The Freedom Tower

Another Ground Zero worker and first responder has died young of cancer.
The New York press reports that William Holfester, a 43-year-old Manhattan detective who worked at Ground Zero in the wreckage after 9/11 and at a Staten Island landfill where the debris was hauled and sorted.
Relatives of the fallen police officer believe the 17-year New York Police Department veteran died of a cancer caused by his exposure to toxic air and debris at Ground Zero.
“His duty was to pretty much rake through and sift through for any personal items and body parts,” said D’Arcangelo, 53. “I’m sure the mix of all of these chemicals produced quite a mixture of noxious materials.
“We all feel it is related [to the cleanup work], but I don’t know what proof there is.”
Holfester, who worked in lower Manhattan’s 1st Precinct, put in 12-hour days for about three weeks, including weekends, after the attacks, relatives said.
NYPD officials confirmed Holfester put in “a lot of hours” during the recovery effort while assigned at Ground Zero and at a landfill, but could not provide specifics on hours or days. The family has filed for line-of-duty death benefits, the officials said.

The Reuters news agency says an 80-story hotel is going up just one block from the site of the new World Trade Center.
In a piece by Joan Gralla, Reuters says the developer said “he was unbowed by fears of a recession or a softening of New York’s real estate market.

The new 912-foot (278-metre) tower, due to begin construction in June and be completed in 2011, will combine a luxury hotel with apartments. The project was announced as the pace of huge real estate deals has slowed, credit has tightened and Wall Street is still struggling in the swamp of subprime mortgages.

Developer Larry Silverstein referred to “negative trends” in financial markets while announcing the project and answered his own rhetorical questions on whether the Financial District was vulnerable to downturns in the financial markets that have caused vacancies to spike in the past.

“The answer, in a word, is ‘no.’ In two words, ‘Hell no’,” said the man who took out a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center six weeks before it was destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Silverstein said his confidence reflected the commitment of elected officials to the World Trade Center’s rebuilding, the decision of 184 non-financial companies to relocate downtown, and easy access to the area through public transportation.”

From the news desk of CommonDreams.org: Jan. 28, 2008

“9/11 responders who were made sick by the toxic air at Ground Zero traveled to Washington today to watch the President’s State of the Union Address from the House Gallery and join federal lawmakers and labor leaders in urging President Bush to include sufficient funding for unmet 9/11 health needs in the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2009 budget proposal. The lawmakers, labor leaders, and sick responders also demanded answers from the Administration about why the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) suddenly decided last month to halt its plans for organizing an important health monitoring and treatment program for Ground Zero workers around the country, and advocated for passage of a comprehensive long-term program to help everyone exposed to 9/11 toxins.

“The 9/11 heroes in the Gallery tonight will represent the thousands of responders, residents and workers who were made sick by the toxic air at Ground Zero and have been desperately looking to their government and their President for help,” said Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY). “Let’s hope the President finally gets it right in his last State of the Union address and tells the heroes of 9/11 that he wants to do right by them before he leaves office. It’s not too late to finally prioritize the health needs of those who risked life and limb to help their fellow citizens in the aftermath of 9/11, and are now suffering from serious – sometimes fatal – illnesses as a result of their heroism.”

“I am outraged that the Bush Administration continues to turn its back on the heroes of 9/11,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY). “We need to provide medical care for the thousands of brave Americans who came to Ground Zero to help in the recovery efforts after the collapse of the World Trade Center. These failures of the White House are just the latest examples of the federal government’s continued malfeasance since 9/11. I urge the President, when delivering his state of the union tonight, to look these brave 9/11 workers in the eye and explain why he will not provide for those who gave so selflessly at Ground Zero.”

“We have made progress over the last year to begin getting the resources necessary to help our 9/11 heroes,” said Rep. Vito Fossella (R-NY). “However, we now need a significant investment by the federal government into health monitoring and treatment for those who are sick or injured. In addition, the federal government must develop a comprehensive plan to address the health impacts of 9/11. We continue urging the White House to provide adequate funding in the 2009 budget to help all those who are sick or injured as a result of the terror attacks.”

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is looking for someone to run a restaurant from the 110th and 101st floors of the Freedom Tower once its completed.
It may not be called “the second incarnation of Windows on the World but Port Authority spokesperson Candace McAdams says they are seeking to run a restaurant like Windows because the Freedom Tower is “an iconic structure that calls for a world-class dining destination.
The PA says the restaurant is scheduled to open in 2013 and have a 360-degree views of New York City and the Hudson and East Rivers. Eating at Windows on the World was an experience so uncommon, I don’t really remember the food all that much. Someone I know who worked in the restaurant said the food was generally pretty ordinary but who cares. It was view, stupid.

The Port Authority will issue a formal request for expressions of interest on Tuesday to design, build and operate the 34,000-square-foot restaurant. Interested restaurateurs will have until the end of February to respond.

The Port Authority signed an agreement with Cushman & Wakefield Inc. last year to find tenants for the Freedom Tower, which will also be called One World Trade Center.

President Bush should pledge to treat Ground Zero workers who responded to 9/11, particularly, according to the New York press.
The Long Island newspaper, Newsday and the Associated Press say the President should make such a pledge in his State of the Union Address tomorrow night.
“We know the president is going to talk about homeland security,” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a Manhattan Democrat, said on Sunday in press reports. “He’s going to talk about the war against terror. But let me tell you something he’s not probably going to say. He’s not going to say that he’s going to provide health care to the men and women who rushed in to save the lives of others.”

The advocates were angered last month when the government halted an attempt to organize health monitoring for ground zero workers spread across the country, saying the program could cost far more money than Congress has provided.

The Department of Health and Human Services canceled the effort to hire a company to create a “processing center” for medical screening of those who worked on the toxic rubble of the trade center after the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The New York papers are saying a detailed 1998 New York Police Department analysis opposed the city’s plans to locate its emergency command center at the World Trade Center.
While the former mayor Rudolph Giuliani is using the 9/11 attacks as the basis for his presidential ambitions, his administration overrode the objections, The New York Times reported on Saturday.
“Seven World Trade Center is a poor choice for the site of a crucial command center for the top leadership of the City of New York,” the Times quoted a panel of police experts aided by the Secret Service as having concluded in a confidential Police Department memorandum which has not been previously disclosed.

The longest of the analysis’ nine sections, headed “Explosives,” describes a blast analysis of the likely impact of various types of bombs, and concluded that the largest of truck bombs would have led to the building’s collapse, the Times report said.

The command center was destroyed during the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center that also destroyed the twin towers in the seven-building complex.

Among the location’s vulnerabilities was its history as a target, the report said. One of the World Trade Center’s twin towers was attacked by truck bomb in 1993 that killed 6 people and injured more than 1,000.

Giuliani, currently campaigning in Florida for the Republican presidential nomination, has acknowledged some skepticism by the police about the choice, but characterized it as a dispute between government officials and departments, the Times said.

“This group’s finding is that the security of the proposed O.E.M. Command Center cannot be reasonably guaranteed,” the July 1998 memo to the city’s police commissioner concluded.

The Times said it obtained the document from a law enforcement official who it noted was not affiliated with any rival political campaign.

The memorandum was provided to The New York Times by a law enforcement official not affiliated with a rival political campaign. Continued…

The New York Post reports that Tom Cruise brands federal officials “liars” and takes credit for saving the lives of hundreds of supposedly poisoned workers at Ground Zero in a wacky new Scientology video.

In a promotional tape for the religions Cruise promotes, the star states, “A Scientologist is someone who can look at the world and really see what it is . . . and be effective and do something about it and someone who’s not asking permission to do that. Why ask permission? We are the authorities!” See clips from the video HERE.

Next, the video cuts to news footage of the devastation at Ground Zero as cheap action music plays and a cheesy narrator boasts: “And nothing says that better than the Mr. Cruise response [sic] to the wake-up call in the aftermath of 9/11 . . . If he takes a stand, it’s pedal to the metal till the finish line, as in helping New York firemen. He first saw the dust and heard the cough when descending to the ruins, where he bolstered morale among firemen. The devastation had spread an unprecedented combination of toxins through the air - and it was lethal.”

Cruise’s voice kicks back in: “The EPA came out and said the air was clean. Of course, as a Scientologist, you go, ‘That’s a lie, [an] out[right] lie . . .’ You know, you just go, ‘Liar. Fine.’ ”

The narrator then returns to brag how Cruise “personally saw to the establishment of a first New York-covered detox project. And, no, he did not ask permission.”

Blogger Steve Cuozzo says we might be in for a miserable future when it comes to finishing the construction at Ground Zero.
Cuozzo, writing on 911Blogger.com, is suggesting that there are so many things going wrong on the streets surrounding the pit at Ground Zero and in the pit itself that the future is looking quite grim.
‘ll look at what’s gone wrong inside the pit in the coming weeks,” the blogger says, “but for now, consider the sickening conditions the PA and City Hall let fester all around the perimeter of the 16-acre “sacred ground.”
“Ground Zero’s borders deserve a patina of dignity for anyone wishing to recall the World Trade Center that was, to mourn the victims of 9/11 or to contemplate the site’s future.

It’s bad enough the view remains bracketed by the blackened hulks of 130 Liberty St. and Fiterman Hall. But at least there’s a theoretical, contamination-related excuse for the eyesores’ continued presence.

But not the flimsiest justification exists for the rowdy, open-air bazaar of illegal junk-peddlers and in-your-face conspiracy-mongers along Church, Vesey and Liberty streets - an indefensible rupture of civic order in a city that’s managed to shut down squeegee men and three-card-monte games.

No one can object to the First Amendment right to display or sell 9/11-con- spiracy nonsense (or plain junk). But that doesn’t absolve the city and the PA of enforcing their own rules - and making sure visitors can watch what’s going on without being hassled as if they’re in a Third World flea market.

The conditions have long dismayed Downtown residents, businesses and commuters - yet neither the city nor the PA has responded to their complaints except sporadically.”

A breach in the standpipe of the former Deutsche Bank tower in New York where two firefighters died last August will not happen again because of a new fire suppression system, officials announced today.

Government officials and contractors overseeing the dismantling of the toxic Ground Zero skyscraper made the announcement while testifying before a City Council hearing Wednesday about their progress. The standpipe, which supplies water to fire hoses, was broken in the Aug. 18 fire that killed two firefighters.
Officials say they are still awaiting regulators’ approval before they can begin work taking down the building.

There seems to be more than what might meet the eye at Skidmore Owings & Merrill, the green group building the Freedom Tower.
Skidmore is building what some are calling a “beautifully designed building” going up on the outskirts of Paris. It is a zero-energy building that relies on a massive array of solar panels.
According to www.groovygreen.com, “everything from air-conditioning to heating to lighting in the French building will be covered by clean, green energy — enough to cover the needs of the 5,000 people expected to work there. “It’s unique cooling system will take cold water from the river Seine and pump it around the building - eliminating the need for a traditional air conditioner. The building will also utilize cutting edge insulation, reducing amount of electricity consumption per square meter of office space per year to 16 kilowatts, the lowest in the world for a building of its size.”
These people seem to have their eyes on some sort of prize lots of builders talk about but could never deliver. Check them out because their experience might just bring a refreshing change to the iron, steel and glass everyone is expecting when the Freedom Tower is actually up and running.