By Jere Hester
Battery News*,
October 9, 1989 World Trade Center police who felt they were few in number and far in distance from one another asked the Port Authority to increase the number of cops that covered the seven buildings and the concourse.
In the previous month cops at the Port Authority bus terminal took matters into their own hands and handed out flyers to commuters relaying their disgust at the situation.
Port Authority P.B.A. President Gus Danese said that police were severely understaffed in all Port Authority guard posts.
Residents and commuters reported that they feared walking through the concourse on nights and weekends the most, since that was when it was most deserted.
“It’s a horror show,” said one woman who worked in the W.T.C. “You can’t find a cop.”
Gus Preschle, general manager of the World Trade Center, said that the 38 officers who patrol the concourse was adequate and he would not be increasing the number for 1990, adding that crime in the concourse had been on the decline for the past five years. He also said that the Port Authority recently began closing off certain sections of the concourse to make security and maintenance easier. On Feb. 26, 1993, just over three years after the article was published, a car bomb that detonated in the North Tower garage killed six people in the W.T.C. Their names will be included in the 9/11 memorial currently being constructed.
Prepared by Helaina N. Hovitz
*Battery News, founded in 1987, was the original name of Downtown Express. The name was changed in 1990.
