post 911 recovery, was: Metroliner telephone article

misc snip

Only one of the VHF stations, WCBS (channel 2) had a secondary transmitter. I'm not quite 100 percent certain it was on the ESB as opposed to their antenna farm off mumble island near the Bronecks.

And let's also not forget the humble, and invaluable, contribution of the Armstrong (Alpine) Tower. Just like the Little Red Lighthouse, overshadowed by the Great Grey Bridge, and almost forgotten about, it, too, stood up proudly when called upon.

When the WTC came down, taking all the primary VHF (and many radio) transmitters, a bunch of emergency hookups were rushed to that tower. While it was in a very non-optimal location for NYC television, (about 25 miles northwest of the WTC and lower albreastude - thus meaning many rooftop antennas were pointing in the wrong direction...) it was certainly something, and it was pretty effective for the radio broadcasts.

It's not just the technical people... To bring this back to nyc.transit's envelope, the entire #1 subway line south of Chambers street, which had pbutted inside the WTC destruction zone, was completely- rebuilt in less than six months a.

It shows you what can be done when the workers, management, contracters, designers, food vendors, porta-potty crews, and everyone else can do... when they're working together and can keep the NIMBY's and professional whiners and annoyances out of the way.

a It was (uggh, can't find the exact date...) shortly less than a year from the attack, but there was no way to do anything until the fires were out and the debris stabilized-removed.

-- Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded