” The Reddit users have dug up what some believe is a pre-9/11 ad for osteoarthritis. It shows fragile bones inside of the Twin Towers, with a plane aimed at them. The ad copy reads: “Everyone thinks that their joints are safe and strong until one day osteoarthritis collapses them.” (With the word “osteoarthritis” written across the body of the plane.)

The ad appears to be real, but it’s unclear when it came out. One Reddit poster notes, “I remember seeing that a year or two after 9/11, checking the release date, then re-checking the release date again because it was so close to what happened I couldn’t believe it came out about half a year prior. Maybe they discovered time travel and tried to warn us. It’s the only logical explanation, clearly!” However, other posters believe it came out after 9/11, one noting, that it’s “from India, and is very likely post 9/11.” “

-Gothamist [via Buzzfeed]

Navigate here to read the latest update on the Ground Zero Mosque Vote. Personally, I find the idea to be positive. The attacks on the Twin Towers were driven by a group of extremists, not the collective nation of Islam. The comment section is particularly worth a gander.

 Can I get a shout to Jew York City! 

(Reuters) - The decayed hull of a centuries old ship was unearthed at the World Trade Center construction site in New York city, providing a glimpse into the history of Manhattan, archeologists said.

Parts of lower Manhattan, including the twin towers which fell on September 11, 2001 when two hijacked aircraft crashed into them, were built over the Hudson River, archeologist Michael Pappalardo told reporters gathered at the site.

The ship, Pappalardo explained, likely dated back at least 200 years when part of the river was filled in with trash, debris and wooden beams in order to expand a fast-growing Manhattan.

The 32-foot long (9.7 meter) craft was discovered on Tuesday and made public late on Wednesday. Many other kinds of antique debris have also been found.

Pappalardo, a muddy trowel in his back pocket, said the discovery was indeed a good find, but added “we’ve found bottles and dishes, and that’s exciting too.”

(Reporting by Basil Katz; Editing by Mark Egan and Vicki Allen)

With only 30 minutes for lunch, the construction workers are now unable to get down from the 105th floor of the WTC. In response, a portable Subway crate has been implemented.

Read more at Gothamist.

20 June 2010

via iPhone+hipstamatic app

One World Trade Center’s program includes 2.6 million square feet (241,000 square meters) of office space, as well as an observation deck, world-class restaurant, parking, and broadcast and antenna facilities, all supported by both above and below-ground mechanical infrastructure for the building and its adjacent public spaces. Below-ground tenant parking and storage, shopping and access to the PATH and subway trains and the World Financial Center are also provided.

-Source-

New York Magazine published an article this week on the grumbling progress of construction at Ground Zero:

Nine years into the rebuilding of ground zero, and we’re just now getting unstuck. The stakeholders are wrapping up their arguments over who controls which slices of the site, having finally settled on a schematic plan, memorial design, timetable, and financing arrangement that everyone can more or less live with. The public spent a decade being worn down by politics and arguments: Larry Silverstein versus the Port Authority. Pataki versus the NYPD. Libeskind versus David Childs. Bloomberg versus Paterson. Memorial designer Michael Arad versus the victims’ families. All around those debates swirled the question of whether, economically, this project makes any sense at all, dumping as it does 12 million square feet of office space onto a now-deflated commercial market. Even if you did believe the whole thing should happen, it has been excruciating to watch the site get caught in the old New York snarl of permit agencies and sluggish bureaucracies and every possible variety of red tape.

Those issues, at least, are not physical realities; they’re obstacles based on human nature. Yet, for a long time, they obscured the perhaps even greater problem of building on what is probably the most difficult construction site in history. The architects and engineers involved have known this all along, of course, and now that construction is roaring forward, the rest of us can see what they’ve been up against. Every bit of land at ground zero is crowded with supplies, workers, and rising steel and concrete. One World Trade Center (the skyscraper formerly known as the Freedom Tower) is 26 stories high and beginning to poke its head into the downtown skyline. Even at quarter-height, its density and bulk are evident, and you can start to grasp how jammed up against the path tracks it is. Its neighbor at Four World Trade is up to about five floors, hard by the 1 train that continually rattles through the center of the site. The two memorial pools are framed out, and underground construction is moving forward on Santiago Calatrava’s swoopy transportation hub. Foundation work for Towers 2 and 3 starts next month, and the contaminated Deutsche Bank building, looming over the southern end of the site, will come down later this year to make way for Tower 5. Libeskind’s abiding idea—five towers standing guard around a sunken memorial—is inching toward reality.

(view more….)

The Freedom Tower is 200ft by 200ft at the base. 

via 

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