# Unbuilding A Skyscraper: Deutsche Bank Demolition



## New Jack City (Dec 29, 2002)

BY THE *NEW YORK TIMES*http://www.nytimes.com

A wonderful slideshow covering the demolition in unbuilding a skyscraper at the Deutsche Bank site...









*On Sept. 11, 2001, the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street in Lower Manhattan, was damaged by pieces of the World Trade Center. The building, seen here on July 17, is being dismantled. The plywood-enclosed area at the top of the building was in the process of undergoing abatement for asbestos and other hazardous contaminants.*









*After abatement is completed, each floor of the building looks like this. The dismantling process represents the first complete removal of a building so large and so badly contaminated. Excessive levels of seven hazardous substances, including asbestos, dioxin, lead and chromium were measured in the building.*









*Where windows were removed, plywood was inserted in place of glass.*









*A mechanical excavator worked to break apart one of the building's concrete floors. Water was sprayed to hold down dust. The workers can dismantle one floor about every four days.*









*Once the concrete slab and metal decking are removed, what remains is a steel skeleton of each floor.*









*Steel beams that framed the horizontal structure of the building were cut away with torches.*









*As more and more beams and columns are removed, what was once an enclosed building opens up to the sky.*









*An internal staircase, which served as a fire exit, was one of the last remaining structures on the 27th floor.*









*Once the interior stairs are removed, workers must reach the upper floors using these external stairways, which are built into scaffolding.*









*A welder made a final cut to a beam, freeing up the last exterior bay remaining on the 27th floor.*









*Two skid steer loaders pulled down the bay, which was already cut at the base of each column.*









*A large container filled with debris, seen at left, was hoisted from the roof.*









*The container was lowered to a staging area on the south side of Liberty Street.*

Unbuilding a Skyscraper Wounded on Sept. 11

It is, Avi Schick said, like watching a video of a building being built, but in reverse.

The Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, its windows replaced with plywood, is being dismantled.

Mr. Schick, the chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, was walking through 130 Liberty Street, the building opposite ground zero that was gashed by pieces of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. The building, the New York base of Deutsche Bank at the time, is now being dismantled.

That is different from being demolished. The building is being taken apart almost piece by piece, something demolition experts say has been done before.

What is a first is the complete removal of a building so large and so badly contaminated by hazardous substances. And it is happening under the wary eyes of regulators, neighbors and even the Wall Street types who will someday fill the building that is scheduled to take this one’s place.

So, day after day this summer, workers with acetylene torches are going floor by floor, slicing through the steel beams, the horizontal parts of the building’s skeleton. With help from small tractorlike machines, they are pulling down the beams and the steel columns they are attached to.

Then they are cutting the beams and columns into smaller pieces and loading them into trash-hauling bins that a crane lowers to the street.

Working their way down from the top of what was once a 41-story building, the workers reached the 26th floor on Tuesday morning.

They were cutting into the beams at the southwest corner of that floor, and the two-and-a-half-inch-thick concrete floor slab was vibrating. That was because a mechanical excavator — another tractorlike machine, with a jackhammer mounted on a movable front arm — was breaking through the slab on the southeast corner.

The broken pieces went into another trash-hauling bin and the crane took them away, too. The workers can dismantle one floor every four days or so.

A separate team is working its way through the building, removing the interiors and scrubbing away any contaminants that may remain.

Consultants to the development corporation said more than two years ago that besides asbestos, the building had excessive levels of seven hazardous substances, including dioxin, lead and chromium.

Now those floors have been reduced to their structural elements: naked columns and beams. The walls that once defined offices are gone. So are the plate-glass windows that once looked out on the trade center across the street. So are the wires that connected computers and phones and brought in electricity.

And there was the continuing search for human remains. The chief medical examiner’s office said in February that 766 body parts had been found in the building. Most were fragments of bone less than four inches long.

The long-delayed project got under way in earnest in February. A large construction company, Bovis Lend Lease, won a contract worth $82 million to clear the site, and before that, there was a court fight between Deutsche Bank and its insurers that ended after former Senator George J. Mitchell was called in as a mediator.

The solution was for the development corporation, which is controlled jointly by the state and the city, to buy the building for $90 million.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency approved the plan for dismantling the building last September after reviewing methods for keeping contaminants from being released into the air during the deconstruction.

The E.P.A. action came two months after a deputy commissioner for the city Department of Environmental Protection, Robert C. Avaltroni Jr., began leading meetings every other week with city and state officials and officials from the regional office of the E.P.A. to deal with issues raised by the project. Those meetings continued as Gov. George E. Pataki left office and Gov. Eliot Spitzer took over.

Finally, crews began driving what are called needle beams into the facade. The needle beams anchored the scaffolding, which obscured the building as the interior decontamination, including a top-to-bottom wipe-down, began.

Soon the crews were removing the floor-to-ceiling windows and replacing them with plywood.

Then the project slowed down again, as Bovis and the John Galt Corporation negotiated with the development corporation. They said they wanted an extra $30 million because the project turned out to be more complicated than they had expected it to be. Mr. Schick said the development corporation agreed to advance a total of $38 million toward the cost of finishing the job, with the exact amount to be negotiated — or litigated — later.

What is happening at 130 Liberty Street is certainly different from most demolition projects, where the process is less methodical and the rubble a jumble of steel, concrete, plaster and glass. In some ways, the Deutsche Bank building looks more like a construction site than a demolition site. Scaffolding runs up the outside of the building, as do elevators that are little more than lifts with perforated walls.

On the upper floors, where Mr. Schick and David Emil, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, led their tour, the work is being done by people in hard hats.

That was a sign of progress. The last time a reporter and a photographer were allowed in the building, they had to wear respirators and body suits.

This time, on the 26th floor, there was a grid of steel beams where the floor slab had been removed. And there was the part of the slab that Mr. Schick and Mr. Emil could still walk on, even as the excavator pounded the concrete. “In about 36 months,” Mr. Schick said, “there will be some banker here.”

He and Mr. Emil are determined to finish the disassembly to clear the way for a new building that will house JPMorgan Chase’s investment banking headquarters. “JPMorgan Chase is making a huge bet on our ability to do that,” Mr. Schick said.

Mr. Emil said the removal of the Deutsche Bank building would be finished in “late winter” — that is, in early 2008. But the deal for the additional money for Bovis and John Galt included a bonus if they finish by Dec. 31.

The deconstruction has had its problems. In May, a 22-foot-long metal pipe fell from the 35th floor and smashed through the roof of a nearby firehouse. No one was seriously hurt, but the deconstruction work was halted for about a week while the city reviewed safety precautions.

Mr. Schick said that a Buildings Department inspector is assigned to the building full time, as are inspectors from the E.P.A. and the state Labor Department, who are checking for environmental hazards. He said the work could be halted if they found unexpected debris the size of a dime — in a space not quite as large as an acre.

Twelve monitors that check air quality have been mounted on or near the building.

The last time one went off, Mr. Schick said, it was caused by drilling by Con Edison that had nothing to do with the project.

“This building is unique,” said Mr. Avaltroni, the city environmental official. “It was severely damaged, it had the gash, it had not been dealt with for a period of time, and if you look at it symbolically, it’s very important to get it down. The main objective here is do it right, get it done.”


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## TalB (Jun 8, 2005)

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/nyregion/22fire.html?ref=nyregion
*Critics Say Lessons From 9/11 Were Not Followed in Deutsche Bank Blaze*

By AL BAKER
Published: August 22, 2007

After the Sept. 11 attack at the World Trade Center, an independent consultant studied the Fire Department’s performance and identified a number of lapses amid all the undeniable valor of that day. It said that too many men rushed into the buildings before anyone realized the danger they were in, contributing to the staggering death toll.

The consultant, McKinsey & Company, said the Fire Department needed to use more caution and preparation when it approached such a major, complicated fire, and not send too many men in before it knew what it was dealing with.

Saturday’s fire at the former Deutsche Bank building, which left two firemen dead, presented its own set of challenges, but it also bore similarities to Sept. 11 that went beyond geography, including the fact that the building was a high-rise. 

Now, some are questioning Saturday’s response, noting that, at one point, more than 100 firefighters were inside the building even though the fire was out of control and wildly unpredictable — and that those men had to be called out. And they were inside even though, unlike the situation in the twin towers, no workers were trapped.

“Clearly firefighters were sent into a deathtrap,” said Stephen J. Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association. “I think the Fire Department’s position is they didn’t know how bad it was. We certainly need to find out why they didn’t know.” 

Yesterday, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta directed his investigators to determine why the department did not have a plan in place to fight a fire in the building. 

Mr. Cassidy made his remarks as the Manhattan district attorney, Robert M. Morgenthau, announced that his office had opened an investigation into the fire to determine if any crimes had been committed. The move extends the prosecutors’ subpoena power to the fire marshals who are working with the district attorney’s office.

Mr. Cassidy also called for an independent investigation of the fire by the state attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, who said last night that his office had begun reviewing the circumstances of the fire. Mr. Cassidy said the department was “not capable” of doing its own investigation because of its own involvement and its relationship with other city agencies involved.

In a way, it is a debate that goes to the heart of Fire Department culture — rushing into burning buildings, after all, is what firefighters do. And for their part, fire officials said they believed that Saturday’s fire was well managed, and that the department’s response could not be compared to its actions on 9/11.

“This is a fire in a high-rise building; it is not a terrorist attack,” said Francis X. Gribbon, the department’s chief spokesman. “They see the fire, they know where the fire is. They use the protocols in place to fight the fire.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the department’s decision to send the more than 100 firefighters up into the building to fight the blaze, saying they bravely improvised in a crisis.

The Deutsche Bank building is being dismantled. Sheathed in black netting and plywood, the floors where the men were trapped had been sealed off with plywood and plastic sheeting, creating a maze that became especially daunting as the building filled with wind-fanned black smoke.

Radio transmissions captured the moment when high-ranking officials ordered all the men out — a striking echo of Sept. 11. With two men down and 29 Maydays coming from hellishly fire-engulfed floors, commanders wanted to do a head count.

The priorities of those in charge of the fire response are crystallized in one transmission: A senior official cursed as he said he did not care about the building, and shouted, “Where are my men?” 

Firefighters were trapped without water because the standpipe system — plagued by a shut valve, cracks and a broken pipe — malfunctioned. The two firefighters who died, Robert Beddia, 53, and Joseph Graffagnino, 33, ran out of air. Investigators are focusing on a discarded cigarette or faulty electrical panel as the cause of the blaze.

“This was an unoccupied building,” said a former fire official. “On 9/11 we sent too many people in. McKinsey said that we should not rush men in and, even though the investigation is ongoing, it seems obvious at this point that we still have not learned the lesson that if you’re going to send people in, there should be adequate time and means to get them out.”

Charles R. Blaich, a retired deputy chief who was in charge of safety for the Fire Department at the ground zero site, said the McKinsey report changed how the department managed disasters.

“After 9/11 there were directions that came out from the chief of department that we never get ourselves into a position at these huge disasters where we just blindly assign assets without reasonably assessing what risks we face and what benefits we will achieve,” Mr. Blaich said. “What are we going to achieve by doing this?”

Thomas Von Essen, the fire commissioner on Sept. 11, said he had had many conversations with firefighters who responded on Saturday. He said many felt the operation had moved too quickly.

Mr. Von Essen said it was widely known that the bank building was undergoing a complex and dangerous demolition. He said fire officials should not have been surprised by what the firefighters encountered.

John J. McDonnell, the president of the Uniformed Fire Officers Association, said he believed the lessons of Sept. 11 had been learned “to some extent.” 

“I don’t know if the upper echelons of the Fire Department were aware of the complex nature of the abatement within the building, I mean everyone from the fire commissioner to his staff,” said Mr. McDonnell, whose union represents 2,450 members.

“Were they aware of the complex nature?” he asked. “If they were aware prior to that, maybe there would have been a different fire plan in place.”

He added, “Under a hazardous materials condition, you approach things on a much more cautious level. ”

Firefighters at the scene checked in with commanders, said Mr. Gribbon, the department spokesman. “They were given assignments and they went to work.”

Mr. Gribbon declined to release a minute-by-minute breakdown of the department’s response because he said the department was conducing an internal review that involved listening to radio transmissions, transcribing the tapes, interviews and re-interviews, among other things.

Mr. McDonnell said no one had been prepared to find the stairwell landings blocked by the heavy plywood boards used to compartmentalize buildings where asbestos was being removed. Firefighters had to use an exterior elevator and scaffolding stairs to get up and down. 

Jerome M. Hauer, director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management from 1996 to 2000, said it was “unfair” to contrast the department’s operations on Saturday with the findings of the McKinsey report because “I don’t feel that the report was accurate in some of its assessments.”

He said the accountability for what occurred “has to rest” with the building owner and the demolition operators, not with the Fire Department.

Anemona Hartocollis and Colin Moynihan contributed reporting.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

No updates on the 130 Liberty Street deconstruction since late 2008. Obviously there must be some new law against making updates about the building's deconstruction that was made around that time. :bash:


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## webeagle12 (Oct 1, 2007)

Jim856796 said:


> No updates on the 130 Liberty Street deconstruction since late 2008. Obviously there must be some new law against making updates about the building's deconstruction that was made around that time. :bash:


#1 wtf u talking about!!

#2 thank you for bringing this 2008 thread back, NOT!!!

#3 there is no new updates


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## ZZ-II (May 10, 2006)

Jim856796 said:


> No updates on the 130 Liberty Street deconstruction since late 2008. Obviously there must be some new law against making updates about the building's deconstruction that was made around that time. :bash:


without words...hno:


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

Demolition project must be on hold or something. Apparently they're stuck on floor 25.


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## CrazyCanuck (Oct 9, 2004)

I took the World Trade Center memorial tour last August. The demo of this building is tied up in a ridiculous amount of bureaucracy. They found a few miniscule DNA samples and had to go through the entire building with all of these high tech gadgets to figure out who exactly it belongs to.

It could be on hold though as well so who knows.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

Down to Level 20 now, projected end of the demolition is January 2011 (http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/130_liberty_street__77170.aspx)
Any new pictures?


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## iamxeddiex (Jan 11, 2007)

3D animation of deconstruction of Deutsche Bank Building.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAy-jgt_ng0


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## Ramses (Jun 17, 2005)

How may buildings of lower manhattan are now (of will soon be) destroyed because of the terrorist attack?

- WTC1
- WTC2
- WTC7
- Marriott hotel
- Deutsche bank building
- Fiterman Hall


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## HK999 (Jul 17, 2009)

Ramses said:


> How may buildings of lower manhattan are now (of will soon be) destroyed because of the terrorist attack?
> 
> - WTC1 - *110 *fl
> - WTC2 - *110 *fl
> ...


when the deconstruction of the deutsche bank building is done, you will have *a total loss of 345 floors*. the terrorist certainly did a huge damage to the city of NY.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

Terrorist should have demolished only the three lowrise buildings instead of throwing away the entire WTC complex altogether.


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## OldWorldResident (Mar 26, 2010)

Ramses said:


> How may buildings of lower manhattan are now (of will soon be) destroyed because of the terrorist attack?
> 
> - WTC1
> - WTC2
> ...


- WTC 1 (north tower)
- WTC 2 (south tower)
- WTC 3 (Marriott hotel)
- WTC 4
- WTC 5
- WTC 6
- WTC 7
- WTC PATH station
- Deutsche Bank building
- Fiterman Hall
- St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church

hno:

btw the deconstruction is now on floor 16, 17 and 18


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

now down to floor 9 or 10, in january it is supposed to be gone completely..


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## cmjohns6 (Apr 25, 2008)

what does the new building look like?


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

I think they have not finally decided what to build there, since the demand for office space is not even high enough so that they can build the WTC 2 and 3 right now (at least not until enough tenants are found)


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

new update from GreenwichBoy on WiredNewYork:










and some news on lowermanhattan.info

*The following information was last updated on August 26, 2010.

Deconstruction:

* Deconstruction of the building is now on floors 8 and 9, moving downward.
* The projected end date for deconstruction is December 2010/January 2011.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

Will some of the steel beams and other materials from 130 Liberty Street be recycled or just taken to a landfill?


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/news/130_liberty_steel_removal_69603.aspx

Rather than cut steel members on the roof into smaller lengths for removal in bulk containers, crews are cutting steel as larger sections that the crane can lower directly to the ground. Once removed to the ground, the high-quality steel is cut into smaller pieces and trucked away from the site for recycling.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

Now this is how all steel-framed highrise buildings should be demolished (non implosion demolitions anyway). If this skyscraper had a concrete frame, it would be more difficult.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

news from http://lowermanhattan.info/:

Smaller Crane to Assist at 130 Liberty Street:
The deconstruction of 130 Liberty Street is making steady progress, with operations now down to floor six of the former 40-story tower. Starting Monday, September 27th, contractor Bovis will close Washington Street between Albany and Cedar, intermittingly to operate a crane for steel removal. The streets will remain open while the work continues through approximately mid-November 2010. It is being coordinated with the Port Authority’s excavation of the World Trade Center South Bathtub, where the future Vehicular Security Center entrance will be built. Deconstruction of 130 Liberty Street is expected to be complete by the end of 2010, at which time the Port Authority will begin to occupy the area.


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## fozzy (Nov 13, 2007)

It seems to be taking forever to demolish this building!!!! i was in NYC in july 2003 and it was just covered in netting with the gaping hole in the front from 9/11. I know they had a setback with the tragic fire and i hope the rest of the deconstruction goes without any hickups.


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

I think Cedar Street should be rebuilt through this site. The south half can accommodate 5 World Trade Center The north half can either be a greenspace or a lowrise building.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

ZippyTheChimp, WNY..

mobile crane:


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## spectre000 (Jul 9, 2008)

Lowermanhattan.info is reporting the "hoist" shoud be removed this weekend. I hope by hoist they mean "crane".


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## desertpunk (Oct 12, 2009)

Jim856796 said:


> I think Cedar Street should be rebuilt through this site. The south half can accommodate 5 World Trade Center The north half can either be a greenspace or a lowrise building.


The Port Authority wants 1,000,000+ sq. ft. of offices there. It would take a lot of elbow twisting to get them to change their plans...


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## eland (Aug 29, 2009)

If I see the list of the buildings that have been destroyed than I can say that there hasn't been lost much. The Greek church was special but also quite ugly.
All the WTC buildings, Deutsche bank building and marriot hotel were just plain ugly and the lowrise buildings even disgusting.
In my opinion it was just an example of the typical 60's and 70's eyesores. 
And there are still to much of those buildings in the city making it less beautiful.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

GreenwichBoy, WiredNY..


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## Hanyuu222 (Oct 18, 2010)

It seems like it will be completely demolished soon. Hopefully in the coming months we'll start to hear of plans to redevelop the plot and create a new skyscraper.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

@Hanyuu222: first they need a part of the underground area of the plot for the vehicular security center

new visible progress:

by GreenwichBoy, WiredNY:


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

steady progress:

from greenwichboy, wiredny..


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## EddieB317 (Oct 14, 2009)

DinoVabec said:


> October 21st, in.formed


From 1WTC Thread. DB is at the very bottom of the shots.


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## cameronpaul (Jan 15, 2010)

eland said:


> If I see the list of the buildings that have been destroyed than I can say that there hasn't been lost much. The Greek church was special but also quite ugly.
> All the WTC buildings, Deutsche bank building and marriot hotel were just plain ugly and the lowrise buildings even disgusting.
> In my opinion it was just an example of the typical 60's and 70's eyesores.
> And there are still to much of those buildings in the city making it less beautiful.


Would completly agree with this statement. New York had far too many speculative bland black glass boxes built in the 60's, 70's and even 80's, sometimes replacing very fine buildings such as the beautiful old Biltmore Hotel (demolished for a glass box c.1985) or even worse the magnificent early skyscraper Singer Building replaced by the anonymous US Steel box!!
I wish Robert Stern would get more commissions as his company designs skyscrapers with a timeless elegance which always enhances any cityscape.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

white crane is free standing now..

foto from BStyles, WiredNY:


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## DemolitionDave (Mar 22, 2007)

No one will be to afford to demolish it this way. What is the demolition budget now?? It's something like 50 times what it would have cost anyplace else.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

new update by GreenwichBoy, WiredNY..


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

In the demolition of a tall building, how do they get one of those excavator machines to the top of that building?


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## DemolitionDave (Mar 22, 2007)

Cranes


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

Faulty Equipment Delays Deutsche Bank Demolition Until Next Year, Officials Say

*Crane malfunctions and unexpected obstacles caused the two-week delay.*










*By Julie Shapiro

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer*

LOWER MANHATTAN — Faulty equipment and unexpected challenges have delayed the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building yet again, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. announced Monday.

The long-troubled building, most recently scheduled to come down by the end of this year, is now set to be gone by about Jan. 15, LMDC officials said at a Community Board 1 meeting Monday.

"We did have a couple difficulties over the last month that added up to a small delay in the project," said Josh Rosenbloom, director of city operations for the LMDC.

The LMDC lost several days when the tower crane malfunctioned and it took contractor Bovis Lend Lease a couple of tries to figure out which part needed to be replaced, Rosenbloom said.

In addition, the sixth floor of the building proved more difficult to deconstruct than Bovis expected, Rosenbloom said. That floor housed much of the building’s mechanical equipment, so the concrete floor slab was thicker than the other floors and had more reinforcing steel, making it more difficult to disassemble, Rosenbloom said.

Crews are now in the middle of demolishing the fifth floor of what was once a 41-story office building.

In 2007, a fire broke out in the building while workers were demolishing it and two firefighters were killed. The blaze delayed the project and resulted in manslaughter charges for three construction supervisors.

While Rosenbloom said Monday that he does not expect any additional problems on the few remaining floors, he cautioned that bad weather could add more time to the project.

"At this point, anything that happens has a cascading effect [on the schedule]," he said.

Once the Deutsche Bank building is down, the LMDC plans to turn the site over to the Port Authority to build the Vehicle Security Center, a crucial underground loading dock for the World Trade Center. The LMDC hopes to give the Port preliminary access to the Deutsche site in January so the Vehicle Security Center is not delayed further, Rosenbloom said.

Several local residents were concerned about dust from the Deutsche demolition, and Rosenbloom promised to look into additional mitigation measures as the work moves closer to street level.

Allan Tannenbaum, a CB1 member, asked if the LMDC planned to hold a "bottoming out" ceremony when the demolition is finally done.

"Any [ceremony] would be extremely understated," Rosenbloom replied. "I don’t think anyone wants to declare victory over this."


Read more: http://www.dnainfo.com/20101108/dow...o-until-next-year-officials-say#ixzz14nD085pn


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

Stucknation: The Sad Saga of 130 Liberty
A Place As Parable
Monday, November 15, 2010

_By Bob Hennelly_



On September 11th, 2001, when the World Trade Center's South Tower fell, it tore a 15-story gash into the 41-story Deutsche Bank building, letting in the World Trade's whirlwind of toxic waste and human remains. Diesel tanks that held the fuel for the building's Emergency generator helped feed a fire that flared for days.

Now, almost ten years later, workers are finally dismantling the fifth and fourth floors at 130 Liberty, as the site is now known. Sunlight is finally replacing what was a highrise headstone that cast a shadow over Ground Zero. But the demolition is costing hundreds of millions of dollars and it is not scheduled to be complete until early next year.

The reasons behind the delays and the $400 million (and counting) price tag illustrate the stuck in stucknation

First there was the prolonged legal squabble between Deutsche Bank and the building's insurers that raged as the mold infestation at the site mushroomed.

Then, there was a fire at the site in 2007 that killed two fire fighters and injured more than a hundred others and further traumatized the nearby community residents who had survived 9-11. An exhaustive investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office concluded that both government and corporate malfesance helped set the stage for a fatal fire in August of 2007 at 130 Liberty.

Former District Attorney Robert Morgenthau faulted the prime contractor Bovis Lend Lease and city, state and federal agencies. He was particularly hard on the City's FDNY brass which failed to inspect the building and missed a dismantled stand pipe that's essential to bring water in the event of a fire.

Three contractors were criminally indicted and maintain their innocence. But according to the DA's report, there was a major conspiracy of silence with several fires popping up on the site that summer that no one reported them to the proper authoriities.

At the heart of the site's mismanagement was an unqualified subcontractor with alleged links to a company tied to organized crime. The firm was picked to work on the project over the objections of the city's Department of Investigation.

But it was the local neighborhood activists with Community Board 1 who sounded the loudest and clearest alarm. They warned in 2005, two years before the deadly fire, that site conditions had so badly deteriorated at Deutsche Bank that the potential for just an accident was quite real. Arrogant bureaucrats dismissed them.

One of those community activists was Mary Perillo, whose 8th floor loft is directly across the street from Deutsche Bank. Like the thousands of lower Manhattan residents who were living in the neighborhood on 9-11, she's learned to be skeptical about just about everything. She is still angry about the Environmental Protection Agency’s “all clear” for air quality immediately after the 9-11 attack. "It was all about getting Wall Street back up and running," she says. 

She's happy to see Deutsche Bank at just 10 percent of its past height. She can easily watch the progress of the 130 Liberty demolition from her kitchen window. 

"The major thing I see when i look out the window still is that two firefighters died needlessly after the community said time and time again the safety measures weren't anywhere near the correct standards," she told me last week. “Now it looks like they are taking it down better than they had been.”

She wants something nearby to be named for Firefighters Robert Beddia and Joe Graffagnino who died in that August 2007 fire. She also wants the Senate to pass the 9-11 Victims Compensation bill passed that is named for NYPD officer James Zadroga who died in 2007 from 9-11 related health issues. (Since 9-11, 29 police officers have died of World Trade Center related health illnesses. 23 were killed the day of the attack.)

Perillo says the bill will cover community members like herself who have stayed through the delays and tragic setbacks. 

"The community has come together around this quite about,” she said. “If we had blown out of here, and gone else where, and not comeback who would have won? The bad guys."

Those bad guys aren’t just terrorists. They’re also the incompetent or opportunistic interests — public and private — that failed at 130 Liberty.

It’s a tale not limited to just this address. After all, the current crisis in America is not really about an underperforming economy. It is actually about how corruption has corroded our national character.

But there's still hope thanks to the watchful eyes of Mary Perillo and her neighbors. They show us that even on the block where the American spirit has been tested again and again, the tradition of the citizen activist demanding accountability endures.


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## stevensp (May 7, 2010)

Lovely thread
very interesting..
to see the consequences of things we build.. and maybe to start thinking about how can we demolish this thing already before we build it ^^


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## krkseg1ops (Mar 19, 2009)

the fastest demolition method would be to fly planes into the building, i guess. if no planes are available, incite fire on the roof, then the building collapses on its own footprint. Works on steel-reinforced frames as well. True story


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

^^ Honestly, you have thought up of the worst $#1+ since Robert E Moses proposed a huge bridge on where the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel is now.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

Greenwichboy, WiredNewYork:


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## redbaron_012 (Sep 19, 2004)

almost gone......and a look back : (
Pic by Michael Reiger


Uploaded with ImageShack.us


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

*$100 Million Suit Planned Over Former Deutsche Bank Building*

By CHARLES V. BAGLI

The last chapter in the tortured tale of the former Deutsche Bank building near ground zero will play out in court now that the 41-story office tower has finally been dismantled.

The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation plans to file a $100 million claim in State Supreme Court in Manhattan next week against Bovis Lend Lease, the construction manager it hired more than five years ago for a job that was supposed to be completed in June 2007.

If successful, the lawsuit would pare the taxpayers’ bill to about $57 million for a project that ultimately cost $266 million, more than twice the original estimate. Two former insurers of the tower — AXA and Allianz — agreed a year ago to pay $102.4 million toward the total cost. And this month, the corporation settled an asbestos case against Deutsche Bank, the former owner of the building, for $3.8 million.

“We will do everything within our power to ensure that we recover what is owed to the taxpayers and put it to use downtown, where there are still many unmeet needs,” said Avi Schick, chairman of the development corporation.

Bovis, which declined to comment, filed its own lawsuit six months ago claiming that it had been shortchanged at least $80 million for work it was ordered to do in decontaminating and demolishing the building.

Almost nothing has gone according to plan with the building, which was one of the nation’s most expensive and long-running demolition projects, finally finishing this month. The north side of the tower was heavily damaged during the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center.

The development corporation bought the building in 2004 and hired Bovis under an $82 million contract to oversee its demolition. The project was plagued by lengthy delays, political squabbling and a fire that killed two firefighters in 2007.

Bovis narrowly avoided being indicted in that blaze. The company is also at the center of an investigation by the United State attorney in Brooklyn into allegations of overcharges on 100 public-works projects.

The development corporation’s lawsuit will seek to recover money it advanced to Bovis as part of a 2007 agreement to get the stalled project moving, as well as certain costs for which Bovis may have obtained insurance payments.

The corporation is expected to turn the site over to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey next month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/26/nyregion/26deutsche.html?_r=2&ref=nyregion


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## Dan Hochhaus (May 5, 2004)

Another last picture of the crane...

20/01/2011 by RoldanTTLB from wirednewyork.com:










And later, with unblocked view to 4WTC: 

20/01/2011, also RoldanTTLB:


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

http://www.dnainfo.com/20110208/dow...on-finally-reaches-street-level#ixzz1DQ5iZAKk

Deutsche Bank Demolition Finally Reaches Street Level

All that's left of the former 41-story Deutsche Bank skyscraper is part of the basement.

*By Julie Shapiro*










LOWER MANHATTAN — The Deutsche Bank building is finally almost gone.

The former 41-story tower, damaged and contaminated with toxic debris on 9/11, has been demolished down to ground level, the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. announced this week.

Crews are still dismantling the building's basement. The LMDC expects the job to be entirely done within the next couple weeks, so the site can be turned over to the Port Authority to build the underground vehicle security center and parking garage for the World Trade Center site.

The disappearance of the tower, though, does not end the controversy surrounding it.

Next month, the trial of three of the project’s construction supervisors will begin. The supervisors were charged with manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide after two firefighters were killed in a 2007 blaze at the building.

At the same time, the LMDC plans to sue contractor Bovis Lend Lease for roughly $100 million, based on Bovis’s alleged negligence and deconstruction delays. Meanwhile, Bovis is seeking $80 million from the LMDC.

Once the demolition is done, the Deutsche Bank building site will become a construction staging area for at least a few years.

The site was once supposed to house a commercial skyscraper, but some community leaders are pushing for a mixed-use building instead, given the lack of demand for more office space downtown.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer hopes to hold a public forum later this month to discuss future plans for the site.


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## Tom_Green (Sep 4, 2004)

What will be build on that site?


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## Casey (Nov 5, 2004)

Tom_Green said:


> What will be build on that site?


"Crews are still dismantling the building's basement. The LMDC expects the job to be entirely done within the next couple weeks, so the site can be turned over to the Port Authority to build *the underground vehicle security center and parking garage for the World Trade Center site."*


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## Tom_Green (Sep 4, 2004)

Casey said:


> "Crews are still dismantling the building's basement. The LMDC expects the job to be entirely done within the next couple weeks, so the site can be turned over to the Port Authority to build *the underground vehicle security center and parking garage for the World Trade Center site."*


One of the most important sites in New York and they want to build a garage? O_O
Hope they will build something on top of that garage.


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## germantower (May 23, 2006)

^^ The VSC and garage will be underground, with a park "liberty street park" a church and a possible WTC5 adjacent to it.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

Update by GreenwichBoy, WiredNY..


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

GreenwichBoy, WiredNewYork..


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

GreenwichBoy, WiredNewYork:


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

So according to lowermanhattan.info the site has been turned over to the PATH

http://www.lowermanhattan.info/construction/project_updates/130_liberty_street__77170.aspx

*Daily Activities*

*The following information was last updated on March 4, 2011.

* Deconstruction of the building was* completed on February 28*, 2011, and *included turnover* to the Port Authority.


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

Work on the VSC started.. so this thread is coming to an end..

Taken by lofter1, WiredNewYork:


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## Jim856796 (Jun 1, 2006)

One last question, if the VSC is completed, then what will happen to potential plans for a new building in the site of 130 Liberty Street?


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

As far as I know, there is nothing decided yet about what will be built there (the Performing Arts Center was also in the discussion I think) or whether they build anything there at all..


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## oli83 (Oct 15, 2007)

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/close_the_lmdc_now_I8NFJe3cMmbxQ4aKp9vI5O

Will no one rid New York of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp.?

The agency, established in the wake of 9/11 to guide downtown redevelopment, long ago outlived whatever usefulness it might once have had. Now it's sitting on $700 million in unused federal reconstruction cash and seems determined not to go away until it spends every last penny -- to perpetuate itself.

*Thus, agency Chairman Avi Schick is proposing that the LMDC build a temporary viewing platform for Ground Zero Memorial visitors on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.*

*The platform would occupy the site of the old Deutsche Bank building -- wrecked on 9/11 and then delivered to the LMDC for demolition.*

But it took nine years, tens of millions in budget overruns and the lives of two New York City firefighters to get that job done -- and blame for the fiasco resides almost entirely with the LMDC.

Nevertheless, *Schick says he can get a platform built by this summer for a mere $800,000*.

Right.

Given its record, the agency might have a platform built . . . for the 15th anniversary of 9/11.

At a cost of, say, a bazillion dollars -- give or take a gazillion or two.

The LMDC board is scheduled to vote on the project tomorrow morning -- and board member Julie Menin says she'll give it a thumbs down, because "LMDC isn't -- and shouldn't be -- in the construction business."

Don't stop there.

The LMDC shouldn't be in any sort of business. There is nothing that needs doing at Ground Zero that can't be done by the Port Authority.

As it stands, however, there is nothing to stop the agency from proceeding with its latest boondoggle, should the board approve it tomorrow.

Nothing, that is, save the heavy hand of the Cuomo administration.

Albany needs to stop this project before it begins.

Then it needs to put the LMDC out of its misery before Schick and his confederates waste even more taxpayer money.

Or kill another firefighter or two.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinio...lmdc_now_I8NFJe3cMmbxQ4aKp9vI5O#ixzz1I6nhAPYS


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