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NYPD, Port Authority agree on WTC security
NYPD wants ‘tight security’ on Ground Zero
 The excavated site of the World Trade Center. The cleanup and recovery efforts at the site were declared finished, 261 days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan) |
By Michael Frazier
Newsday (New York)
NEW YORK — Picture years from now, when hundreds of thousands of mourners and visitors enter the rebuilt World Trade Center and the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, the 16-acre site’s centerpiece.
To get there, they will navigate barricades, guard booths and security checkpoints and encounter law enforcement scrutiny - stringent security measures at odds with the very access they seek.
Michael Balboni, deputy secretary of public safety in the state’s Homeland Security Office, said the redeveloped World Trade Center site will be “one of the most secure, private locations in the world.”
But police and city officials are working to achieve a balance that avoids “glaring-in-the-face security,” he said, and officials are open to consideration of emerging technologies that would make policing less invasive.
David Cid, who worked in New York City during some of his 20 years as an FBI agent, now is deputy director of the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism in Oklahoma City. The institute was established after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building there on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people and injured hundreds.
“Ground Zero is not a typical venue. It’s sacred ground, and therefore tension arises between the nature of the place and security measures,” Cid said. “But we have to remember we are still facing some threats from terrorists.”
Once the memorial and museum are open, about 5 million people are expected to visit annually, officials said. Since the Tribute WTC Visitor Center began operations in September 2006, more than 685,000 people have visited, with 60,000 of those opting for a walking tour outside Ground Zero.
Critics say some tight security measures may be unnecessary, only serving to disturb the site’s emotional atmosphere.
“I don’t think people ... in New York expect to be accosted by someone who says, ‘Why are you here? What are you carrying?’” said Rick Bell, executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects.
The Police Department is charged with creating the security blueprint for the World Trade Center and surrounding area. Police officials, citing security concerns, said they will not release specifics.
The NYPD last month outlined some details included in a revised version. A number of traffic barriers will be located on several streets north and south of the site. Eight to 13 booths, staffed with officers to police pedestrian and vehicle traffic, will be placed at street corners nearby. In underground sections of the site, tour buses and service and delivery vehicles will be screened for explosives.
In addition, more than 600 officers, some equipped with portable radiation detectors, will be assigned to what Balboni called a “super precinct.”
Sally Regenhard, whose son, Christian Regenhard, 28, a probationary firefighter, died in the trade center collapse, said she understands the need for restrictive security measures.
“I’d rather see police than terrorists,” said Regenhard, founder of Skyscraper Safety Campaign, a nonprofit that has lobbied for safer high-rise towers.
She took issue with the design of the memorial and museum, a structure that will be mostly underground. What’s safer, she asked, being in an emergency “on street level or on the subway?”
At Ground Zero itself, Sarah English, 21, who was visiting New York from Ireland, said policing the area must be a top priority.
“I definitely would understand and would have no problem if there was a security line I’d have to stand in for hours,” she said as she toured the south side of the site.
Copyright 2008 Newsday (New York)