Results tagged “lowermanhattandevelopmentcorp”

/>Over the weekend, the Daily News made sure everyone who doesn't live near 130 Liberty Street knows about the Deutsche Bank demolition, with an article titled "Scariest building in New York." Why so scary? Because the building is "filled with a toxic brew of asbestos, lead, cadmium, dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other poisons deposited after the collapse of the twin towers." Do we forget the computer-animated demolition simulation the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. released, because it doesn't show those elements flying into the air? At the bottom of the article, there are explanations of why things like, oh, dioxin (you'll look like Viktor Yuschenko!) are dangerous, but what Gothamist found more helpful is the history of picking a contractor to do the clean-up (why Bovis replaced Gilbane Construction, and why some of Bovis' proposed ideas can't work). But most unsettling might be the fact some people at the LMDC's meetings about the demolition have been shushed (an LMDC spokesman told protesters, "Take your speeches outside!") and that some apartment buildings in the area have tested with higher-than-acceptable levels of asbestos. Deconstruction will take over a year, so Gothamist is sure environmental activists will be monitoring the project like a hawk.

This is what all the testing with the Canadian fountain consultant has determined: The waterfalls at the World Trade Center memorial will be turned off during the winter, for fear of injuring visitors with flying droplets of ice. The LMDC decided to "winterize" the waterfalls because it would cost four times more (than the maintenance?) to heat the water for the falls to run smoothly. While the decision was the fiscally practical one, a mother of a WTC victim said, "It's like an eternal flame and you don't shut off an eternal flame. These things should have been considered in the beginning." Yeah, you'd think.

As expected, there are still many questions around the WTC redesign. Developer Larry Silverstein has been critical of Daniel Libeskind's design, with his , but civic groups want Libeskind's design to remain as is, including the Lower Manhattan Development Corp, feeling that revisions will alter the design beyond its original form. The Civic Alliance has drawings of what the revisions would look like.