www.bmcc.cuny.edu/fitermannews, and ask your friends and neighbors to do the same. Please share your comments with us.
The safety and well being of residents, our students and faculty, business and community members, and the families of the 9/11 victims is of paramount importance to the University and the College. We will continue to move forward responsibly with the deconstruction and rebuilding of Fiterman Hall, with the goal of creating a vibrant new center of educational and cultural life in Lower Manhattan.
Sincerely,
Matthew Goldstein
Environmentalists put down 'Western rebellion', By Michael Doyle, Kansas City Star, November 8, 2006
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/15963330.htm
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The "Western rebellion" that propelled California Republican Rep. Richard Pombo to power now has receded, leaving many of its most important goals unmet and possibly beyond reach.
Democrats will run the House Resources Committee, which Pombo has led for the past four years. That will mean new priorities for parks, public lands and Western water.
It could mean less attention to a proposed San Joaquin River restoration in California's Central Valley.
The Democratic takeover also emboldens the environmental groups that spent well over a million dollars to help ensure Tuesday night's stunning defeat of Pombo.
It all portends an intriguing next couple of years in the environmental trenches.
"As environmentalists, we're often frustrated that our issues are not part of the political conversation," Gene Karpinski, the president of the League of Conservation Voters, said Wednesday. "But in race after race across the country, the environment was part of the conversation ... (and) we're proud of what we did."
The Western rebellion, also known as the Sagebrush rebellion, involves people in the West who think that the federal government oversteps itself on property rights issues, especially regarding enforcement of the Endangered Species Act. They also chafe over the fact that half the West is owned by the federal government instead of privately.
Pombo's surprisingly resounding loss to wind energy consultant Jerry McNerney, 53 percent to 47 percent, made the onetime rancher the only one of 19 Republican committee chairmen in the House of Representatives to go down in defeat Tuesday.
Pombo wasn't, however, the only Republican targeted by environmental groups. Of 13 lawmakers identified by the League of Conservation Voters' "Dirty Dozen" campaign, nine lost Tuesday. They included Rep. Charles Taylor of North Carolina, whose Democratic opponent, Heath Shuler, likewise benefited from the organization's ads. Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Rick Santorum, another ad target, also lost.
With the exception of Pombo's race, the environment wasn't the highest profile issue in targeted House and Senate campaigns. Independent polls ranked it far below Iraq, terrorism, ethics and health care. Taken together, though, the congressional departures transform the environmental debate.
"We've elected a greener U.S. House and a greener U.S. Senate," said Cathy Duvall, the national political director for the Sierra Club.
The probable new chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee is California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. She's one of the Senate's most liberal members; the current chair, Oklahoma Republican James Inhofe, is among the most conservative.
The changing cast of characters will play out in many ways:
Rahall also doesn't share Pombo's predilection for rhetorical combat.
"Eco-hysteria: Then and Now," proclaims one report on Pombo's House Resources Committee Web site. Another declares: "Poll: Most Americans Believe Environmental Groups are too Extreme."
Pombo's defeat vindicates environmental groups' decision to pour manpower and money into the campaign in California's 11th Congressional District. The Sierra Club spent $545,000, mobilized 312 volunteers and sent 397,000 mailers. The Defenders of Wildlife and its affiliates spent $1.2 million, and its volunteers knocked on some 75,000 doors.
"We went there early and decided to stake our flag on this guy," said Mark Longabaugh, the political director of the Defenders of Wildlife. "It was time for the guy to go."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, while saying he couldn't really say how prominent environmental issues were nationwide, did stress the role that outside environmental groups played in toppling Pombo.
"That was all grassroots," Dean said. "We at the DNC didn't see it. They did it by an extraordinary grassroots effort in a conservative area."
Even before Democrats take power in January, Tuesday's election will be felt in at least one Western resource debate.
As a lame duck, Pombo will have much less clout in moving the legislation that's needed to implement a multi-hundred-million-dollar San Joaquin River restoration plan. The legislation, yet to be introduced by Republican California Rep. George Radanovich, is needed to finish settling a long-running lawsuit that would return salmon to the river. Backers of the San Joaquin River plan had hopes of getting the bill introduced and passed during the upcoming lame-duck session; that now seems remote.
New construction equipment helps clean dirty jobs, by Alex Frangos, The Wall Street Journal, November 08, 2006
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06312/736632-28.stm
At sites from Ground Zero to a Chicago expressway to a California airport, the notoriously dirty construction industry is starting to clean up its act.
Instead of belching black smoke, the bucket loaders, cranes and other diesel-powered behemoths at these construction projects are part of a new generation of relatively clean heavy equipment meant to mitigate the environmental effects of often-controversial building projects.
By using pollution-scrubbing exhaust filters and cleaner-burning fuel, officials in charge of getting such massive projects approved are finding it easier to win community support. In some places, local leaders are insisting on their use as a condition of backing noisy projects that can disrupt traffic, kick up dirt and foul the air.
"There is a strong voice from the community for better air quality," says Thomas Kunkel, environmental director for the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, a state agency overseeing building in the neighborhood around the World Trade Center.
In response to demands from neighboring communities, Los Angeles International Airport officials agreed to use the cleaner construction vehicles in an $11 billion expansion that began in July. In Chicago, the cleaner vehicles are being used to widen Chicago's Dan Ryan Expressway and are planned for the enlargement of O'Hare International Airport. They are also involved in Connecticut's rehabilitation of Interstate 95. Boston's "Big Dig," a decade-long highway relocation completed this year, was an early pilot project.
Federal air-quality requirements are helping motivate the switch to cleaner-running equipment. Construction vehicles are among the largest sources of air pollution. There are around two million "off-road" construction vehicles in the U.S., compared to around 200 million cars and trucks. Yet a typical 175-horsepower bulldozer emits as much particulate matter as 500 cars, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
The burning of diesel fuel kills 12,000 people prematurely each year and causes one million missed workdays and 6,000 emergency-room visits for children with asthma, the EPA says. It's not the black smoke from the diesel exhaust that causes the most health problems, but rather tiny particulates, 1/60th the width of a human hair, that lodge in the lungs and cause respiratory distress. A combination of using ultra-low sulfur fuel and exhaust filters can reduce particulates up to 90 percent.
Scrubbers on construction equipment work by trapping the fine particulates in filters made of metals such as platinum. The particulates are then baked at a high temperature, rendering them less harmful.
The EPA -- which didn't regulate construction emissions until the mid-1990s, and then only lightly -- is planning to phase in stronger regulations for new vehicles between 2008 and 2014. Environmental groups are pushing for more. Existing equipment wasn't affected by the EPA regulations; noting the average bulldozer or backhoe remains in operation for two to three decades, Diane Bailey, a diesel expert at the National Resources Defense Council says "the full benefits of those standards won't be achieved until beyond 2030." Her New York-based group and others are promoting the retrofitting of existing vehicles with scrubbers or new engines.
In New York last week, Gov. George E. Pataki signed legislation ordering many existing state vehicles, including construction equipment, to use cleaner fuel and install particulate filters.
Contractors are wary of regulations that would require them to move faster. The American Road & Transportation Builders Association filed a pending petition in federal appeals court in Washington in March to preempt any state from imposing blanket regulations that would regulate construction equipment. Associated General Contractors also reject the idea of contract requirements or bidding preferences that favor the use of clean-burning equipment. "It's extremely expensive to retrofit," says Leah Pilconis, environmental counsel for AGC. A new engine can cost upward of $25,000 for a large construction vehicle. A retrofit filter costs around $10,000 to $15,000. She says her industry favors voluntary, incentive-based programs like ones funded by the EPA, Texas and California, which encourage equipment owners to retrofit on their own.
Meanwhile, companies such as Donaldson Co., Caterpillar Inc., Deere & Co. and Corning Inc. are gearing up to meet demand for construction equipment and similar retrofits for school buses, garbage trucks and tractor trailers.
The move toward clean diesel vehicles is part of a broader move by governments and developers to use "green" building techniques. Contractors now recycle excess dirt, insulation and other materials generated on the work site. Some sites use special acoustical blankets and noise-reducing saw blades to drop the volume as buildings rise.
In Los Angeles, residents around the airport have complained for decades about poor air quality from the hundreds of jets and ground vehicles that prowl the airport. "There's going to be a huge project and we wanted to make sure the folks who live immediately adjacent are not heavily burdened by it," says Jerilyn Mendoza, policy director in the Los Angeles office of Environmental Defense, a New York-based nonprofit. She negotiated a "community benefits agreement" with the city that won promises to use of clean construction equipment. "We were trying to find specific things the airport was responsible for," she says, "and they were willing to think as creatively as possible to reduce the (pollution) sources."
At Ground Zero, health problems related to the Sept. 11 attacks are one impetus for clean construction. "It's clear that people's health has already been compromised" by the dust and smoke, says Julie Menin, chairwoman of Community Board 1, a governmental advisory group. "We're not going to allow this community to suffer additional effects."
Her group asked developer Larry Silverstein, who is building three of the five office towers there, to require his share of the 5,500 to 10,500 delivery trucks per month to use ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel. Mr. Silverstein, a life-long asthma sufferer, agreed. "We were delighted," Ms. Menin says.
In addition, local city and state rules require on-site equipment in the area to use the special fuel and to install the filters. The two tower cranes that will hoist the beams for the Freedom Tower will have modern engines that meet the future EPA requirements. "These are big engines and will be running constantly so the reduction in pollutants is significant," says Richard Kielar, vice president for Tishman Construction Corp., the construction manager on the project. He says the cost of using ultra low-sulfur fuel is negligible, since it's just a few cents more than regular diesel.
The Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center has three full-time inspectors who rove the area verifying that contractors are using the proper equipment and fuel. They also make sure trucks and equipment are turned off when not in use. Fines are around $1,500.
Tuesday, standing beside a massive drill rig that bores 80-foot deep pilings for a Metropolitan Transportation Authority subway entrance a block from the trade center, workers were happy with the new filters. "We're around the machine eight hours a day. We're breathing the air," says Mike Gallagher, a foreman on the project.
With the old machines, "there's black smoke everywhere," adds John Nieves, a mechanic with International Union of Operating Engineers Local 14 and under contract with Skanska Inc., a large contractor. "People don't like seeing construction in the street, so anything you can do to clean it up helps."
E-Update # 45, John DeLibero, LMDC & LMCCC, November 7, 2006
Yesterday, the environmental consultant for the 130 Liberty St. Deconstruction Project received lab results indicating that the air monitor located on the roof of the 1010 Firehouse recorded a level of silica that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s Trigger Level. The elevated levels were detected on November 1st and 2nd.
After consulting with the EPA, it was determined that the increased silica level was not attributable to the work at 130 Liberty St. As a result, work on the project is continuing.
If you have any questions about the 130 Liberty St. project, please contact Robin Forst, Director of Community & Government Relations for the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, at rforst@lmccc.nyc.gov
Robin Forst Michael Haberman
LMCCC LMDC
A New Downtown, by Steve Cuozzo, New York Post, November 7, 2006
http://www.nypost.com/seven/11072006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/a_new_downtown_opedcolumnists_steve_cuozzo.htm
ALL over Lower Manhattan, people are living and working oblivious to the contempt with which their elected officials have mostly treated them and their ravaged surroundings.
Though Ground Zero remains a grim void this Election Day, and Gov. Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg have done their best to scare off business, new companies are moving in and the office vacancy rate is the lowest in five years. Though streets are dug up all over and subway stations closed or made impassable for costly transit projects, families are making their homes Downtown at a record pace.
Welcome to today's Lower Manhattan - furiously renewing and reinventing itself despite years of thumb-twiddling in Albany and near-sabotage by City Hall.
One day last May, reporters and Wall Street types gathered on a high floor of the new 7 World Trade Center to hear public officials explain why Ground Zero reconstruction was so far behind schedule.
Yet, more arresting than the comments of the bureaucrats was a sight through the window: the ongoing rise of 10 Barclay Street, a 40-story apartment tower, a few blocks away. In the space of a few hours, while the speakers split hairs over Ground Zero's lack of progress, construction workers actually added an entire floor to the project.
The contrast between political paralysis at the World Trade Center site and the dynamism all around seemed an obvious metaphor for Downtown - a neighborhood spontaneously regenerating on every side of Pataki's Pit.
In the heroic zone south of Chambers Street, commercial and residential energy drives on, with little or no help from any of the politicians' master plans and "visions." (Yes, both 7 WTC and 10 Barclay Street benefited from low-interest Liberty Bonds. But that's a no-brainer: The bonds were federally authorized, all the locals had to do was allocate them.)
The dynamism infects all walks of life. The place grows more appealing despite the chaos caused by the Fulton Street Transit Center project and endless water-main digs.
The new Downtown will be little like the one of pre-9/11 and even less like Midtown. The district is at once monumental and intimate, thanks to grid-defying streets that cause great spires to pop up at unexpected angles.
The resurgence defies a pattern of official neglect and doom-and-gloom scenarios.
In the months after 9/11, certain deep thinkers claimed publicly and repeatedly that no one would ever again want to work at or near the WTC site. Decisively refuting that prophecy was the rapid re-population of Battery Park City, from which thousands had fled, and the subsequent snatching-up of every new apartment, condo or rental Downtown.
The mental impact is impossible to quantify: Why should anyone have feared working Downtown when legions were not only willing but eager to live there?
Five years later, Downtown is the fastest-growing neighborhood in the city, its residential population up from under 30,000 before 9/11 to nearly 40,000 this year and headed near 50,000 by 2008.
The result, especially along Wall Street and in the narrow streets nearby, is a tightly woven fabric of office and apartment buildings harmoniously coexisting.
Meanwhile, despite Bloomberg's campaign to steer commercial development to Midtown's far West Side, Downtown office vacancies are at their lowest rate (below 10 percent) since the end of 2001. That caused the Woolworth Building's owners, for one, to have second thoughts about plans to convert its upper floors to apartments.
Privately financed public amenities are popping up all over, like new Zuccotti Park and the lavishly landscaped "Elevated Acre" behind 55 Water Street.
Glamorous stores like Tiffany and Hermes have signed leases. They're coming for a reason obvious to the eye: more women living and working Downtown than ever before.
The neighborhood now reminds me of Berlin in the fall of 1998 - nine years after the Wall came down, when the whole sprawling city seemed a thrilling work in progress.
Maybe it's the sight of baby strollers on sidewalks on once-barren Sundays or signs heralding the imminent coming of Whole Foods and Barnes & Noble to the new 101 Warren Street apartment project.
Maybe it's the restoration in progress of the landmarked Bennett Building at Fulton and Nassau Streets - or the shock of FultonHaus, a super-luxury condo, squeezing its way in amidst Fulton Street's jumble of fast food and discount shops.
One recent afternoon, I lunched with Jonathan Mechanic - the lawyer who leads the powerful real-estate department at Fried, Frank and represented Moody's in its lease at 7 World Trade - at Bobby Van's, a new steakhouse at Broad and Vine streets.
I took the R train to Rector Street - the closer stop, Cortlandt Street, is shut until next year for work on the Fulton Street Transit project. Broadway was dug up by the MTA, Con Ed, Verizon and God knows who else. Traffic squeezed through narrowed lanes. Pedestrians fought their way through dangerously constricted intersections.
But those on foot seemed hypercharged, as if they'd contracted energy from the turmoil. Bobby Van's was busier than I've ever seen a Wall Street-area restaurant.
After lunch, we walked east and south toward Fried, Frank's headquarters, One New York Plaza near the Battery. The firm can afford to be anywhere - but two years ago, facing a lease expiration, it chose to stay in the building and took another 42,000 square feet. Today, Mechanic says, "many of our young associates now live down here" as well.
We walked past the corner of William and Beaver streets, where a new Andre Balasz-designed condo tower will soon rise from a deep hole in the earth. Next came Stone Street (between William and Coenties Slip) - an open-air feast where a half-dozen restaurants have outdoor tables. Every seat was filled; it looked like Europe.
"It almost feels like the old days," I said.
Of course, the old days can't come back. But for the first time since 9/11, the new days feel charged with promise. All we need now is for the new governor to spread the miracle to Ground Zero.
scuozzo@nypost.com
Copyright 2006 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.
NY1/Newsday Poll: New Yorkers Concerned About What Happens At WTC Site, by Rebecca Spitz, NY1, November 06, 2006
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=64096
Should stop construction at the World Trade Center site while the search resumes for more human remains? A NY1 poll released Monday finds most New Yorkers say no. NY1’s Rebecca Spitz filed the following report.
Five years after the attacks, New Yorkers are still very concerned about what happens on the former World Trade Center site. And even as the city begins an expanded search for human remains there, most people believe construction should continue at the same time.
"If they stop now they're going to have to stop every few weeks,” said one New Yorker. “I mean it'll take a long time to actually to uncover everything, so I honestly think they should keep going, stick to the plan.”
A NY1/Newsday poll of 1,500 registered voters found that 54 percent said construction of the Freedom Tower and other buildings in the site should proceed while 39 percent think it should stop until the search for remains is complete.
"They should stop because they keep finding bones from people,” countered another local. “I think the best thing is to stop."
"Out of respect for the people who died here, I think they should stop the construction and do a full, thorough search," added another New Yorker.
The search for human remains resumed last month when a Consolidated Edison crew came upon remains while doing routine work in a manhole. So far, more than 200 remains have been found, leading some to believe the original search was not extensive enough.
"They should have done a better search in the beginning before they started building," said one critic.
"I think they could've done it a little while longer, and that's why now they're unfortunately finding all of these bones," said another person in Lower Manhattan.
But not everyone agrees, as the poll found that 47 percent were happy with the original search while 42 percent wish more had been done.
Nearly everyone NY1 spoke with felt strongly about what should happen down here at the site, but few are as invested in it as those who lost loved ones on September 11, 2001.
"There's 42-percent of people who never got any remains back and you're looking at one of them," said Charles Wolf, who lost his wife on 9/11.
But Wolf said he is ready to see something happen in the site, arguing that there is so much to be done, stopping construction does not make sense:
"It's not necessary to stop construction unless the construction is going on exactly where they need to search,” added Wolf. “And they'll pause that little area while they search, and then go back to what they need to do."
The poll was conducted between October 27 and November 1 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
Copyright © 2006NY1 News. All rights reserved.
Workers Find Additional Bone Fragments at WTC Site, AP, November 6, 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110600989.html
NEW YORK -- Workers have found three bone fragments in a second manhole at the World Trade Center site, close to the place where some 200 bones had already been recovered, officials said Monday.
The bones, 1 to 2 inches long, were recovered on Saturday along a service road on the lower Manhattan site's western edge, said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the medical examiner's office. They were the first remains recovered from the site in more than a week.
Officials have targeted 12 manholes and other subterranean areas along the road, which they acknowledge were missed during the initial recovery of body parts after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. So far, workers recovered 199 remains in the first manhole and have found none in another manhole and a utility service box, Borakove said.
She said the manhole where the remains were found on Saturday is directly across from the first manhole where utility workers accidentally discovered bones on Oct. 19.
Since then, the city has ordered a search of the service road, another area near a subway line under excavation at the site, in manholes along dozens of blocks near ground zero, on two rooftops and at three buildings.
Borakove said none of the 202 remains has been matched to the 2,749 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001, although forensic experts have said the bones found underground are in good condition and could yield positive identifications soon.
More than 40 percent of the trade center victims have never been identified.
(TM & © 2006 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO & EYE Logo TM & © 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved.
Hundreds Of Additional Spots To Be Searched For WTC Remains, NY1, November 6, 2006
http://www.ny1.com/ny1/content/index.jsp?stid=1&aid=64068
Searchers have identified hundreds more areas to be combed for human remains at the World Trade Center site, as the search continues this week.
The New York Post reports officials have identified more than 300 additional spots to search. The search will cover the area between Murray and Rector Streets from Broadway to the Hudson River between midnight and 8 a.m.
The search will include manholes, sewers, buildings, roofs, and utility lines belonging to Con Ed and Verizon.
More than 200 remains have been found since a Con Ed crew stumbled upon some remains while doing routine work in a manhole last month. That discovery led to an expanded search.
The remains of over 40 percent of the victims from the World Trade Center attack have never been identified.
Copyright © 2006NY1 News. All rights reserved.
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Workers Find Additional Bone Fragments at WTC Site, AP, November 6, 2006
Poll: Most feel WTC construction should go on, by Bryan Virasami, Newsday, November 5, 2006
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nywtc1106,0,3028525.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
Most New Yorkers feel that construction at the World Trade Center site should proceed even as the city conducts a new search for human remains, according to a NY1/Newsday poll.
A majority of those polled also sided with Mayor Michael Bloomberg's controversial position agreeing that "sufficient time and resources" were given to the original recovery effort that ended in 2002.
In a poll of 1,502 registered voters, 55 percent said the construction of the Freedom Tower and the 9/11 Memorial should proceed alongside the search for human remains. The poll found 38 percent want construction to stop as the search goes on.
Manhattan Pollster Mickey Blum said she does not believe the responders are out to offend families of the victims, some of whom want military experts to conduct the search and others want construction to stop.
"I don't think it's out of disrespect of the families and there should be a search," Blum said. "I think it's just that it's been a long time and people want something built already. They've been waiting a long time."
The city launched a new search for human remains, expected to last up to a year, after Con Edison workers discovered human remains inside an underground utility site on the edge of the site. About 200 pieces of remains have been found in manholes around the site, officials said.
The discovery prompted some families to demand the city bring in a military forensic unit, known as the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, to conduct the search. The mayor has rejected that idea, but the Medical Examiner's office last week said it will hire more forensic anthropologists to help with the search.
In response to the poll's findings, Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser yesterday said, "The mayor has the highest praise for the heroic original recovery effort led by the FDNY, and has committed that the City will keep working until the job is done."
In light of the recent criticism and discovery of new remains, 57 percent of voters said enough was done during the original recovery effort while 33 percent disagreed. The poll found that black voters, 53 percent, were the only group that favored stopping construction.
Among voters in New York City alone, the poll found 47 percent said enough was done in the original search while 42 percent said it wasn't enough. Among blacks, 33 percent said enough was done while most, 55 percent, said not enough was done.
Kirsten Beck, an Upper West Side resident who responded to the telephone poll, said yesterday that the new discovery suggests a problem with the first recovery effort.
"If they found additional remains, that means something went wrong in the process," she said. "I don't know the time and that went into the search, I just don't know, but something obviously went wrong with the searching process or they would have found these remains."
The poll was conducted between Oct. 27 and Nov. 1 with a margin of error of plus/minus 2.5 percent.
Copyright 2006 Newsday Inc.
Gehry Perfection, Under Cover, Downtown Express, Volume 19 | Issue 25 | November 3 - 9, 2006
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_182/undercover.html
Construction may have just started on Bruce Ratner’s Frank Gehry-designed tower on Beekman St., but the famed architect is still tinkering with his T-square and does not yet have the final design.“Maybe by the time we’re at the eighth floor, we’ll have a rendering,” Ratner’s spokesperson joked. In addition to residential units, the 75-story tower will house an occupational health center run by the New York Downtown Hospital and a K-8 public school. But while the building is going up, renderings of what it will look like are still not going out to the public. According to the spokesperson, that’s because the building design continues to change and the meticulous Gehry doesn’t want to publish plans until all the interior and exterior designs are finalized.The placing of perimeter sheeting and I-beams (noisy) began this week, to be followed by test piles (noisier) at the end of November and full-out pile driving (noisiest) near the end of January.
Downtown Express is published by
Community Media LLC.Hopes for 2007 Fiterman demo, by Skye H. McFarlane, Downtown Express, Volume 19 | Issue 25 | November 3 - 9, 2006
http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_182/hopesfor2007.html
There was much venting Monday night when the Borough of Manhattan Community College held the first of what it said will be a series of public meetings on the deconstruction of Fiterman Hall.
While community members expressed concerns over safety and the openness of the public process, B.M.C.C. representatives vowed to learn from and correct the mistakes made in earlier World Trade Center cleanup efforts. When all was said and done, many in the room agreed that the meeting had been a move in the right direction.
“I thought it was a really good first step. I’m really glad we were able to have this,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, chairperson of Community Board 1’s World Trade Center Redevelopment Committee. “Obviously, there are some issues that B.M.C.C. and CUNY [City University of New York] will have to look at carefully, but we look forward to hearing from them soon.”
The 15-story, 370,000-square-foot classroom and office building, built in 1959, was donated to B.M.C.C. by the Fiterman family in 1994. A multi-million dollar gut renovation of the space was nearly complete when the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 occurred. The 30 West Broadway site was badly damaged when 7 World Trade Center collapsed, gashing Fiterman’s south façade and inundating the building with dust and debris. Seven World Trade has since been rebuilt, but Fiterman remains standing and shrouded more than five years after the attacks.
In the spring of 2005, Gov. Pataki said the demolition would begin later that year. Insurance battles, safety concerns and a debate over whether to repair or remove the building have all slowed the process at Fiterman. In January, 2006, the college and its associates (including the Dorm Authority of the State of New York) began a lengthy approval process for the “remediation and deconstruction” — i.e. the thorough cleaning and piece-by-piece dismantling — of the building.
On Monday, the college made its deconstruction plans public so that community members can comment on them before they are submitted to a host of World Trade Center regulatory agencies, a group headed up by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The documents, as well as future updates on the project can be found at www.lowermanhattan.info and questions and comments can be directed to fitermanhallinfo@bmcc.cuny.edu.
The college hopes to submit its final plans in mid-December. Once plans are approved, the cleaning and deconstruction process is expected to take 10 to 12 months and cost $16,313,000. A new 15-story classroom building, with a $125 million price tag, will then go up on the site.
Benn Lewis, the vice president of Airtek Evironmental and chief consultant on the project, headed up Monday night’s presentation. He said that the college and its contractors, PAL Environmental Safety Corporation, are working under the assumption that the entirety of Fiterman Hall is contaminated with toxins from the World Trade Center collapse.
Therefore, the current plan calls for the deconstruction of the hall to occur in several stages. First, the post-911 scaffolding and netting would be replaced. The building exterior would be retested for contaminants and re-cleaned where necessary. The interior of the building would be sealed off, then cleaned and emptied in three-floor segments. The roof would be left for last, giving the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner time to search for possible human remains. Last, the building would be taken apart and trucked away.
“I’m happy to have just one item on the agenda, so we can really get into details and answer questions,” Lewis said during his presentation.
If his enthusiasm faded during nearly two hours of pointed questioning, it didn’t show. Lewis kept a professorial demeanor throughout, giving in-depth, if sometimes unsatisfactory, answers to the queries.
The public process was at the forefront of most speakers’ minds, as they attacked what they perceived to be a too-little-too-late notification strategy regarding the meeting. The debate came to a head late in the questions period when two students, including student body president Krystal Garner, stood up to ask why the B.M.C.C. administration had not told students about the meeting.
“I was elected by the students to represent them,” Garner said, eliciting cheers from the audience. “We should be a part of this process.”
When Eduardo del Valle, B.M.C.C.’s vice chancellor of facilities, began to repeat that the college had posted the meeting on its Web site, Vice President of Administration G. Scott Anderson held up a hand to stop him.
“Obviously whatever we did didn’t work,” Anderson said. “I’ll take responsibility. I’m not one to dodge the issue. We have to do better, go the extra mile to make this an open and transparent process.”
Anderson said that B.M.C.C. would give the community more advance notice of future meetings and make sure that faculty, staff and students are informed, probably through an email listserv. Anderson also said that the student body could send a representative to future planning sessions regarding the new classroom building.
Aside from the process, many community members were concerned about toxic dust from the site endangering workers and neighbors.
“After 911, they told us the air was safe,” said Jane Young, chairperson of B.M.C.C.’s professional staff union. “People here have developed a deep distrust and suspicion of the powers that be…regarding our health and safety.”
Lewis tried to allay these fears, saying that the college was working closely with the E.P.A. to alleviate the issues of dust and contamination that plagued the early World Trade Center cleanup. B.M.C.C. is also keen to prevent the type of worker safety concerns that have held up the deconstruction of the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St.
“Time has moved on and lessons have been learned,” Lewis said.
In particular, debris at Fiterman Hall will be transported using the building’s elevators, rather than thrown down the elevator shafts. All debris trucks will be sealed and washed before leaving the site and the wash water will be captured and tested for contaminants. Air monitors will be positioned around the site and neighboring buildings (there is already a monitor atop P.S. 234 two blocks away).
If a dangerous spike in contaminants or another emergency, such as a fire, should occur, the site would notify first responders through its emergency action plan, which is currently under review by the city’s Office of Emergency Management.
However, some of the most contentious details at the site—including the method for searching for human remains, the protocols for emergency responders, and the specifics of air monitoring—will not be determined by Airtek’s plan, but rather by regulatory agencies, particularly the Medical Examiner, the N.Y.P.D. and the E.P.A.
For this reason, some community members called for agency representatives to be present at future public meetings. Del Valle said he would work with the Community Board to try to make that happen.
“You have to realize that we have no jurisdiction over these agencies,” Del Valle said. “We will try and endeavor to bring them to the table.”
The E.P.A., for its part, was receptive to the idea, saying that the agency has had a good working relationship with the folks in charge of the Fiterman Hall project.
“It depends upon the nature of the meeting,” said E.P.A. spokesperson Mary Mears. “But in situations where the E.P.A. being there will add to the process, we’ll be there.”
No dates have been set for future public meetings, but students, staff and environmental activists alike seemed eager to read the college’s plans and continue the dialogue.
“I think at the meeting tonight there has been a promising number of requests,” said Kimberley Flynn of 9/11 Environmental Action. “What we heard is that CUNY will try to meet these requests. Whether they do or not will become clear in the future…We need another meeting to continue the public discussion on the quality of their plans.”
Skye@DowntownExpress.com
Downtown Express is published by
Community Media LLC.Will the City Do a Better Search for Remains this Time? by Charles Wolf, Downtown Express, Volume 19 | Issue 25 | November 3 - 9, 2006http://www.downtownexpress.com/de_182/willthecity.html
As I unlocked my apartment door, groceries in hand, the phone rang. It was NY1. "What do you know about the remains discovered by Consolidated Edison workers at 29th St.?" I asked her to repeat the question. She said that they had discovered human remains from the World Trade Center at 29th St. My brain was racing. "How, how could they be finding remains at 29th St. on the West Side," I kept asking myself. It was just now 6 p.m. I switched the television on to catch the beginning of "Eyewitness News" on Channel 7. It was there I learned that the remains were found within the debris removed from a manhole at ground zero, but not discovered until Con Ed's giant vacuum truck was emptied on 29th St.
It was at that point that I went from one disbelief to another. "Ground zero?" I thought. Officials told us that it was totally clean. Nine-eleven family members (the "families") expected to find remains in some of the buildings as we knew that the former Deutsche Bank was not thoroughly searched for human remains, and they had not searched Fiterman Hall at all. However, ground zero itself, was another matter. Diane Horning, founder of WTC Families for Proper Burial and Sally Regenhard, co-founder of the Skyscraper Safety Campaign had been saying all along that they had not properly searched the buildings. Yet all of us were shocked to hear of human remains along with personal effects like wallets and purses being found at ground zero. Of the 2,749 people killed in the towers, 42% of us (1,151) did not receive any remains of our loved ones, myself included. To hear of more remains being found brings up all sorts of thoughts in family members' minds.
Thus began nine intense days for Diane, Sally and me, each of us separately responding to one request after another from the press and the media for interviews on the topic. An immediate offer of assistance by Councilmember Alan Gerson led him to write a letter of support to Mayor Bloomberg. By last Friday, Oct. 27, the three of us were doing joint press conferences.
Apart from three emails in the first three days, the Bloomberg administration was not talking to us - and more to the point, they were not listening either. For eight days, we were communicating through the press. The mayor would say something, the press would ask us about it, we would respond and they would go back and ask the mayor about it. Our message was not getting through accurately, and we were frustrated and angry. These were our loved ones' remains - their bones, if you will - and no one from the administration approached any of us with explanations or answers to our questions about what the city was doing.
Things came to a head last Friday. Only through a well-placed professional friend of the families did we finally get a 10 a.m. meeting with the deputy mayor for administration, Ed Skyler, to whom Mayor Michael Bloomberg had delegated this issue. Meanwhile, a report, and recommendations to the mayor on additional searches for human remains had already been in the works by the city Department of Design and Construction and the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center. They scheduled this to be released Friday afternoon.
Sally, Diane and I met with Skyler, the chief medical examiner and other city officials about our requests, which were quite simple:
First, we want construction to continue, unless warranted to temporarily stop for the search of remains in a particular area. We want the search for remains to become proactive rather than reactive, which is the current situation - the city is reacting to the finding of remains by Con Ed. Rather than wait until they deconstruct the Deutsche Bank building or Fiterman Hall, the search for remains should commence now. Actions speak louder than words, and waiting says the search for human remains takes second place to rebuilding.
We want the city to augment their own capable people in the Medical Examiner's office with people from the Pentagon's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) unit. It is a huge job and Skyler said it could take over a year. Additional anthropologists would help things move faster.
But more important, we feel that JPAC can be the biggest help in the areas of organization, management, and the methodologies of the search. If the same people who were previously in charge of the search are again in charge, the search will likely be subject to the same failures as before. These are not failures of competency, but failures of imagination, of thinking, of one's mindset. If the paradigms that led to the current failure are used again, they are very likely to fail again. Bringing in the JPAC people to take a fresh look at things will stimulate thinking. We are not asking for the city to step aside; we are saying our own people will benefit from new ideas, and together with the existing knowledge, make the search more thorough.
While the memorial and memorial museum is in the capable hands of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the subject nobody wants to talk about is the human remains, and very probably remains, in a landfill garbage dump in Staten Island called Fresh Kills. The remains of the 2,749 people in the Twin Towers were turned to ash and mixed with pulverized building materials by the incredible force of the collapse of the towers. They hauled this ash off to Fresh Kills landfill garbage dump on barges, and now it lays on top of household garbage.
Chest-high gullies, formed by hard rains, now allow the remains of humans and building material alike to wash into the Arthur Kill waterway. On a recent visit, I found doorknobs, the lettering from someone's office door, and someone's boot. Walking through the W.T.C. area of Fresh Kills landfill garbage dump had the same feeling as in a cemetery. It was unmistakable
All we are asking the city is to move this mass of human-laced debris off the household garbage, and to a clean location, even within Fresh Kills itself.
At the meeting on Friday, Deputy Mayor Skyler told us that Mayor Bloomberg said, whatever the cost and regardless of how much time it took, they will continue looking for remains. We now wait for the deeds to catch up with the words.
History judges civilizations partly by how they honor their dead. The dead from the Sept. 11 attacks on New York are still scattered around the city - scattered as far as the borough of Staten Island. We will continue to wait for the deeds to match the words, but we will not wait in silence.
Charles Wolf is a member of the Family Advisory Council to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. His wife, Katherine Wolf, worked in the World Trade Center and was killed Sept. 11, 2001.
© 2006 Community Media, LLC