The deadly seven-alarm fire at the partially dismantled Deutsche Bank building last weekend will likely bring more scrutiny to the slow progress of the disassembly of nearby Fiterman Hall, a 14-story tower at 30 West Broadway that was badly damaged and rendered toxic by the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Neighborhood residents and workers have advocated for years for a quick and safe demolition of the building, which belongs to the Borough of Manhattan Community College, but Fiterman Hall is in much the same condition as just after the attacks, which occurred nearly six years ago. The Deutsche Bank building fire may cause even further delays: City and state officials are calling for stricter safety regulations on demolition jobs after two firefighters died fighting last weekend’s blaze.

“We’re concerned that the same thing could happen at Fiterman Hall that happened at Deutsche Bank,” the health and safety chairman of Public Employees Federation, Paul Stein, said. “My concern is whether the standpipe in Fiterman Hall is working. Has it been filled and pressure-tested? Is it going to work if the Fire Department needs it?”

The chief of the New York Fire Department, Salvatore Cassano, said the department would inspect the sprinkler and water system at Fiterman Hall today.

“We’ve only done a fraction of the demolition that’s slated to take place in Lower Manhattan,” City Council Member Alan Gerson, who represents the neighborhood, said. “We still have Fiterman Hall and a lot of smaller buildings slated for demolition. If this happened when we’ve only completed a fraction of the demolition, we need to plan to make sure it never happens again.”

Two blocks away, a large office building destroyed in the September 11 terrorist attacks, 7 World Trade Center, has been rebuilt, and scores of luxury condominiums are filling the neighborhood. To many neighbors and workers nearby, the continuing presence of the toxin-filled structure has been a blemish in the neighborhood.

“We don’t want to see these buildings anymore,” a 23-year resident of Washington Street, Esther Regelson, said. “They’re nonfunctioning; they don’t look lovely by any means.”

Developers nearby worry that the ugly remembrance of the city’s greatest tragedy could even drive away tenants interested in leasing downtown office space.

Political inertia, insurance battles, and strict regulations from the state Environmental Protection Agency about how to dismantle Fiterman Hall without releasing lethal toxins into the air have played major roles in holding up its demolition. Like the Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty St., Fiterman Hall has to be dismantled floor by floor from the top down. Unlike the Deutsche Bank, the entire structure is being decontaminated before demolition work begins. Currently, the building is covered in black netting and rigged with scaffolding; completion is scheduled for the fall of 2008.

The Borough of Manhattan Community College, meanwhile, has rented space on Murray Street for six years to try to ease some of the overcrowding at its facilities, a spokesman for the college said. The college plans to rebuild Fiterman Hall on the same site when demolition is complete.

The process cannot move forward until the state’s Environmental Protection Agency approves a permit application to begin decontamination, which is scheduled to take six months. Deconstruction will probably take another six months. A spokeswoman for state’s Environmental Protection Agency said the Deutsche Bank fire would not hold up the schedule for Fiterman Hall’s dismantling.

The executive director of the American Institute of Architects, Fredric Bell, disagrees, saying: “Deutsche Bank is going to slow down every demo job in the city. Construction companies are going to be really safety conscious, and that could have the impact of slowing things down.”