LOWER MANHATTAN — The green lake of Deutsche Bank is gone.
The Port Authority created the eye-catching 60-by-160-foot pool three months ago to tamp down the unstable ground beneath the former Deutsche Bank building at Ground Zero.
Since then, workers have built new foundation walls around the site, allowing them to drain most of the water, which took on its bright-green hue from natural lime in the ground.
"What once was a green pool [has now] been reduced," Quentin Brathwaite, director of World Trade Center construction for the Port, told Community Board 1 Monday night.
The remaining puddle, which appears white because it is not as deep, will be entirely drained soon, Brathwaite said.
When the pool first appeared this spring, it drew attention from neighbors who worried that it would spawn mosquitoes. In response to the concerns, the Port Authority laced the water with chemicals.
The lake was necessary because the former 41-story Deutsche Bank building rested on landfill, which in turn sat on a layer of groundwater that exerted an upward pressure, experts said.
Once the Deutsche Bank building was demolished, the land at 130 Liberty St. was in danger of buckling upward because it no longer had the weight of the building pressing down on it. The lake prevented that upsurge from happening.
Over the past three months, the Port Authority built thick concrete walls that will permanently keep the groundwater at bay, reducing the need for the lake. The new walls are the first step to building an underground Vehicle Security Center and parking garage where the Deutsche Bank building once stood.
Glenn Guzi, a program director at the Port Authority, said the disappearance of the green lake was just one of many pieces of the World Trade Center site that are finally coming together as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches.
"It's a good feeling," Guzi said.
