125 Cedar St. ‘Family’ Dispersed But United

By Ronald Drenger

"I just feel such a hunger to get home, to be settled," Gail Langsner said last month. "None of us antici-pated it would be this long."

Nearly all of the thousands of Downtown residents displaced on Sept. 11 returned, or had a chance to, months ago. But for Langsner and her neighbors from 125 Cedar Street, the quest to go home seems to never end.


   Their 19-unit building, directly across the street from the World Trade Center site, was the closest residence to Ground Zero. Dust from the towers’ collapse still covers many of the apartments and hallways, althought the tenants have spent many hours cleaning.

The eclectic, tightly knit group of Downtown pioneers, who renovated the abandoned office building in the late 1970s, includes several painters, a photographer, three architects, a teacher, an antique rug dealer and a bird trainer. Now, three couples live on South William Street, one tenant is around the corner on Water Street, others are in Battery Park City and the West Village, on the Upper West Side, in Brooklyn and Connecticut. But over the past year, almost all have remained united in a struggle to return home.

E-mailing constantly and meeting frequently, they share news from government officials, coordinate visits to their building and plan their next steps.


  This summer, after months of frustrating negotiations with the landlord and city and federal agencies over how to clean their building and what contaminants to test for, the residents finally worked out procedures for a government cleanup.

In August, a tenant from each apartment led two government scientists in full-body protective suits through their dusty homes. The tenants pointed out which belongings to clean and which to throw away; inspectors from the city’s Department of Environmental Protection and the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took notes and tagged items with stickers. Government contractors were scheduled to begin an asbestos abatement early this month.
With two months of structural repairs needed after the cleanup, 125 Cedar’s tenants could go home by December—if things go smoothly. But little has gone smoothly for them over the past year.

Indeed, just as they were finalizing cleanup plans, a fresh wave of insecurity struck. When the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. released its six plans for the World Trade Center site and surrounding neighborhood, 125 Cedar Street didn’t exist in any of them. One showed a museum where the building stands, another a park, another a residential complex. After all that the tenants had been through, their building appeared destined to be demolished.

"We were not quite seeing the light at the end of tunnel, but we were getting close, and then this was sprung on us," said Pat Moore, who for months has worked practically full time for the building’s cause, and who plans to return with her husband, painter Andy Jurinko. "We’ve been in limbo for almost 11 months and we don’t need to be in limbo any more."

LMDC and Port Authority officials insisted they did not intend to tear down 125 Cedar Street, or nearby residential buildings at 110 and 114 Liberty Street, but initially declined to put the pledge in writing.

So the tenants went into action, zipping off e-mails to one another, writing to elected officials, attending community meetings and spreading the word about the threat to their homes. Fifteen residents met Downtown on July 23 to strategize.

"Within four hours of the plans being released, I had written to the governor, Hilary Clinton and [Deputy Mayor Daniel] Doctoroff," said tenant Mary Perillo. "We were on this right away."

Their efforts led to a preliminary victory. After Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, who represents much of Lower Manhattan, expressed concern to the LMDC about the welfare of 125 Cedar Street and adjacent buildings, Louis Tomson, the agency’s president and executive director, last month responded with a letter stating that "these buildings will not be condemned."

"The idea is to enhance the residential community, not destroy it," said Matt Higgins, an LMDC spokesman.
Some of 125 Cedar’s tenants said they were reassured but not convinced that their building’s future was secure. "We’re cautiously optimistic," said Moore.

Throughout the trying months, the tenants of 125 Cedar Street have found solace and strength in bonds forged more than 20 years ago, when they were homesteaders in a wilderness of office buildings, Then, as Moore recalled, "one person had a toilet, one person had a refrigerator, one person had a working sink." In the 1980s, they faced down their former landlord in court and won rent stabilization protection for their apartments.

"We’re a family," said Moore. "When times are good, we might go our separate ways. But when we’re threatened, don’t mess with us. We’ll come together."