West St. Narrowed for Remains Search

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED APRIL 9, 2007

Portions of West Street are being narrowed for about a month, beginning April 9, to allow the city to excavate under the highway and search for further human remains from the World Trade Center attack. Representatives from the city’s Departments of Transportation (DOT) and of Design and Construction (DDC), as well as Vollmer Associates, an engineering consulting firm, came before the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 on April 5 to describe their plans.

 
“The work will be around the clock,” said Tom Foley, of the DDC. “It’s a very aggressive schedule.” Foley noted that the nature of the job and the location made it imperative to finish quickly. The state’s Department of Transportation has plans to redevelop much of West Street in the near future. As part of the plan for the World Trade Center site, the Port Authority also will build an underground passage below the highway, connecting the site to the World Financial Center.

The excavation will take place in the section of West Street that runs from Liberty to Vesey Street. Four autoramps that used to connect West Street to the World Trade Center parking lot will be the focus of the excavation, which will proceed in stages. At any given stage in the process, two lanes will remain open to northbound traffic (as opposed to the current three). Southbound traffic will not be affected by the work.

The city has come up with a number of strategies to keep traffic flowing while the northbound lane is closed. At least four traffic enforcement agents from the city’s Police Department will be present. During the day, two will be at the intersection of West Street and Liberty Street, and another two will be stationed at the intersection of West Street and Albany.

To thin traffic flowing onto West Street, vehicles emerging from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel will temporarily be allowed to exit onto Trinity Place. As a result, Church Street will become the principal alternate route for commuters. To ease the passage for drivers who wish to return to West Street once they have passed the excavation, parking restrictions will be enacted on both Barclay and Chambers Streets. Parking along the north side of Barclay will be eliminated, allowing for two lanes of traffic, and there will be no standing or stopping allowed on Chambers Street. (To relieve congestion, it will also no longer be possible to make a left turn out of Liberty Street onto northbound West Street.)

Additionally, the M20 bus stop on South End Avenue at Albany Street will be temporarily relocated from the north side of Albany Street to the south side of Albany Street, east of South End Avenue. The city also plans to install temporary pedestrian barricades where Vesey and Liberty Streets meet West Street, requiring pedestrians to use the Vesey Street Overpass. In much of Lower Manhattan, there will be an embargo on construction projects that require the closing of traffic lanes, for the duration of the excavation.

City officials say the project is slated to end on Sunday, May 13. The material that is excavated will be sent to Brooklyn, where the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will inspect it for debris from the towers and human remains. The search for human remains near the World Trade Center site was reinitiated last fall after bones were found underneath the “haul road,” a construction route alongside West Street. 

[Home][Back][Search] [Advertise][Contact]
The Tribeca Trib · 401 Broadway, 5th Floor · New York, NY · 10013 · 212.219.9709