The squat, three-story building stands in a park near the foot of the Brooklyn Bridge, just across the river from where the World Trade Center fell. Now used by the American Red Cross, the building is to become the headquarters of the city’s Office of Emergency Management, a command center where several agencies can be housed to coordinate the response to any crisis, natural or manmade, from a blizzard to a power failure to a terrorist attack. Since the original $13 million command center on the 23rd floor of 7 World Trade Center was destroyed in the Sept. 11 attack, the emergency office has moved from the Police Academy to Pier 92 to its current temporary headquarters near the waterfront under the Brooklyn Bridge. Now the city hopes it has found a permanent home, at 165 Cadman Plaza East. The site, officials say, is ideal because it is centrally located, easily accessible by private or public transportation and able to be secured. But, in what may be the quintessential not-in-my-backyard battle for these terror-alert times, residents of the surrounding neighborhoods — with their luxury loft conversions, historic town houses and bustling civic center — want nothing to do with it. Full Story
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