falling equipment hits 2 at wtc building

from ap: Part of the scaffolding surrounding a condemned skyscraper at the World Trade Center site fell... injuring two firefighters, fire officials said. It was the same building where two other firefighters died in a blaze last week.

The demolition work on the former Deutsche Bank skyscraper had been suspended after Saturday's fire, but workers on Thursday were still busy removing toxic debris from its remaining 26 stories.

Shortly before 2 p.m., the two firefighters were hit by the falling material.

Fire Department spokesman Frank Gribbon said scaffolding fell from the side of the building facing the World Trade Center site, leaving the two firefighters hospitalized in stable condition, one with a head injury. Initial reports that some construction workers also were injured could not immediately be confirmed.

City officials gave a different scenario, saying that a piece of equipment, not collapsing scaffolding, fell from a high floor of the building and through a sidewalk shed, injuring the firefighters who were standing beneath it.

Fire marshals have been at the partially demolished building this week investigating the cause of the fire.

obscure company is behind 9/11 demolition work
from new york times: The John Galt Corporation of the Bronx, hired last year for the dangerous and complex job of demolishing the former Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, where two firefighters died last Saturday, has apparently never done any work like it. Indeed, Galt does not seem to have done much of anything since it was incorporated in 1983.

Public and private records give no indication of how many employees it has, what its volume of business is or who its clients are. There are almost no accounts of any projects it has undertaken on any scale, apart from 130 Liberty Street. Court records are largely silent. Some leading construction executives in the city say they have never even heard of it.

That may not be as surprising as it seems. John Galt, it appears, is not much more than a corporate entity meant to accommodate the people and companies actually doing the demolition job at the emotionally charged and environmentally hazardous site at the edge of ground zero.