Letter from 114 Liberty owners regarding WTC damage, Feb 2003

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

By December 2001, we had all our estimates ready for reconstruction to Admiral Insurance Company, which insured the building. We required the full policy liimt of $7-5 million to properly rehabilitate the building. In May 2002, we received a paltry $1.4 million from Admiral. What were we supposed to do? What work were we suppo^d to begin when we did not know how much money the insurance company would provide us? What would you do?

We decided to forge ahead and do as much work as we could, but things got worse. Once it began to be better known that the environment was grossly polluted on 9/11, we commissioned an environmental report from Ambient Company, who have been actively involved in 90 Church St. and other locations throughout the site. In July 2002, the report noted horrendous amounts of contamination. This required new estimates because now we are considered a toxic site with special rules in place for remediation. Our new estimates went way beyond our policy limits of $7.5 million. With 9 families in the building, and 15-20 young children, we cannot take any chances in leaving any toxic materials in the building.

Admiral Insurance finally came up with new estimates in early January 2003. In the interim, we kept working on the building by repairing the front and back facades, and initiating window replacements. We now have about 60% of die policy money.

Normally, any company would allocate money for a rebuilding project and work from a defined budget. Because of Admiral’s lack of cooperation with us, we have been unable to do that and we have been working in a piecemeal fashion.

The DEP will work with us and we have had several meetings with them. However, they will not begin work until the fecades were completed and all windows were replaced.

Therefore, we had to move forward on the window replacement project., which will be completed by the end of February. Only then, in the beginning of March will the DEP begin their cleaning of the building. They have estimated that it will take until about mid-May to complete the demolition and cleaning. We will then be left with a gutted building that will take, according to our architect’s estimates, at least to the end of2003 to be in livable condition.

This is how we currently stand. There is a great deal of misinformation on the part of FEMA. Susan Jhun of NYl News has spoken with FEMA who says that the DEP told them that the cleamip will be done in March and then we can move back in. That is completely and totally inaccurate. Furthermore, FEMA told her that anything to be done after the DEP cleanup is unrelated to 9/11. That is also completely inaccurate.

With the rental assistance program ending on March 10, there is a group of families in 114 Liberty St. who will be in dire financial straits having to pay rent and mortgage every month. We are implormg FEMA to extend the rental assistance program for diis small group of families until we are truly and safely able to return to our homes. We have been

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