The Freedom Tower

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation is not going out of business, despite efforts to downsize this agency which decided to rebuild the World Trade Center.
The LMDC still monitors hundreds of millions of dollars and has millions more to spend. The agency still has to complete guidelines for the WTC buildings and facilities at Ground Zero. This work does not include the Freedom Tower, the memorial or the transit hub but the LMDC will still oversee the allocation of $45 million set aside for downtown community groups. One of the jobs the agency is still considering is relocating the 175-ton staircase that still stands at Ground Zero, the last above ground element at the complex. The LMDC is looking at a variety of sites to relocate the staircase. The land around the staircase is being excavated to prepare the area for construction of another office tower so the staircase has to be moved, a delicate job for many reasons.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation invites you to listen to our newly launched podcast series, featuring interviews and stories from the people who lived through the events of September 11th, as well as the people who are dedicated to building the Memorial and preserving the memory of those who lost their lives.

This is worth the trip.

www.buildthememorial.org/site/PageServer?pagename=mm_podcast

The work at Ground Zero is progressing. There are at least 500 people working on the reconstruction of the once barren World Trade Center. There are many deals being worked on simultaneously but new ones are on the horizon.
JP Morgan Chase is working on a deal to build a headquarters at the job site with trading floors overlooking Liberty Street at the site of Tower 5. It will cantilever over Liberty Street but will not cast a shadow on a small park that is planned for the southwest corner of the property.
The memorial museum is being worked on too but only part of the memorial plaza will open in the fall of 2009. The entire museum was expected to be completed by then but that isn’t likely now. It may be two years before that happens.
The Port Authority owns the property and officials say they have not yet decided when the plaza area will be open or just how big the plaza will be. There is still a problem over where the many tour buses that will be attracted to the area will park during the first two years when crowds are expected to balloon to more than seven million people annually.
There are plans for an underground garage near Tower 5 but that construction can not begin until the Deutsche Building at the site is finished by the end of this year.

The sight of a single man jumping or falling from one of the Twin Towers became too painful for any of us to watch anymore – so Don DeLillo stored this collective memory away for us until now.
DeLillo has written Falling Man – the novel.
He has written a fictionalized account of 9/11 and the reviews say DeLillo has succeed in capturing this horrific experience. Now DeLillo is really an acquired taste… his previous work, according to Mitch Hankins of the Summit Daily News was often written to “be sold by the pound rather than as a book.”
This is different.
“DeLillo has written “Falling Man” with a scalpel instead of a pen, using beautiful language to recapture the horror of the attacks on the World Trade Center. As the reader will discover, the psychic wounds of that day are still too fresh to have really left us really scarred. We have mostly, at best, scabbed over the wounds. The scarring is yet to come. With a degree of precision that could easily cause one to break out in a cold sweat of recollection, DeLillo peels off these scabs and exposes our collective wounds to fresh air.
“DeLillo has written “Falling Man” with a scalpel instead of a pen, using beautiful language to recapture the horror of the attacks on the World Trade Center. As the reader will discover, the psychic wounds of that day are still too fresh to have really left us really scarred. We have mostly, at best, scabbed over the wounds. The scarring is yet to come. With a degree of precision that could easily cause one to break out in a cold sweat of recollection, DeLillo peels off these scabs and exposes our collective wounds to fresh air.”
This is refreshing and long over due.

Another Sept. 11 victim has been identified.
The newest victim has been identified after remains from Ground Zero wsere retested with new DNA technology.
The victims name was not released.
The remains of nine victims after the 9/11 attacks have been identified from thousands of recovered remains in the last two months. The city medical examiner’s office says the city has recently identified a firefighter, an Australian passenger on the plane that crashed into the north tower and woman who worked in the north tower.
The city uses new technology that creates stronger DNA profiles from bone fragments. Hundreds of bone fragments have been recovered in and around Ground Zero.

There will be renewed hearings into the federal government’s failed response to the attacks on the World Trade Center and its aftermath.
Congressman Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties will hold hearings along with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham.
The hearings will look into the environmental impact 9/11 has had, particularly misleading information released by the government after the attacks about air quality, proper testing for toxins and the lack of health care for thousands of people exposed to pollutants.

The rich, the beautiful and the well dressed flocked downtown to Lower Manhattan to party at Ground Zero last week.
The party was at 7 World Trade Center. It was a dinner and fashion show for Operation Smile, a charity ball held on the 52nd floor. Among the guests were Donald Trump and model Naomi Campbell. The top floors of 7 World Trade Center has emerged as the new “seen-and-be-seen” venue for black tie galas, charity lunches and fashion shows, according to the New York Sun.
“The building’s chameleonlike spaces have been transformed into a Miami Beach-style nightclub with clusters of sleek, white couches and light installations for a Calvin Klein fashion show afterparty last fall, and into an urban garden filled with 5,000 red and pink roses for a Valentino fragrance launch in November,” the newspaper said. “Tonight, an ornate runway will wrap around the 50th floor, custom-built for the Christian Dior Resort Fashion Show.
“This is a blank canvas, and you can just cater it to whatever you want to do,” the events manager for 7 World Trade Center, Rebecca Shalomoff, said. “People say, all the time, ‘No one will ever be able to copy us.’”
The Sun says the biggest draw, of course, is the sweeping 360-degree views of New York City and its surroundings.

Jeanne Sparks-Carreker says she has always wondered about the whys of the world.
Here are her strong musings about 9/11 on www.americanchronicle.com:
“What is it like to live in a privileged country, one providing its citizens with the opportunity to pursue happiness, and one guaranteeing them that the happiness they establish will indeed be protected at all costs?
What is it like to live in a country where citizens can lay their heads down on a pillow at night and know beyond a shadow of any doubt that their elected leaders will not rest until the common good among them is met in both action and intention?
Further, what is it like to live in a country where the population is assured that no elected leaders will ever be allowed the power or money necessary to conspire against them and their children for any reason whatsoever? Because no reason for conspiracy against their own is a good reason for any leader.
Do you know that? If not, will you ever freely allow yourself to know? Will you pass along the practices, impassible excuses, and downright selfishness of both current political action and inaction to your own children and to their children and to theirs?
So someone over here says, “Oh, that’s been answered already,” or someone over there says, “Someone claimed responsibility already.” Is that enough answer for you and your grandchildren?
Or have we become so comfortable in our presumed privilege that we do not wish to “rock the boat?” Indeed, would we choose to sit, idle and apathetic, in our posh office jobs and happy little circle of loved ones and friends and think that some of our freedom is not really a very big price to pay?
Think back to a time before the mortgage was on your list of priorities, before the big promotion at work, before the new automobile payment. Gather your remaining spirit for a true democracy by the people – back when you remembered the words surrounding the verse “land where my fathers died.”
When you placed your hand over your heart and pledged your allegiance to a flag which symbolizes the gift from your ancestors of liberty and the pursuit of happiness – and the protection from tyrannical rule - did you cross your fingers behind your back?
Only a portion of the questions which need to be answered about the attacks on our people on September 11, 2001 are as follows:
Where are the flight recorders?
How did Bush see the first plane crash on live camera?
Why were there no photos or videos of the Pentagon plane?
Why was there no trace of the Pentagon plane after the attacks, especially the titanium around the jet engines, which were 6 tons each and resilient to volatile burning jet-grade fuel temperatures?
Why was the hole in the Pentagon only about the size of a scud missile?
Why didn’t jets intercept the airliners since they had several warnings of terrorist attacks?
Why did passengers or crewmembers on three of the flights all use the term “box cutters?”
Why was a security meeting that was scheduled for 9/11 cancelled by WTC management on 9/10?
How did they come up with the terrorists so quickly?
How did they find the terrorist’s cars at the airports so quickly?
What about media reports that hijackers bought tickets for flights scheduled after Sept. 11? Weren’t they aware the mission was a suicide mission?
Why do none of the names appear on the passenger lists UA and AA gave to CNN??
Why would the hijackers use credit cards and allow drivers licenses with photos to be zeroxed?
Which hijacker’s passport was found after the attacks in the street? How did it survive through an explosive plane crash when the plane’s black boxes did not, and come to a rest outside the building, on the street, where an FBI agent just happened to be there to retrieve it?”
What say you?

Dr. W. Gene Corley, P.E., who led the federal investigation into the 2001 collapse of the World Trade Center, received the National Engineering Award from the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) on 7 May. He was one of six honorees during the organization’s 28th annual awards ceremony in the Great Hall of the National Academy of Engineering.

Corley, a preeminent expert on building collapse investigations and building codes, is senior vice president of CTL Group. He serves as the company’s managing agent for professional and structural engineering and is active in earthquake engineering projects. In 1995, the American Society of Civil Engineers selected him to lead a Building Performance Assessment Team investigating the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In addition to heading up the building performance evaluation of the World Trade Center, Corley also served as a team member evaluating the structural performance of the Pentagon following the 11 September, 2001 terrorist attacks.

The National Engineering Award is presented for inspirational leadership and tireless devotion to the improvement of engineering education and to the advancement of the engineering profession, as well as to the development of sound public policies as an engineer-statesman. Previous recipients include astronaut Neil Armstrong (1979) and former Lockheed Martin CEO Norm Augustine (1991).

Dr. Gavriel Salvendy received the John Fritz Medal “for his fundamental, international, and seminal leadership and technical contributions to human engineering and industrial engineering education, theory and practice.” A professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University and chair professor and head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at China’s Tsinghua University, Salvendy’s main research deals with the human aspects of design, operation, and management of advanced engineering systems. He has authored or co-authored more than 430 research publications, and is the author or editor of 27 books.

The John Fritz Medal, referred to as the highest award in the engineering profession, is presented each year for scientific or industrial achievement in any field of pure or applied science. It was established in 1902 as a memorial to the great engineer whose name it bears. Past recipients include Thomas Edison (1908), Alexander Graham Bell (1907), Alfred Nobel (1910), Orville Wright (1920) and Guglielmo Marconi (1923).

Dr. Colin G. Drury was recognized with the Kenneth Andrew Roe Award “for his exemplary leadership and distinguished contributions in promoting cooperation, understanding, and congruency across several engineering disciplines and related professions, including human factors engineering and ergonomics; industrial, manufacturing, quality and systems engineering; maintenance, reliability, and management engineering in the aviation area; and safety and health engineering in the industry at large.”

Drury is a distinguished professor and director of the Research Institute for Safety and Security in Transportation (RISST) at the University at Buffalo, where his work is concentrated on the application of human factors techniques to inspection and maintenance processes. Since 1989 he has been leading a team applying human factors techniques to reduce errors in aviation maintenance and inspection at RISST.

The Kenneth Andrew Roe Award is presented on behalf of the engineering community to recognize an engineer who has been effective in promoting unity among the engineering societies.

The destruction of the World Trade Center – the Twin Towers – spurred on a tallest-building boom – in the United States, Great Britain and elsewhere in the world.
It answered the question that was asked immediately after the 9/11 attacks: would developers take on building such massive buildings again.
We now know the answer is yes because men – women dream of achieving great heights, even when those dreams depict disasters, unspeakable sometimes.
When dreamers awake, what do they have to hold onto?
In the wake off 9/11, the dreamers dreamt up bigger buildings that are now rising in the desert emirate of Dubai, Hamburg, and cities in smog plagued cities in the far reaches of China where builders are all reaching to break height records.
The AP says:
“After Sept. 11, I kept asking, ‘Does this mean we’ll build shorter buildings?,’ and I guess the answer is ‘No,”‘ said Bill Hudnut, a fellow at the Urban Land Institute in Washington, D.C. and former mayor of Indianapolis.

Experts say the booming real estate market is the major _ but not the only _ reason for the skyscraper surge.

“Tall buildings are a matter of ego. Tall buildings are a sign of success,” said George Efstathiou, managing partner at Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, the architecture firm behind the new Freedom Tower in downtown Manhattan, and the Burj Dubai, soon to be the world’s largest “ultratall” building.

Builders of the Burj Dubai said Friday that the tower had reached the height of America’s tallest building, Chicago’s Sears Tower, and still has a long way to go. Its ultimate height is a secret, but developers say it will be at least 2,300 feet, surpassing the current world’s tallest building _ the Taipei 101 at 1,671 feet _ in July.”