Police officials have firmly rejected Community Board 1’s idea of relocating the planned Sept. 11 terror trials to Governors Island. But the board is still trying to convince Washington to relocate the trials away from Lower Manhattan, and it has other sites in mind. And it now appears that Mayor Michael Bloomberg agrees.

At its monthly meeting Tuesday night, the board voted unanimously to ask U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to consider moving the trials of Khalid Sheik Muhammad and four other suspected terrorists to one of four locations outside of the five boroughs: the federal courthouse in White Plains, Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, the US Military Academy at West Point or the Bureau of Prisons jail complex in Orange County. The trials, expected to last for years, are slated to be held on the edge of Chinatown, in the Moynihan Federal Courthouse at 500 Pearl Street, next door to the 240-unit condominium Chatham Towers and near another residential development, Chatham Green.

“There’s a broad consensus that these trials ought to be moved,” CB1 chairwoman Julie Menin said in an interview with the Trib before the board voted Tuesday night. Menin said the very real threat of terrorist attacks—and the estimated $200 million per-year cost of preventing them—during the trials has Community Board 1 and other local elected officials calling for immediate action from the Department of Justice.

“It’s a massive battle, and we’re going to have to fight,” she said. “We need to be thinking of outside-the-box solutions.”

During a press conference earlier on Tuesday, the Trib first reported, Mayor Michael Bloomberg indicated for the first time that he would support moving the trials if a suitable location could be found.

“There are other places where it would be a lot less expensive and less inconvenient for people,” Bloomberg said, offering no specific suggestions. “Hopefully [the federal government] will look at that.”

 

Wednesday he expanded on his position, saying that "the suggestion of a military base is probably a reasonably good one," according to The New York Times.

Tuesday’s CB1 vote was the latest in a series of exchanges between the board, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg regarding the planned trials. Last week, Commissioner Kelly laid out key elements of his department’s plan to keep Lower Manhattan safe during the trials. Those plans include a phalanx of armed guards, steel barriers and roving patrols occupying the same cramped quarters as residents and business owners near the courthouses.

“Whatever the merits of holding the trial[s] in Lower Manhattan, it will certainly raise the level of threat,” Kelly said in an address to the New York Press Club on Jan. 19. “Securing this area and the entire city for the duration of the trial promises to be an extremely demanding undertaking.”

The following night, CB1’s Executive Committee passed a resolution recommending Governors Island, off the southern end of Manhattan, as an alternate venue for the trials. After an initial show of support, Kelly said in a statement to the Trib that the move was impractical, “principally because of risks related to transporting the prisoners to and from the island, as well as the general lack of modern infrastructure there.”

Bloomberg was also resistant to the idea. Elected officials and others reacted angrily to comments by Bloomberg, published Jan. 21 by the Downtown Express, that the Governors Island proposal is “one of the dumber ideas” he has heard.  Rep. Jerrold Nadler, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, State Senator Daniel Squadron and City Councilmember Margaret Chin released a joint statement decrying the Mayor’s “callous dismissal yesterday of a potential alternative location for the upcoming trial.”

During a press conference Tuesday morning, Bloomberg was a bit more cordial but no more supportive of the proposal.

“I asked Commissioner Kelly to look at it, and it just doesn’t work,” Bloomberg said.

Under the NYPD’s plan, the east side of Lower Manhattan will be divided into “hard” and “soft” security zones. The hard zone, where security will be tightest, will be bounded by Worth Street to the north, Madison Street to the south, Pearl Street to the east and Centre Street to the west. That area will be surrounded on all sides by more than 2,000 metal barriers, restricting pedestrian and vehicle access. Inside the perimeter—which includes Chatham Towers and Chatham Green—sharpshooters will be placed on rooftops to guard against enemy snipers, while assault and canine teams will patrol the ground. Anyone entering what Kelly referred to as “the frozen zone” will have to pass police inspection. Police helicopters will hover overhead on a near-constant basis, and surveillance cameras will be installed at every access point.

The larger “soft” zone will extend to Canal Street to the north, Frankfort Street (just south of the Brooklyn Bridge ramps), Bowery and Park Row to the east and Broadway to the west. Although pedestrian and vehicular traffic would be allowed to move through the soft zone largely unimpeded, the outer perimeter will be patrolled by police on foot and  horseback and in cars. Those officers will conduct unannounced vehicle checkpoints. Police patrols in subway stations within the soft zone will also be intensified.

“I don’t think it will be excruciating,” Bloomberg said at the press conference when asked about the impact the security plan will have on residents. “I think it will be inconvenient for a lot of people, there’s no question about that. But we have no doubt that we could keep this city safe.”

The release of the security plan seemed to confirm fears among residents of Chatham Towers and Chatham Green, who predicted their neighborhood would be turned into a military stronghold once the trials begin.

“We have 240 families that are going to be imprisoned in their homes,” said 44-year Chatham Towers resident Vincent Imberosciano, speaking before the community board Tuesday. “It’s just like 9/11, and we’re going to live it all over again. This is going to be our way of live, not for a day or a week, but for years.”

Toby Turkel, another longtime resident of Chatham Towers, said she could not understand why the federal government had made the decision to locate the trials in New York in the first place, especially without consulting Kelly, Bloomberg or local residents beforehand.

“Nothing about this makes any sense,” Turkel said. “There’s no money for this, and it’s a danger to the community. It’s a political move at our expense, and I think it is criminal in and of itself.”

In a televised interview Jan. 21, Kelly said the department was sympathetic to the effect the trials would have on Lower Manhattan residents and businesses within the security zones, but reminded reporters that the decision to hold the trials Downtown was made in Washington, not New York.

Federal officials have not said when the trials might begin, or when Muhammad and the other suspects will be transported from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Kelly is scheduled to meet with Speaker Silver on Friday to discuss the trials.

“I’m very happy that we’ve gotten to this point,” said CB1 member Marc Ameruso, who had been a vocal opponent of placing the trials in Lower Manhattan since the plan was first announced in November. “The main goal is that this trial needs to be located somewhere else, in a non-residential neighborhood. It’s not about ‘not-in-our-backyard.’ This shouldn’t be in anyone’s backyard.”