Crisis Averted
The concrete and metal security barriers installed at various locations around the city after 9/11 are finally being removed due to the recent questions being aired that the barriers may detract from safety more thn they aid in security. Oh the irony! Were sure New Yorkers are comforted by the fact that it only took five years for the city to realize that its anti-terrorist barriers of pain would only add to the carnage caused by a stray car bomb. Several weeks ago, NYPD counter-terrorism experts warned that if hit by an explosive, the barriers could become weaponized, shattering and then hurling deadly shards into the immediate area. The planters that double as security barricades in front of the Reuters Building at 3 Times Square and at Morgan Stanleys headquarters at 1585 Broadway have already been removed. The 63 concrete gloves that encircled the Times Square Tower are gone as well. Despite the fact that the building owners were never ordered to take these security measures in the first place, they are the ones now left to shoulder the cost of removing themup to $10,000 per site.