Would you like THIS in your neighborhood? Across the street from a Chinatown playground.....

This is from the NY Post:
When the murderous 9/11 Gang of Five finally lands in New York for trial, they'll face an impenetrable wall of security -- with five times the normal number of US marshals flooding lower Manhattan and a ring of marksmen watching their every move, sources said yesterday.

National Guardsmen will be placed at major transportation hubs while the NYPD will close off subway entrances near the federal courthouse and intensify bag searches throughout the system, the sources said.

Marshals will be shipped in from out of town and snipers placed on roofs nearby the courthouse, where a death-penalty trial is likely.

Despite the massive security detail, former federal prison guard Louis Pepe -- who was permanently injured in a 2000 stabbing by Osama bin Laden aide Mamdouh Mahmud Salim -- said that it was not enough and that the trial should not be here in the first place.

"It's going to happen again," said Pepe, who suffered brain damage and was paralyzed on his right side after Salim stabbed him in the eye with a sharpened toothbrush while awaiting trial for the 1998 African embassy bombings.

"They want to kill people. They want jihad. They want to become martyrs. That's all they want. That's what they did to me."

CCRC: Why are they here, a few feet from a residential complex which houses 240 families and across the street from Chinatown's heavily used Columbus Park.

The CRUSH Of media expected to descend on Worth St. and surrounding residential complexes during the 9/11 terrorist trials

The trial for Bernard Madoff drew hundreds of reporters.

A traffic nightmare ensued on one of the few crosstown streets in lower Manhattan

Not much of a "security risk" existed at the trial for Bernard Madoff , unless you WERE Bernard Madoff, so media and passers-by were allowed to freely mill about and proceed unencumbered by such pesky nuisances as the National Guard armed with AK-47s.

IF the 9/11 terrorist trials are to begin at the same location, however, as predicted by the New York Times recently, we're in for a totally different atmosphere. Not only will armed soldiers be in place around the perimeter of the court house, the residents who live next door to the building will have to fight a gauntlet of media personnel AND checkpoints for the next TWO years at least.......... and for what? So the terrorists can, in the end, call for a mistrial?

Fairness for the terrorists? What about the rights of the people in the community to live in peace and safety? What about the pedestrians and drivers using this narrow roadway whose lives will again be totally disrupted by a media circus, circling helicopters, protesters, armed camp, rerouting of traffic, shutdowns, etc. What about the newly renovated marriage bureau and wedding chapels across the street from the court -- what bride wishes to be married in a militarized zone? Get ready, we're in for a dangerous and bumpy ride as these photos show -- but for how many years?

What do snake oil salesmen and the Dept. of Transportation have in common?

When a snake oil salesmen tells you he knows what's good for you, be wary.
When the D.O.T. tells you they are trying out a "pilot program,"  "a trial period", or based on statistics they "will make adjustments" -- don't believe them.

From commuteroutrage.com:

Sadik Khan is revealing more and more of the DOT's actual plans.............. they say they are pilot programs...... then "ooops" she spills the beans............

More from the NY Times on the Times Square lawn chairs:
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City officials were quick to reiterate that the lawn chairs will be gone by the end of the summer, replaced by sturdier stock.

“As a temporary treatment in a temporary period, I think the chairs do match the atmosphere of the new space, and they reflect the fact that it’s an unofficial kickoff for summer,” said Janette Sadik-Khan, the city’s transportation commissioner. But, she added, “The plan all along is to bring in world-class treatment, and we’ve ordered hundreds of new chairs and tables and umbrellas.”
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Let me get this straight. At the end of the “trial” the DOT is going to carefully analyze the results to see if the traffic diversion works - but they’ve *already* ordered permanent chairs. Umbrellas too. The pink flamingos will arrive next summer.

Yes, I feel quite confident that Khan’s DOT is keeping an open mind about this.

Full article here

From CCRC:

Community Board 3 formed the Chatham Square Task Force of Community Board 3 - a hastily cobbled group of community activists, stake holders and CB members to address the detailed plans of Chatham Square and come up with some alternative plans with the hopes that community input would be realized through a resolution.
All along the Dept. of Transporation told CB3 and the Chinatown community at large that the deadline for construction was imminent and unchangeable. In reality, the "deadline" was nonexistent and the D.O.T. knew it since they never sent out the bids to construction companies as they said they had back in January, thus setting the entire project back indefinitely. Meanwhile hundreds of hours of analysis by volunteers and community board members as well as a professional traffic engineer (working on funds provided by the Community Board's transportation related American Red Cross grant) was pulled together with the idea that bulldozers were making their way to Chatham Square with a start date of "early July". The convenient excuse for the refusal to entertain logical and practical Task Force solutions to ludicrous and unproven, untested D.O.T. plans was the lack of time necessary to analyze the community plans. Now we know that was a lie.

How can The Department Of Transportation and its Commissioner Sadik Khan expect anyone in New York to believe them after they repeatedly deceive communities this way?  The Bloomberg administration, Sadik Khan and the sheep-followers they brainwash are herded into "plazas" and work in consort to persuade the rest of us to "just believe" that their plans for our City will work.

As Councilman John Liu rightfully points out "where is the accountability"  and where is the transparency in the D.O.T.?