Archived News -- October 2002

Note: New York Times articles require free registration and login prior to access



October 31, 2002

On October 31, the NY Post ran an editorial and a column urging for a quick rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. The column "Downtown: Future Hijacked," by Steven Malanga gave a brief synopsis of the LMDC's formation and history thus far. The editorial, "Close the Wound" expounded upon Malanga's points regarding the seeming union between victims families and anti-business, anti-development groups, and real estate developers who would rather see the area left fallow so that their own properties' values remain inflated.

ARCHIVED: NY Post Opinion Columnists: "Downtown: Future Hijacked," by Steven Malanga

ARCHIVED: NY Post Opinion Editorials: "Close the Wound"



October 24, 2002

On October 24, the NY Times reported that past and present chairs of the New York City Planning Commission warned if the planning process of rebuilding Lower Manhattan does not show results, the area could lose the financial service industry, which has been its backbone.

ARCHIVED: NY Times: "Planners Urge Decisions on Downtown," By David W. Dunlap



October 23, 2002

On October 23, the NY Times reported that engineer Charles H. Thornton, who collaborated on the design of the Petronas Towers argued that they would have withstood the 9/11 attacks better than the Twin Towers.

Even so, he described the Yamasaki design as visionary and said "the advanced, high-strength concrete holding up all of the Petronas Towers ó not just the core ó had not been developed when the trade center went up in the 1960's and 1970's."

"In that respect, the Petronas Towers, built in 1998, were made possible by rapid improvements in the most mundane of materials, said Franz Ulm, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "In the '80's and '90's, there occurred a real revolution in concrete materials that is almost not known to the public," he said."

"He said that high-strength concrete generally resisted both blasts and fires better than steel like that in the trade center, where the plane impacts probably knocked loose a lightweight form of fireproofing that had been sprayed onto columns and beams, which then buckled in the heat."

ARCHIVED: NY Times: "Comparing Two Sets of Twin Towers," By James Glanz



October 22, 2002

On October 22, the NY Times reported how engineers hired by Larry Silverstein to investigate the Twin Towers' collapse concluded their exoskeletons had softened and buckled from the heat of the petroleum fires burning within. The FEMA report released on May 1, said it was the light-weight floor trusses that had failed, triggering a progressive collapse.

ARCHIVED: NY Times: "Expert Report Disputes U.S. on Trade Center Collapse," By James Glanz and Eric Lipton



October 17, 2002

On October 17, the NY Post ran a two-page spread with one editorial and three columns describing how proposed transit hubs distract from the task at hand: rebuilding. The editorials also describe how projects such as the transit hub, burying West St., and re-routing trains would leave Lower Manhattan an inhospitable construction zone for years to come, further disrupting an already devastated downtown economy.

ARCHIVED: NY Post Editorial Opinion: "Hijacking NY's Recovery"

ARCHIVED: NY Post Opinion Columns: "The Ground Zero Train Wreck," by Steve Cuozzo

ARCHIVED: NY Post Opinion Columns: "'Untangling' Downtown," by Steve Cuozzo

ARCHIVED: NY Post Opinion Columns: "Transit Utopians," by Steve Cuozzo



October 7, 2002

On October 7, the NY Post ran an editorial and a column regarding the importance of moving forward with rebuilding and ending the stall.

The editorial, "Lessons at the Pentagon" focused on Pentagon victims families' rights to concentrate on their own loss in their memorial; how the Pentagon has already rebuilt; and its staff is back to work. The Pentagon will pick a final design for its memorial this December, while New York's selection is at least a year away.

ARCHIVED: NY Post Editorial Opinion: "Lessons at the Pentagon"

Op-Ed Columnist Nicole Gelinas wrote "Downtown Stall," which described how "the six teams of architects chosen last month can look forward to participating in an academic meet that will not result in anything so worrisome as real-life construction on real-life skyscrapers." She wrote that 94% of $631 million in grants are scheduled to be disbursed in three years...this money could be lost if businesses can not take advantage of it within the specified time frame. "Downtown does not need any of the following LMDC-prescribed cures: grand promenades, gallerias, hospitals, libraries, schools, apartment buildings, parks, depressed highways, arcades, "skyline elements," cultural facilities or museums. What it needs are seven more office buildings, 430 more commercial tenants, 40,000 more daily workers and 150,000 more daily visitors - all that was stolen last Sept. 11. As Port Authority officials said about the World Trade Center in July 2001, "the complex's value to the economy of the region is incalculable," she said.

ARCHIVED: NY Post Opinion Columnists: "Downtown Stall" by Nicole Gelinas



October 3, 2002

On October 3, the NY Times ran a letter to the Editor from Larry Silverstein regarding, "Vast Detail on Towers' Collapse May be Sealed," published on September 30. That story said, "work done by Silverstein Properties' experts in connection with investigating the precise causes of the collapse of the twin towers 'may remain buried in sealed files, or even destroyed.' " Silverstein wrote that such fears were unfounded. Most importantly, Silverstein defended the performance of the Twin Towers, when he said, "Our organization is committed to learning from Sept. 11 and applying those lessons to future buildings. In our effort to learn from Sept. 11, however, we should not overlook the fact that the twin towers were engineering marvels. That they stood for as long as they did after such a devastating impact is a testament to the vision and skill of the original engineers."

ARCHIVED: NY Times Editorial/Op-Ed: "Twin Towers Report" by Larry Silverstein