Workers at the toxic former Deutsche Bank tower drank, smoked and ignored basic safety rules on the job - and the company doing the $177 million demolition project never reined them in, a whistleblower told the Daily News.

"The firefighters - they didn't stand a chance. They walked into a deathtrap, a booby trap a year or more in the making," said the 52-year-old asbestos-removal supervisor, who worked at the Ground Zero job site for a year.

The supervisor met with FDNY marshals Tuesday, telling them he saw a slew of safety violations in the toxic tower.

He said the 29th floor was casually known as "Teddy's Tavern" because of the vodka and other booze regularly consumed in that floor's decontamination unit, where men cleaned up and ate meals. The 29th floor has since been demolished.

The whistleblower also said work crews smoked heavily and ran live power lines along floors where asbestos removal was being done - a dangerous lapse.

He said the demolition subcontractor, John Galt Corp., hired one electrician to monitor 10 floors, instead of the required two per floor. He charged that some workers set up transformers on work floors and failed to safeguard the red-hot electrical generators.

Galt was hit with a "Notice of Default" yesterday from Bovis Lend Lease, the general contractor. The notice axed Galt from the project, citing numerous safety violations at the demolition site and "the failure to properly maintain all required site safety precautions."

The whistleblower worked at the job site from May 2006 until Memorial Day 2007, when he said he had a blowup with his boss at John Galt over an unpaid bonus. The whistleblower said he quit and took a better job.

He said he came forward so what happened to the doomed firefighters at the former Deutsche Bank building doesn't happen to another firefighter.

"My son is FDNY, a firefighter. It could have been my son going into that deathtrap," he said. "The people in charge of that site knew there were problems. They were told there were problems, and they did nothing."

FDNY marshals interviewed the whistleblower as part of their ongoing probe into the cause of Saturday's deadly blaze. The whistleblower said the violations he saw turned his stomach.

"Mayor Bloomberg said that the city was lucky that these guys [Galt] took the job? Not so lucky," he said.

The Ground Zero project was Galt's first demolition of a tower and its first major asbestos job - and it showed, he said.

He said the company fired an asbestos supervisor around last Christmas because he was routinely drunk, but then rehired him in the spring to run the 17th floor, which is where the FDNY believes the fire ignited.

"He was a drunk. Everyone knew it. For whatever reason they let him back on thejob this spring, and now everyone's looking at the 17th floor," the whistleblower said.

The asbestos supervisor singled out by the whistleblower acknowledged he was in charge of the 17th floor, but said he never drank on the job, and didn't allow anyone else to drink. He said he left several hours before Saturday's fire erupted.

"I wasn't there when the fire broke out. I left at noon. I had to go to New Jersey," the man said, adding his employer told him "not to say anything to the press."

A cordial but tight-lipped Greg Blinn, Galt's president, said outside his mansion overlooking the Hudson River in Valley Cottage, Rockland County, "According to my contract with Bovis and the city, I'm not allowed to talk. I wish I could, but I can't."

An employee at Galt's Manhattan headquarters answered the phone with, "I have no comment," then hung up as a reporter listed the whistleblower's allegations. Attempts to reach lawyers for Galt were unsuccessful.

A spokeswoman for Bovis said she could not comment about a Galt employee.

The whistleblower said all the problems went unchecked even as the site was crawling with city, state and federal inspectors.

"The inspectors were good about the air and cleanup and making sure dust didn't get out in the neighborhood. But how the site was run - nobody was looking at that," he said. "It wasn't their responsibility."

The whistleblower said he knows he will be scrutinized now that he has come forward, and volunteered that he served prison time for drug possession in the late 1980s.

"I'm a street guy, I admit it," he said. "What I did was stupidness. But what I saw at that construction site was wrong, and now, we find out, deadly."

The whistleblower also said the water standpipe - dismantled and useless to the firefighters who needed water on the upper floors to battle Saturday's blaze - appeared in good shape when he left inMay. Fire marshals are looking into whether employees dismantled the standpipe to run compressed air through the pipes to upper floors to power their tools, sources said.

The ex-boss said he complained to higherups at Galt about the smoking, drinking and safety violations.

"No one listened," he said.

Per the daily news Alchohol is brazenly displayed in area of tower known as 'Teddy's Tavern.' Whistleblower says drinking, smoking and other violations were rampant in building.

 SWANNY NOTE:

On closer inspection of this "exclusive picture" BRAZENly orchestrated is more like it.  I had to enlarge this picture to see that the bottles are not on a shelf as it appears but on a refrigerator that had the freezer door removed or just not in the picture.  The product placement appearance gave it away the orchestration of this photo. No One would balance their booze on a ledge like that  so then I saw it was a freezer with the door slightly ajar on the refrig part. Secondly, Scotch is not a worker drinking choice. Perhaps it was left over from this ex boss that is said to have come forward with this information. Let's face it, the criminals trying to cover up information about 9-11-2001 will stop at nothing to cover up this horrendous crime.

 Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/23/2007-08-23_exdemolition_boss_i_warned_of_safety_lap.html

Special Swanny Note:

I looked up this writer and I saw THIS story on 911ea.org 

My car drove 'em crazy, By Alison Gendar, NY Daily News, Thursday, July 3rd, 2003

I shut down the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday.

Well, not exactly. And certainly not intentionally. It was my car that did it.

Of all the thousands of cars parked legally and illegally in New York City, some guy singles out my red Toyota to use as a prop for a terrorist prank.

Great.

For the record, I'm not a terrorist. I write about schools for the Daily News. Just want that said up-front.

I had parked on Centre St. near the entrance of the Brooklyn Bridge, a spot favored by reporters when they need to cover something in or near City Hall. I pulled in about 9:15 a.m. and headed to an education hearing at nearby 250 Broadway.

By the time I got back at 12:15 p.m., the Department of Citywide Administrative Services had barricaded the area with metal police gates.

I smiled at the department's officers and said I had to get my car, parked behind their barricade.

"Which one?"

"That one," I said, pointing to the red Toyota.

"That's YOUR car?" The officer gave me a funny look. "Stay right there. Don't go anywhere."

My first thought was that Mayor Bloomberg was cracking down on illegal press parking and that my car was impounded. But the skeptical looks on cops' faces said it was more serious than parking tickets.

While I was away, a man named Albert Martinez told police of an encounter with a Middle Eastern-looking man that involved my car.

Martinez told cops the man came up to him and offered $1,500 if he drove a car over the Brooklyn Bridge and parked on the other side. Martinez said the man jingled car keys, showed him the cash and pointed to a red car.

My car.

Instead of taking the money, Martinez told the man he needed to call a friend about the deal. But instead, Martinez dialed 911 and waited for the cops.

Police partially closed the bridge, rerouted trains, evacuated nearby offices, shut down Chambers and Centre Sts., and called in the bomb squad. In the end, cops said my car was clean, and the bridge, subway and streets were reopened.

So ended the three-hour stint when my car was the central character in a bizarre New York story. It might have been funny, if it hadn't been so creepy.

At least if I blow deadline, I'll have a good excuse.

She writes about schools. Interesting that she is now writing stories with orchestrated photos and things like this -

Recent stories written by Alison Gendar

Report warns of homegrown terror (8/16/2007)

NEW YORK – They grew beards, gave up women and booze, surfed the Web for radical Islamic sites and turned their backs on American pop culture.

Folks, this person is a paid Propagandist. 

A year ago this very day she had a story about liquid bomb scare abd trains 

6 train halted in liquid bomb scare
New york Daily News ^ | 08/23/06 | JO PIAZZA and ALISON GENDAR

Cops halted a Manhattan subway and examined passengers carrying bottled water and other drinks yesterday after a concerned tipster reported seeing a bottle of suspicious liquid on the No.6 train, police and witnesses said. The startling spot check was not part of a wider NYPD counterterrorism initiative and had no connection to the thwarted British terror plot to use liquid explosives to blow up passenger jets, authorities said.

It was a routine response to a suspicious package - but several passengers were still alarmed.

"This is a new level of fear, watching for people carrying drinks on the subway," said Wallis Post, 25, of Manhattan, who was on the train searched by cops at the 51st St. station and again at Grand Central Terminal.

Cops halted the subway about 9 a.m. shortly after a tipster reported seeing a suspicious bottle of liquid on the train at 125th St., police said.

"Is anyone carrying a liquid?" a uniformed cop asked after boarding the train with another officer at 51st St., according to Post and another passenger.

Another cop then said into her hand-held radio: "We're looking for the high alert," prompting a few frightened passengers to get off the train, the witnesses said.

As the cops held the train, a woman in a gym outfit held up a Poland Spring water bottle with red juice inside it and told them, "I have this."

The cops asked if the liquid had spilled on anything and then took it, Post said.

After a five-minute delay, the train was allowed to depart the station, but when it rolled into Grand Central another cop got on and asked: "Has anyone seen a liquid?"

Cops again searched the train before deciding there was no threat, Post said.

After British intelligence agents exposed the liquid-bomb terror plot this month, airlines banned nearly all liquids - including shampoo, drinks and suntan lotion - from carry-on bags.

But the city's security level has remained at orange, where it has been since 9/11.