NYC-WTC_000152373

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

Plants May Rise for a Concrete-Starved Manhattan By CHARLES V. BAGLI City officials and construction executives are consider­ ing building concrete plants on the waterfront in Manhattan M for the first time in more than a decade because traffic jams on bridges have stalled trucks’ delivery of concrete to building sites and have idled hundreds of workers. The city is also considering providing police escorts to help clear the way for the 79,000-pound trucks as they rumble between concrete plants in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx and destinations at commercial and residential projects in Manhattan. Concrete trucks must deliver their loads within 90 min­ utes of leaving the plants, called batch plants, or risk rejection by safety inspectors. But this week the trucks have either shown up late or have given up and returned to their plants, according to developers, construction executives and concrete producers. The closing of some tunnels and the new security and traffic regulations used at the city’s bridges since the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 have wreaked havoc not just on rush-hour traffic but also on the delivery of concrete and other construction materials, they said. - ‘tJtts.impossibie tojdeliver pur product to Manhattan on time,” said John Quadrozzi, president of Quadrozzi Concrete Corporation in Queens. “All the arteries are jammed, and you can’t get through. Concrete dies. We’re also having problems getting materials to our plants.” Anthony V. Carbonetti, the mayor’s chief of staff, said yesterday that the Giuliani administration was “very, very close” to identifying a site for a temporary cement plant on a pier on the west side of Manhattan. The city will probably provide the site at no cost to the concrete producers, who Mr. Carbonetti said would build the plant themselves. Construction could be finished in several weeks. “Our industry is not looking at this as an opportunity to make a windfall,” said Carmine A. Valente, president of the \ Ito.: Association of New York City Concrete Producers. “It should be a city-sponsored, not-for-profit plant.” ! R" Mr. Valente, who is also president of Jenna Concrete in the Bronx, estimated that earlier this week, fewer than one- i te’: third of the more than 300 trucks a day'that deliver concrete to projects in Manhattan were able to deli^r their loads. On ; Andrea Mohin/The New York Times average, 3,000 cubic yards, enough for 11 miles of sidewalk, is I A concrete truck stuck on Eleventh Avenue yesterday. Construction Continued on Pa^e D4 J ! crews in Manhattan have been idled by concrete delivery delays.

THS NSW YORK TIMES, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2001

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