United We Stand

The Post follows up on a lawyer’s earlier allegation that the city is using 9/11 recovery funds to fight the claims of sick recovery and rescue workers:

The city wants to dip into a $1 billion federal fund to cover its $20 million in legal costs so far in fighting the claims of ill 9/11 workers, The Post has learned.

The city Law Department has sent an invoice to the WTC Captive Insurance Co., which manages the $1 billion insurance fund Congress created to cover claims from the World Trade Center cleanup.

The company, run by Bloomberg administration officials, has refused to pay a single sick Ground Zero worker, but has already spent more than $27 million on private lawyers. The new $20 million bill is for city lawyers.

About 6,000 rescue and recovery workers have filed claims against the city, the Port Authority, developer Larry Silverstein and many contractors.

Kenneth Becker, chief of the Law Department’s WTC unit, said the $20 million covers “lawyers’ time and expenses.”

Unsafe At Any Deed

That million-dollar luxury conversion you just bought in DUMBO is a dangerous firetrap:

In addition to a leaky roof and a substandard ventilation system, the luxury Bridge St. building owned by scandal-ridden developer Joshua Guttman would burn to ashes in no time because of a host of fire hazards — including a wooden parking garage and wooden staircases.

Exposed wires, virtually no fireproofing, and drywall that would burn twice as fast as the minimum standard required by the city fire code were attacked yesterday by condo owners who paid as much as $1 million to live there.

“I really believe that if there is a fire and people are not awake or don’t smell it, they aren’t getting out alive,” said attorney Adam Leitman Bailey, who filed a $36 million lawsuit on behalf of 38 condo owners.

Guttman is the owner of the Greenpoint Terminal Market — which burned down last spring under mysterious circumstances.

According to the report by Rand Engineering & Architecture, many of the walls are made of drywall and so flimsy it would take just one hour to turn them into ash.

. . .

Mark Shacket, a Broadway show manager who moved into the building in 2004, said that besides shoddy structural work, one of his biggest fears is escaping a fire.

“It’s sort of like you have to close your eyes and pray,” said Shacket, 34. “I’m at the end of a dead-end hallway so you just have to hope the sprinkler system is up to code.”

Guttman, who has owned five buildings that have caught on fire since 1992, did not return calls for comment.

See also: Greenpoint Terminal Market Fire.

NYPD Bedbug

Who knew police precincts had so many beds? The city’s bedbug problem rolls on:

Blood-sucking bedbugs have invaded a Brooklyn police precinct stationhouse — forcing cops to process arrests at a vermin-free NYPD building 15 blocks away, sources told the Daily News.

The nasty problem in the 60th Precinct stationhouse in Coney Island began about three weeks ago when a cop noticed bites on his ankles, the sources said.

Soon prisoners lodged in holding cells started to complain — marking one of the rare times cops and criminals were on the same side of an issue.

Cops know that sometimes they must bring their job home with them. But they draw the line at bedbugs.

“It’s bad enough to have to deal with these things at work, but how do we explain to our wives why we’re bringing home bugs?” an agitated cop complained.

Backstory: Don’t Let The . . .; It’s Endemic, Pandemic, This Epidemic; Bedbugs Don’t Wait For Midterms Now, Do They?; Don’t Let The Gasoline-Soaked Bedbugs Burst Into Flames In The Middle Of The Night, Setting Your Living Quarters On Fire.

Apparently OSHA Isn’t Concerned About Sleet

Rain, sleet, snow — no problem. The ripest, stankiest most overpowering example of human-cat stench is another matter:

The motto says neither rain nor sleet nor snow will get in the way of the United States Postal Service delivering mail, but a tenant in the Pomonok Houses development in Flushing may have found the one deterrent: the pungent smell in the hallway near her first-floor apartment, which is adjacent to the mailboxes for the building.

The mail carrier whose route includes the building at 70-20 Parsons Blvd. has refused to deliver letters there unless something is done about the smell, according to U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Forest Hills), who represents the area and is familiar with the issue.

If there is a health hazard the Postal Service cannot deliver to that location, an aide to Weiner explained. Weiner is on the House committee that tracks the postal service.

The Fresh Meadows Post Office is supposed to deliver mail to the building, but because of the current standoff tenants must instead pick up their mail at the post office. The manager of the Fresh Meadows postal branch could not be reached for comment.

Rose and Thomasina Maggio, who live on the first floor next to the mailboxes, keep about 30 cats in the apartment, according to Weiner’s aide, who said his office has received complaints from numerous tenants in the building.

The Maggios say they have two cats and that the smell is coming from the basement, not their apartment.

“This has been going on for two years, now. Housing came by and painted the apartment, cleaned the apartment and basement, and put in a new floor. The hallway smells because the basement floods and people pee in the doorway and the elevator,” said Rose Maggio, a 51-year veteran of the building.

Century 21 Has Blood On Its Hands*

City and federal officials put us in danger so we could shop more? Wouldn’t it have been enough to simply stay overnight somewhere in midtown and take in a Broadway show**? The details are kind of shocking:

CBS 2 News has obtained documents revealing that Lower Manhattan was reopened a few weeks following the attack even though the air was not safe.

The two devastating memos, written by the U.S. and local governments, show they knew. They knew the toxic soup created at Ground Zero was a deadly health hazard. Yet they sent workers into the pit and people back into their homes.

One of the memos, from the New York City health department, dated Oct. 6, 2001, noted: “The mayor’s office is under pressure from building owners … in the Red Zone to open more of the city.” The memo said the Department of Environmental Protection was “uncomfortable” with opening the areas but, “The mayor’s office was directing the Office of Emergency Management to open the target areas next week.”

“Not only did they know it was unsafe, they didn’t heed the words of more experienced people that worked for the city and E.P.A.,” said Joel Kupferman, with the group Environmental Justice Project.

Another part of the memo noted: “The E.P.A. has been very slow to make data results available and to date has not sufficiently informed the public of air quality issues arising from this disaster.”

. . .

Bruce Sprague, an E.P.A. official in the New York and New Jersey region during 9/11 admited to CBS 2 News the agency was finding alarming air quality readings at Ground Zero and in the surrounding areas.

Sprague said the E.P.A. had written much more conservative health assessments, but the memos had to go to Washington. And when the White House got its hands on them, they — according to Sprague — softened them.

The city health department refused to comment on the memo, but inside sources told CBS 2 News the memo is real.

By the way, all this makes Hillary’s ad (I think it’s here) look smart . . . real smart. (Too smart?)

*Not Century 21 in particular since it stayed closed through most of the winter, but whatever other businesses who literally endangered the lives of people trying to be supportive by shopping there. That deserves a big, big “fuck you.”

And which businesses are we talking about exactly? The DVD purveyors on Fulton Street?

**Remember that?