thoughts on construction workers, rescue workers, life post 9-11

My thoughts are with the man that died and everyone injured...

I consider infrastructure concerns and construction all related and all part of this tsunami of over the top development and the death toll and related directly to the many complex aspect that push out people struggling to remain in the neighborhoods they made so desirable to developers. How many of the people that survived this who have no home tonight will end up leaving the city permanently?

Today my heart goes out to the the man that died, the people that were injured and so many people who's lives have been greatly harmed by this. I am also in awe of the FDNY, NYPD and EMS who rushed to the scene like the did Sept. 11 and I also remember the days and months after the many construction workers that rushed down to the WTC site to dig. The construction workers helmets became memorials honoring those that died 9-11.

I lived next to the St. Ann's tear down and I also saw the crane incident -- the crane condo I call it on 3rd Avenue and 12 when a piece feel down and crushed the taxi cab in the middle of 3rd Avenue where everyone survived but people where injured. The infrastructure disaster looked like a terror attack and The New York Times had a piece last year about infrastructure being so great that we could infrastructure disasters that looked like terror attacks and than we had one right by Grand Central Station. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/08/us/08sink.html?_r=1&oref=sloginconcerns and I had written about my concerns pre this article and pre the disaster by Grand Central and was published in AM New York "Destroying 'old' New York" where I talked about my concerns city wide for the people of New York and infrastructure and specifically for us by St. Ann's.

I admire our rescue workers who are not the highest paid in the country but considering they have responded to 2 terrorist attacks and the way they respond to all these construction and infrastructure accidents and breaks....they deserve to be the highest paid rescue workers in the country. I do believe we need to effectively put the words "safety first" ahead of this tsunami of development and that includes infrastructure as well as construction -- cranes, scaffolding, etc.

New Yorkers know we can't walk over man hole covers because young people like Jodi Lane died -- she took her dogs out for a walk in the East Village and died death by Con Ed. It has been really rough post 9-11 for so many reasons...

I remember a crane operator from the WTC site gave me an American Flag that was on his crane down there.

I am very disheartened today.