THE SYMBOL OF ALL THAT IS WRONG AT GROUND ZERO

[DMCKEON]

Much has been made over the past week with how the World Trade Center Foundation is going to great lengths to change the image of the foundation.

Unfortunately the Deutsche Bank Building has over the past 6 years become the symbol of all that has gone wrong at Ground Zero.

This Building wrapped in its black shroud has cast its dark shadow over all activities at the site.

The inactivity in the Dismantling of the building due to insurance and ownership issues mirrored what was going on with Larry Silverstein and the Port Authority at the site.

The so called “complete” search of the building for human remains was a microcosm of the search of the entire site.

The accidental find of 765 remains did not expand the search of Ground Zero but the shroud once again continued to cover the inadequacies of the initial search.

Had the accidental find of an additional 209 remains not occurred the black shroud would have covered up everything else and the search that has uncovered over 900 additional remains over the past year never would have occurred.

The fact that the news of the original finds was made through the media set the tone for future reporting of the recovery effort at the site.

The black shroud of the Deutsche Bank Building continues to hide the results of the now 785 remains that have been found at that location.

And the shroud has expanded to the entire new effort as we do not even know if any of the over 1,600 remains that have been recovered have even been tested.

Despite numerous requests the shroud continues to hide these results.

Since the building has been purchased by the LMDC we have seen only a small percentage of the building dismantled. What we have seen is the cost of the operation spiral out of control. We have seen a crane crash from the roof into the fire house below. Now we have seen the death of two brave firefighters who ran into this building
to protect its neighbors from a still unexplained fire.

And the black shroud continues to hide the secrets of the closed door meetings and the behind the scenes agreements that have put us in this situation 6 years later.

On a building that has become a symbol of all that is still wrong with Ground Zero.

Put It Above Ground