A bombshell memo made public Thursday proves the city knew about the potential risks of Sept. 11, 2001 toxins weeks after the terror attacks — as officials told New Yorkers it was safe to return to Lower Manhattan, local pols said.
City Council Speaker Julie Menin and Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan) unveiled the October 2001 memo, in which Big Apple lawyers admitted the city could face tens of thousands of lawsuits, including from people exposed to toxins after being advised they could return to the area around Ground Zero too soon.
“Health advisories caused individuals either to return to the area too soon (causing toxic exposure or emotional harm) or too late (causing economic hardship),” the city Law Department wrote in the memo to Bob Harding, then–Deputy Mayor for Economic Development under Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
“As we head into the 25th anniversary of 9/11, it’s really just shameful that the city gave this information and refused to disclose this information,” Menin, who ran a small business in the Financial District at the time of the attacks, said outside City Hall.
“This is just such a shocking situation,” she said, “that the city of New York has failed to take responsibility for telling the downtown community and first responders that the air was safe to breathe and that we should all be staying in Lower Manhattan.”
The document does not show that the city knew about the contaminants still filling the air when it advised New Yorkers it was safe to return to the area around the World Trade Center.
But it served as a “risk assessment” showing lawyers for the city admitting they could face up to 10,000 liability claims from residents over potential respiratory issues from contaminants including metals and asbestos, Menin said.
Nearly 50,000 first responders and others have been diagnosed with 9/11-related cancers.
The so-called “Harding memo” was first referenced in journalist Wayne Barrett’s 2006 book “The Grand Illusion,” though it was never clear how he obtained it.
It was finally found last week by the pro-bono attorneys for 9/11 victims at the University of Texas, which inherited Barrett’s estate.
Though the university told victims’ lawyers in December that they had no record of the memo, clerks agreed to comb through 300 boxes of Barrett’s documents – and found the missing memo in January.
“It is outrageous, and it is shocking, and it is heartbreaking that … the state of Texas is telling us more about what the city knew and when it knew it than the mayor’s offices have told us for the past 45 years,” said 9/11 victims’ attorney Andrew Carboy.
The memo release is part of a larger effort to make public records related to the Sept. 11. attacks.
The city previously moved to dismiss attempts to disclose its own toxin records, at one point claiming it had no documents – and only reversed course last year after a Department of Investigation probe spearheaded by Brewer found 68 boxes of 9/11 health-related documents, according to lawyers for some of the victims.
The council members and victims’ lawyers are now calling on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to fund a $3 million project to probe and release the records.
“It’s time for the mayor to step up and do what he needs to do to get the right and the information out to people who really need it,” said Thomas Hart, who sits on the board of 9/11 Health Watch.
Menin and Brewer said newly-minted mayor’s office attorney Steve Banks “favorably indicated to both of us that he was committed to do that” at his confirmation hearing Wednesday.
Ex-Mayor Eric Adams once refused to release a stash of documents showing the alleged cover-up — unless the city was granted immunity from lawsuits.
“There’s much more that we need to know, and as we are seeing from this memo, as more documents from the 68 boxes will come out,” added Rep. Dan Goldman on the steps of City Hall.
“The idea that monetary and financial concerns would dictate the actions of the city of New York for 25 years is repulsive.”
— Additional reporting by Haley Brown
