Washing trucks tires helps control dust at the WTC site

On April 14th the Port Authority presented its quarterly World Trade Center (WTC) rebuilding update to Community Board 1.

Quentin Brathwaite, the agency’s assistant director of priority capital programs, began by noting that the new temporary PATH entrance is now open on Vesey Street at West Broadway. The entrance replaces the former Church Street entrance, which closed on April 11th, allowing crews to begin demolition for and construction of the new WTC Transportation Hub. It is expected to be in place through approximately early 2013 when the hub is scheduled to open.

In the area south of the hub known as the “east bathtub,” developer Silverstein Properties has begun excavation for WTC Towers Three and Four. That section of the east bathtub was turned over to Silverstein in mid-February 2008, following the Port’s slurry wall installation and mass excavation as far down as 110 feet.

Excavation of the Tower Two site at the north end of the east bathtub (Church and Vesey Streets) continues, as the Port Authority works to meet the June 30th turnover deadline to Silverstein.

Braithwaite explained that, as it had in the Towers Three and Four sites, Port Authority crews are working extended hours and continue to employ several noise-mitigation measures for the surrounding community. They include using jackhammer covers, hanging sound-barrier blankets on perimeter fences, and limiting hours for rock breaking. The agency has installed soundproof windows on residential buildings facing the site and is using “smart” truck back-up alarms whose volumes rise and fall depending on ambient noise.

The Port Authority also is working to improve dust control from the WTC, washing truck tires as they leave the site and using a new street-cleaning vehicle on Church and other adjacent streets.

Installation of mini-piles is nearly complete around the 1-train box within the WTC site. Once all of the piles are in place, crews will begin excavation below the box that will unite the east and west sides of the site. That space eventually will be used as part of the underground retail space, as sections of the Vehicular Security Center, and for mechanicals and other site operations.

In the southwest quadrant of the WTC site, the Port is working to preserve the section of the slurry wall that will be exposed in the National 9/11 Memorial’s underground space. The Memorial’s steel installation begins in May 2008.

At the WTC’s northwest corner, Port Authority crews continue forming the steel-and-concrete base from which the 1,776-foot-tall Freedom Tower will rise. The tower’s steel superstructure should be at grade this summer.

Construction of the transportation hub’s “east-west connector” continues on the west side of the site. The connector will serve as the pedestrian concourse below West Street that will eventually link the World Financial Center to the WTC and the future Fulton Street Transit Center.

Braithwaite explained that the Port is collaborating with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), which is building the Dey Street Concourse, for its Church Street operations. There, the MTA’s heavy concourse construction is winding down and crews will restore the east sidewalk of Church Street (outside Century 21) this spring. MTA planners also are considering opening the northbound platform of the R/W Cortlandt Street station this fall.

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