PORT ST. LUCIE — When John “Jack” Gray tells people what he is doing — helping build the transportation hub facility for the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey under the new World Trade Center, he gets their attention.

Technically, the 71-year-old construction industry retiree, is providing his expertise in estimating the need for reinforcing steel bars to strengthen poured concrete for the $3.2 billion underground Transportation Hub and PATH Station. PATH is the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey’s heavy rail system that carries more than 250,000 people a day between New York and New Jersey.

Gray, who has been in construction in New York City for more than half a century, said the project is interesting because the hub will be built from the top down, underground, while the subways and trains keep running, and construction on the 9/11 Memorial and the other buildings goes on above ground.

“The first thing that will be built is the roof of the hub, which will form the plaza for the memorial and entrance to the transit hall,” said Gray. “After that they will dig down around the subway, putting in supports and more floors for at least four stories underground.”

Gray has decided how many pieces of rebar, as the reinforcing steel rods are called, to strengthen the concrete floors, walls and columns in the hub.

He said he thinks it will take more than 12 million pounds of the rods, which will include stainless steel bars that sell for $4,000 a ton. The Port Authority already has awarded a contract for 22,000 tons of structural steel for the entire project. Structural steel will form the frame of buildings, which will also be poured concrete, Gray said.

“Everyone is using poured concrete for New York buildings because they want them to be stronger and more fire resistant than the Twin Towers were,” said Gray. “When the jet fuel exploded in that building, it melted the structural steel members which held up the floors that were poured concrete and they just collapsed upon one another. Poured concrete walls will hold up better.”

Gray said he thinks it is interesting scrap steel from the Twin Towers has gone into the manufacture of rebar for the new transit hub.

Building a project from the top down has not often been done. It was used in Boston’s “Big Dig,” when the Boston Transit Authority replaced a damaged tunnel in a functioning highway system, and for a structure in Dubai.

Gray said the economic conditions affected his IRA and variable annuities, and that gave him the incentive to keep working at least part time. Now he is involved in one of the largest construction projects in New York City history.

More than 50 years ago, Gray studied engineering at Rider College, then a job as a draftsman for a company building a new short takeoff-and-landing plane for the Navy. When the contract was canceled, he said he took his unemployment pay and spent the summer on the Jersey Shore. Then he took a job, he thought would be temporary, as a rebar detailer for U.S. Steel Products.

A rebar detailer uses information supplied by an engineer to determine how much reinforcement will be needed and how it should be shaped and placed to strengthen the concrete.

Rebar is more than a lot of steel rods, Gray learned. He found the business interesting and challenging. His bosses liked his work and eventually in 1982, he found himself serving as chief executive officer of the firm.

In 1992, another company, A.J. Ross Logistics, asked him to be their CEO and get them out of financial trouble.

“They waited too long. I ended up selling off parts of the company and shut it down in 1994,” he said.

The winter of 1993 and 1994 had been particularly ferocious, Gray said, and he told his wife, Barbara, a professional singer and pianist: “We are moving to Florida.” Barbara didn’t object and he landed in Port St. Lucie.

“After I closed down the company, I became an independent consultant and rebar estimator,” Gray said.

He has several clients who send him contract information and ask for his advice on how much rebar to use and for cost estimates, plus other technical information. The majority of his new work has been new high-rises. “I am busier then I imagined,” said Gray, who keeps his mornings open for work.

After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, plans were made to rebuild at the site of the Twin Towers and to erect a memorial. Gray’s clients got into the bidding, and he found himself deep in the planning of the transit hub.

He also did the estimates for the World Trade Center, the memorial and the museum before starting on the hub. The work has security rules attached to it, and before he did this interview, he had to assure his clients and the Port Authority, that he wasn’t showing anyone the plans and specifications he was using.

Gray says he is proud to be involved in this project.

“How many people can say they had a part in the construction of the new World Trade Center?”

He also takes pride in another major project with which he was involved: The new Yankee Stadium.

WTC transportation hub facts

800,000 square feet — Third largest transportation hub in New York City

500,000 square feet of retail space

Will serve 250,000 patrons a day

Advanced signal system, state-of-the-art fare collection system

Climate controlled passenger platforms

Indoor pedestrian access to the World Financial Center, PATH and the NYC subway system

The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey

By Joe Crankshaw, TCPalm.com

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