The Freedom Tower

Mike Bloomberg is no push over. When the families of 9/11 victims threatened to boycott planned World Trade Center memorials, Bloomberg didn’t blink. The city moved the memorial service because Ground Zero is now a dangerous construction site. Families of the victims still want to hold memorial services at the site. The city and the mayor said no way. Bloomberg is holding his ground.
The Washington Post says Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony will not be held in its original ground zero location, despite threats by family members to boycott and hold their own shadow remembrance.
Construction, including work on the memorial to the victims, has made the site unsafe for a large public gathering like the one that has taken place there each year, he said. Bloomberg said that the decision to move the sixth anniversary commemoration to a plaza off the southeast corner of the site was final, and that “it would be a big shame” if anyone skipped the remembrance events out of anger.
“They can’t take place in the old location _ we just couldn’t make it safe,” Bloomberg said.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s main claim to the right to become the next president of the United States is his leadership after the 9/11 attacks on Ground Zero.

What about his record surrounding getting rid of the Windshield Squeegie people? Isn’t that worth something too?
These human windshield wipers, enterprising individuals really, descended on cars stalled at lights and intersections, and would spray, wipe and even spit on your windshields to clean it for a buck. When people complained, Rudy wiped them off the face of any earth in New York City,. They magically disappeared when Rudy was mayor. He also got rid of homeless people and any thing else that made the Big Apple resemble any other real city in America.

Then, his golden opportunity to politic, struck: 9/11.

Rudy is a real politician, which means, he knows how to play folks, in other words, politic.
The Nation took a closer look at this talent:
“In recent polls, Rudy Giuliani leads his rivals in the Republican primary race by about ten points. That’s surprising, since he’s been a supporter of gay rights, abortion rights and immigrant rights as well as gun control. It suggests that a President Giuliani would be better than Bush. I asked Kevin Baker–he’s author of the well-known City of Fire trilogy of novels about New York City–Strivers Row, Dreamland and Paradise Alley. He also writes for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Harper’s, where his essay, “A Fate Worse Than Bush,” leads the magazine’s August issue.

Giuliani’s main claim to fame is his conduct immediately after 9/11. Many still remember his TV press conference the night of the attacks, when a reporter asked how many casualties there would be. Giuliani had a magnificent answer: “More than we can bear.” Compared to what President Bush was saying, that was Shakespeare.

But what about the rest of his performance around 9/11?

CONTINUED BELOW
“Most of 9-11 was actually a debacle for the city government,” Baker told me in an interview, and “Giuliani bears a great deal of the responsibility.” The World Trade Center had been attacked in 1993, but Giuliani had “learned none of the lessons that could have been learned. There was no serious attempt to coordinate the radios between the police and fire departments, or even to insure that the fire department had its own communications that would work inside buildings.” The consequences? “Probably hundreds of unnecessary deaths that day.”

The second failure: Giuliani insisted on locating his emergency control center in the World Trade Center complex, even though that had been the target of the 1993 attack. “He did that against the advice of virtually all the security experts he consulted,” Baker explained. “He put it on the twenty-third floor of a forty-seven-story building, World Trade Center Tower 7. It included an unprotected, 7,000 gallon fuel source on the seventh floor, a sort of a fuse to set the building off. When the building was hit by debris on 9/11, that did indeed bring the whole building down.”

What if Giuliani he had been in his new command center on 9/11?

“He was within a few minutes of dying right there that day,” Baker said. “Instead he ended up having to spend most of the 102 minutes between when the first plane hit and when the second tower came down simply walking around the area with staff members, looking for someplace to set up a new command center.”

What should he have been doing?

“Other things badly needed to be done,” Baker said. “Realizing there was no communicating with the firemen who were in these towers, maybe they could have set up a trail of runners or something to tell them they should get out of there, the towers are coming down. Nothing like that was done.”

Giuliani told the 9/11 Commission that the firemen in the towers died because they refused orders to come out. He said they wanted to save lives of people trapped inside.

“That’s a demonstrable lie,” Baker told me. “The firemen in the buildings were simply waiting for orders. They never got the word. It’s easy to second-guess people in such a traumatic event, and anybody could be forgiven for not making the right decisions in the middle of everything. But to go to Congress months later and lie about this–I find that despicable.”

The workers at Ground Zero in the following months, we now know, were exposed to significant health hazards. How much of that is Giuliani’s responsibility? “He made no real attempt to determine the safety of working there,” Baker said. “That was also the responsibility of Christie Todd Whitman, was the EPA Administrator at the time.”

So what did Giuliani do after 9/11?

“He very quickly took the disaster of 9/11 as a great opportunity,” Baker told me. “He proposed that his term in office be extended to give him more time to deal with things, and he tried to put his mistress of the time, who later became his third wife, Judith Nathan, in charge of a fund set up to give money to survivors and victims’ families. Right from the beginning he was trying to exploit this. The words he said on TV were wonderful, but they weren’t backed up by any actions at all.”

The Boston Herald called him the nutty professor. The University of Colorado has been wrestling with the antics of Professor Ward Churchill for years.
The university has finally given Ward the axe, charging the $100,000 a year prof. with academic misconduct, including plagiarism.
“Despite those assertions, the right-wing newspaper said, this was really about an out-of-control teacher … saying things so foolish that no institute of learning could support them.

“Imagine losing a loved one in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and then hearing a tenured professor of “Ethnic Studies” accuse your dead relative or friend of being “a little Eichmann,” a Nazi. All because the murdered person worked in a capitalistic enterprise” called The World Trade Center. “That statement from Churchill is the equivalent of a teacher denying the Holocaust happened or saying that slavery wasn’t evil. How could any school allow a teacher that misguided to instruct students? Talk about academic malpractice!

Free speech advocates rushed to defend Churchill’s right to his opinion. The American Civil Liberty Union urged CU not to fire Churchill and other academics are citing his right to “academic freedom,” a long-held tradition in American higher education.

Frustrated families of 9/11 victims are threatening to hold their own anniversary ceremony on Sept. 11, 2007 unless city and state officials change their mind about where memorial services will be held.
Leaders for the families issued a statement Saturday, saying “As America watches the memorial service on Sept. 11, 2007, we are sure that they will agree that this event should take place at the real and sacred location.”
In the letter, they questioned how thousands of mourners would be accommodated in a small quarter acre park near ground zero.
The AP reports that “Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a letter recently to victims’ families that the ceremony would take place at Zuccotti Park because of the expanding rebuilding work at the trade center site.
“The letter sent to the mayor’s and governor’s offices proposes the use of a smaller space including a construction ramp and haul road for the ceremony. The letter gives a deadline of Tuesday for city and state officials to respond. After that, the groups say they will apply for a permit to hold their own ceremony at ground zero.”
“We really want to work with the mayor’s office. We really don’t want to do a separate ceremony, but we will if we have to,” said Dennis McKeon, who heads ‘Where to Turn, Put it Above Ground.’
The news agency said a mayoral spokeman declined to comment on the letter Saturday. The governor’s office had no comment either. Thousands have gathered in past ceremonies on the western edge of the site, in front of the World Financial Center, to read the names of New York City’s victims in the 2001 attack.

The owners of the Freedom Tower say they are looking for investors who will buy an interest in piece of the most publicized real estate in the world.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said its financial adviser is seeking equity investors interested in buying a stake in the Freedom Tower,” according to the Reuters news service.

Selling all or part of the 1,776-foot (541 metre) skyscraper is not the only option.

The bi-state agency also wants partners that could help it raise capital for the $3 billion project, which might also rely on tax-free Liberty bonds, other project debt, and proceeds from insurance policies taken out on the World Trade Center.
“The Port Authority extended its contract with Jones Lang LaSalle, which will help it identify the “most advantageous structure to achieve the lowest cost of capital and highest risk adjusted return,” according to board documents,” the news agency said.

“In February, the agency, which owns the 16-acre site in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center stood until the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, said real estate companies and hedge funds had expressed interest in buying the Freedom Tower.”
Everything is for sale in America. Even our graveyards.

The plan is to erect 43,000 tons of steel in the next year to build the skeleton of the Freedom Tower.
“Progress at the Freedom Tower is moving rapidly forward,” according to a story on the website, AM New York. “Contractors have poured nearly 10,000 cubic yards of concrete for the building’s foundation and erected the initial structural steel columns for the tower, which will rise 1,776 feet and be completed in 2010,” according to AM New York Five towers will eventually rise at the new World Trade Center.

‘ “The board also approved a $46 million project to build supportive walls for the museum, memorial and original World Trade Center site slurry wall. The support structure will allow museum visitors to see the original wall, which keeps the Hudson River from seeping into the site.

The board also approved a $13 million project to install 3-foot concrete-filled steel posts around some LaGuardia and Newark Liberty airport terminals to prevent vehicles from crashing into or driving explosives inside the buildings.

The first posts will be constructed by the end of the year around LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal and Newark’s Terminal B.

The authority will eventually construct posts around all 16 of the agency’s owned and leased terminals.

The attack on Glasgow airport earlier this year didn’t prompt the project, said authority Executive Director Anthony Shorris, “but obviously Glasgow reminds the importance of moving this forward.” ‘

The remains of another 9/11 victim has been positively identified as that of a Scarsdale man.
The victim was identified by the New York Medical Examiner as that of Edward Ryan. Ryan’s remains were found in a Consolidated Edison manhole at Ground Zero last fall. Ryan was a vice president of Carr Futures. Ryan was one of 1,100 people who died at the World Trade Center but their bodies were never found.
The chief medical examiner last year sent a letter to the families of the more than 1,100 victims whose remains have not been found, telling them that advanced DNA technology may help identify their loved ones.

“I cannot say how many [we will match] or how long it will take,” chief medical examiner Charles Hirsch wrote in the letter to the families. “This is ongoing. We may have paused in our work, but we didn’t stop trying.”

He added: “We will never quit.”

The letter was a milestone because previously, the medical examiner told families that — though he would keep trying — chances were scientifically slim that future identifications would be made.

In what has become the largest DNA project in history, 20,730 human fragments found on or near the World Trade Center have been catalogued, and a database of DNA profiles of the victims has been created through DNA left on their toothbrushes, combs and other personal effects.

As of last year, 10,933 fragments were linked to victims, while 9,797 awaited identification, according to Ellen Borakove, public affairs director for the city medical examiner. There were 2,749 victims killed in New York in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

The latest report on health problems suffered by first responders after the 9/11 terrorists attacks came out Tuesday. It was the fifth in a series of reports requested by Connecticut Republican Chris Shays and the 9/11 Health Caucus.
It shows that firemen, police, EMT workers and others are suffering from respiratory ailments related to the attacks but they are unable to get the care they need. This comes from a story by Tiffany Sharples from Medill Reports Washington. Shays asked the Government Accountability Office to look into the care or lack of it offered to 9/11 first responders.
The latest report by the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, calls for the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a comprehensive program to provide care for all people—from whatever part of the country—who came to help in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

“For years, efforts to create an organized, effective health plan system for first responders to Ground Zero has been incomplete and uncoordinated,” Shays said in a statement. Of the more than 400,000 people exposed to the toxic atmosphere at Ground Zero, just 71,000 have registered with the World Trade Center Health Registry, including 750 from Connecticut.

The registry was just one of the efforts to get people care they need. A month after the attack on the World Trade Center, government health agencies established a screening program for federal employees who worked at Ground Zero. Since that time, the program has been inconsistent, and even inoperable for periods of several months. As recently as January through May of this year it was shut down due to administrative changes.

In addition, of the 1,300 federal employees who were screened for illness and directed to seek care with specialists, 104 had to wait a full year—from April 2006 to last March—because during that time the program did not pay for visits to pulmonologists and cardiologists, as well as other specialists.

“When I tell people there are people sick from 9/11 who aren’t being treated, they can’t believe it,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who requested the study along with Shays and Rep. Vito Fossella, R-N.Y.

For responders who are not federal employees, efforts to provide care have been largely limited to the greater New York City area, despite stop-and-go efforts made by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. From late 2002 until July 2004, a loose network was established to address the health care needs of nonfederal responders, but since that time the program has functioned only sporadically.

“Much work needs to be done to ensure those affected receive the care they deserve,” said Shays in a statement, but also acknowledged that progress has been made. “I am encouraged to see these initial necessary steps.”

From the Staten Island Advance:

“When officials rushed to the scene of the steam pipe blast in midtown Manhattan, they did something besides hand out masks and test the air for contaminants: One federal agency went into “full inspection mode,” allowing officers to issue citations if responders weren’t wearing required masks or companies were failing to provide necessary safety equipment.
In this way and several others, response to Wednesday’s exploded underground steam pipe differed from how various agencies responded to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
While officials insist that the steam pipe blast did not result in dangerously contaminated air, it caused a billowing plume of steam and debris reminiscent of the smoke pillar that rose from the World Trade Center’s debris six years ago. Hundreds of people have reported developing serious health problems as a result of breathing in that toxic dust.
So when an 83-year-old, asbestos-insulated pipe burst beneath 41st Street and Lexington, first responders and government officials demonstrated increased awareness and concern about the potential for post-disaster illness. Regular exposure to asbestos has been shown to increase people’s risk of getting cancer and other ailments.
For example, the federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) reacted differently to the steam pipe blast than it did to the Sept. 11 attacks by immediately opening an investigation. Agency workers will penalize anyone who was found violating safety regulations.
“We were not, during the recovery of the World Trade Center, in an enforcement mode,” said OSHA spokesman Ted Fitzgerald.
Six years ago, OSHA workers distributed respirators at Ground Zero, but did not issue citations to people who did not wear them, or to workplaces that did not provide them. Many responders did not wear masks as they worked on the pile at Ground Zero and at the recovery site at Fresh Kills.”

Three more victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center have been identified.
The names of two victims came from bone fragments found in the past 15 months on a now vacant building and beneath a service road at Ground Zero. The remains of one victim were found on the roof of the Deutsche Bank building. Another was identified from bone fragments found in debris from a road at Ground Zero. The names were not released. A third victim was positively identified was Raymond Sanchez. Sanchez was identified from remains found in 2001 and others found in 2002.