The New, Nearly Invisible, Security

By Andrea Appleton
POSTED DEC.29, 2006

After Sept. 11, 2001, concrete posts cropped up in front of key buildings like so many industrial mushrooms. Around Wall Street, “clamshell” barriers and sand-filled pick-up trucks blocked off once passable streets. Concrete planters, littered with cigarette butts, cluttered the sidewalks. Heightened security Downtown has primarily taken its cue from the military, and thus far it has not been pretty.

Enter Rogers Marvel Architects.

The Tribeca-based firm, in concert with numerous governmental agencies and consultants, is designing new security elements for parts of the World Financial Center and the Financial District. These new features are designed to meld with their surroundings, and bringing something more than just security to the neighborhood. Many double as urban amenities, such as benches or lighting or modernist sculpture. Some are even invisible.
“What we’re doing is designing for an event that will hopefully never happen,” said Rogers Marvel architect Gretchen Schneider. “So in the meantime we want the city to be a nice place to live.”

Rogers Marvel hopes to complete this phase of the project by the end of this year.

A TRAP SET FOR TRUCK BOMBERS

Visitors out for a stroll down Vesey Street to the Irish Hunger Memorial might be surprised to hear they’re treading on a tiger trap.  These traps—meant for terrorists, not tigers—are one of Battery Park City’s newest security measures. Certain sections of the streets, lawns and sidewalks surrounding the World Financial Center are built on collapsible concrete.

While it can easily withstand the weight of pedestrians and cyclists, the concrete is designed to give way under the pressure point of a tire. If a truck tried to traverse the trap, it would plummet three to five feet below the surface. Low underground walls would absorb the impact of the crash.

A combination of factors, including the mixed-use nature of Battery Park City and a subsurface that was relatively free of utilities, led Rogers Marvel to the idea.

“We needed to provide security but not have it be so obtrusive,” said Graeme Waitzkin, director of Rock 12, the research division of Rogers Marvel that is focused on security.

 Originally used at the end of airport runways to bring skidding planes to a halt, collapsible concrete is essentially normal concrete with many more air pockets. The Army Corps of Engineers has crash-tested the technology, which has been reconfigured to collapse under the weight of a truck laden with explosives rather than a runaway plane.

SCULPTURAL 'NOGOS' ARE BOTH FRIENDLY AND SECURE

The bronze sculptures on the corner of Wall and Broadway are well-used. Stockbrokers sit on them and eat their lunch. Tourists lean against them, consulting their maps. Kids clamber on them. They may not realize that these friendly looking objects are hi-tech terrorism deterrents. If a large truck full of explosives were to barrel straight into one of these “NoGos,” the block wouldn’t even budge. “In security design,” said Graeme Waitzkin, of Rogers Marvel, “the traditional solutions use massive concrete foundations. With the NoGo, we take the mass from below ground and put most of it inside.” A bewildering network of pipes and wires lies just  below the sidewalk’s surface in the Financial District, making digging nearly impossible.

Instead, a complex internal structure of steel and concrete gives the NoGos their strength.

Featured last year as part of an exhibit on design and security at the Museum of Modern Art, the shiny objets d’art (in their dual role as benches) will soon replace many of the stumpy bollards in the Financial District.

TURNTABLES COMING TO BROAD STREET

After Sept. 11, 2001, several intersections near the Stock Exchange were closed to traffic. Clunky barriers blocked the streets, marring the view and obstructing foot traffic. “The neighborhood really suffered,” said Rogers Marvel’s Graeme Waitzkin, “but the security measures imposed by the Police Department created an incredible opportunity for open pedestrian space.”

Cobblestones and benches have already appeared on Broad Street. The redesigned Stock Exchange area will include benches and pleasant lighting, as well as an odd fixture that operates more like a merry-go-round than a security device.

At Broad and Beaver Streets, a turntable will provide access for emergency and utility vehicles. Spanned by a row of bollards to restrict normal traffic, a round turntable flush with the street will rotate at the flick of a switch, allowing a car to pass.

Similar turntables have been used for decades in other capacities. Rotating restaurants use them, and the Metropolitan Opera has one, for rapid set changes. This is the first time a turntable has been used for traffic control.

Construction is to begin next spring.