Andrea Peyser

Andrea Peyser

US News

Trespassers at 1 WTC are a wakeup call

We didn’t know how vulnerable this city had become.

Sleepy, half-blind and brainless numbskulls were the only humans protecting us from disaster. The pinheads in charge of security at the still-under-construction 1 World Trade Center tower were too incompetent or clueless to prevent a pack of thrill-seekers from transforming the scene of the worst terror attack this country has ever known into a kind of Disneyland for daredevils.

There was 16-year-old Justin Casquejo of New Jersey. The scrawny kid allegedly slipped through a 1-foot-by-1-foot hole in a fence around the Trade Center at 4:10 a.m. March 16, as The Post first reported. Dressed as a construction worker, he conned an elevator operator into giving him a lift to the tower’s 88th floor, according to court papers. He climbed up stairs to the 104th floor, walked past a sleeping security guard, and clambered up to the roof, where he spent more than an hour taking pictures like a demented tourist.

He was caught after a construction supervisor called cops.

There also are the three men who parachuted off the top of the tower at 3 a.m. last Sept. 30, as a fourth man stood lookout. These jumping jokers climbed 104 floors to the top of a tower, which rises 1,776 feet, including its spire. There, they binged on colossal rushes of adrenaline, fortified by the knowledge that there was no one to stop them. They were caught after a friend squealed, a source insisted.

I think these guys should be applauded. We owe them, big time, for saving our skins.

On Wednesday, officials of The Durst Organization woke up from their slumber. The company, which in January took charge of protecting most of the interior of the world’s No. 1 terror target, announced that it was hiring a firm run by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, Freeh Group International Solutions, to help secure its buildings, including the massive 1 World Trade Center.

What the hell took so long?

I asked Anthony Hayes, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that owns the building and is responsible for its external security, if we can rest assured that the tower is now safe from intruders. He answered, “Yes,’’ but declined to elaborate.

He did say that safety measures for the building set to open later this year are being reviewed by the federal Department of Homeland Security. So we’ll just have to trust in our government.

Right.

As a New Yorker who watched from the roof of my Brooklyn apartment building as airplanes piloted by Islamic savages brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11/2001, I’m appalled. As a reporter who saw the hole left behind in the North Tower after a truck bombing carried out by Middle Eastern militants in 1993, and as a human being who’s spent years comforting relatives of those who perished in the monstrous attacks, I cannot understand how the scene of unspeakable carnage could be so shamefully neglected.

A photo published in The Post last month showed guard Abdul Basher, 65, stationed alone in the tower’s south lobby, reclining in a chair, apparently asleep. Basher is unable to open his left eye and has vision he described as “hazy’’ in his right eye, due to a nerve condition. Hired by The Durst Organization, Basher was fired.

So was the guard who snoozed as Casquejo passed his station on the tower’s roof. (The union-protected elevator operator who took the lad up to the 88th floor was reassigned.) Durst’s assistant security director, David Velazquez, quit.

Casquejo, who initially laughed off his arrest, arrived, unsmiling, at Midtown Community Court Wednesday, and was hit with a charge of BASE jumping, even though he didn’t jump off anything. If he’s convicted, it could land him in jail for a year. BASE is an acronym for the kinds of fixed objects that morons leap from — building, antenna, span (or bridge) and earth (cliff). He’s also charged with misdemeanor trespassing and simple trespassing, a violation.

Prosecutors ordered a mental-health evaluation before deciding what to do with him.

The skydivers, who include ironworker James Brady, 32, who helped build 1 World Trade Center, are charged with burglary, a felony, plus two misdemeanors — reckless endangerment and jumping from a structure. If convicted of all charges, the men face up to seven years in prison.

But they may get help from surprising places. After they face indictment by a grand jury, likely this month, lawyer Timothy Parlatore, who represents jumper Andrew Rossig, 33, intends to deliver to the judge a motion to dismiss the case containing letters of support from family members of firefighters killed on 9/11, a source told me.

“It’s very fortunate that these guys and the kid showed us there’s no security,’’ Parlatore told me.

They did us a favor.

NYC taken for a ride

Let Citi Bike die.

The city’s 10-month-old bike-sharing program is awash in red ink. Customers below Manhattan’s 59th Street can’t find enough available bikes or docking stations in which to return them. They’ve been hit by technological glitches and scared off by cold weather.

New Yorkers are overwhelmingly choosing money-losing annual memberships of $95, rather than paying $9.95 a day or $25 a week to rent. Mayor Bill de Blasio said taxpayers won’t bail out the system “at this point.’’

Those who want to ride bikes in an urban setting should move to Amsterdam.

‘Minor’ gripes with zombies

Has “The Walking Dead’’ gone too far? The zombie drama ended its fourth season with Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) biting a chunk from the throat of another human as a man tried to molest Rick’s son Carl (played by 14-year-old Chandler Riggs). Two episodes ago, Lizzie Samuels (Brighton Sharbino, 11) was seen fatally stabbing her sister, Mika (Kyla Kenedy, 11). Lizzie was shot into permanent deadness by Carol Peletier (Melissa McBride).

Child-welfare workers should save the kid actors and shut down the show. I just hope they wait until after the series ends.

Stuck with Alec

Raging actor Alec Baldwin isn’t leaving New York after all.

Alec, 55, was misunderstood by some who read his piece in New York magazine last month, his wife, Hilaria, 30, said during a surprise visit to the Midtown offices of the New York Post.

“I probably have to move out of New York,’’ Alec wrote, adding that he longed to cool his heels in a gated Los Angeles community.

But Hilaria insisted Alec never wrote that he was going anywhere. And she cheerfully demonstrated yoga poses for Post staff as Alec waited outside.

We’re brave enough to face Alec. The Bloviator can’t say the same.