For some of the reaction to the NY Times I read over at the New York 
Archaeological Council's listing for PANYC the letter by Joan H. Geismar, Ph.D. 
President, Professional Archaeologist of New York City (PANYC). I would like to 
offer a few experiences.

On one site, which recently was sold as the most expensive real estate in 
Manhattan, the former federal US "Assay Site" we had an electronic transit 
or "total station" stolen while guards were on duty, both apparently submitted 
and passed lie detector tests. On the outside of those cases is the warning 
that all "Laser thefts are investigated by the FBI" and I must say using it and 
its replacement I was never questioned by them, nor anyone else.

On another site I recall a taunting picture with the heads cut out of the 
Polaroid, sent reportedly to the NYC Landmarks Commission by a group 
of "bottle hunters". It prompted the further excavation there on site one early 
winter in Brooklyn near Fort Greene where the "Prison Ship Martyrs Monument" 
is with some of the remains of the over 14,000 who reportedly perished during 
the American Revolution under what I theorize, due to recent formal British 
forensic evidence, may have been a plot to poison the king by Admiral 
Cornwallis, based on the amount of arsenic in his wig and proximal location. He 
who also ran the occupation of New York city and his brother General 
Cornwallis were defeated after the long march by combined French troops 
marching from Rhode Island and meeting up with Washington's troops on the 
Hudson River, where the "divide and conquer" was to take place, separating 
the northern and southern colonies by the river and the chain of forts into 
Canada. Convinced by the facts of French naval support to have success 
there instead of New York city, indeed the world was turned upside down.

But I digress. On this site was also a sort of "squatters house" and also it was 
reported a young minority individual was arrested and taken into custody for 
being nosy about the site, surrounded as they are in NYC by thousands of 
people, some not too happy on the deals perhaps made with the Planning 
Commission or the various "uncollected" agencies, i.e., no one "Building 
Department" that have various roles to play in development sometimes out-of-
sync with each other and perhaps argue with the community, which of course 
is no reason to gut features in a site. However, I also wonder if vigilante 
protection might also get out of hand and not particularly happy to have 
armed guards over it or reports of the curious incarcerated over it.

Machinery is often available, also sometimes vandalized, but however, perhaps 
large steel plates over a feature or two would discourage looting and provide a 
safety factor for the public. But as we know these jobs often have gone to 
the "lowest bidder" either by fact or design.