Freedom Tower Security Issues Worry Police
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
The New York Police Department is concerned about the vulnerability of the 1,776-foot Freedom Tower, which is to be erected at the World Trade Center site, a board member at the development corporation has told The New York Sun. The primary concern is that the tower will be set too close to the street and could be susceptible to truck or car bombs.
The ways to address the police concerns would apparently be either to move the steel-and-concrete tower, which is to be the centerpiece of the redevelopment plan for ground zero, farther back, or to redesign the roadway to ensure a larger buffer zone around the building.
In addition to the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, the site’s leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, and several other entities are said to be aware of the Police Department’s view.
“The police have some concerns that the building would be only 25 feet, rather than 50 feet, from the roadway,” said a board member of the development corporation, Madelyne Wils.
Reached by phone, Ms. Wils, who is also the chairwoman of Community Board 1, said she did not know how the police concerns were communicated and noted that the issue was not being considered by the board. Ms. Wils also said there were no plans to move the building.
A spokeswoman for the development corporation, Joanna Rose, said the agency, which was formed after September 11 to address downtown redevelopment, was not formally reviewing the question. She declined to comment further and did not return calls for clarification last night.
Security and terrorism experts said that concerns about securing the tower from the ground were legitimate and that they should be weighed in the redevelopment plan, especially in light of intelligence reports earlier this year that commercial buildings were considered terrorist targets.
“I don’t think there is anything mystical to it,” said a professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Jeff Kern.
Mr. Kern, who specializes in security, said: “If you have more distance it means that any intruder has further to travel from public streets.”
“The most inexpensive way to topple something is to drive a truck loaded with explosives,” he said.
Last month, a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into a Hilton hotel in Sinai, Egypt. The explosion killed more than 35 people.
Truck bombs were also used in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City.
The Freedom Tower, which was designed by the architects Daniel Libeskind and David Childs in a process that has featured considerable creative head-butting, will probably be the tallest in the world when it is completed in 2008 or 2009. Many people are banking on the building to be Lower Manhattan’s new marvel.
Mr. Libeskind also created the master plan for the site, which included the precise location of the skyscraper.
The building will have 2.6 million square feet of office space and will cost roughly $1 billion.
The Trade Center site will include five buildings, with 10 million square feet of office space, 1 million square feet of retail space, and an 800-room hotel.
The founder of the World Trade Center Restoration Movement, an organization that argues for the “full-scale reconstruction” of the Trade Center site, said: “The existing Libeskind site plan meshes every building up against the street.”
“We would rather see buildings set back from the street,” the founder, Louis Epstein, said. “Setting them too close to the street makes them vulnerable to truck bombs.”
Others said the real jeopardy would be from the sky, as in the last attack.
The tower, which is bounded in the ground zero site by Vesey, West, and Church streets, will soar 70 stories, with a tapered top. The cornerstone was laid on the Fourth of July.
A spokesman for the Police Department, Paul Browne, would not confirm or deny that counterterrorism experts had identified potential security flaws in the current design of Freedom Tower.
The department has a confidentiality policy with the owners of the buildings it surveys for security flaws, Mr. Browne said, and is therefore prevented from disclosing its security findings on “scores if not hundreds” of existing buildings and new construction sites around the city.
“We don’t go into discussions on any building we look at,” Mr. Browne said.
It is unclear whether the NYPD sent a letter outlining concerns or if it was expressed verbally.