March 26th - March 30th, 2012

City Council and Union leaders Object to Change in Crane Rules

March 26 -- New York Daily News reports, the City Council is fighting back against Mayor Bloomberg’s quiet effort to eliminate a rule that all tower crane operators must have local experience before they can become licensed. Several Council members took to the steps of City Hall on Monday with members of the crane operators Local 14 to charge that the change will compromise public safety.

The proposed change follows two tower crane collapses in 2008 that killed eight people — and a near-disaster last month when a crane at the World Trade Center dropped a huge load of steel next to a busy street. The Bloomberg administration wants to change the city’s rules in response to a recent federal mandate that all municipalities adopt a national standard for crane operator’s licenses by 2015.

Power feeders switched on at WTC

March 26 – Post Cressent reports, the World Trade Center in New York has reached another milestone. Workers switched on a massive power system at the site Tuesday. It eventually will provide electricity to the center's signature skyscraper, a transit hub and the 9/11 memorial and museum.

USS New York Sets Sail

March 27 - NY1 News reports,  the new Navy warship forged with steel from the World Trade Center set off on its first mission.  The USS New York set sail Tuesday off the coast of Virginia as part of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group. On board are 4,000 sailors and Marines who will patrol parts of Europe, Africa, and the Middle East on an eight-month mission. The USS New York is carrying 7.5 tons of steel from the Twin Towers in her bow and stern.

Lower Manhattan Schools Waitlist Nearly 100

March 28 -- Last week, 99 Downtown families opened letters saying their 4-year-old children were waitlisted for kindergarten at their zoned school, reported DNAinfo.

TriBeCa's popular P.S. 234 waitlisted the most children — 38 — but P.S. 89 in northern Battery Park City and P.S. 276 in southern Battery Park City also filled up quickly, with unusually large waitlists of 26 children apiece, staff at the schools said.

Even the brand-new Peck Slip School, which is opening its first kindergarten class this fall, has a waitlist of nine zoned students, the principal said. The Spruce Street School does not have a waitlist, but all its incoming kindergarten sections are full, the parent coordinator said.

A Department of Education spokesman noted that the waitlist numbers are not final and more seats are expected to open up, but he declined to comment further.

WTC Memorial and Museum win ACEC award

March 28 -- WSP Cantor Seinuk collected a top engineering award for its work on the World Trade Center Memorial and Museum. The firm was among 500 consulting engineers and clients gathered for the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York’s (ACEC New York) 45th annual Engineering Excellence Awards gala at the Waldorf-Astoria last the weekend.

The Memorial Park is supported by the steel framing of the roof of the subterranean memorial structure, which descends as far as 70 feet below plaza level.
The 200-foot fountain pools that occupy the footprint of the Twin Towers are approximately 30-feet deep with centrally located voids, waterfalls of massive scale that flow through the ceiling to the museum below. Among the project’s additional challenges were: resisting earth and hydrostatic pressures from up to 70 feet of pre-9/11 excavations and the need to support the existing slurry wall. Now designated a federal landmark, the 60-foot high original slurry wall held back the waters of the Hudson River on September 11.