The NY-NJ Port Authority’s Edifice Complex
Jack Kemp
The bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was created in 1921 to oversee port facilities between the two states. This grew quickly to include bridges, airports, tunnels with rail transportation. All well and good, until Chase Bank President David Rockerfeller wanted to build a World Trade Center and needed public financing of such a large project in the 1960s. http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/history-wtc.html He convinced the President of the Port Authority, Austin Tobin, to finance the project. It wasn’t a hard sell.
Wikipedia states:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey
“Although many questioned the Port Authority's entry into the real estate market, Tobin saw the project as a way to enhance the agency's power and prestige, and agreed to the project. The Port Authority was the overseer of the World Trade Center, hiring the architect Minoru Yamasaki.
Was it a wise idea of a government agency such as the Port Authority expanding into the real estate business?
The expansion of the government agency’s power into an unprecedented real estate venture was what New York firefighter and author Dennis Smith described, in his book “Report from Ground Zero” (page 369), a plan for a pair of towers with a reed/umbrella like structure having 25 percent more rentable space per floor than the old fashioned (solid) box-like construction. The plans also called for spray on fireproofing – and only one half inch instead of the typical inch and a half) between each floor and only three stairwells instead of the typical four. According to the book “Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11" by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, both these shortcuts were violations of the New York City Building Code which the politically connected Port Authority was able to get around with ease. Dennis Smith, also stated on page 369 of his book, that (then) chief of the New York City Fire Department, John O’Hagan, “opposed Yamasaki’s notion of open-space building construction, preferring instead the method of compartmentalized space between skeletal steel columns to confine any fire to a small space surrounded by walls.”
In “Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts” by David Dunbar and Brad Reagan, both Popular Mechanics editors, the authors stated that the Empire State Building, with its old fashioned box-like construction, weighed 38 pounds per cubic foot. The World Trade Center, with its vast, rentable open space with no view blocking columns, weighed 9 pounds per cubic foot. Balsa wood weighs 10 pounds per cubic foot.
O’Hagan understood what was involved in fighting a fire in a high rise or any other building. He was a firefighter who personally had gone into roaring fires and had ordered other firefighters into them as well, so he wanted to maximize the Department’s (and the office workers’) chance of survival in a conflagration at the proposed World Trade Center. O’Hagan knew who would be keeping the promises of building safety that the Port Authority so glibly “guaranteed.” The conceptual similarities to the fatal flaw “grand design” of the Titanic, pointed out by author Dennis Smith, are quite valid.
The Port Authority, for its part, a superagency with huge political power - and delusions of grandeur – would overrule Chief O’Hagan objections and have the Twin Towers built as they wanted. The Port Authority is not so readily answerable to any state legislature, and is a type of free floating permanent government somewhat independent of either New York or New Jersey’s voters. The agency concentrated its concerns on their own empire building which would now include creating a magnificent set of structures honoring – The Port Authority itself. The Authority did not concern itself with pedestrian security matters. It allowed anyone to park in the Twin Towers underground garages, a policy that ended when a terrorist truck bomb placed in those garages exploded in 1993. The 1993 bombing also made public the scandal of not having emergency battery pack lights in the three stairways of each Tower, something any private construction was mandated to have under the New York City Building Code. This lack of emergency lighting wasn’t fully remedied until 2000 when the fix helped in the evacuations of 9/11/01, despite smoke in those stairways. http://securitysolutions.com/mag/security_world_trade_center/
To add to this, the book “Grand Illusions” reported that the Guiliani chose to place its emergency center in 7 World Trade Center. It was:
“a building with 17 generators, a virtual bomb itself. The building also sat on a Con Ed Substation. The substation also used a tank with 109,000 gallons of stored oil. Citigroup alone had 9 generators on its fifth floor trading site - and two 6000 gallon fuel tanks. Net total fuel in the building (minus Con Ed) was 43,384 gallons. New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir strongly opposed this, but Giuliani prevailed.”
END OF QUOTE
Today, things are different. The City’s emergency center is in Brooklyn. The new Trade Center buildings are built stronger with anti-terrorist factors built in. Yet one could still argue that the Port Authority and New York City politicians had set up conditions that made it much easier to attack the old Twin Towers on 9/11/01, thus requiring the rebuilding of the Trade Center now in some form for reasons of both practicality and civic and national pride.
But does that rebuilding of the World Trade Center have to be done by the Port Authority? Why not a private developer? Couldn’t the Port Authority sell the land – and the new Trade Center towers, divesting itself of its real estate empire - and thus LOWER bridge and tunnel tolls as a result of such a windfall? The opponents of higher taxes, in the form of bridge and tunnel tolls, have clearly lost that initial argument to have toll money spent on updating crumbling roads and bridges rather than real estate. But the impact of the decision to use somewhat limited tolls and fees to finance a new Port Authority owned World Trade Center will not be quietly accepted by the public and local politicians, as it was in past years.
This week, Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY), who represents Staten Island and a part of Brooklyn, has taken up the issue of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority raising its tolls making commuting – and business activities (such as the container port) on Staten Island prohibitively expensive. In an interview with Joe Crummey on WABC Radio on September 22nd, he complained about Staten Islanders paying for rebuilding of the World Trade Center and the expansion of the commuter rail system (PATH) in New Jersey as “Taxation Without Transportation.” And he spoke of further legal (judicial) action against the increased tolls as well introducing legislation in Congress.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/77-wabc-podcasts-the-joe-crummey/id419102499
As Congressman Grimm’s website states, he has introduced, along with with Democrat Gregory Meeks (D-Queens County) to reduce local area tolls,
http://grimm.house.gov/press-release/reps-grimm-meeks-introduce-bill-protect-toll-discounts-residents
“The simple truth is that Staten Islanders pay exorbitant tolls to subsidize mass transit for other parts of our region,” said Rep. Grimm.
END QUOTE
Congressmen Grimm showed an interest in a light rail system that went over the bridges from Staten Island to New Jersey, facilitating jobs and commerce, as part of a settlement, but no such remedy is planned by the Port Authority today. Cong. Grimm doesn’t want his district to subsidize a real estate empire for a bi-state agency while his constituents’ transportation needs are ignored. The term he coined in the WABC Radio interview, “Taxation Without Transportation,” is quite fitting.
Gone are the days of the 1950s when Staten Island was known as an outer borough outpost where New York City workers went to retire. It is a vibrant and growing borough of New York that is not interested in “business as usual” at the Port Authority defined it. How this fight will play out remains to be seen, but nationally, there is a growing trend to not have local taxpayers support politicians’ desires to build monuments to themselves as they expand government. We saw this is in the elections of 2010 and the New York District 9 special election on September 13th that replaced Anthony Weiner with the first Republican in that district in 90 years. We could see a much stronger reaction to government agency empire building – even in New York, The Empire State – in 2012 and many years to come.
The bi-state Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was created in 1921 to oversee port facilities between the two states. This grew quickly to include bridges, airports, tunnels with rail transportation. All well and good, until Chase Bank President David Rockerfeller wanted to build a World Trade Center and needed public financing of such a large project in the 1960s. http://www.panynj.gov/wtcprogress/history-wtc.html He convinced the President of the Port Authority, Austin Tobin, to finance the project. It wasn’t a hard sell.
Wikipedia states:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Authority_of_New_York_and_New_Jersey
“Although many questioned the Port Authority's entry into the real estate market, Tobin saw the project as a way to enhance the agency's power and prestige, and agreed to the project. The Port Authority was the overseer of the World Trade Center, hiring the architect Minoru Yamasaki.
Was it a wise idea of a government agency such as the Port Authority expanding into the real estate business?
The expansion of the government agency’s power into an unprecedented real estate venture was what New York firefighter and author Dennis Smith described, in his book “Report from Ground Zero” (page 369), a plan for a pair of towers with a reed/umbrella like structure having 25 percent more rentable space per floor than the old fashioned (solid) box-like construction. The plans also called for spray on fireproofing – and only one half inch instead of the typical inch and a half) between each floor and only three stairwells instead of the typical four. According to the book “Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11" by Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, both these shortcuts were violations of the New York City Building Code which the politically connected Port Authority was able to get around with ease. Dennis Smith, also stated on page 369 of his book, that (then) chief of the New York City Fire Department, John O’Hagan, “opposed Yamasaki’s notion of open-space building construction, preferring instead the method of compartmentalized space between skeletal steel columns to confine any fire to a small space surrounded by walls.”
In “Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts” by David Dunbar and Brad Reagan, both Popular Mechanics editors, the authors stated that the Empire State Building, with its old fashioned box-like construction, weighed 38 pounds per cubic foot. The World Trade Center, with its vast, rentable open space with no view blocking columns, weighed 9 pounds per cubic foot. Balsa wood weighs 10 pounds per cubic foot.
O’Hagan understood what was involved in fighting a fire in a high rise or any other building. He was a firefighter who personally had gone into roaring fires and had ordered other firefighters into them as well, so he wanted to maximize the Department’s (and the office workers’) chance of survival in a conflagration at the proposed World Trade Center. O’Hagan knew who would be keeping the promises of building safety that the Port Authority so glibly “guaranteed.” The conceptual similarities to the fatal flaw “grand design” of the Titanic, pointed out by author Dennis Smith, are quite valid.
The Port Authority, for its part, a superagency with huge political power - and delusions of grandeur – would overrule Chief O’Hagan objections and have the Twin Towers built as they wanted. The Port Authority is not so readily answerable to any state legislature, and is a type of free floating permanent government somewhat independent of either New York or New Jersey’s voters. The agency concentrated its concerns on their own empire building which would now include creating a magnificent set of structures honoring – The Port Authority itself. The Authority did not concern itself with pedestrian security matters. It allowed anyone to park in the Twin Towers underground garages, a policy that ended when a terrorist truck bomb placed in those garages exploded in 1993. The 1993 bombing also made public the scandal of not having emergency battery pack lights in the three stairways of each Tower, something any private construction was mandated to have under the New York City Building Code. This lack of emergency lighting wasn’t fully remedied until 2000 when the fix helped in the evacuations of 9/11/01, despite smoke in those stairways. http://securitysolutions.com/mag/security_world_trade_center/
To add to this, the book “Grand Illusions” reported that the Guiliani chose to place its emergency center in 7 World Trade Center. It was:
“a building with 17 generators, a virtual bomb itself. The building also sat on a Con Ed Substation. The substation also used a tank with 109,000 gallons of stored oil. Citigroup alone had 9 generators on its fifth floor trading site - and two 6000 gallon fuel tanks. Net total fuel in the building (minus Con Ed) was 43,384 gallons. New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir strongly opposed this, but Giuliani prevailed.”
END OF QUOTE
Today, things are different. The City’s emergency center is in Brooklyn. The new Trade Center buildings are built stronger with anti-terrorist factors built in. Yet one could still argue that the Port Authority and New York City politicians had set up conditions that made it much easier to attack the old Twin Towers on 9/11/01, thus requiring the rebuilding of the Trade Center now in some form for reasons of both practicality and civic and national pride.
But does that rebuilding of the World Trade Center have to be done by the Port Authority? Why not a private developer? Couldn’t the Port Authority sell the land – and the new Trade Center towers, divesting itself of its real estate empire - and thus LOWER bridge and tunnel tolls as a result of such a windfall? The opponents of higher taxes, in the form of bridge and tunnel tolls, have clearly lost that initial argument to have toll money spent on updating crumbling roads and bridges rather than real estate. But the impact of the decision to use somewhat limited tolls and fees to finance a new Port Authority owned World Trade Center will not be quietly accepted by the public and local politicians, as it was in past years.
This week, Congressman Michael Grimm (R-NY), who represents Staten Island and a part of Brooklyn, has taken up the issue of the New York-New Jersey Port Authority raising its tolls making commuting – and business activities (such as the container port) on Staten Island prohibitively expensive. In an interview with Joe Crummey on WABC Radio on September 22nd, he complained about Staten Islanders paying for rebuilding of the World Trade Center and the expansion of the commuter rail system (PATH) in New Jersey as “Taxation Without Transportation.” And he spoke of further legal (judicial) action against the increased tolls as well introducing legislation in Congress.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/77-wabc-podcasts-the-joe-crummey/id419102499
As Congressman Grimm’s website states, he has introduced, along with with Democrat Gregory Meeks (D-Queens County) to reduce local area tolls,
http://grimm.house.gov/press-release/reps-grimm-meeks-introduce-bill-protect-toll-discounts-residents
“The simple truth is that Staten Islanders pay exorbitant tolls to subsidize mass transit for other parts of our region,” said Rep. Grimm.
END QUOTE
Congressmen Grimm showed an interest in a light rail system that went over the bridges from Staten Island to New Jersey, facilitating jobs and commerce, as part of a settlement, but no such remedy is planned by the Port Authority today. Cong. Grimm doesn’t want his district to subsidize a real estate empire for a bi-state agency while his constituents’ transportation needs are ignored. The term he coined in the WABC Radio interview, “Taxation Without Transportation,” is quite fitting.
Gone are the days of the 1950s when Staten Island was known as an outer borough outpost where New York City workers went to retire. It is a vibrant and growing borough of New York that is not interested in “business as usual” at the Port Authority defined it. How this fight will play out remains to be seen, but nationally, there is a growing trend to not have local taxpayers support politicians’ desires to build monuments to themselves as they expand government. We saw this is in the elections of 2010 and the New York District 9 special election on September 13th that replaced Anthony Weiner with the first Republican in that district in 90 years. We could see a much stronger reaction to government agency empire building – even in New York, The Empire State – in 2012 and many years to come.
posted by Timothy Birdnow | 5:18 AM
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