President Biden blows off NYC 9/11 ceremony

 

 NY Daily News

We like round numbers: 20th anniversary, 30th anniversary, the Golden Jubilee.

But the 22nd anniversary of an evil terrorist attack on New York City and the rest of the nation is no less of a reason for the president of the United States to visit the World Trade Center and lay a wreath or something.

President Biden, it turns out, is in the midst of a nasty — and petty — feud with city and state officials over the city’s growing migrant crisis.

Instead, Biden will attend a 9/11 commemoration ceremony with military families on a patch of soil that seems about as far away from New York City as one can get — Anchorage, Alaska.

The president will be returning from a previously planned state visit to Vietnam on Sunday, which means he won’t attend the solemn event in Lower Manhattan for the second straight year.

That also means the tough-talking leader of the free world will avoid the awkward photo op with Mayor Adams and Gov. Hochul, who have been feuding with the president and each other over a migrant crisis that, to use Adams’ words, “will destroy New York City.”

And, Biden could have done more to make sure he wasn’t in Alaska, of all places, on one of the most solemn days in New York City.

Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff are expected at the Ground Zero event on Monday marking the 22nd anniversary of the deadliest terror attack on American soil, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

Planes hijacked that day also struck the Pentagon and a remote field in Shanksville, Pa.

Although it’s not a round number commemoration, the anniversary does mark a milestone moment.

The number of firefighters who have died from 9/11-related illnesses is now eerily close to the number of firefighter heroes, 343, who perished during the initial attack. To date, 342 FDNY members have died of World Trade Center-related illnesses.

“As we approach the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, the FDNY continues to feel the impact of that day. Each year, this memorial wall grows as we honor those who gave their lives in service of others,” said Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh.

“These brave men and women showed up that day, and in the days and months following the attacks to participate in the rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center site. We will never forget them.”

 

21 9/11

 

Mayor Eric Adams exploits 9/11 to defend staffer who had a brazen conflict of interest who still worked at Resorts World.

 

 NY Post

Mayor Eric Adams tried to counter a new barrage of questions about ethics at City Hall Monday after hiring his close friend Timothy Pearson as a public safety adviser while allowing him to keep his job at a Queens gambling operation seeking approvals to expand its business — with Hizzoner claiming at one point that “We need to lift up our 9/11 heroes.”

Adams spoke just hours after Resorts World, which runs the slots at Aqueduct Racetrack in Queens, parted ways with Pearson following a string of stories that revealed his simultaneous work in city government and as the security chief at the facility.

“He’s a 9/11 hero,” Adams told reporters in The Bronx after he was pressed on allowing Pearson to maintain dual employment while he was in city service. “When the [World Trade Center] buildings collapsed, he was inside one of the buildings and led people to safety.”

“We need to lift up our 9/11 heroes,” the mayor added. 

Adams also claimed on Monday that City Hall has “nothing to do with the placement of casinos” — even though the mayor appoints one of the voting members to the panel that must approve any new casino license in the five boroughs.

The Malaysia-based Genting Group, the parent company of Resorts World, is fighting hard for one of those new licenses so it can add lucrative table games like craps and roulette to its racetrack operation, which is currently limited to slots and other computer games.

The New York Times first reported last week that Pearson was still employed full time by Resorts World even after taking an adviser position at the city’s Economic Development Corporation on matters of public safety and COVID-19 pandemic recovery. 

So Adams exploited the pandemic too to hire a crony of his. Disgusting.

Museum executives still mooching off 9/11 and laid off staffers

  

NY Post

After closing for six months during the pandemic and laying off or furloughing 60 percent of its staff, the cash-starved 9/11 Memorial and Museum gave $1,000 bonuses to each of its 12 highest paid execs, The Post has learned.

The bonus brought the total compensation in 2020 for CEO Alice Greenwald, who recently announced she is stepping down, to $564,500, according to the organization’s latest IRS filing.

Built to remember the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and to honor the 2,958 people murdered, the memorial and museum took a big financial hit during the pandemic and is still struggling to recover.

The bonuses were funded by an anonymous donor and restricted to that purpose, said spokeswoman Lee Cochran.

“The donation was intended to recognize the exceptional dedication of a very hard-working staff” who ran the organization after COVID-19 forced a shutdown in March 2020 and produced virtual education programs during the closure, Cochran said.

Besides Greenwald, 11 top staffers who each collected $187,000 to $347,000 in 2020 also got the $1,000 bonus. Another 155 remaining employees received unspecified bonuses “based on duration of employment.” Cochran said. She would not disclose the amounts or total spent on bonuses. “Everyone got something.”

The salaries anger an advocacy group, 9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters and World Trade Center Victims, which wants the National Park Service to run the site.

“This is a cash cow for the executives running the museum. Their salaries are exorbitant,” said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, the group’s chairman, whose firefighter son Jimmy Riches was killed on 9/11.

Caption our dear leader

 

 

 

"It's not about freedom or personal choice. COME ON MAN!!!"

9/11/01-9/11/21

 

9/11/01, 18 years later

Real estate developer and de Blasio donor compares elected officials against Amazon deal to the terrorists who pulled off the attacks on 9/11

The Real Deal


Lightstone Group’s David Lichtenstein said Friday that Amazon’s about-face on its New York megacomplex was the “worst day for NYC since 9-11.”
 
“Except this time, the terrorists were elected,” the developer added in an email to The Real Deal, in a dig to the politicians who fiercely criticized the tech giant’s deal with the city for the nearly $3 billion in tax breaks and government incentives it came with. (Lichtenstein later emphasized that he was referring only to the financial implications the Amazon pullout will cause.)
 
On Thursday, Amazon cited pressure from the local politicians as its reason to abandon the deal for the Long Island City campus, which was to bring 25,000 new jobs to New York and would create, by some expectations, $27 billion in tax revenue over a decade.
 
Since November, Amazon had faced fierce backlash from elected officials, activists and union leaders, who criticized the secretive nature of the negotiations between the company and the city and state, and who argued that the world’s most valuable company did not need to be cajoled with tax breaks to come to New York.

Lightstone is a major developer with a $3 billion portfolio across New York, Miami and Los Angeles. In Long Island City, Lightstone owns a 428-unit rental building less than two miles from where Amazon’s campus was set to rise. 

Never forget:

Lichenstein donated fifty grand to a democrat senator's campaign at the request of de Blasio's trusty and amoral solicitor aide Ross Offinger ,which was laundered through an LLC to circumvent contribution limits. Leading to the mayor rewarding him a seat on the Economic Development Corporation, which gave him the power to demolish an entire row of affordable housing apartment buildings his firm purchased in the East Village to make way for the high end hipster hotel franchise  Moxy, which is owned by Marriot International.

Marriot International is a client/partner of the Lightstone Group.


Admin note:

 Mr. Lichtenstein only directed his ire at the officials and not the citizens who protested against the "HQ2". The headline has been changed to reflect this and I regret and apologize for the error.

Lets see if David apologizes for his reprehensible remark.

Remembering a most tragic day

Volunteers from the 9/11 Tribute Center reflect on the importance of sharing their stories of 9/11 with future generations.

Never forgotten

Bowne High School raises saplings from historic 9/11 pear tree

From PIX11:

Apple trees may be more common in New York, after all it is the Big Apple. But one pear tree is getting much attention while helping to bring together a community.

Students from John Bowne High School in Flushing, Queens have embraced the seedlings of a 9/11 survivor tree and planted them in a special garden.

Remembering 9/11

Day of reckoning for civil servant scammers

From NBC 4:

More than 100 former police officers, firefighters and other city workers faked mental disabilities in order get tens of thousands of dollars in Social Security benefits a year, NBC 4 New York has learned.

But an investigation has revealed the former city workers were pursuing other activities that appeared to negate their claims. One police officer who claimed he was so mentally disabled was allegedly working as a martial arts instructor, officials said. Another who claimed he could not work was allegedly flying helicopters.

One got benefits because of a fear of crowds and yet was found to be selling cannolis in Little Italy during the San Genarro festival. And another went on to allegedly run a private security company.

Many allegedly claimed to be affected by their efforts on 9/11, yet investigators found many were not even near ground zero that day.

All allegedly got help gaming the system from the same two lawyers, ages 89 and 83, and two former police officers who in exchange allegedly took cash payments.

Investigators said one of the attorneys who helped run the scheme is Raymond Lavallee, who worked as an FBI agent in the 1950s and '60s. Calls to Lavallee’s home and law office were not returned Monday.

The criminal charges expected to be announced Tuesday will include 106 people in all.

The more than 100 workers were allegedly taught how to claim they were mentally scarred on SSID applications in order to collect $30,000 to $50,000 in benefits annually.

Investigators said Lavallee would receive thousands in cash payments from successful applicants that were at times left for him in paper bags on a park bench near his office.

WTC sphere is staying

From the NY Times:

Rededicated in Battery Park in Lower Manhattan on March 11, 2002, as New York City’s interim memorial, the “Sphere” has been sitting for months behind a construction fence while the park is renovated. No one in a position to know what might happen to the 25-foot-tall bronze globe, which still bears the scars of Sept. 11, 2001, would disclose anything publicly about where it might end up. Or when.

So when a work crew arrived on Wednesday and began dismantling the sculpture, placing one hemisphere on the back of a flatbed truck, and a crew member said that he could not divulge where the “Sphere” was headed, it seemed as if the cloak of secrecy was about to swallow the sculpture whole.

To make matters even more puzzling, officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the sculpture, and those of the National September 11 Memorial, which is frequently mentioned as a possible final setting for the “Sphere,” said they knew nothing about the move.

The parks department did know about it, however. On Wednesday evening, Arthur Pincus, an assistant commissioner of the agency, said the “Sphere” was simply being moved about 550 feet within the park, to a spot much closer to Castle Clinton, to accommodate the renovations.

Originally they were going to remove the statue.

5 Pointz unveils 9/11 mural, is inundated by sewage

"Ladder 115 of LIC was checking out a call the other day at 5 Pointz. It turned out to be nothing but the curator Meres invited the firefighters to check out the new 12th anniversary 9-11 mural dedicated to their company and Engine 258 and take a few photos in front of it. I got some shots of that and put them together in this video." - George


"The Local Project art venue had to cancel a major event this past weekend. We need to cease operation at 45-10 Davis St.

We had to cancel an event, because we respect all of our guests and artists. Saturday September 14, 2013, the conditions were not what art deserves. The “Dust Art Collective” event has been canceled due to a flood of sewage water at our gallery located at the 5Pointz building in Long Island City, Queens. Dust turned to mud! A fetid mud!

The building is falling apart. The plan for building a pair of luxury towers at the Court Square 5Pointz location has taken the attention of the building owner who is not doing maintenance to the facility. An eviction notice is displacing us from our headquarters, where we have provided free art programming for 5 years. Regardless of this condition that could sound a death knell for our operations, we have found a new space in the same neighborhood where we started our organization 10 years ago.

The issue is, the economic development plans in Long Island City are skyrocketing real estate prices, and rent is becoming even more expensive.
In fact we seen many of our fellow community members move away, with the gentrification of the community that developed the neighborhood spirit. We ask for a moment of remembrance, as the artists in this NYC community need a space to become economically strong and/or claim a necessary place to innovate in world culture with artistic expressions." - Normandeau Newswire

Remembering the fallen of 9/11

Inside the 9/11 Museum

9/11 memorial an expensive embarrassment

From Huffington Post:

With its huge reflecting pools, ringed by waterfalls and skyscrapers, and a cavernous underground museum still under construction, the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center is an awesome spectacle that moved and inspired some 4.5 million visitors in its first year.

But all that eye-welling magnificence comes with a jaw-dropping price tag. The foundation that runs the memorial estimates that once the roughly $700 million project is complete, the memorial and museum will together cost $60 million a year to operate.

The anticipated cost has bothered some critics and raised concerns even among the memorial's allies that the budget may be unsustainable without a hefty government subsidy.

By comparison, the National Park Service budgeted $8.4 million this year to operate and maintain Gettysburg National Military Park and $3.6 million for the monument that includes the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Running Arlington National Cemetery, which has more than 14,000 graves and receives 4 million visitors a year, costs $45 million annually.

Officials at the 9/11 memorial say they face unique challenges that make comparisons to other national memorials difficult.

Foundation officials didn't respond to requests for information about other costs at the site, including the anticipated expense of running the museum, which is still unfinished and might not be anytime soon.

There was also a very expensive pissing contest happening amongst our fearless leaders over this. They supposedly finally resolved it last night. Makes you proud to be a New Yorker, doesn't it?

As for the WTC itself, here's what's being pushed to the side for it. From the Wall Street Journal:

The $7.7 billion that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has committed over more than a decade to remake the 16-acre site has meant that long-planned repairs and expansions at its other properties, especially at the area's three major airports, have been put on hold or scrapped altogether.

The effect has become increasingly visible. When it rains, trash cans collect drips inside the central terminal at La Guardia Airport, which was supposed to be in line for a substantial upgrade before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks upended the agency's plans.

Newark International Airport's shabby Terminal A, which also had been eyed for a redo for years, frequently elicits traveler complaints. Buses clog Manhattan's West Side; the Port Authority had committed money to building a garage where they could idle between trips but postponed the plan after World Trade Center rebuilding costs grew. A proposal to replace the Goethals Bridge has faced delay after delay, though a plan to find a private contractor has been inching forward recently.

If not for the cost of rebuilding in Lower Manhattan, "they would be working on the terminal at La Guardia, I think they would be working on Terminal A at Newark," said Robert Boyle, the Port Authority's executive director from 1997 to 2001. "They definitely would already be doing the Goethals."

9/11 sphere to be removed for bike lane

In yet another disgusting but unsurprising move by the Bloomberg administration, the sculpture that survived the 9/11 attacks and has been at Battery Park for 10 years, is being sent to storage to accommodate a bike lane. You'd think the fact that Bloomberg never would have become mayor had it not been for 9/11 would make him a little more sensitive when it comes to the topic. But it's becoming more and more apparent that anyone living in NYC in 2001 when Bloomberg was first elected, is not welcome here now.

Watch the story here.

"As for the eternal flame, plans call for the gas line that feeds the fire to be turned off." - Fox 5

No room for first responders