By Matt Chaban 8/28/11 3:50pm

The Neverending Story

8 Photos

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Clear Skies for 9/11 Memorial: Hurricane Irene Actually Helped Ground Zero

Hard work and luck have paid off at ground zero yet again.

There was the potential for the 9/11 Memorial plaza to be devastated by Hurricane Irene, as one of the site’s marquee features is a grove of hundreds of newly planted Swamp White Oak trees and thousands of granite cobblestones. As the good news from the tropical storm keeps trickling in—no fatalities from the storm, less damage than expected, a city of now fully stocked liquor cabinets—it turns out the memorial has come through remarkably unscathed. Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/26/11 6:15pm

The Neverending Story

That's a lot of trees. (WTC Progress)

Could Hurricane Irene Uproot the 9/11 Memorial?

With Hurricane Irene (maybe, possibly, fingers-crossed-it-won’t) headed straight for New York City, almost every precaution is being taken. People are stocking up on supplies like pet raincoats and booze, the M.T.A. is on lockdown and construction sites across the city are closed, with contractors directed to remove or secure everything that could potentially become a projectile in the event of high winds. This includes the biggest construction site in the city, the World Trade Center.

The timing could not be worse, as the hurricane could hit Sunday, exactly two weeks before the 9/11 Memorial is set to open. Read More

By Foster Kamer 8/26/11 3:01pm

THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING

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25 Reasons Why Hurricane Irene Is Great for New York City

By now you’ve likely taped your windows and sifted through plenty of awful advice on how to survive the oncoming windy-wet onslaught headed straight towards New York City (as it already begins to fail to live up to the hype). Yet, one must look on the bright side of things: there is a silver lining to every Obese Death Rain Cloud, and we believe we’ve done a decent job of finding it. If you have any better ideas, throw them in the comments: We’d love to see your sunniest hurricane dispositions.  Read More

By Matt Chaban 8/25/11 1:29pm

The Coming Storm

Crap. I can see my house from here. (Gotham Gazette)

Come On, Irene, I Swear, Don’t Flood My Apartment: Are You Living in a Hurricane Danger Zone?

It’s started raining, and it’s not about to stop until Monday—Brooklyn is Portland!—thanks to the arrival of Hurricane Irene off the East Coast. Hopefully, like Tuesday’s Earthquake, New York won’t be getting it too bad, but just in case, the Bloomberg administration has been preparing the city for possible problems, the greatest of which would be flooding. The mayor’s office just released a map of hurricane zones, to keep New Yorkers aware of where things could be bad.

Not surprisingly, Battery Park City, the Lower East Side, Redhook and Coney Island are all flashpoints, but so too are large swathes of Staten Island and the Upper East Side. The mayor took time out to put the city’s mind at ease with a few jokes in today’s announcement of the preparations: Read More