The Freedom Tower

Construction of skyscrapers and an underground transport hub to replace the World Trade Center towers destroyed in the September 11 terror attacks will be delayed for years and cost far more than planned, New York officials said Monday.According to AFP, the schedule and cost of the ambitious project, including a landmark Liberty Tower, other ultramodern skyscrapers and a museum, “face significant delays and cost overruns,” said Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the site land.

“While significant progress has been made, the schedule and cost estimates of the rebuilding effort that have been communicated to the public are not realistic,” he added in a briefing about the setbacks.

A new target completion date was not released, Ward said, as setting a fresh forecast before key issues were resolved “would only create a new set of commitments and expectations that are unrealistic.”

Earlier Monday The Wall Street Journal reported the project will be delayed from one to three years and run three billion dollars over its 15-billion-dollar budget.

“Anyone giving you dates and budgets today would have to have a crystal ball,” Port Authority spokesman Stephen Sigmund told the paper, calling its figures overly pessimistic.

The delays mean the so-called “ground zero” project will not be completed by 2011, the symbolic date of the 10th anniversary of the terror strikes on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania claimed by Al-Qaeda.

Ward pointed to 15 “fundamental issues” critical to the project and its construction which had yet to be resolved, and said there needed to be a “more efficient, centralized decision-making structure” to make final decisions on the project.

Officials said work on the site involves 19 state agencies, 101 different construction companies or subcontractors, and 33 different designers, architects and builders.

New York Governor David Paterson said he wanted to focus less on what has gone wrong in the process and more on providing an adequate memorial to honor those who died in the attacks.

“I am not interested in assigning blame. Instead, I am interested in fixing the problem so we can move forward,” Paterson said.

“I believe that the victims’ families deserve a memorial that is equal to the sacrifice and heroism displayed on that day and I believe that the City of New York deserves a reinvigorated site that secures our position as the economic capital of the world.”

The developer of the World Trade Center site has dismissed suggestions that people would be scared to occupy the skyscrapers that will replace the fallen twin towers.

Envisaged as a demonstration of New York’s unity and resilience, the reconstruction of the site where the trade center’s twin towers were destroyed on September 11, 2001, became a byword for discord and disorder.

After a multitude of delays caused by the clash of multiple vested interests, construction of the design’s centerpiece skyscraper — the 1,776 foot (541-meter) Freedom Tower — finally began in April 2006.

As well as the Freedom Tower, which will contain 241,548 square meters (2.6 million square feet) of office space, Silverstein Properties will build three other high-rise buildings at the site with a combined office space of 575,999 square meters (6.2 million square feet).

Some real estate experts have predicted the space will be hard to fill, with memories of the 9/11 attack making too many people reluctant to work in skyscrapers on the same site.

The New York Daily News says the Port Authority officials ignored private warnings a year ago that Ground Zero construction was far behind schedule - and that the Sept. 11 memorial would not be done in time for the terror attack’s 10th anniversary.
The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. told the Port Authority’s then-executive director, Anthony Shorris, and then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer that the PA’s claims the work would be done on time were unrealistic, to say the least.
Memos obtained by the Daily News reveal that as early as last June, an engineering firm hired by the LMDC contradicted the authority’s predictions in an in-depth review of the $16 billion Ground Zero reconstruction. The report was never made public.
In a December memo citing the report’s findings, the LMDC warned Spitzer: “The original dates were never real and were driven and produced by PR people, not construction and engineering analysis.”
The most shocking thing in the secret report was that construction of the WTC memorial was at least a year behind the Port Authority’s claim that it would be done in time for the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack.
After The News began asking about the secret report on Friday, PA Executive Director Chris Ward said the agency would release a new construction schedule at its board meeting Monday.
In its “reassessment,” the authority will admit that all the projects are way behind schedule, but reportedly will try to shift the blame to former Gov. George Pataki.
One source said the Freedom Tower could be two years behind and the transit hub, already a year late, is even further behind.
PA spokesman Steve Sigmund said the reassessment, a response to Gov. Paterson’s demand last month that the authority give a clear explanation of the reconstruction, is “not designed to shift the blame,” but is “a candid assessment of where we are and where we need to go.”
Starting last June, the LMDC raised warning flags about the public pronouncements regarding WTC construction progress.

New York Gov. David A. Paterson announced plans to submit legislation to cover additional public workers who risked their health and safety in the rescue, recovery and clean-up efforts at the World Trade Center after the attacks of September 11, 2001. According to eMaxhealth.com, the legislation embraces the unanimous recommendations of the bi-partisan September 11th Worker Protection Task Force.

Under the Governor’s legislation, the “presumptive accidental disability retirement benefit” now available to some 9/11 first responders will be extended to additional first responders. A committee of doctors on the Task Force found that additional workers were exposed to the same toxins and psychological trauma as those originally covered.

“In the midst of the devastation of September 11th, men and women in public service risked their lives to aid in the search for survivors and victims,” said Governor Paterson. “As the nation grieved these heroes returned to work day and night, selflessly placing their own health at risk. It is our duty to offer them the protections they deserve in their time of illness.”

Additional first responders covered under this bill include: (i) state and county corrections officers and deputy sheriffs ; (ii) the non-uniformed first responders who were not required to undergo a pre-employment physical examination; (iii) 911 dispatchers; (iv) first responders who worked for any period of time within the first 48 hours after the first plane hit the World Trade Center; (v) emergency vehicle radio repair mechanics; (vi) vested members of a public pension system who terminated their employment prior to filing a claim; and (vii) workers who became disabled more than two years after 9/11 but before an extension was granted in the Workers Compensation Law which would have covered them.

Since many of the non-uniformed NYC and State workers at the site had not been required to undergo a pre-employment physical examination, a prerequisite to receiving benefits under the prior 9/11 legislation, the Governor’s bill extends benefits to those employees if they provide access to medical records and demonstrate the absence of a pre-qualifying condition prior to September 11, 2001. In addition, the geographic boundaries of the 9/11 disability benefits law are being expanded to emergency vehicle garages and emergency call centers, because the Task Force found emergency vehicle radio repair mechanics were exposed to dust and 911 operators experienced psychological trauma that has led to disabilities similar to those suffered by workers at the World Trade Center site.

Finally, current law requires that claimants participated in the WTC rescue, recovery or cleanup operations for a minimum of 40 hours, but scientific evidence gathered by the Task Force has shown there was a “substantial risk” of developing respiratory, gastrointestinal and / or mental health disability for first responders at the site during the first 48 hours after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center Towers. Therefore, the Governor’s legislation covers any first responder who worked during the first 48 hours after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said: “Governor Paterson is doing the right thing. Every effort to more thoroughly monitor, test and, if necessary, treat the illnesses of the workers at Ground Zero is a welcome step in the right direction.”

U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton said: “I am pleased to welcome legislation that expands benefits to the heroes who responded during our hour of need, and are now suffering adverse health effects because of their selflessness. By extending benefits to these individuals who were critical in our response to the September 11th attacks, New York State is demonstrating that it will not forget the sacrifices made by so many. I commend Governor Paterson for these efforts, and look forward to the swift passage of this legislation.”

Congressman Jerrold Nadler said: “I applaud Governor Paterson for introducing this essential legislation.While the fires were still burning at Ground Zero, brave men and women came to New York to provide help. And during their selfless service, these workers unnecessarily exposed themselves to toxins and containments. As Governor Paterson works with the New York State Legislature to pass this worthy bill, Congress must also act. This is a debt that can never fully be repaid, but we must do right by the living victims of 9/11.”

Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney said: “All New Yorkers should be proud that Governor Paterson and the State Assembly and Senate are leading the charge to take care of the heroes of 9/11, and it’s high time the federal government did the same by passing the Maloney-Nadler-Fossella-King 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. It is a moral imperative for our government to take care of Americans who risked their lives and health to save others in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. The contrast between the state and federal responses to this health crisis could not be clearer: New York is finding new ways to help the heroes of 9/11, while the Bush administration is still trying to avoid this responsibility.”

Congressman Peter King said: “The heroes of 9/11 became sick after working in the dust cloud of Ground Zero to save the lives of others. It is our duty to develop a plan to monitor and care for these responders. I fully support the establishment of the World Trade Center Health Program and will do all I can to ensure that the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act becomes law.”

Senate Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno said: “This bill will help ensure that first responders, who put their lives on the line in the minutes, days, weeks and months after the September 11th attacks, get the health care treatment and benefits they deserve. I thank the members of the 9/11 Worker Protection Task Force for their work. The Senate advocated for the establishment of the task force in the original legislation that addressed this issue. This bill mirrors the task force’s recommendations for ensuring that 9/11 heroes are properly taken care of.”

Senate Minority Leader Malcolm Smith said: “Legislation to expand health care benefits beyond its initial scope, which left out hundreds of 9/11 workers, was long overdue. People from across the city, state, and country fearlessly risked their lives in an act of patriotism and their efforts should not be forgotten. It is time for the legislators to stand up for those workers the same way they stood up for us in the aftermath of the attacks on the World Trade Center–unconditionally. I join my colleagues in commending the Governor on introducing this bill and call on the legislature to pledge full support to expand health care benefits to 9/11 workers.”

Senator George Onorato, Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Labor Committee, said: “I commend Governor Paterson and the September 11th Worker Protection Task Force for their efforts to expand needed health care benefits to additional men and women who aided in search and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center. We have an obligation to provide care for these brave first responders who risked their own health and safety in service to others on that dreadful day.”

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said: “This measure is a simple matter of fairness for the men and women whose health has suffered in the aftermath of their work as first responders to the September 11th terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. I am pleased that Governor Paterson has followed the recommendation of the September 11th Worker Protection Task Force and, introduced legislation to extend health and disability benefits to these individuals — including many who live or work in Lower Manhattan — who served with such extraordinary dedication on September 11th and in the difficult days that followed the terrorist attack.”

Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco said: “The courageous first-responders who risked their lives to help save fellow New Yorkers in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks are genuine heroes and fully deserving of expanded access to health care benefits. We owe these heroes a profound debt of gratitude on behalf of a grateful nation that was inspired and deeply moved by the selfless heroism and bravery displayed by our first responders. I applaud Governor Paterson for making the expansion of health care benefits to 9/11 workers a priority and I look forward to working with him and my legislative colleagues to ensure these heroes continue to know just how much they are truly appreciated by all New Yorkers.”

Assemblymember Peter Abbate, Chair of the Assembly Government Employees Committee, said: “By extending health and disability benefits to these additional workers, the Governor is acknowledging the vitally important tasks they performed on September 11th and the days following the devastating terrorist attack, as well as the fact that, in performing their duties, these workers were exposed to conditions that put their health at serious risk. It is important to note that the recommendation to provide benefits to these workers was based on the careful work of the bipartisan September 11th Worker Protection Task Force.”

Assemblymember Joseph Saladino, Ranking member of the Assembly Governmental Employees Committee, said: “It is an honor to work with Governor Patterson to provide further protections and assistance to those selfless heroes whose only concern was to rescue the lives of Americans in the hours and days following the 9/11 attacks on our nation. As a lawmaker whose focus is protecting those who protect the public I am eager to pass this legislation and make a difference for so many men and women who now and in the future will be suffering do to their unselfish acts. When we called on them needing their assistance the first responders came running, now is our turn to do the same.”

Lou Matarazzo, Vice Chairman of the September 11th Worker Protection Task Force, said: “The original legislation might have overlooked some of the workers who risked their lives responding to the attack on the World Trade Center, and had conditions that were too stringent for all affected workers to receive benefits. This legislation goes a long way toward correcting those conditions.”

Patrick J. Lynch, President of the New York City Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said: “Clearly Governor Paterson recognizes the great personal sacrifice made by all those who rallied to save and help the city recover after the attacks of 9/11. The Governor’s proposal expands benefits to those responders whose welfare fell between the cracks of the first law. This bill should be supported by all of our legislators and signed into law as quickly as possible. We add our voice to all of those praising Governor Paterson for his proposal.”

Steve Cassidy, President of the Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York, said: “We applaud the governor for his proactive support of firefighters and all first responders.”

Black Enterprise Magazine says The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Board of Commissioners approved nearly $500 million worth of construction projects for the Freedom Tower at Ground Zero. This approval came in late February and paves the way for Minority and Women Business Enterprises (MWBE) to land multi-million contracts with the agency.

One African-American-owned firm that hopes to nab one of those contracts is Burwell and Associates in Great Neck, NY. To date, the distributor has only provided electrical supplies to contractors of the project. But because of its long history with the Port Authority, the owners are hopeful of doing more. Burwell and Associates has been a contractor for the Port Authority since 1993 and has secured millions of dollars in various construction and supply contracts with them over the years.

“We have done a lot of work on the World Trade Center site, as well as some of the early stage work on the Freedom Tower,” says Harry Burwell, owner of the company.” We will definitely be included in this latest round of projects at the Tower.” Burwell declined to give specifics, however, he confirmed that officials have approached him from the Port Authority and elsewhere regarding new projects at the World Trade Center site and specifically the Freedom Tower.

Timothy Marshall, president and CEO of the Jamaica Business Resource Center, a small business resource center in Jamaica, New York, says the recent Port Authority Freedom Tower contracts awards could indeed be a boom for MWBE’s. Marshall says his organization has a long-standing partnership with the Port Authority on how to include minority businesses in receiving WTC and Freedom Tower contracts. In addition, Marshall is on the Port Authority’s MWBE Oversight Committee on several other projects.

Widespread press reports say that many of the thousands of people who have gone to court for illnesses stemming from the 2001 terror attacks don’t have serious health problems. This claim was made by lawyers for New York City in court papers.

About 10,800 plaintiffs claim to suffer from a wide variety of health problems from breathing toxic dust from the debris of the World Trade Center after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They are seeking compensation from an insurance fund.

The claims are filed in federal court in Manhattan, where U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein is overseeing the cases. About half were filed by city workers, including police officers and firefighters.

In a letter to Hellerstein last month, the law firm hired by the city, Patton Boggs LLP, contended that its review of the pending claims indicated that about 30 percent of the people seeking compensation allege “only nominal injuries.”

The letter, first reported Wednesday by The New York Times, said 30 percent of claims involved cases in which a specific ailment was not diagnosed. The claims instead describe symptoms, such as a runny nose or sleep problems.

A furious debate over terrorism, security and the rule of law broke out on Tuesday as the presidential campaigns of Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama exchanged pointed salvos over who could best keep the nation safe, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“The latest eruption began when John McCain’s top foreign policy and national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, said in a conference call with reporters that Obama was displaying a “Sept. 10 mindset” about how best to fight terrorism - a comment that echoed President Bush’s attacks on Sen. John Kerry during the 2004 campaign.

Obama brushed off the criticism aboard his campaign plane, and questioned the McCain campaign’s standing to debate anti-terrorism policy.

“These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could’ve pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11,” he said.

It was the most heated back-and-forth yet in a debate that began last week when the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have the right to challenge their detention in federal court. Obama praised the court’s decision as a return to the rule of law, while McCain excoriated it, saying that it could make America less safe, although the Republican candidate’s comments were a reminder of the complexities of his own past positioning on Guantanamo detainees,” the newspaper reported.

The New York Times says it has added a new biographical sketch of a Sept. 11 victim to the online archive of “Portraits of Grief,” the paper’s effort to chronicle the lives of all those lost in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

Until this week, the last new sketch had been added in 2003. In all, after the attacks, 140 of the paper’s reporters spent more than a year writing about more than 2,400 of that day’s roughly 2,800 victims.

The sketches — which often focused on one aspect of a victim’s life, and were not called obituaries both because of their approach and brevity — first appeared three days after the attacks. They filled one or more pages of The Times every day for four months in the fall of 2001, then weekly for most of the following year. The last two pages appeared several months apart. The profiles were collected in two books, a hardcover and a paperback, both of which are now out of print.

Victims were not included for a number of reasons: sometimes their families did not want to be involved; at other times survivors simply could not be found.

The September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center appeared to have left one in eight Lower Manhattan residents with signs of post-traumatic disorder (PTSD), according to a study published online this week in the Journal of Traumatic Stress. The study was published widely, including this report in Efluxmedia.com.

PTSD is an anxiety disorder that can occur after you have been through a traumatic event such as combat or military exposure, child sexual or physical abuse, terrorist attacks, sexual or physical assault, serious incidents (car crashes), natural disasters such as fire, tornado, hurricane, flood or earthquake.

These events cause people fear for their lives, living them feeling helpless. Strong emotions caused by the event create changes in the brain that may result in PTSD.

Not everyone going through a terrible event is at risk of PTSD. How likely people are to get PTSD depends on many things such as how close they were to the event, how strong their reactions were, how intense the trauma was or how long it lasted, how much they felt in control of events, how much help and support they got after the event or if they lost someone they were close to or were hurt.

People with PTSD experience irritability or anger, sleep difficulties, trouble concentrating, extreme vigilance, flashbacks and nightmares.

The New York City health department analyzed 11,000 residents through the World Trade Center Health Registry and found 12.6 percent of all respondents showed signs of PTSD as many as three years after the attacks.

The study was the first one to measure the attack’s long-term effect on the mental health of the community.

Factors such as sex, race, study level and income appeared to have influenced the respondents’ chances to develop PTSD include

More exactly, women were more likely to be affected, with 15 percent reporting symptoms compared with 10 percent of men.

Hispanics (24.7 percent) and blacks (20.6 percent) were more affected than whites (10.7 percent) and Asians (8.9 percent).

Only 11.1 percent of respondents with more than college diploma were affected compared with 18.3 percent of respondents with less than a high diploma.

Only 11.3 percent of hose earning more than $50,000 to $74,000 compared to 19.8 percent of those earning less than $25,000 a year.

About 38 percent of those injured in the attacks were most likely to be still suffering PTSD. About 17 percent of those who witnessed violent deaths and 17 percent of those caught in the dust cloud after the towers collapsed were showing signs of PTSD.

All these people “require more in-depth mental health monitoring, independent of the larger metropolitan area” the study authors concluded.

These figures add to hundreds of military troops coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who develop PTSD symptoms yearly, and also to hundreds of other people affected by the Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

New York prosecutors are investigating whether a firm that tested concrete foundations at the future Yankee Stadium and the World Trade Center’s signature new tower falsified test results or billed for tests never done, a law enforcement official said Friday.

Newsday, the Long Island newspaper, says investigators executed search warrants Friday at Testwell Laboratories Inc. offices in Queens, suburban Ossining in upstate New York and at Yankee Stadium, an official familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation had not previously been made public.

Prosecutors are exploring whether Testwell falsified some test results, double- and triple-billed for some tests and charged clients for tests the firm never conducted, the official told the AP.

The $1.3 billion new Yankee Stadium _ being built across the street from the team’s former home in the Bronx _ is a focus of the probe, as is the Freedom Tower, the 102-story skyscraper being built to replace the destroyed trade center at ground zero, the official said. Up to a dozen other projects also may be involved, the official said.

Writing for Timesunion.com, Michael Burke of the Bronx says Jim Schaller in a May 25 letter,  could not be more wrong in his recommendation that a license plate “honoring” the “victims of the tragic event” — the terrorist attacks upon America by Islamic fundamentalists that murdered nearly 3,000 people — be one that would not “adversely refer to it in any way.”

The last thing we need is the state commemorating 9/11 as a “tragic event,” thereby denying how and why they died. That honors no one. We do not honor those victims by deeming any reference to the attacks as somehow “adverse.” Adverse to whom, how?

Though ironically, such a “vanity plate” would be the perfect fundraiser for the WTC 9/11 memorial. That $500 million vanity project, dedicated entirely to “what we need and deserve” will discard all evidence of 9/11 — “in order,” as per the handful who dictated its concept, “to preserve the integrity of the memorial.”

Note: On 9/11, my brother, New York Fire Department Capt. William F. Burke Jr. of Engine Co. 21 gave his life.

MICHAEL BURKE

Bronx