By Suzanne Ma
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
CHINATOWN — A New York State Supreme Court judge has ordered the city to consider releasing documents related to a new NYPD high tech command center planned for Lower Manhattan.
The December decision is a small but significant victory for a group of Chinatown residents who are demanding more transparency from the police department and the city.
The command center is reportedly 22,000-square-feet and will help the NYPD coordinate the city's response to terrorist attacks and natural disasters. It is expected to be completed in 2011.
But residents argue it's location, at 109 Park Row near police headquarters, will make Lower Manhattan a terrorist target, endangering their neighborhood.
"I don't want people in Lower Manhattan to wake up and one day find that they have a high-tech military complex in their midst," said Chinatown resident Jeanie Chin.
Chinatown residents say they have put up with streets closures, security checks and increased surveillance by police ever since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
They have continued to protest the closure of Park Row, a major artery connecting the Brooklyn Bridge to Chinatown that's been blocked off to traffic since 9/11 to protect nearby Police Plaza.
And most recently, they have expressed concern over the increased security measures that will blanket their neighborhood when the self-confessed 9/11 terrorists are brought to trail in a nearby court house.
It's the second time the residents, who live in Chatham Towers, Chatham Green and Southbridge Towers, have asked the city to release the documents.
In 2008, they filed a Freedom of Information Act, but the city denied their request, saying the release of such documents would reveal sensitive information about police activity in the area.
This time around, they had a pro bono lawyer file a petition with the State Supreme Court, where Judge Michael Stallman ruled that the city "failed to articulate specific and particularized reasons for withholding the requested documents."
He urged the Office of Management and Budget to reconsider the residents' request.
