"While debates rage about why more buildings have not gone up at the
World Trade Center site, there is one, shrouded in a web of black netting
and full of trade center dust, that can’t seem to come down.
The vacant 41-story former Deutsche Bank AG building looms above ground zero,
contaminated with toxic waste and still holding tiny body parts more than
four years after the trade center collapsed onto it on Sept. 11, 2001. Removing
it from the landscape has become a more challenging task than cleaning up
the twin towers.
"That's more or less a vertical Superfund site, and we’re living
right next to it," said neighborhood resident Esther Regelson, referring
to a federal program for cleaning up the nation's most polluted industrial
sites. She is concerned that taking down the building improperly will contaminate
the area even more.
Construction workers, helped by the Fire Department, have another, wrenching
task as they sift through debris. They have recovered more than 600 tiny bone
fragments so far that had not been found in searches of the building shortly
after the attacks.
Family groups and four U.S. senators have asked for more thorough sweeps
of the area to search for other fragments.
