The sister of the 23-year FDNY veteran who died during the Deutsche Bank building last August is suing city agencies and contractors, citing their "wanton, willful, and reckless conduct" in his death. The Deutsche Bank building had been undergoing a slow dismantling process, and a worker's cigarette likely started the 7-alarm fire. Robert Beddia, 53, (pictured) and Joseph Graffagnino, 34, died on the 14th floor, when they ran out of oxygen (the FDNY tapes are......

Yesterday morning's rain caused a recently installed sewer main to burst, flooding the basement and parking garage of a Battery Park City luxury apartment building. Water levels reached up to 20 feet. Not only were car owners greeted with news that their vehicles were either submerged or floating on top of sewer water, hundreds of tenants at 90 West Street were evacuated. Fire officials explained that, per WNBC, "rain flooded a re-routed sewer pipe,......

Lawyers for the families of Joseph Graffagnino and Robert Beddia, the two firefighters who died in the August 18 Deutsche Bank fire, have filed notices of claim to sue city and state agencies for up to $180 million. The lawyers are claiming that the "reckless, willful and wanton actions and inactions" of the various agencies, including the FDNY, Port Authority and Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, caused the fatal response to the blaze. The Deutsche Bank,......

Yet another depressing fact revealed about the Deutsche Bank demolition in the wake of two firefighters' deaths. The NY Times reports that contractors had created an emergency exit plan through sealed stairwells, but the firefighters didn't know about the plan. Fire department spokesman Francis X. Gribbon told the Times, “The Fire Department was not involved in creating this plan, specifically — and most importantly — with regard to the sealed staircases. We were not notified......

From yesterday evening to dawn this morning, the ethereal September 11-light installation Tribute in Light beamed into the skies from its downtown perch. Designed by artists Julian LaVerdiere and Paul Myoda, architects John Bennett and Gustavo Bonevardi of PROUN Space Studio, architect Richard Nash Gould, and lighting designer Paul Marantz and produced by the Municipal Art Society and Creative Time, the lights were first seen in March 2002 for a month and then became......

The rebuilding process at Ground Zero took another small step forward today as final plans for Towers 2, 3, and 4 were unveiled. Larry Silverstein and a group of architects unveiled updated designs for the buildings, which are supposed to start construction in January. These plans are more detailed than the initial designs released last year, with more information on the lobbies, public spaces, and building facades. Silverstein says the buildings will be environmentally......

It's been just about two weeks since the 7-alarm fire at the Deutsche Bank building, and the city and state are still trying to figure out how to proceed with the WTC-dust contaminated building's dismantling. The Environmental Protection Agency sent a letter to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation asking for the building to be sealed up "to protect public health and the environment." It was only when the EPA had given its approval for a......

Yesterday, firefighters and the community were in Bay Ridge to remember Joseph Graffagnino, one of the firefighters who died while fighting last Saturday's 7-alarm fire at the Deutsche Bank building. The building, which was in the process of being dismantled, has been described as a deathtrap, what with the contractors using flammable materials, a broken standpipe (which couldn't deliver water to the fire), and a lack of FDNY inspection. Graffagnino and fellow Engine 24,......

The FDNY did not inspect the Deutsche Bank building every 15 days, "as required by city rules for buildings being demolished" (NY Times). This revelation, coupled with the fact that the FDNY did not have a plan to go into the burning building, prompts the Post to demand that Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta leave his post. The city's official update about the investigation into the Saturday fire, which required 275 firefighters and claimed the lives......

There are many questions surrounding Saturday's Deutsche Bank building fire that took the lives of two firefighters. Were firefighters using outdated information? WABC 7 says that a FDNY report, which is used by fire commanders for planning how they will attack the fire, indicated that the building had 38 floors (when it was really 26) and that the standpipe was working (it wasn't connected). Did the FDNY ignore post-9/11 advice? The NY Times reports that......

The Fire Department is investigating whether standpipes failed to bring firefighters water to help fight a seven-alarm fire that broke out on the 17th floor of the Deutsche Bank building on Saturday. The cause of the fire, which spread between the 14th and 26th floors of the lower Manhattan building, is also unclear, though the FDNY suspects it may have been caused by a cigarette or a faulty electrical panel. FDNY officials suspect that......

Day One doesn't mean everything changes, but Governor Spitzer's administration has now offered a new idea for the so-called survivors' staircase at Ground Zero. The NY Times reports that the stairs would be kept "whole and intact" and "set into a long flight of steps leading from the visitors’ center at ground zero to the underground World Trade Center memorial museum, which is to open in 2009." And the Times has this picture of......

Uh-oh. The Santiago Calatrava-designed World Trade Center PATH transit hub is now estimated to be $1.2 billion over budget by the construction company's contractor. Previous estimates pegged building the critically-praised "bird-like" structure at $2.2 billion in 2005, after the Port Authority approved a revised design. Why the high estimate? Labor costs and materials. The Port Authority's executive director Anthony Shorris wrote in a letter to PA Chairman Anthony Coscia (hello, CYA paper trail), "We have......

As the architect Rafael Viñoly sees it, the Freedom Tower is utterly superfluous. This was the concluding thought of his public presentation on January 18, this year's first Third Thursday lecture sponsored by the Downtown Alliance. Rounding out his half-stoic, half-bitter account of the past five years' WTC design proceedings, he plugged the new book, Think New York: A Ground Zero Diary, which chronicles these affairs from the point of view of the novel......

Oh, to be a child again! The NY Times has a story about the city's efforts to develop a new playground concept for lower Manhattan. The city has been working with designer David Rockwell on a playground that would include things like foam blocks, water, cardboard tubes, burlap bags, ramps, climbing nets and even "play workers" to help kids, uh, play. Developers of the Lower Manhattan project envision groups of children collaborating, for instance,......

The Deutsche Bank at 130 Liberty Street will start to be dismantled today. The 41 floor building's demolition strategy was approved in September, after many years of planning, toxin finding, and searching for human remains (the World Trade Center's south tower fell into the building). The Department of Buildings signed off on the permits this week, but the permits are only to remove the facade. The AP reports, "On Friday, workers will begin removing the......

Oh, SNAP! In year-after-Katrina interview with 60 Minutes, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin mentions the lack of development at Ground Zero when pressed by reporter Byron Pitts about post-Katrina New Orleans progress. And it's an effective smack to city and state officials. Here's how the CBS News site explains the exchange:On a tour of the decimated Ninth Ward, Nagin tells Pitts the city has removed most of the debris from public property and it’s mainly......

Just weeks before the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the agency created to manage the rebuilding process, has announced it has ended its "mission" and will close soon. The NY Times' David Dunlap explains that the mission included "selecting a master plan and a memorial design for the trade center site; allocating more than $2.7 billion in federal grants, including support for downtown residents and businesses; financing park......

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has approved the scaled down design for the World Trade Center Memorial . Last week, builder Frank Sciame had released plans for a revised and less costly plan that has been generally welcomed. But one thing that hasn't been resolved is how victims' names will be featured - the LMDC will have to decide on that later. And Newsday reported that the WTC Foundation has podcasts from "victim'sfamily members,......

Last week, builder Frank Sciame met with Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg to discuss possibilities for the downsizing/costcutting of the World Trade Central Memorial. Some ideas kicked around were to remove the waterfalls and move the victims' names aboveground, and today, a new plan was revealed. The waterfalls are still in, but the names will move aboveground. There will be space underground for contemplation, but there will only be one below-grade entrance, not two,......

Ever since one contractor estimated it would cost $1 billion to build the World Trade Center Memorial, it's been a downhill process at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation. Actually, it was probably downhill from earlier than that, but the $1 billion price tag helped prompt cover stories about the memorial mess, create more teams to figure out a solution, and lead to the resignation of the WTC Memorial Foundation president. Anyway, the WTC Memorial's builder,......

The NY State Democratic Convention is taking place in Buffalo today and tomorrow (the NY State Republican Convention is in Long Island on Wednesday and Thursday), and the gloves are coming off as the Democrats are looking to grab the Governor's house. Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic frontrunner for the gubernatorial nomination, called the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation "an abject failure". Well, of course he would say that - didn't recently resigned LMDC......

If there's something politicians know how to do, it's to convene a committee! The NY Times focuses on how everyone wants new plans to bring the WTC Memorial budget down - there's that much agreement. But the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation has one committee working on it...and Governor Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg created another committee to work on ideas! Double the thinking, infinite times the resentment! The LMDC team includes the builder Bovis, whose......

A couple weeks ago, an episode of Penn & Teller's Bullsh*t! centered around the many fights at Ground Zero. The show criticized the slowness of bureaucracy (hello, PatakI) and the designs selected for Ground Zero, including the memorial. The show also filmed one of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation's Family Rooms, where victims' families members can "observe the site in quiet contemplation." Well, this upset other victims' families who have besieged the LMDC with complaints.......

The lawsuit trying to stop the building of the WTC Memorial has been thrown out by a state Supreme Court justice. Victims' families group was upset that the memorial design would not preserve the footprints of the World Trade Center, and said the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation didn't consult with them. Justice Shirley Kornreich disagreed, saying the LMDC "exhaustive[ly]" worked with other groups during the process. As the AP reports, Kornreich's ruling states, "[The agency......

If you want to be thoroughly depressed by the rebuilding process at Ground Zero in a matter of pages, versus a matter of years, Gothamist highly recommends reading New York magazine's cover story about the WTC Memorial and its architect, Michael Arad. It's an exclusive interview where Arad spill his guts about the process, but also gets worked over as one of the many egos in cast of a million egos and billion interests.......

On Sunday's Gothamist publishes opinions submitted to us by readers, in this case Andrew Bast. These opinions do not necessarily represent those of Gothamist LLC or its editors. Almost two years ago, Governor George Pataki helped to lay the 20-ton, Adirondack granite cornerstone for the Freedom Tower. And it wasn't until just this past month that the financial bickering between Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority were finally sorted out so construction could begin in......

The former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs, former deputy secretary of state under Reagan, and Pataki contributor John C. Whitehead will resign from the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the World Trade Center rebuilding organization, today. Whitehead was placed in the role of LMDC chairman by Pataki four years ago, and has had a lot of troubles, given the issues with WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein, government officials, government agencies and victims' families all squabbling. Whitehead said, "This......

Another signal that the World Trade Center memorial is mired in a big mess: The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which has been raising money for the memorial, is stopping their fundraising efforts as they try to under the cost of the project. Last week's revelation that construction firm Bovis estimated the cost to be near $1 billion, and everyone was all sorts of upset. The foundation said, "It's only fair to donors to be......

Those fancy shirt sleeves were rolled up as officials met over the crazy costs for the World Trade Center Memorial. And if there's anyone to speak about money, it's our billionaire Mayor Bloomberg, who the NY Times says gave the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation a "verbal spanking":He chastised the foundation, saying the group had become obsessed with the design and construction of the memorial. "The foundation should be focusing on fund-raising," he said. "The agreement......