A DECADE after the Sept. 11 attack, downtown Manhattan is resurgent. The residential population has doubled. Two skyscrapers — 1 and 4 World Trade Center — are rising at ground zero, due to open in 2013. The next year, the exuberant PATH transit hub is scheduled to come online. The national memorial is open; two streets have been built. A far more diverse array of businesses call downtown home today, including a large cluster of media companies, law firms and nonprofit organizations. And just last week, both the northbound and southbound platforms of the Cortlandt Street subway station were open.
Ten years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a special report on the decade’s costs and consequences, measured in thousands of lives, trillions of dollars and countless challenges to the human spirit.
1.1 Casualties
1.2 Damage
1.3 Rescue and recovery
2 Attackers and their background
2.1 Al-Qaeda
2.2 Osama bin Laden
2.3 Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
2.4 Motives
2.5 Planning of the attacks
2.6 Other al-Qaeda members
3 Aftermath
3.1 Immediate response
3.2 Military operations following the attacks
3.3 Domestic response
3.3.1 Hate crimes
3.3.2 Muslim American reaction
3.4 International response
4 Long-term effects
4.1 Economic aftermath
4.2 Health effects
4.3 Government policies toward terrorism
5 Investigations
5.1 FBI investigation
5.2 9/11 Commission
5.3 Collapse of the World Trade Center
5.4 Internal review of the CIA
6 Rebuilding
7 Memorials
7.1 Final resting place for WTC victims
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References
11 Sources
12 Further reading
13 External links
13.1 Multimedia
Go to The Reckoning »
Multimedia
Graphic
Breaking Down the Costs of a Rebuilt Downtown
Metro Twitter Logo.
Connect With Us on Twitter
Follow @NYTMetro for New York breaking news and headlines.
That is not what most people expected.
“I had a lot of skepticism about whether the World Trade Center area could be recreated as a vibrant, 24-hour place,” said John H. Mollenkopf, director of the City University of New York’s Center for Urban Research. “But I have to say that despite much botched planning, the delays, posturing and bureaucratic politics, things are actually coming along very well.”
But progress does not come cheap. The cost of rebuilding the trade center, several related projects and the downtown public transportation system will run close to $24 billion — probably not all that surprising given the institutional rivalries, the political squabbling and the complexity of building 26 interdependent projects on a cramped 16-acre site next to a river and with two transit lines running underneath.
Financing the reconstruction has been equally complex. After the terrorist attacks, President George W. Bush promised more than $20 billion in federal aid for New York. But slightly more than $6 billion was spent on the clean-up and emergency aid. Of the remaining $14 billion, only $8 billion was actual cash for rebuilding — the rest came in the form of tax incentives. The insurance proceeds from the site itself came to $4.5 billion.
The state provided tens of millions of dollars in additional tax breaks for downtown tenants and employers.
One World Trade Center (the former Freedom Tower) alone cost $3.2 billion to build. New security concerns in the post-Sept. 11 world contributed to the building’s being redesigned three times over the past decade. Still, this year, that building landed a glamorous lead tenant, the media company Condé Nast Publications. But it cost taxpayers plenty: $47.5 million in rent rebates and millions more in sales tax and commercial rent tax exemptions.
Goldman Sachs’s new tower across West Street from the World Trade Center site, a relative bargain at $2.4 billion, received $1.65 billion in tax-free Liberty Bonds, which saved the bank millions in financing costs. Goldman threatened to abandon the project after the state botched negotiations for the tower. That led the state to enlarge its incentive package to include $115 million in tax breaks and cash grants, in what critics described as the most egregious example of corporate welfare in city history.
Goldman’s share of the Liberty Bonds illustrates the size of its taxpayer bounty. The bonds accounted for 69 percent of the project’s cost. But the developer Larry Silverstein got only $2.6 billion in Liberty Bonds, or 41 percent of the $6.3 billion projected cost of building three towers on the trade center site itself.
Other developers, meanwhile, got a total of $1.6 billion of the tax-free bonds for 15 luxury buildings containing a total of 5,700 apartments to repopulate Lower Manhattan. Fewer than 5 percent of those units were set aside for poor and working-class New Yorkers.
Fearing the loss of businesses in Lower Manhattan, the Pataki administration provided dozens of companies with $313 million in cash grants for staying downtown, although there was little chance that the American Stock Exchange, Century 21 or the law firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan would leave.
But nothing in the area can compare with the transit hub, with its white-winged super-structure designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. The hub’s cost has swelled to $3.44 billion from $1.9 billion over the past decade, though it will serve only 80,000 PATH riders daily. Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan serves seven times that number, and yet its planned renovation has largely stalled.
Still, given the area’s remarkable rebirth, people may be willing to overlook that. “If you had told me the day after 9/11 that downtown would be doing as well as it’s now doing in attracting businesses and so many residential tenants, I would have said, ‘Get out of here,’ ” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, who was instrumental in getting the $20 billion in federal aid.
This week, 9/11 firefighters and police chiefs rallied to demand changes to the rules governing compensation for health problems tied to poisonous air and debris at Ground Zero. They want federal funds to support treatment for cancer, which is currently omitted from the primary legislation covering Ground Zero-related medical needs. For years, researchers have been uncovering fresh evidence of widespread and devastating illnesses afflicting a large portion of people exposed to the aftermath; ongoing health issues range from crippling lung and breathing problems to post-traumatic stress disorder. But adequate funding for 9/11 workers has often been ensnared in political gridlock, not to mention the general incompetence of the healthcare system.
9/11 Attacks - 102 Minutes That Changed America
For 102 minutes on September 11, 2001, the world looked on in horror as terrorists flew hijacked passenger planes into New York City's mighty twin towers, destroying the iconic buildings and killing more than 2,700 people. Watch unfiltered videos from nine New Yorkers who witnessed the day that changed America.
Here are a few of the major events and memorial services that will take place on 9/11, 2011 around the country.
Washington, D.C.: Those who died in the attack at the Pentagon will be honored at a ceremony of 700 people, including family members of the deceased and members of the military. It will take place at the Pentagon Memorial, which opened in 2008.
New York City: The 9/11 Memorial will officially open on Sept. 11 with a ceremony for victims’ families at Ground Zero. The Memorial will then open to the public on the next day for visitors who reserved passes in advance. On Sept. 10, Community Board 1 will hold Hands Across Lower Manhattan, an event on the West Side Waterfront.
Casualties
Deaths (excluding hijackers)
New York City World Trade Center 2,606[44][45]
American 11 87[46]
United 175 60[47]
Arlington Pentagon 125[48]
American 77 59[49]
Shanksville United 93 40[50]
Total 2,977
There were a total of 2,996 deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims.[51] The victims included 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon.[44][52] All the deaths in the attacks were civilians, except for 55 military personnel killed at the Pentagon.[53]
Over 90% of the workers and visitors who died in the towers had been at or above the points of impact.[54] In the North Tower 1,355 people at or above the point of impact were trapped and died of smoke inhalation, fell or jumped from the tower to escape the smoke and flames, or were killed in the building's eventual collapse. A further 107 people below the point of impact did not survive.[54] In the South Tower, one stairwell remained intact allowing 18 people to escape from above the point of impact.[55] 630 people died in the South Tower which was fewer than half of the number killed in the North Tower.[54] Casualties in the South Tower were significantly reduced by the decision of some occupants to start evacuating when the North Tower was struck.[55]
At least 200 people fell or jumped to their deaths from the burning towers (as depicted in the photograph The Falling Man), landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below.[56] Some occupants of each tower above the point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and the thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented helicopters from approaching.[57]
A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they tried to rescue people and fight fires. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) lost 341 firefighters and 2 paramedics.[58] The New York City Police Department (NYPD) lost 23 officers.[59] The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers.[60] Eight emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and paramedics from private emergency medical services units were killed.[61][62]
Aerial view looking north toward collapsed WTC7 and part of WTC1 and WTC2 nearby
The remains of 6 World Trade Center, 7 World Trade Center, and 1 World Trade Center, days after the attacks
Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101st–105th floors of the North Tower, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer.[63] Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93–100, lost 358 employees,[64][65] and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were also killed.[66] The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) estimated that about 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks though turnstile counts from the Port Authority suggest 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45 a.m.[67][68] The vast majority of people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings.[69]
After New York, New Jersey lost the most state citizens, with the city of Hoboken sustaining the most deaths.[70] More than 70 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center.[71] Two people were later added to the official death toll after dying from health conditions linked to exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.
Weeks after the attack, the death toll was estimated to be over 6,000, more than twice the number of deaths eventually confirmed.[74] The city was only able to identify remains for about 1,600 of the World Trade Center victims. The medical examiner's office collected "about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead".[75] Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 by workers who were preparing to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank Building. In 2010, a team of anthropologists and archaeologists searched for human remains and personal items at the Fresh Kills Landfill, where seventy-two more human remains were recovered, bringing the total found to 1,845. DNA profiling continues in an attempt to identify additional victims.[76] As of August 2011, 1,631 victims have been identified, while 1,122 (41%) of the victims remained unidentified.[77][78] The remains are being held in storage in Memorial Park, outside the New York City Medical Examiner’s facilities. It is expected that the remains will be moved in 2013 to a repository behind a wall at the 9/11 museum. A medical examiner, who will have a workspace at the site, will continue to try to identify remains, in the hope improved technology will allow them to identify other victims.
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also known as the 9-11 Commission), an independent, bipartisan commission created by congressional legislation and the signature of President George W. Bush in late 2002, is chartered to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, including preparedness for and the immediate response to the attacks. The Commission is also mandated to provide recommendations designed to guard against future attacks.
On July 22, 2004 the Commission released its public report, which is available for download from this site. The report is also available in bookstores nationwide and from the Government Printing Office.
On August 21, 2004 the Commission released two staff monographs, available for download along with other staff statements on this site.
The ten members of the 9-11 Commission announce the creation of the 9/11 Public Discourse Project.
The Commission closed on August 21, 2004.
0 Comments Received
Post a Comment