Building damaged in WTC collapse dismantled

[IDemo]

Lower Manhattan office tower has been an urban eyesore for five years

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16110549/

Associated Press - Updated: 39 minutes ago

NEW YORK - Workers began dismantling a black-shrouded skyscraper near the World Trade Center site Friday, nearing the removal of an urban eyesore that stood for five years above ground zero.

The workers started removing the metal-and-glass facade on the top floors of the Deutsche Bank AG building a day after final permits were issued to begin its long-delayed deconstruction.

The head of the downtown agency overseeing the project said removing the 41-story office tower will take a year. The space eventually will have one of five planned towers, a park and a church.

“This is a very positive action on a very difficult job,” said Charles Maikish, executive director of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center.

[SeattleVet]

1. I worked in the building for 8 years.

I did VAX/VMS system management stuff.

My 38th floor view was out over NY harbor, the Statue of Liberty, and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Watched the tall ships parades from there, and the Statue of Liberty Centennial fireworks.

I left Bankers Trust and NYC in October of 1992, just a few months before the truck bomb in the WTC parking garage. I visited a couple of years ago, and it was eerie to see the damaged, scarred building shrouded with the black cloth.

[lapfog_1]

3. I was there for the Statue of Liberty Centennial too!

Watched some of the activities from the 80th floor? of WTC 1. Watched the fireworks from the top of a Greenwich village condo owned by Gregory Hines. One of my favorite trips to NYC.

[Stephanie]

19. It's still shrouded. I was down there two days ago.

It's still eerie, like a tombstone over the pit.

[rocktivity]

2. PLEASE, NOT THE BUILDING WITH THE CENTURY 21 DEPARTMENT STORE IN IT!!!

rocknation

[SeattleVet]

7. No, that's across Broadway way over on the other side.

This one is at 130 Liberty Street, just across the street (to the south) from where the South Tower stood. We used to have a skybridge across from our plaza to the WTC plaza.

[Stephanie]

20. No, Century 21 is west of Bway, directly across the street from the WTC

but it's still there, and thriving on all the "ground zero" tourist business. The Deutsche Bank building is directly south of the WTC.

[musette_sf]

8. no, you're all right,

you don't have to trek to Bay Ridge for your Century 21 fix like you did right after 9/11/01.

:-)

ps, you should have seen the Century 21 store in the early 60s when it initially opened. On a par with John' Bargain Store. It's amazing to me what it has turned into.

[rocktivity]

9. John's Bargain Store? I'm too YOUNG to remember John's Bargain Store!

:evilgrin:
rocknation

[musette_sf]

13. there was a JBS on the same side of 86th street

as Century 21. Back In The Day. At that time they sold just about the same crap at the same prices.

now this is reminding me of watching the opening scenes of "Saturday Night Fever". there it is, my whole young world on display, the fabulous 86th Street.

and here's the 9/11/01 tie-in for Bay Ridge, for me anyway:
First time I came home to visit after 9/11/01, I dreaded making that curve after the V-N, while driving the Belt Pkway from the airport. Because I knew I would see that giant hole of empty sky.

[DoYouEverWonder]

16. Crap

I'm not.

[Suich]

4. I didn't realize that buildings damaged on 9/11

were still standing.

[Show_Me _The_Truth]

5. Wait for it.......

N?T

[Stephanie]

22. here you go >

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2645190&mesg_id=2645408

[Ignacio Upton]

6. Deutsche Bank and Fitterman Hall were badly damaged

Just not badly enough to collapse. Both were/are mold-infested and too expensive to repair. I'm surprised that they are actually demolishing DB now, because for the past 3 years or so, there has been one announcement after another about its demolition being slated for "x month" only to have it delayed because of health concerns and red tape.

[sweetheart]

11. build new vs repair

Construction technology has improved incredibly with computer innovation, that
repairing a structure can actually cost more than building a new one, and
when foundations are cracked and stuff, its a nightmare repair job.

Its a construction maxim, that a building will last as long as its foundation,
that when the slab cracks, the finest structure will collapse, but on a
solid slab, even a flimsy structure can stand forever. After seeing the seizmic
damage of the foundation bathtub of the trade center towers, and knowing the
proximity of the DB building, the foundations would have to be cracked and
shifted, plus the mold and potentially asbestos which would involve paying a
crew huge sums to replace the entire building's interior surely much more
expensive than a demolish/rebuild.

[Stephanie]

21. there is no structural problem with the Deutsche Bank buidling

it's contaminated with mold. there is not a problem with the foundation. you still believe you are an expert on the WTC after one visit.

[sweetheart]

24. one visit, i used to work there

I worked in wtc 7, and 1 and 2 with clients, still have a suitcase upstairs
from the luggage shop in the WTC mall, and other bits and bobs(briefcases, books,
shoes) over the years... many unfond memories in the citibank branch in the mall..
the frustration when police would block off the plaza, making people
walk around.

Neither you nor I have been in to see the DB foundations... but we know
that they lie quite a bit, pretty much all the time, and if a building
was at all structurally damaged, a public might be alarmed.

I knew from inside sources fixing up after the 1993 car bombing in the
wtc parking lot, that the damage came much closer to knocking down a
tower than any official story was told, and you remember how long that
construction was there 'reparing' from that attack, years.

I'm a better expert than a set of organized media that have lied consistently
about the WTC attacks from about the air quality, to who did it, and gosh
knows what else. It is in their interests completely and totally to say
that the foundations and structure are secure whilst they dismantle it, as
otherwise, the costs will simply be more and the public more alarmed.
Given the tendency to lie, and the preponderance of evidence, including
video footage of a 3 foot thick 7 story deep subwall shifted 'feet' sideways
towards that DB building, all the official lies are suspect.

[sweetheart]

25. sunset from 7 world trade, 40th floor

The laser printer was against the windows on the west side of the 40th
floor, equities. The center of the floor was 2-stories, and the partly-removed
41st floor was a cafeteria for the trading floors. During the day, the
40th floor buzzed from the trading noise, occasionally getting intensely loud
with options trading and equity arbitrage desks making a hell of a racket.

On the west side, pairs trading, and options trading, we were slighly
removed, and on a friday night after work, i could sit back in my chair
looking out west over the top of the world financial center, with the
sun reflecting on the roofs of those buildings and off to the buildings
in new jersey.

The trading week is over, and won't pick up until the currency desk starts
up on sunday with far east trading, but for now, from the salomon trading
floor the world looked pretty good, a planet to be purchased and leveraged
at the push of a speeddial button, Buy 5,000, buy a million, the mantra of
now collapsed capitalism, whispered after hours by trading floor ghosts.
Every minute across the floor, 'clunk', as the time clocks all rotate on
every desk... clunk clunk the sun sets over the copy machine in american utopia.

In my memory's, i can go to work in 7 world trade, walking up the staircase
to the plaza, through the circular glassish, overtunnel, and in to the lobby
with a huge draydle sitting there to celibrate salomon christmas... and a
smaller christmas tree... and up to the trading floor with the people (boys)
in their fancy suits, everyone taking off the coats to the coats closet and
getting set on the floor for the market open(s), with the whole world before us,
able to conquor entire nations at the flick of a switch.

Huge banks of computers humm across the floor, tuned up to inject millions of
dollars in to every world market, and to extract the same, in seconds, speeddial
buttons to every bank on earth, the command and control center for neo-god.
And i loved the silence at 9 pm, people still working to get ahead, with
the sea of downtown lights in never an innocent world.

And the whole thing is now an imagination, of a world where the Managing Directors's
were the gods, and all the people quaked lest they lose their jobs in the next
cull, where the sycophants ruthlessly prayed that that Warren Buffet would get solly back.
A short walk to fulton street, a 4 or 5 train and off home, zip zip, and it never happened.

[praeclarus]

10. i wonder why they don't do controlled demolition?....

... The kind where explosives are used to drop a building
into a neat pile in its own footprint. Wouldn't take nearly
a year to get it done.

[Ezlivin]

12. Controlled demolition?

I'm sure we can find some true experts to do the job.

They don't have to worry about WTC 7; it's been taken care of, as you can see for yourself.

[praeclarus]

14. aye...

... Exactly my point. :)

[Cassandra]

15. We don't do controlled demolition in NYC...

at least not voluntarily. Even the smallest brownstone will be taken apart by hand. Way too much dust and debris in tight places and too many nearby buildings. I suppose that on 9/11, it didn't matter as much.

[mcscajun]

17. This building is a toxic site. They have to take it apart carefully,

wrap the debris and cart it away, also carefully.

A controlled demolition would spew toxic materials throughout the area.

This is all in the later paragraphs of the linked article.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Stephanie]

23. not very funny

not funny at all

[Katzenjammer]

26. They don't want to remind anyone ("Hey, that went down just like WTC7!")

Not to mention WTC1 & 2