Looks like a pencil is mightier than a $73 million system.
The city’s new emergency response system crashed for 12 minutes on Wednesday, it’s first day of use.
At 4:21 p.m., respondents stood by as hundreds of computer screens abruptly went dark, the Daily News reported.
Telephone operators began scribbling emergency messages onto slips Read More
As a resident of the West Village, Lee Ielpi trudged by a fence of ceramic tiles daily in the raw weeks after 9/11, one that developed a comforting presence over the next decade, transformed from an impromptu memorial to an enduring memorial. Now that they have been to a library nearby, on display for all to come see and remember that horrific day, Ielpi was fighting off tears at an unveiling this morning.
“Time does not heal the wound—it has a scab on it, and every now and then I peel it off and talk about my son,” said Mr. Ielpi, president of the September 11th Families’ Association. He lost his son, a firefighter, in the attacks. “We have an obligation to our children, to our grandchildren, to never forget. It is through education, it is through enlightenment. This is part of that process.” Read More
As the city paused to remember that terrible Tuesday morning 11 years ago, the federal government has done right by the families of men and women who worked the toxic pile at Ground Zero. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health announced on Sept. 10 that cancer victims will be compensated through the Victim Compensation Fund set up two years ago. Read More
When it comes to anything World Trade Center progress moves at a notoriously glacial pace. But the decision of what to do with Fritz Koenig’s Sphere—damaged and dented, but still intact after the WTC attacks— has been excruciatingly slow, even by World Trade Center standards.
Still, as of Thursday, a small bit of progress was made when Pat Foye, executive director of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said he believes the sphere should be made part of the World Trade Center memorial, The Wall Street Journal reported. Read More
Though the 9/11 Memorial’s attendance has been underwhelming, a few safety concerns have surfaced in the recent months. Terrorism, of course, has always been a focal point in post-9/11 debate and planning, but the NYPD acknowledged another concern: suicide.
As it sits, the granite memorial lined with artificial waterfalls drops three stories into the Read More
Was last year magical for the World Trade Center site, or was it merely a mirage? The Observer has heard more than once of a sort of media blackout—promises of cooperation so as not to taint the 10th anniversary of 9/11 with the same backbiting, political infighting and constituent-driven trench warfare that had reigned almost since the towers fell.
Instead, there were celebratory milestones. One World Trade Center was finally skyrocketing toward heaven, putting up nearly a floor per week. Condé Nast signed its game-changing lease for half of said tower. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced an agreement with the long-suffering Greek Orthodox Church. And of course, the 9/11 Memorial opened on time, and quite a bit further along than originally hoped. The city was triumphant.
Was that real progress, though, or simply a one-year reprieve out of respect for the dead? With the exception of last week’s news that Condé would be taking additional space at 1 WTC, the bad news has been piling up all year. Read More
Mark “Say Hello to Your Mother for Me” Wahlberg might play a rogue vigilante in his new movie Contraband, but his recent boasts in Men’s Journal about how he would have handled the hijackers during September 11th is over the line, according to one widow of the attacks. Read More
And the answer is surprisingly…no. No you can’t bring a gun into the 9/11 memorial, even if you politely tell a guard that you have a gun in your purse, forgot totally about it, and just want to check your firearm in the front desk, as was the case with 39-year-old Meredith Graves, a Tennessee native who didn’t know the rules about big city mice and 32-caliber firearms.
Although the 9/11 memorial guard’s response was pretty hilarious. Read More
Most of the attention on the 9/11 memorial has been focused on Lower Manhattan for this, the 10th anniversary of the attacks. There was the grand opening on Sept. 11, of course, but also budget woes at the museum and wrangling over the fate of a Greek Orthodox Church.
For a more festive memorial, however, travel across the waters of New York harbor to Staten Island, where a crèche honoring the first responders who died 10 years ago has been installed. Read More
The Ziegfeld Theatre has had a busy week, and it was overrun again last Thursday night for the world premiere of Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close, the film adaptation of the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, which fictionalizes a young boy’s experience post 9/11. Read More
