New York City published roughly 170,000 pages of records this week documenting what officials knew about air quality around Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks. Among them is an internal document, long referenced but never public in full, in which the city's Law Department estimated about 35,000 potential plaintiffs from the attacks and projected that roughly 10,000 would file claims.
The release matters most to a specific group. Tens of thousands of responders, cleanup workers, office staff, students, and Lower Manhattan residents have spent 25 years trying to establish that they were where they say they were. Federal health and compensation programs require that proof, and the city's own records are often the only place it exists.
