February 17th - February 23rd, 2006

Charles Maikish at Helm of Downtown Construction

Tuesday, February 21: Charles Maikish, the executive director of the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, will oversee $10 billion in construction below Canal Street in coming years, the Daily News reported. He will be in charge of the 15,000 hardhats expected to be working downtown by 2007 and will coordinate the movement of hundreds of pieces of heavy equipment while ensuring that people and machines stay out of each other's way, the paper continued.

Maikish expects the Ground Zero site itself to present the greatest challenge because of the need to coordinate the construction of the WTC memorial, the WTC Memorial Museum, two office towers, and Port Authority construction on the PATH station and subsequent excavation of several other acres on the site, the Daily News reported.

Lower Manhattan currently has 35 active construction sites, with 15 more projects scheduled to start by the end of this year, the paper wrote. Maikish will stay in contact with the agencies and builders to make sure that they don't work at cross purposes, the News continued. "Charles is someone people respect because he's been a player in Lower Manhattan for a long time," Paul Goldstein, Community Board 1's district manager, told the News.

Public Art Exhibit Removed

Tuesday, February 21: "Bruce Walking" and "Sarah Walking," the two electronic pedestrians on the steps of Tweed Courthouse, are being removed this week, the New York Sun reported. The pair were part of the public art exhibit "Julian Opie: Animals, Buildings, Cars, and People" that was installed in October 2004. They were slated to be taken down in October of 2005, the paper continued.

"It's been something nice to look at, and I always notice them whenever I'm walking up and down here. I'm going to miss them," Nury Montan, a community liaison at the Department of Homeless Services, told the Sun.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office told the paper that another exhibit would be erected in the spring to replace the farm animals, hatchback cars, and glass portraits of the City Hall area, but no details were disclosed.

Jurors Added to Selection Pool for Moussaoui Trial

Thursday, February 22: U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema added nine more potential jurors to the existing pool of 50 from which a jury will be selected to determine the fate of Zacarias Moussaoui, is accused of conspiring with Al-Qaeda members to fly planes into the World Trade Center, the New York Times reported. Judge Brinkema wants to have a pool of 85 jurors to select from by March 6, the paper continued, who will determine whether Moussaoui will spend the rest of his life in prison or receive the death penalty.