The Freedom Tower

The refusal of a  federal appeals court in New York  to grant New York City immunity from lawsuits by thousands of city employees and construction workers who cleaned up ground zero after the September 11, 2001, opens the door to thousands of potential law suits.
A decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals means that the laborers are one step closer to trials or settlements. A three-judge panel of the court ruled unanimously that the city was not automatically entitled to immunity from the suits.

“This was the last legal obstacle standing between 10,000 people and their jury, their trial,” a lawyer who represents many of the plaintiffs, David Worby, said.

Mr. Worby claims that about 550 of those 10,000 have cancer related to their exposure to toxins at ground zero.

The lawsuits claim that the city failed to ensure that ground zero was a safe workplace. High among the claims is the assertion that the city failed to enforce rules requiring laborers to wear respirators while working amid the toxins and rubble.

New York City and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, both of which are defendants in the suits, have argued that they deserve immunity from the suits because the cleanup effort was part of a response to an unprecedented emergency. They say they should not be liable for paying potentially billions of dollars in damages.

The city’s corporation counsel, Michael Cardozo, said in a statement that he was “confident that as the facts unfold” the city would ultimately be found to be immune from the lawsuits.

The first significant ruling in the case came in 2006, when a federal district judge in Manhattan, Alvin Hellerstein, found that the city was not liable for the conditions at ground zero in the days immediately after the terrorist attacks. But Judge Hellerstein ruled that the lawsuits could go forward against the city’s wishes to give workers the chance to prove that ground zero remained an unsafe work environment weeks and months after September 11, 2001. The city and the Port Authority appealed to the 2nd Circuit, which yesterday denied their appeal in a highly technical ruling.

The appeal was decided by Judges Jon Newman, Sonia Sotomayor, and Richard Wesley.

A phony cop who repeatedly made claims that he personally rescued thousand during the 9/11 attacks is a fraud, according to recent press reports.
Authorities now say Fred Parisi was not even near the World Trade Center during the attacks and is not even a real cop because he quit the police academy before graduating, law enforcement sources told the New York Daily News.

“The allegation came after Fred Parisi was arrested in Carlstadt, N.J., the newspaper reported, last night while entering a fund-raiser for the 9/11 Rescue Workers Foundation that he founded.

The actual theft charges against the 40-year-old father of three from Jefferson Township, N.J., are unrelated to Sept. 11. Local cops said he looted at least $235,000 from Berkshire Valley Custom Wood Designs, a woodworking company that he also founded.

Just last month, he joined a delegation of legitimate 9/11 rescue workers at the Capitol in Washington to lobby for better health care. He appeared in news photos holding an American flag and standing next to an FDNY deputy chief who lost a son at the World Trade Center.

Parisi touts himself as director and founder of the 9/11 Rescue Workers Foundation. A foundation press release states, “Fred was there as the second plane hit. But what haunts him is the memory of what the firefighters said on the way up: ‘Stay here, Fred. We’ll be right back.’ “

The New York Post says cost of the Freedom Tower has soared to $3 billion, according to the Port Authority’s latest estimates.

Construction costs for the 1,776-foot tower have been pegged at $2.478 billion, up from the $2.2 billion estimate for steel, concrete, glass and labor projected last spring.

But the latest tally included in the Port Authority’s capital budget includes an additional $507 million for “nonconstruction” costs that include security at the site, integrity monitors to keep an eye on contractors, the cost of selling bonds to finance the project, marketing the office space and fitting it out for tenants, The Post has learned.

Adding all the costs, the price tag for the Freedom Tower budgeted by the bi-state agency is $3 billion - making it not just the tallest building in the city, but also the most expensive.

By comparison, a new state-of-the-art headquarters for Goldman Sachs under construction at a site directly across West Street from the Freedom Tower is expected to cost about $2.3 billion.

“The Port Authority’s capital plan publicly accounts for every dime of spending on all our building projects over the next 10 years, including the Freedom Tower,” said agency spokesman Steve Sigmund.

“During that period, the building has long-term soft costs, like brokers and marketing fees, tenant fit-outs, responsible contingencies and security, which go beyond hard construction costs.”

Sigmund said the price tag will be offset by $900 million in insurance funds and about $1 billion in Liberty Bonds.

The remainder of the cost will have to be recouped through rents charged for the 2.6 million square feet of office space after the tower is complete in 2011.

The City of New York and its contractors are not immune from suit in the World Trade Center Disaster Site litigation, TheUnited States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said today in a 58-page decision. In the decision,  World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, Second Circuit Docket Number 06-5324, the Second Circuit dismissed the defendants’ immunity claims arising from New York State Law, holding that it had no jurisdiction over these state-law issues, and held that insofar as the City contended it should not be forced to take part in the litigation at all, those claims of immunity from suit were meritless. The Second Circuit thus affirmed the District Court’s denial of the defendants’ motions for summary judgment on immunity grounds.

In its decision, the Court said that “what Defendants seek is an unprecedented extension of derivative discretionary immunity as a matter of law - an extension that, as a policy matter, would not only insulate them from liability but also bar Plaintiffs from seeking compensation for injuries they received while working at the World Trade Center disaster site and at the Fresh Kills Landfill.” Responding to the Contractors’ arguments that a finding in favor of the plaintiffs would make contractors less likely in the event of future disasters, to respond to the government’s needs, the Court wrote: “we observe that private contractors, unlike volunteers or conscripts, are paid for their services and able to pass along the cost of liability protection to the government, either by including the cost of liability insurance in their contract or by seeking indemnification from the government.” The Court cited with approval the District Court’s finding that “we must strike a ‘delicate balance’ between the needs of Defendants, who insist that immunity is necessary to encourage companies to volunteer their efforts, and Plaintiffs, who were ‘the very individuals who, without thought of self, rushed to the aid of the City and their fallen comrades.’”

Asked about today’s decision, Plaintiffs’ Co-Liaison Counsel Paul Napoli said: “Obviously, we are elated about today’s decision that soundly upholds the District Court’s denial of the defendants’ claims of immunity from suit. We hope that this strong message from the Court of Appeals will convince the City of New York and its Contractors that the time for foot-dragging and excuses has ended and the time to step up to the plate and offer these heroic Ground Zero workers some relief has begun.” Continuing, Mr. Napoli said “we hope that the defendants will forego further attempts to avoid their obligations and will swiftly move forward with us to a fair and equitable resolution of these claims.”

Thousands of men and women who worked in the clean up and recovery efforts at the site of the World Trade Center in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks have become seriously ill, and many have died of those illnesses, as a result of their exposure to toxic smoke, dust, particulate matter and chemicals at the worksite. Plaintiffs contend that the City and the Contractors failed to provide adequate protective equipment in the form of respirators and hazardous material coveralls, as well as failed to provide adequate safety training and supervision at and around the work site. Initial reports of a so-called “World Trade Center cough” and other respiratory problems have given way to life-threatening illnesses such as pulmonary fibrosis, severe asthma, leukemia and other cancers in a large percentage of the people who worked at and around the site.

Mary Carouba gave an impassioned and often moving tribute to the 411 rescuers who gave their lives on Sept. 11, 2001. She is a co-author of a new book and she spoke at a book signing in California for “Women at Ground Zero: Stories of Courage and Compassion.”

Women, Carouba said at a book signing in the Bay area of Sonoma County, California, played an indispensable role that was consistently overlooked in press coverage and government statements. Carouba, a retired investigative social worker and former stand-up comedian, saw the efforts of women glossed over after the attacks. She told the story to The Oakleaf Online, the Santa Rosa Junior College’s student newspaper.

Speaking of Rudy
Giuliani’s remarks, she said, “This is what we heard: ‘firemen,’ ‘our brave guys,’ ‘the men we lost today.’ Was there really not one women rescuer?” The tipping point came as she, along with co-author and Sonoma County firefighter Susan Hagen, watched the names of dead rescue workers read on national TV. “And one female” was all the recognition any woman got.

The two booked a hotel in Central Park merely because “central” was in the name. They maxed out their credit cards.

Not knowing where to start, the authors asked a taxi driver to take them to “the bar where women cops hang out after work.”

“There’s always that bar,” Carouba said. “I mean, there was on ‘NYPD Blue.’” The stab in the dark paid off, and soon many who had been at Ground Zero - and shared Carouba’s and Hagen’s frustration - came forward. “They all just started crying. It was such an unusual experience. Three New York cops breaking into tears in a bar,” Carouba said.

“We discovered how much these people are still suffering. It’s like Vietnam all over again,” she said, referring to the many illnesses and health problems caused by the debris and dust in the air. “The survivor’s guilt is incredible.” Lois Mungay, the most decorated firefighter in the NYFD, was 10 minutes late and missed her fire engine. Six of her co-workers, some of whom she had worked with for more than 20 years were on time.

All died.
“I have no doubt that she would rather have been on the fire truck that day than be the one who survived,” said Carouba, who interviewed Mungay extensively. Carouba said Mungay “is the only person I’ve ever known who could make an entire paragraph out of nothing but the F-word.” Mungay flatly refused to have her face on the cover of the book, but changed her mind, to inspire young girls.

In this spirit, the authors are creating a “Women at Ground Zero” scholarship fund at SRJC for students, male and female alike, to enter the field of rescue work.

The federal goverment paid the American Society of Civil Engineers to investigage what went wrong after 9/11 and Katrina.
What has gone wrong now is the fact that critics now say the group covered up engineering mistakes, downplayed the need to alter building standards, and used the investigations to protect engineers and government agencies from lawsuits. The critics took a closer look at the society’s finding in both disasters and found their assessments doubtful.
The AP says “Similar accusations arose after both disasters, but the most recent allegations have pressured the organization to convene an independent panel to investigate.

“They want to make sure that they do things the right way and that they learn lessons from the studies they do,” said Sherwood Boelhert, a retired Republican congressman from New York who heads the panel. He led the House Science Committee for six years.

The panel is expected to issue a report by the end of April and may recommend that the society stop taking money from government agencies for disaster investigations.

The engineering group says it takes the allegations seriously, but it has declined to comment until completion of the panel’s report and an internal ethics review.

In the World Trade Center case, critics contend the engineering society wrongly concluded skyscrapers cannot withstand getting hit by airplanes. In the hurricane investigation, it was accused of suggesting that the power of the storm was as big a problem as the poorly designed levees.

The group has about 140,000 members and is based in Reston, Va. It sets engineering standards and codes and publishes technical books and a glossy magazine. Members testify regularly before Congress and issue an annual report on the state of the nation’s public-works projects.

The society got a $1.1 million grant from the Army Corps of Engineers to study the levee failures. Similarly, the Federal Emergency Management Agency paid the group about $257,000 to investigate the World Trade Center collapse.”

A Canadian website called Northumberlandtoday.com says most Canadians felt the Americans’ pain when the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists on September 11, 2001, but a place in Canada called Port Hope soon took the tragedy truly to heart when it was learned that some of its own were directly affected.

Arron Dack, son of Selena Forsyth, of Port Hope, and son-in-law of Phillip Carter and Sheilagh Fletcher, of Port Hope, was killed when the twin towers fell.

The 39-year-old left behind a wife, Abigail Carter, 36, a daughter, Olivia, six, and a son, Carter, only two.

Now Ms. Carter has published a book called The Alchemy of Loss, (McClelland & Stewart) to describe the journey she and her children have undergone since that day.

Through the auspices of Furby House Books, Ms. Carter will appear at Port Hope’s Capitol Theatre this Friday, March 28, to read from her book, sign copies, meet the public and answer questions.

She says writing the book was a form of healing for her and, she hopes reading it will help others deal with loss.

But the special circumstances of 9/11 made her husband’s not an ordinary death.

Amid the shock and sorrow, Ms. Carter says, “Suddenly, I was weirdly famous.”

Still, she says, “loss is loss,” and she hopes her book, with a title that deliberately avoids mention of 9/11, and does refer to “grief,” will help someone else - some other widow or widower, someone in the throes of divorce, another single mom, perhaps - to cope with life after loss, and even meet some situations with humour.

In the book, Ms. Carter is scrupulously honest, not sparing herself or others when it comes to descriptions of reactions, of situations handled well, or not so well.

Unflinchingly, she recounts the last moments of her husband’s life, when he used his cell phone to call her at their New Jersey home to tell her he thought there was “a bomb” in the trade center, and ask her to call 911.

The New York Sun says the Port Authority is considering developing a mixed-use building or a residential high-rise at the World Trade Center site of the former Deutsche Bank headquarters, now that JPMorgan Chase & Co. has backed out of plans to move its investment banking operation there, sources said.

The director of World Trade Center development for Silverstein Properties, Janno Lieber, who is overseeing development of towers 2, 3, and 4, said he is not concerned about JPMorgan’s change of heart and does not think it would harm the overall development plans for Lower Manhattan. “At the time that the whole World Trade Center master plan was done, it was contemplated that it might be a residential hotel or something else. That issue is on the table again,” he said.

JPMorgan this week said it would move its operations to the 43-story Bear Stearns offices on Madison Avenue. The offices are to be acquired as part of its $2-a-share acquisition of the financial services firm.

The news changes the vision that the Port Authority and developer Larry Silverstein had been advocating for the new World Trade Center site. As early as last week, Mr. Silverstein was touting JPMorgan’s move as a sign that the site was an emerging center of finance and commerce.

JPMorgan has indicated that it remains interested in the site, and a spokeswoman for the Port Authority, Candace McAdams, said that, because of the nonbinding nature of the deal, JPMorgan would incur no penalties if it were to withdraw its interest altogether. “In our discussions, we have every indication that they continue to see the building as an attractive location,” she said.

The developer Edward Minskoff said a mixed-use development or a first-class hotel would make sense at the site.

“I imagine a lot of people are circling the wagon train trying to figure out what they are going to do,” he said.

Discussion regarding the use of the site, which is situated a block south of ground zero at 130 Liberty St., dates back to 2003, when a number of officials and planners — including Mayor Bloomberg — were advocating for more residential development to be incorporated into the plan.

However, Mr. Bloomberg’s current deputy mayor for economic development, Robert Lieber, said that idea is no longer viable.

“I remember the residential idea, and to do that — as far as the legislative challenges go — I don’t think it is right at this stage of the game,” he said. “The reason to build residential was because there wasn’t any commercial tenants, but I think the market is completely different today,” he said, adding that a building dedicated to financial services still makes the most sense.

USA Today reports that “Across the street from the yawning void left when the World Trade Center collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, sits a center imbued with the memory of the 2,750 people who died there.

The completion of a permanent memorial is at least two years away, and the Tribute Center is the sole space near Ground Zero where a visitor can hear the anxious radio transmissions of a firefighter inside the south tower; see a twisted steel beam from the Trade Center’s core; study the ID card of a husband who never made it home.

It has become a destination in its own right, and on Monday, less than a year and a half after it opened, the center welcomed its 400,000th visitor, a man from Kent, England, and his wife.

“I said if I ever came to New York, this would be one of the first places I would come,” said John O’Neill, 23, a personal trainer from Galway, Ireland, who visited the center the day after it reached the milestone. “It’s overwhelming.”

The $3.4-million center, opened in September 2006, was to be an interim space for remembrance and education while the permanent memorial, complete with a museum and Freedom Tower spiraling 1,776 feet high, was built at the World Trade Center site.

Now, some segments of the memorial complex will open at least a year later than originally planned. The tree-lined plaza, featuring waterfall-filled pools where the towers once stood, will not open until 2010, and the visitor’s center and museum will be unveiled in 2011. Freedom Tower is scheduled to open in 2012.

“The new timeline reflected a more realistic schedule that became clear after construction began,” says Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site. “We’ll work as aggressively as possible to complete the project as soon as possible.”

The Sept. 11th Families Association created the Tribute Center. “The memorial will be built,” says Jennifer Adams, the center’s co-founder. “It will be beautiful when it’s built, but we need something from now until then.”

The New York Post reports that JPMorgan Chase will move ahead with building a tower at the World Trade Center, even though its plan to relocate its investment-banking headquarters to Ground Zero was scuttled by the acquisition of Bear Stearns earlier this week, The Post has learned.”We are exploring other alternatives there and believe we can use it,” JPMorgan Chase spokesman Joseph Evangelisti said of the World Trade Center site, where bank officials struck an agreement with the Port Authority to build Tower 5.

“We are going to utilize the agreement,” Evangelisti said.

JPMorgan’s intent to build at the World Trade Center was cast in doubt earlier this week when the bank acquired Bear Stearns for the rock-bottom price of $236 million. The deal includes Bear Stearns’ tower and trading floors on Madison Avenue at 47th Street.

Evangelisti said JPMorgan will move its investment-banking headquarters to the Bear Stearns building but will develop the World Trade Center site for another purpose.

Sources familiar with the talks about Tower 5 said it will likely not include large trading floors that were supposed to jut out from the upper floors of the structure and that had been derided as a “beer belly.”

In a bid to keep the bank at the World Trade Center site, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose district includes lower Manhattan, spoke with senior JPMorgan officials earlier this week and was told the company would develop the site.

“We have every expectation that they will be there, but the design of the building may change,” said Silver spokesman Dan Weiler.

JPMorgan and the PA agreed last June to a deal that would allow the bank to build a 1.3 million-square-foot tower in exchange for a 92-year lease worth roughly $300 million to the agency, which owns the World Trade Center.