{"id":186537,"date":"2026-04-05T20:03:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T20:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186537\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T20:03:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T20:03:28","slug":"albany-asked-to-join-search-for-info-on-nyc-ground-zero-9-11-toxins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/186537\/","title":{"rendered":"Albany asked to join search for info on NYC Ground Zero 9\/11 toxins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albany should join the ongoing search for elusive documents about the toxins that swirled above Ground Zero<\/a> after 9\/11, said Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who has asked Gov. Hochul and the leaders of both houses to \u201cdirect an investigation into what the State of New York knew about the dangers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a letter acquired by the Daily News, Hoylman-Sigal, who was a state senator before becoming Manhattan\u2019s borough president, asks Hochul, state Sen. Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie to probe for whatever documents they have on the toxins kicked up during the collapse of the twin towers nearly 25 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cResponders at Ground Zero, along with residents, commuters, and students who entered the disaster zone deserve to know what their government knew, and when it knew it, even as the government was claiming that all was well,\u201d Hoylman-Sigal says in his letter dated Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city was not alone in responding to 9\/11,\u201d he added. \u201cWhat did the Pataki administration know? Surely state agencies had a role and salient information during the crisis in the days, weeks and months after the attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Gov.<\/p>\n

Getty; Shawn Inglima \/ New York Daily News<\/p>\n

Gov. Kathy Hochul and Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal. (Getty; Shawn Inglima \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Reached Saturday, Hoylman-Sigal said he hopes the state will do an agencywide search for documents much like what the city\u2019s Department of Investigation has undertaken \u2014 a search that helped uncover 68 boxes of documents within just a few weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the elected representative for 1.6 million Manhattanites, it\u2019s incumbent on me to echo (DOI\u2019s) demands at the state level and learn what, if anything, New York State has in its repository of files on what is considered the most cataclysmic event in Manhattan\u2019s history,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe there is no desire on the part of Albany officials to hide or cover up any documentation that may shed light on that fateful day, but I think its important that we remind them that they may have documents that could help survivors, family members of the deceased and the public understand the full impact of the terror attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokeswoman for Hochul\u2019s office said they were reviewing Hoylman-Sigal\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

City administrations dating back to Mayor Rudolph Giuliani have refused to provide attorneys and local elected officials documentation on what city officials knew about the potential dangers of World Trade Center toxins.<\/p>\n

The stonewalling continued until last year when City Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan)\u00a0pushed through legislation<\/a> ordering the DOI to launch a probe over what the city knew when about the toxins.<\/p>\n

A Daily News story published last year as the city marked the 24th anniversary of the terror attacks disclosed that only eight weeks into the DOI review,\u00a0the response was so overwhelming\u00a0<\/a>the agency was looking at the possibility of getting outside help\u00a0to parse through all the data.<\/p>\n

\"Workers<\/p>\n

Todd Maisel \/ New York Daily News<\/p>\n

Workers and first responders continue recovery operations at the World Trade Center site on September 14, 2001. (Todd Maisel \/ New York Daily News)<\/p>\n

Attorneys for 9\/11 survivors and the families of those who died of 9\/11 illness had been trying to get these documents through Freedom of Information Law requests but have been denied at every turn, with the city claiming they can find no documents to share.<\/p>\n

When attorneys sued for the documents, the city Department of Environmental Protection late last year suddenly produced 68 boxes of materials for attorneys to sort through.<\/p>\n

Advocates for 9\/11 survivors hailed Hoylman-Sigal\u2019s request.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor should go through the state\u2019s records and find out what they knew,\u201d Benjamin Chevat, the executive director of 9\/11 Health Watch, told The News. \u201cThe state of New York had to be involved when Mayor Giuliani decided to put a limit on the city\u2019s liability instead of mitigating the harm the toxins caused.\u201d<\/p>\n

More than 140,000 first responders and survivors are now enrolled in the U.S. Center for Disease Control\u2019s\u00a0WTC Health Program,\u00a0<\/a>which provides 9\/11-related health care benefits. Out of that number, about 81,000 have a certified condition linked to the toxins that hung above Ground Zero.<\/p>\n

On the day of the terror attacks, 343 FDNY members died in the collapse of the twin towers. Since then, an additional 400 members have died of 9\/11-related illnesses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Albany should join the ongoing search for elusive documents about the toxins that swirled above Ground Zero after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[85,267,75,84,83,9,24,264,10,692,12,63,87],"class_list":{"0":"post-186537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-manhattan","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-local-news","10":"tag-manhattan","11":"tag-manhattan-headlines","12":"tag-manhattan-news","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-new-york-county","16":"tag-new-york-news","17":"tag-new-york-politics","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-nyc","20":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}