Someone, in the form of Rep. Jerry Nadler, has finally started asking some hard question about the Deutsche Bank demolition. The 130 Liberty Street structure, which was damaged (though, more appropriately, should be listed as ‘destroyed’ since that will be the eventual state) in the WTC attacks, was purchased by the LMDC this year, and is slated for what is being called ‘deconstruction.’ Though fans of mid-eighties architecture might note the sick irony of a developer finally embracing decon on a large scale, the process, even completely devoid of what prompted it, is far from a joke.
Documents obtained by Nadler indicate that there may be levels of contaminant in the building (particularly asbestos) that range as high as 150,000 times EPA limits. This makes the actual process of demolition complex and expensive. Kevin Rampe and the LMDC was typically high-handed in its response, arguing basically that the estimates presented by Nadler were artificially high because Deutsche Bank was lying to land a favorable insurance settlement. That Rampe would accuse Deutsche Bank of basically perjury is interesting. The alternative is worse, which is that even though everyone agreed that the building, in its current state, was impossible to reinhabit (and any renovations were near impossible to calculate), to the point that they weren’t even sure how to destroy it, the LMDC stepped in and made a bureaucratic decision to assume responsibility without any EIS, engineering studies or bids from contractors. Don’t they have some fiduciary responsibility? If so, this would seem to be a considerable breach. Even though they are projecting a completion date, they aren’t releasing a demolition and transport plan, instead only vaguely claiming that precautions will be taken (which apparently will be minimal; the netting in place was intended to prevent remnants from falling, not to provide any environmental encapsulation) once they start and figure out what’s exactly inside.
Regardless of all this, like the WTC attacks themselves, this process will be an engineering landmark because never before has a building of this scale, constructed in the era between traditional materials and the current awareness of what harm may come from modern building materials, has been taken down. It’s an inevitability that will come up over the next 40-80 years, as large buildings reach the end of their useful life (a calculation that in many cases might be more financial than structural; most of these buildings are steel-framed, but a gut — meaning stripping to the frame — renovation would produce many of the same problems as complete demolition), this will begin to be a considerable issue. One that was pretty much ignored when zoning for behemoths like this.
What you get instead it the push over the past decade to create ‘Demolition Porn’ — where a typically publicly funded facility like a sports stadium, built with the promises of decades of service must be destroyed after less than 20 years to make way for newer, larger, gargantuan subsidies of private enterprise — which is simply a bait and switch process to make others pay for clean up. See, when you demo via implosion, upwards of 20% of the structural materials (mostly concrete, and, often, concrete mixed with a number of carcinogenic substances found elsewhere in the construction) will be pulverized and thrown into the air, borne conveniently away from the site by wind, leaving everyone who lives or works in the area covered by a fine dust that would, on most job sites, be considered hazardous, and not because they contain deadly substances, but merely due to the size of the particulate (thanks to the incomparable John Young for this analysis). But the upside to the contractor is huge: in exchange for a small pickup full of C4, your disposal costs go down considerably. Though nothing is being projected on a similar scale for 130 Liberty Street, you can be sure one of the reasons it was not was due to the incredible violence of the act, which would have been impossible to suggest in that particular location.
None of this information bodes well for downtown residents, who will get to watch another building be destroyed from the WTC attacks, in sickeningly slow motion, watching and pondering it piecemeal, questioning all the attendant issues that no one was able to process in the moment, but became readily apparent after the fact. The response of the LMDC and their lack of sensitivity to this — ranging from simple decorum for what might be emotionally charged to outright callousness of the actual, measurable, potential for physical harm to workers and residents — borders on appalling.
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LMDC to downtown: Don’t throw out the HEPA filters yet.
Someone, in the form of Rep. Jerry Nadler, has finally started asking some hard question about the Deutsche Bank demolition. The 130 Liberty Street structure, which was damaged (though, more appropriately, should be listed as ‘destroyed’ since that will be the eventual state) in the WTC attacks, was purchased by the LMDC this year, and is slated for what is being called ‘deconstruction.’ Though fans of mid-eighties architecture might note the sick irony of a developer finally embracing decon on a large scale, the process, even completely devoid of what prompted it, is far from a joke.
Documents obtained by Nadler indicate that there may be levels of contaminant in the building (particularly asbestos) that range as high as 150,000 times EPA limits. This makes the actual process of demolition complex and expensive. Kevin Rampe and the LMDC was typically high-handed in its response, arguing basically that the estimates presented by Nadler were artificially high because Deutsche Bank was lying to land a favorable insurance settlement. That Rampe would accuse Deutsche Bank of basically perjury is interesting. The alternative is worse, which is that even though everyone agreed that the building, in its current state, was impossible to reinhabit (and any renovations were near impossible to calculate), to the point that they weren’t even sure how to destroy it, the LMDC stepped in and made a bureaucratic decision to assume responsibility without any EIS, engineering studies or bids from contractors. Don’t they have some fiduciary responsibility? If so, this would seem to be a considerable breach. Even though they are projecting a completion date, they aren’t releasing a demolition and transport plan, instead only vaguely claiming that precautions will be taken (which apparently will be minimal; the netting in place was intended to prevent remnants from falling, not to provide any environmental encapsulation) once they start and figure out what’s exactly inside.
Regardless of all this, like the WTC attacks themselves, this process will be an engineering landmark because never before has a building of this scale, constructed in the era between traditional materials and the current awareness of what harm may come from modern building materials, has been taken down. It’s an inevitability that will come up over the next 40-80 years, as large buildings reach the end of their useful life (a calculation that in many cases might be more financial than structural; most of these buildings are steel-framed, but a gut — meaning stripping to the frame — renovation would produce many of the same problems as complete demolition), this will begin to be a considerable issue. One that was pretty much ignored when zoning for behemoths like this.
What you get instead it the push over the past decade to create ‘Demolition Porn’ — where a typically publicly funded facility like a sports stadium, built with the promises of decades of service must be destroyed after less than 20 years to make way for newer, larger, gargantuan subsidies of private enterprise — which is simply a bait and switch process to make others pay for clean up. See, when you demo via implosion, upwards of 20% of the structural materials (mostly concrete, and, often, concrete mixed with a number of carcinogenic substances found elsewhere in the construction) will be pulverized and thrown into the air, borne conveniently away from the site by wind, leaving everyone who lives or works in the area covered by a fine dust that would, on most job sites, be considered hazardous, and not because they contain deadly substances, but merely due to the size of the particulate (thanks to the incomparable John Young for this analysis). But the upside to the contractor is huge: in exchange for a small pickup full of C4, your disposal costs go down considerably. Though nothing is being projected on a similar scale for 130 Liberty Street, you can be sure one of the reasons it was not was due to the incredible violence of the act, which would have been impossible to suggest in that particular location.
None of this information bodes well for downtown residents, who will get to watch another building be destroyed from the WTC attacks, in sickeningly slow motion, watching and pondering it piecemeal, questioning all the attendant issues that no one was able to process in the moment, but became readily apparent after the fact. The response of the LMDC and their lack of sensitivity to this — ranging from simple decorum for what might be emotionally charged to outright callousness of the actual, measurable, potential for physical harm to workers and residents — borders on appalling.