Newly unearthed records suggest that New Yorkers were urged back into Lower Manhattan after 9/11 even as internal tests showed persistent contamination, including asbestos, in the air and dust blocks from Ground Zero. The New York Times reports that more than 170,000 pages of documents—long stored in nearly 70 boxes and found only last year—are set to be released through a public portal ordered by Mayor Zohran Mamdani in time for the 25th anniversary of the attacks. The sample set includes testing that still found asbestos 10 months after the attacks and internal memos discussing the city's potential liability over air quality assurances.
The release, which follows litigation by advocacy group 9/11 Health Watch, could fuel new legal claims and help sickened residents and responders seeking federal compensation. The documents also appear to undercut repeated public statements by city and federal officials at the time that the air was safe, even as benzene and asbestos levels spiked in some locations. NBC New York notes that one memo out of the Michael Bloomberg administration from about five months after the attacks said the city was "leaving itself open to a barrage of lawsuits. At the least, we should discontinue telling people to clean their apartments with wet mops and rags." Mamdani's team says it will be releasing more documents on 9/11-tied environmental contamination in the coming months, reports WABC.
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