NYC Department of Buildings: No Copies of City Issued Permits for Construction Within WTC 7 Found For Years 1999, 2000 and 2001

A Freedom of Information reply from the New York City Department of Buildings reports that copies of city permits for routine or major construction work within World Trade Center building 7 during the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 could not be located. Records for the “ALT 2” category were requested.

“DOB divides construction work into two main categories: New Buildings (NB) and Alterations (ALT). Alterations are further divided into three types—ALT1s, ALT2s and ALT3s—depending upon the scope of work. An ALT1 is a major alteration in which the use or occupancy of an existing property changes. An ALT2 is an alteration in which the use or occupancy of a facility does not change, but includes multiple work types, i.e., plumbing and construction. ALT1s and ALT2s must be filed by a registered architect or licensed engineer."

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/downloads/pdf/consbroch.pdf

September 22, 2010

Records Access Officer/Freedom of Information Requests
280 Broadway, 7th Floor
New York, NY 10007

Re: Freedom of Information request

To Whom It May Concern:

I respectfully request copies of the following NYC Department of Buildings records:

- Permits issued during the years 1999, 2000 and 2001 by the NYC Department of Buildings for "ALT 2" category construction work performed at the former World Trade Center building 7.

- All certificates of occupancy for the former World Trade Center building 7 for the years 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Please be advised that disclosure of the requested information is not in my commercial interest.

Thank you.

Aidan Monaghan

When was the work done for the emergency bunker?

Aidan,

I am curious as to when the work was done to retrofit the building for the OEM bunker, known as mayor Rudy Giuliani's bunker.

Mr. Giuliani insisted on his bunker being located on the 23rd floor of WTC 7 and got his way over the objections of the FDNY and NYPD.

I have seen it said that a company named AMEC performed that work and had access to the entire building to set up the backup power supply for the emergency bunker.

Apparently the mayor also hired AMEC as one of the four major contractors to clean up the WTC site and AMEC was also the contractor who performed the work on the wing of the Pentagon which was hit on Sept. 11, 2001.

Permits For Bunker Probably Pre-1999

It seems rather odd that no permits could be found for the 3 year period, implying that no major renovations were performed within this large office building. Such projects would of course provide a best opportunity for demolition preparation.

The NYC DoB also said by phone that no construction permits for WTC 1 and 2 could be found for the same period (reply pending). This seems rather suspect given that the towers were the subject of a major elevator modernization as well as other well documented renovations circa 2001.

A cover-up where there shouldn't otherwise be one? Who knows.

This seems like a hot trail

Thanks Aidan.

Tony...

I came across some research regarding the WTC 7 command center.

"Giuliani Improvises After Command Center Gets Hit
By William Welsh
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani got a lot of ribbing when, in 1998, he ordered the construction of a $15 million emergency command center from which he could direct recovery efforts from possible terrorist attacks on the city."
http://www.wtc7.net/cache/washingtontechnology_giuliani.html

June 8, 1999: New York Emergency Command Center Opened in WTC Building 7
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=complete_911_timeline_060...

I'm wondering if a follow up request for the year 1998 would be appropriate to determine the details behind the command center construction in WTC 7?

nice find

I think a follow-up is definitely in order.

Excellent Work, Aidan

Peter Dale Scott's phrase "negative template" is very useful in uncovering the true story of 9/11. Finding out what information has been excluded from the public gives another view of the places to investigate.

Docs

Some documents were scanned and sent to a database in upstate New York. The physical copies were destroyed during the demise. For example, The Hartford was a tenant in WTC7. Many documents were scanned and electronic copies of their documents are in existence. I suspect that other companies took a similar stance, and scanned documents to a EMC styled data storage space.