The Freedom Tower

A blog called “The Deacon’s Bench” is an unlikely place to look for me but when I stumbled on this place “where a Roman Catholic Deacon Ponders the world,” it delivered me to that wonderful place where you have no choice but to think your way to some other place that is uniquely your own.
It will provoke you too.

“In God’s Name”: seeking Him and filming the quest

In early 2002, I got a phone call from CBS News executive producer Susan Zirinsky, asking me if I would be interested in helping her with a project she was trying to throw together in just a few weeks. I’ve known Susan for a long time — she was the inspiration for the Holly Hunter character in “Broadcast News”, but I knew her as just plain “Z,” a legendary and tireless news producer who had seemingly been everywhere with everyone, twice. I worked for her in the early ’80s when I was a lowly production secretary in the CBS News Washington bureau, and had later worked for her as the writer for “48 Hours.” It’s impossible to say “No” to Z. So I said “Sure.”

The project was the documentary “9/11″ — to my mind, the definitive account of what happened on that awful day. It was created by two French brothers, Jules and Gideon Naudet, who were working with a young fireman named James Hanlon (seen with them on the left) to document life at a New York City firehouse when the planes struck the World Trade Center. The Naudets followed the firefighters into the buildings, and captured the only footage from inside the towers after the attack. CBS hired Robert DeNiro to introduce and act as host for the film — that’s where I came in, to write his material — and the resulting two-hour film was shown on CBS without commercial interruption on the six-month anniversary of the attacks: March 11, 2002.

The Naudets searched for another project after that, and finally, this Sunday, they will premiere their followup: “In God’s Name,” also on CBS, also executive produced by Zirinsky. The Naudets spoke about the new film to Bill McGarvey of Busted Halo:

On the morning of September 11, 2001 French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet—who had been working for three months on a documentary on firemen—found themselves filming inside the World Trade Towers as they collapsed. The events they captured on film that morning became the basis for their Emmy and Peabody Award winning documentary 9/11. According to Jules, their first-hand experience of that tragedy became the “first step in a journey that would take us around the world searching for answers to the meaning of life.”

That journey is chronicled in In God’s Name, which is the Naudets’ first film since 9/11. In God’s Name (Sunday, December 23, CBS, 9:00-11:00 PM, ET/PT) follows the personal lives and beliefs of 12 diverse religious leaders from around the globe who represent more than four billion faithful.”

Robert Woo, the 39-year-old architect injured when tons of steel came crashing down onto this construction trailer at Ground Zero has improved.
Woo has been moved out of intensive care after suffering a serious spine injury in the accident. He is unable to walk, according to press reports, and he is heavily mediated but he is reportedly improving after surgery to install pins in his back.
“The doctors are saying that it’s still too early to tell, they’re telling us that we should be prepared that he won’t walk again — but I don’t accept that,” Robert Woo’s brother, Peter, told the Daily Record of Morris County, N.J..

Woo was in a trailer, working on the new office tower for Goldman Sachs, when a crane dropped tons of metal construction material from several stories up.
The heavy load crushed the trailer. Only Woo was injured.

Relatives of 9/11 victims endured another setback yesterday when they learned the World Trade Center Memorial most likely will not be completed until 2011.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey now says the memorial will not be finished on time. The new completion date is two years later than originally planned. The PA said the new date is due to construction delays.
“There are family members that I know that are elderly or very ill and they want to memorialize their son and their daughter, and I don’t know if that will happen anymore,” Bill Doyle of Staten Island, whose son Joey Doyle was killed in the north tower. Talking to reporters, Doyle was skeptical, … it’s going to be two years later and then they’ll say four years, but the further you get away from Sept. 11, people are going to forget about it.”
“The priority of the Port Authority is to make money, and I think they’re able to build their shopping mall over the remnants of the dead - they’re OK to do that, but not build a memorial,” said Sally Regenhard, of the Bronx, who lost her firefighter son Christian Regenhard in the attack.

The architect injured when 14,000 pounds of steel demolished the construction trailer at the Goldman Sachs site last week at Ground Zero may never walk again.
Robert Woo remains hospitalized and may be paralyzed.
Meanwhile, work was scheduled to resume at the site despite the fact that contractor Tishman Construction Corporation has been cited for four violations by inspectors. The steel fell as it was being lifted by a crane operator who was also cited for code violations.

A new deal that would bring a world class shopping expert back to develop Ground Zero properties may be approved as early as tomorrow.
The New York Times says the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, owners of the 16-acre Ground Zero property in lower Manhattan, is still talking to Westfield Group. The deal on the table is for the group to buy a 50 percent stake in developing nearly 500,000 square feet of retail space at Ground Zero. The Times says the PA wants Westfield to invest more than $600 million in creating the shopping areas.
“Stores would be located at street level and above in three planned office towers along Church Street, as well as in the two-story concourses linking the site with subway lines and the PATH commuter rail station,” the Times said.
“The original shopping space at the World Trade Center was a highly successful underground mall, in no small way because of the 150,000 commuters and tourists streaming past the storefronts and restaurants every day on their way to the towers.
But critics and many downtown residents complained that the old configuration robbed the neighborhood of street life, leaving it a ghost town after sundown and on the weekends. After the complex was destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, planners, neighborhood groups and eventually the Port Authority insisted that the new stores would be built at street level and extend up as high as the fourth floor, as well as underground.”

Confusion reigns among agencies who oversee whether or not 9/11 workers living outside of New York City receive medical care.
A decision by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to halt a plan to create a national Sept. 11 health program could cripple the effort to help sick workers living outside of New York, state officials said yesterday.

Newsday, the Long Island newspaper says legislators are alarmed over the situation, “This is no time to say ‘no’ to first responders who have now retired and moved to warmer climates for their health,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan) said at a midday news conference outside the PATH station at the World Trade Center site. “This was an unfair, misguided decision.”
Citing confusion among potential bidders and expected cost overruns, CDC officials were quoted as saying. CDC officials said Thursday the agency was halting the process of gathering proposals to create a World Trade Center Business Process Center.

“The federally funded center would reimburse doctors treating people who traveled to assist in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks on the trade center, as well as first responders who then lived in the New York metropolitan area and later moved away. The program also would gather data about 9/11-related illnesses.

Maloney and other members of New York state’s congressional delegation said the CDC showed bad faith in its handling of the program when it pulled the plug before the proposal process was complete.”

A protest staged outside of the World Trade Center construction site today called for the federal govenment to change its stance and resume monitoring the heath of Ground Zero workers.
Newsday, the Long Island, N.Y, newspaper says a congressional delegation and Ground Zero workers who staged the protest said the decision to halt monitoring was “unfair and misguided.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services filed paperwork this week canceling plans to pay a company to medically screen those who got sick after working in the toxic rubble of the trade center,” Newsday reported. “The government said the program could cost far more money than Congress has provided. U.S. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., on Saturday said of the explanation: “That takes a lot of chutzpah.”

Seven tons of steel fell on a construction trailer across the street from Ground Zero today, injuring an architect working on a new corporate headquarters for a banking and investment giant, Goldman Sachs Group, it was reported.
Press reports  said a crane dropped the steel studs being lifted to the 13th Floor of the 30-story building, according to authorities at the site. Goldman Sachs has been cited for numerous violations that include unsafe lifting operations and a failure to use safe procedures. The project is being constructed by Tishman Construction Corp. Architect Robert Wood was injured in the accident and hospitalized.
The Goldman building is a $2 billion project going up across the street from the Freedom Tower.

We knew. We’ve always known. It’s not news that former EPA chief Christie Whitman lied six years ago when she said  the air quality in New York after 9/11 was safe. Its being reported now that she lied then as if it is news. It did not take six years to figure this out. It just took common sense.     Nevertheless, the media began reporting the Whitman lie this week after lawyers  for residents of lower Manhattan told an appeals court earlier this week they should hold Whitman responsible for her deceptive comments. Just five days after 9/11 Whitman, then head of the Environmental Protection Agency told reporters “The good news continues to be that air samples we have taken have all been at levels that cause no concern.” Six years later, the evidence clearly shows something quite different and lower Manhattan residents aren’t being quiet about it. They filed a class action law suit  together with students and workers at Ground Zero saying they relied on Whitman’s comments when they decided to continue living, working or to continue going to school downtown. Doctors now say anyone exposed to the air downtown were exposed to toxic fumes.
“If she had not said this, they probably would have made their own decision,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) told the New York Daily News after a hearing on the issue. “She was telling people it was safe when she knew damn well it wasn’t.”

Manhattan Federal Court Judge Deborah Batts suggested in a February 2006 ruling that Whitman’s comments were irresponsible.

A group of lawmakers from New York and New Jersey is pushing Congress to pass a $109 Million spending bill for those affected with World Trade Center Illness,” according to Paul Napoli. The money was added onto a $500 Billion spending bill and Senator Hillary Clinton is hoping that it passes. As a senator, Clinton has pushed for years for the government to provide a long-term health care program for those sickened from their work at the toxic World Trade Center debris pile following the 2001 terrorist attacks. As a presidential candidate, she has highlighted her work on the issue. “Today’s announcement marks another step toward addressing those enduring wounds,” Clinton said in a statement. The spending bill may be vetoed by the White House. If it passes then it would provide twice the funding for those affected by World Trade Center illness that was in a previous bill.