The Lower Manhattan Development Corp. is using a tobacco-sniffing dog to screen workers at 130 Liberty St. to make sure they’re not bringing any cigarettes onto the site.
That is just one of several measures the L.M.D.C. took after finding cigarette packs and beer cans on the site in August. The presence of cigarettes was particularly galling to the community since a worker’s cigarette started the 2007 fire in the contaminated building that killed two firefighters.
Other measures the L.M.D.C. has implemented include adding security cameras and human guards, spokesperson Mike Murphy said. The dog has not found any workers smuggling in cigarettes.
Work to decontaminate the former Deutsche Bank building continues, with floors 12 and above of the 26-story building cleaned and approved. Workers are now cleaning floors six through 11, and the L.M.D.C. hopes to have all but the bottom three floors cleaned by the end of the year, and then finish the last three floors before the end of January.
The L.M.D.C. will soon start removing the facade from the floors of the building that were recently cleaned. That work will happen from the inside of the building and will leave it looking bare, as the very top floors are.
“It looks like a building that’s being built,” Murphy said of the stripped-away interior. “It’s clean steel and that’s it.”
The crane that towers over the building is done removing materials from the roof and will now stand still until workers use it during demolition next year.
The L.M.D.C. is currently writing a plan to demolish the building and hopes to submit it to government regulators by the middle of November, Murphy said. The public will not see the plan until December or January, when the L.M.D.C. will hold a meeting to present it and answer questions. Murphy said the corporation would present the plan in January even if it is not yet approved — a development that would please community leaders who would prefer to review the plan before approval. He said there would be no delay between decontamination and demolition.
The L.M.D.C. is still hoping to have the building down by August 2009.
—Julie Shapiro
