A lawyer representing New Yorkers living and working around the rebuilt World Trade Center audaciously told a Manhattan Supreme Court judge Thursday that the NYPD’s post 9/11 security plan is “over-policing” that “doesn’t benefit anyone.”
“There are no security issues that have been articulated that allow the cutoff of these streets,” said attorney Dan Alterman, referring to Greenwich, Vesey, Fulton and Liberty streets, which surround the site of the two greatest terrorist attacks on US soil.
A group of 14 lower Manhattan residents and business owners sued the city, the Police Department and the Port Authority last November over what they call the “fortresslike” $40 million security measures planned for their neighborhood.
The plan limits access on the four streets around the towers with vehicle checkpoints.
“All this credentialing and congestion and barricades … are just going to be a hassle” Alterman moaned to Judge Margaret Chan.
His comments drew gasps and guffaws from city employees in the courtroom.
“All this plan does is make sure un-screened vehicles do not get close to the World Trade Center” and unleash “catastrophic events,” City attorney Amy McCamphill told the judge.
Justice Chan also shushed the residents’ other lawyer Albert Butzel,who started to speculate about other terrorist targets in New York City, including Times Square.
“I don’t think that’s an area we need to think about,” she warned.
“We don’t need to think for the terrorists.”
Butzel criticized the city for characterizing his clients as “armchair quarterbacks” who had no authority to challenge a design hatched by counter-terrorism experts.
“They know 9/11 and they know what terror means. They were exposed directly to it,” Butzel said.
One plaintiff in the suit, Steven Abramson, 65, a consultant, was evacuated from his Liberty Street apartment during the attacks and was not able to return for three years.
“We’re asking for some relief from the burden this plan is going to put on us,” Abramson said, adding that deliveries and other vehicular access to his home will require waiting in hour-long traffic jams.
Justice Chan promised to take a “field trip” to the site before ruling on the case, but she already turned down an emergency petition to halt the plan.