ABOUT
NEW YORK
By DAN BARRY
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The sun inched
across a cloudless sky yesterday, the breath of October rustled trees, and the
number of people killed in the World Trade Center disaster dropped by 40. Just
like that: 40 fewer souls to imagine rising from the dust; 40 fewer people to
include in nightly prayers.
Until now, the
number of dead was 2,792. That number, 2,792, had stood firm for more than a
year. It was the number recorded in almanacs and history books. It was the
number of the names of trade center victims that children uttered at the
second-anniversary ceremony, there on the lip of ground zero.
Now strike that
number from your mind. Replace it with 2,752.
After what
officials call an exhaustive investigation that spanned the world, the city has
removed more names from the official tally. The reasons are the same as in the
past: finding people once thought dead; duplication; insufficient data; fraud.
In many cases, investigators could not prove a supposed victim had ever existed
ó a jarring concept, given that some names are embedded in the collective
memory.
Remember Paul
Vanvelzer and his two sons, Barrett, 4, and Edward, an infant who was once
thought to be the disaster's youngest victim? It seems now that the Vanvelzers,
reported missing by a California woman claiming to be a relative, may have died
without ever having lived.
But what do we do
with this information ó this 2,752, down from 2,792? Do we grieve less? Are we
happy? What does it mean?
"The question
is, does it make it any less tragic?" said Jonathan Greenspun, the
commissioner of the Mayor's Community Assistance Unit. "The answer is, no,
it doesn't."
The change in the
number is more than a mere adjustment in a dispassionate tally. It reflects the
singular horror of the trade center collapse, so thorough in its destruction
that the exact number of victims remains elusive more than two years later. It
reflects the worst in human nature: that many people, seeing opportunity in
disaster, reported fictitious deaths in hopes of collecting benefits.
But it also
reflects the best, city officials say, as personified by investigators so
intent on determining the true and sacred number of the dead that they properly
took their time, even if it meant that a few fraudulent names, or the names of
the living, were sprinkled among those of the many dead. Better that, they
reasoned, than to exclude the name of one true victim.
More than a few of
these 40 cases centered on missing persons' reports filed by people who lived
overseas. Bryan X. Grimaldi, the general counsel for the New York City
Commission for the United Nations, offered an example of the nettlesome
problems faced by investigators: a woman in Nigeria does not hear from her son
in the United States for five years; she learns of the Sept. 11 attacks and
reports him missing; then investigators cannot find the woman.
"What do you
do?" Mr. Grimaldi asked. "What do you do with the name?"
Perhaps in another
case, in another tragedy, the matter would have been dropped. But in the case
of Sept. 11, Mr. Grimaldi said, "we have really exhausted all efforts, and
by extraordinary means."
"We took it as
far as we could go," he added.
The mission to
specify the number of victims has been a necessary one: partly for history,
partly for the distribution of death benefits ó and partly to satisfy a
communal desire for a number whose exactness might bring some comprehension to
the incomprehensible. But that number, and whatever finality it would bring,
has been elusive.
In the first days
after the terrorist attack, the city estimated that more than 6,300 people had
been killed. That number quickly dropped, sometimes by the hundreds, as
officials winnowed out duplications and false reports. In acknowledgment of the
matter's importance, the city created a task force called the Reported Missing
Committee, which included representatives from several city agencies, including
the Police Department, the medical examiner's office and the city's Commission
for the United Nations.
All the while, the
intense emotion attached to numbers was palpable. Chief Charles V. Campisi,
head of the Police Department's Internal Affairs Bureau, once predicted,
"I think it will be less than 5,000, but only by the grace of God."
And Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani once dismissed efforts by reporters to determine
an exact number as a "macabre" endeavor.
The number kept
dropping ó to about 4,500, and then to about 3,900. Along the way the Sept. 11
attacks lost the awful distinction of being the deadliest day in American
history. That was reserved for the Battle of Antietam, at which at least 3,650
Civil War soldiers were killed and thousands more wounded on a single day.
Down to 3,300, and
then, by the first anniversary, to 2,801. Soon the number dropped again, to
2,792, where it remained until this week.
The city will
retain its records on the 40 names dropped from the list, just in case new
evidence develops. But with only three more open cases, officials think that they
are close to determining a final number of trade center dead ó somewhere, it
seems, between 2,749 and 2,752.
How should that
make us feel? The fewer the better, perhaps; the fewer the better.
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The commission investigating the government's failures before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks is in danger of becoming a study in recalcitrance by the Bush administration. The independent commission's mandate is to supply a definitive account of the government's handling of the terrorist plot that killed almost 3,000 people. But the White House continues to fence with requests for classified documents crucial to the inquiry.
The commission chairman, former Gov. Thomas Kean of New Jersey, a Republican, is threatening to subpoena the administration for documents that officials should forthrightly turn over. Among the key questions is the nature of an intelligence report to President Bush a month before the attacks ó only sketchily confirmed thus far by the White House ó that Al Qaeda might try to hijack passenger airplanes.
The commission is up to the task of scrutinizing the failures of intelligence and other government agencies, and classified secrets can be adequately safeguarded. Congress should prepare to extend the commission's 18-month timetable beyond next May, the deadline.
How can an unstinting investigation of the truth of Sept. 11 not be of paramount concern to any official sworn to protect the public? The approaching presidential election makes the administration's evasions even more suspect. Failure to document and face the truth will only feed conspiracy theories and undermine the nation's chances of weathering future threats.
By DAVID W. DUNLAP
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After many months
of playing a backstage role in planning the new World Trade Center, the
Bloomberg administration stepped forward yesterday and declared that the master
plan would have to include far more streetfront retail space and one more
full-fledged street than it now calls for.
"The site must
have a retail district that will be a regional destination while being
respectful of the memorial," Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff said in a
letter to state officials that was released by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's
press office. "In that district, people will find an exciting
on-the-street shopping experience and unique anchor stores that do not exist
elsewhere ó prompting them to spend time throughout Lower Manhattan."
City Hall wants
almost two-thirds more ground-level retail space ó nearly 187,000 square feet ó
than is now shown in the plan, Mr. Doctoroff wrote. It wants Cortlandt Street
restored as a thoroughfare between Church and Greenwich Streets, which would
require the elimination of a concourse planned between Liberty Street and the
future PATH terminal, parallel to Church Street.
Tomorrow, Gov.
George E. Pataki is to give a speech on the future of Lower Manhattan. So the
timing of the release of an Oct. 17 letter from Mr. Doctoroff, the deputy mayor
for economic development and rebuilding, seemed intended as a reassertion of
the city's role in planning the site.
But Mr. Doctoroff
said in a telephone interview that the timing was coincidental. The point of
the letter, he said, was to "crystallize in written form where we think we
have to go from here."
"The key thing
that hasn't been addressed in detail ó and it needs to be ó is how this plan
integrates with the rest of Lower Manhattan," Mr. Doctoroff said.
"It's time to begin calling the question and reaching final conclusions
about the issue of how people experience the plan on the streets."
The 16-point letter
was sent to Joseph J. Seymour, the executive director of the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site. A copy went to Kevin
M. Rampe, the president of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, which
is planning the site with the Port Authority.
On Sept. 17, the
authority and the development corporation presented a "refined"
version of the plan by Studio Daniel Libeskind, which they had adopted in broad
outline in February.
It divides the old
trade center superblock into four unequal quadrants along Greenwich and Fulton
Streets. The memorial would occupy much of the southwest quarter, where the
twin towers stood. The tallest new building, the Freedom Tower, would be in the
northwest quarter. More office towers and a new PATH terminal would run along
Church Street, on the eastern half of the site.
None of the points
raised by Mr. Doctoroff were rejected out of hand yesterday by state officials,
though it is not clear if the city's conditions, taken together, would yield a
substantively different plan.
"The letter
raises some important points and the Port Authority looks forward to continuing
our positive discussions with the city," said Greg Trevor, a spokesman for
the authority.
Andrew Winters, the
vice president of the development corporation and its director of planning,
design and development, said: "The refined plan did not stop evolving on
the day we released it. We're going to continue to strive to improve it every
day throughout the process."
Even as the master
plan is changing, so is the design of the Freedom Tower. An impasse last week
between Mr. Libeskind and David M. Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill,
the architects for the developer, Larry A. Silverstein, threatened to disrupt
what will be a very tight construction schedule.
At a meeting with
both architects yesterday, Mr. Silverstein underscored the urgency of arriving
at a collaborative ó and practical ó design for the tower, one that would hew
to a number of principles laid out by Mr. Libeskind, according to an executive
who attended.
The developer
extracted from both architects a renewed commitment to work in partnership on
the project.
Mr. Doctoroff said
little in his letter about the proposed 1,776-foot tower. Instead, he addressed
the future of streets, sidewalks, shopping and public spaces. He proposed
third-floor "sky lobbies" in the office towers along Church Street,
to free up large blocks of space for retailers.
He commended the
decision to expand the development site to include two blocks on the south side
of Liberty Street, but he urged state officials to work with the city in
devising a strategy for acquiring those properties soon.
Acknowledging that
the plan will take years to build, he wrote: "The first phase must leave
no voids on any of the site's parcels. There should be contiguous retail along
the street walls of the site and these should accommodate a later phase when
commercial towers can be built."
He also said that
"no plan can be approved without detailed estimates of how much it will
cost, who will pay for its components, and when each component will be
built."
Madelyn Wils, the
chairwoman of the Lower Manhattan community board, said, "The Port
Authority should not just consult with the city, but be open to suggestions
about how it's going to affect life outside the 16-plus acres."