But Is It A Highly Sensitive Strategic Asset Or Could It Be Just An Office Building?

At some point it may make more sense just take your chances:

Law enforcement officials have major concerns about security weaknesses in the planned World Trade Center complex, a Daily News investigation has found.

The potential problems expressed to the Port Authority and others involved in the most high-profile development project in New York City history include:

* A row of three mostly glass towers positioned too closely to city streets, increasing their vulnerability to attack.

* Difficulties in inspecting some 2,000 delivery trucks and sightseeing buses that will enter or leave the site daily.

* A vehicle security center that hasn’t been fully designed and relies on vehicle inspection technology that hasn’t even been developed yet.

. . .

Towers 2, 3 and 4 — which will rise between Greenwich and Church Sts. to 79, 71 and 64 stories, respectively — contain too much glass, sources familiar with the issues said.

They also are not set back far enough from the two streets — where uninspected trucks will whiz by — to meet the most rigorous security standards, the sources said.

. . .

Another concern: The buildings do not meet Department of Defense or Department of Homeland Security blast standards. That means they can withstand certain types of explosions – but not more powerful blasts.

The DOD blast standards — rarely applied to U.S. skyscrapers — are typically used in U.S. embassies and missions abroad, sensitive government facilities and military bases.

What’s Wrong With Tossing Around The Nerf And Doing Some Fishing?

I guess this is what people use Nerf balls for these days:

Cops yesterday revealed the chilling arsenal of pipe bombs allegedly fashioned by a Bulgarian immigrant in Brooklyn Heights — including a Nerf football stuffed with nails and a device designed to hang from a ceiling and rain down deadly ball bearings when detonated.

Ivaylo Ivanov, 37, was indicted on more than 100 counts of weapons charges in that case and another involving hate crimes stemming from him allegedly scrawling swastikas and anti-Semitic statements on local synagogues.

Police said they do not yet know if Ivanov, who is Jewish, was planning an attack on area Jews with the weaponry. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said investigators are poring over “voluminous” material seized from Ivanov’s computer looking for clues as to what he planned to do with the weaponry.

Investigators have not found any bomb-making literature, but “Ivanov clearly knew what he was doing,” said NYPD bomb-squad commander Lt. Mark Torie.

An array of artillery, including a sniper rifle, machine gun, silencers and pistols, were taken from the fourth-floor apartment on Remsen Street — a historic brownstone-lined block in one of Brooklyn’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

. . .

Ivanov has told cops that the guns were for protection and that he wanted to bring the bombs on a fishing trip and explode them under water.

. . .

Cops said Ivanov also distributed anti-Semitic pamphlets while making his rounds as a dogwalker.

Earlier: Neil Simon Meets Steven Seagal.

Neil Simon Meets Steven Seagal

Here’s something you don’t see every day in Brooklyn Heights:

A bloodied Ivaylo Ivanov, 31, approached officers at about 1:15 a.m. around the corner from 58 Remsen St., where he lives with his roommate, who is often overseas for work, police sources said.

Ivanov told the cops he had been shot in the hand by a stranger, and he was taken to Long Island College Hospital.

There, he changed his story and admitted he shot himself — apparently while cleaning one of his guns, the sources said.

When cops searched his fourth-floor apartment, they found six pipe bombs, sniper rifles, a handgun, shotguns, a crossbow with arrows, silencers, bomb-making equipment and other weapons — prompting an immediate evacuation of the building and others on the historic, tree-lined block.

. . .

Neighbors in the building said Ivanov shares the unit with Dr. Michael C. Clatts, 50, a pioneer AIDS researcher.

Clatts, an assistant professor at Columbia, is conducting AIDS research in Vietnam for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.

. . .

[Ivanov] has been on the NYPD’s radar at least since September, when he became a suspect in a slew of hate crimes in the area that included swastikas painted on synagogues and cars.

After his arrest, he told cops he was working for Israel’s Mossad spy agency, the sources said.

“They are both what I would consider eccentric people,” Penny Kaufman, who lives on the second floor, said of the roommates.

Christofuh!

I don’t know who that was for but trust me, it wasn’t for me:

Is it real life imitating reel life or is it just a coincidence that someone detonated a galvanized pipe bomb in front of “The Sopranos” star Michael Imperioli’s West Side theater early Tuesday?

Police know the culprit is not a terrorist, but they’re still not sure why the small device — 4 inches long, 2 inches in diameter and packed with black powder — was placed near the entrance to Studio Dante, the West 29th Street theater run by Imperioli and his wife, Victoria.

The 1:05 a.m. blast damaged the windshield of a van parked in front of the building, but there were no injuries.

. . .

Souza, a bridge painter who lives nearby, told police he has no enemies.

“When they said to me it was a bomb, I said, ‘It wasn’t intended for me,'” Souza recalled. “I have no problems with nobody. It’s strange, very strange.”

Imperioli was questioned for several hours by police; he could not be reached.

UNMOVIC ‘s Revenge

Apparently the previous employee left a bunch of crap in his desk:

U.N. inspectors found vials of poisonous gas in one of their offices near U.N. headquarters, a spokesman announced today.

Two plastic packages containing gram-sized amounts of liquid were discovered last week as U.N. inspectors were archiving old files in a room at 866 East 48th St. Yesterday, an inventory report revealed that the packages contained the chemical agent phosgene, an old warfare agent that was used in a majority of chemical deaths during World War I.

The chemicals were recovered in 1996 from a former Iraqi chemical weapons facility, Al Muthanna, and sent to the wrong office, the U.N. said in a statement. Normally, they would have been sent by military transport to a laboratory equipped for analysis.

The U.N. said that chemical weapons experts had sealed the packages and placed them in a secure location on the sixth floor. The floor was evacuated this afternoon as a Hazardous Materials unit responded to remove the materials and bring them to a military facility outside of New York, police said.