NYC releases long-sought 9/11 air quality records after settlement with advocates
NEW YORK — New York City’s administration has begun releasing a broad collection of records about air quality in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the latest step in a long-running public records fight that ended in a court settlement.
The Mamdani administration announced that about 170,000 pages of documents, test results, internal communications and other materials are now accessible through a new September 11th Public Records Portal. The website, sept11documents.cityofnewyork.us, went live Sept. 8, and city officials said additional records will be posted in the coming months. Some of the documents date back a quarter century, to a period when recovery efforts at Ground Zero were still underway.
The release stems from an Article 78 lawsuit filed in 2024 by 911 Health Watch and its executive director, Ben Chevat. The advocacy organization had pushed for years to force the city to disclose records it said would show what government leaders knew about the dangers of breathing toxic dust from the World Trade Center collapse.
“For 25 years, four different Mayoral administrations kept from the public, the U.S. Congress, and the City Council documents showing what the city actually knew about the danger of the toxic chemicals in Lower Manhattan and Western Brooklyn after the World Trade Center collapse,” Chevat said in a statement, “even as city officials continued messaging to the public that the air was ‘safe and acceptable.’”
Chevat thanked Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who was 9 years old at the time of the attacks, for releasing documents that “finally begin to answer the question, ‘What did the City know about the dangers from the toxic cloud at Ground Zero and when did it know it?’”
Mamdani appeared at a Sept. 8 news conference alongside Chevat, comedian and 9/11 activist Jon Stewart, elected officials and families of first responders who died from 9/11-related illnesses. He noted that the new database can be searched by key terms, including “asbestos” and “cancer.”
“People got sick because the leaders they trusted lied and said they were safe,” Mamdani said.
The disclosure comes amid a still-growing health crisis. Data from the World Trade Center Health Program show that roughly three times as many people have died with 9/11-related health conditions as were killed on the day of the attacks in Lower Manhattan. The average age of a 9/11 responder is now 63, and responders and survivors with cancer, respiratory illness and other conditions continue to sicken and die.
Last week, former New York Gov. George Pataki disclosed that he was diagnosed in the last five years with a 9/11-related restrictive airway disease.
The court settlement that unlocked the records was formally entered into state Supreme Court records Sept. 8, the same day as a funeral in Suffern, New York, for FDNY Lt. Gerard M. Reilly. The moment underscored the human stakes behind the legal fight over documents from the attacks’ aftermath.
The settlement specifically includes release of the so-called “Harding Memo,” an internal city document written in October 2001 by a member of then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s staff. It warned city officials about massive legal liability from 9/11 toxic exposures even as leaders publicly assured the public that the air was safe.
The stipulation filed in Manhattan also says New York City will use “diligent and good faith efforts” to identify any documents shared with its lobbyists or liaisons to Congress and the executive branch in September, October and November 2001 for the purpose of seeking immunity or liability caps in federal legislation related to 9/11 claims.
Corporation Counsel Steven Banks said in a statement that the Mamdani administration had made a “significant investment” to give the public access to records that were never previously released.
“For too long, information about the aftermath of September 11th has not been provided to the public. For years, families, city workers, and survivors have been crying out for more transparency from their government,” Banks said.
Under the terms of the agreement, the legal proceedings are expected to be voluntarily dismissed with prejudice one year after the launch of the public records portal. New York Supreme Court Justice James G. Clynes presided over the case.