To some, the prospect of adding new subway elevators not far from the World Trade Center is a godsend, a desperately needed portal for the disabled to a subway system that is among the least accessible in the nation.

To a group of neighbors who live beside the proposed site, the elevators seem like something else entirely: a hazard a terrorist could turn into shrapnel.

On one side of a growing skirmish on Broad Street in Lower Manhattan are disabled riders, advocates and a real estate developer building the elevators in exchange for being granted permission by the city to add more square footage to the mixed-use building the developer is erecting at 45 Broad Street.

On the other are tenants of nearby buildings like 15 Broad Street, a high-rise designed by the architect Philippe Starck. It is a pocket of the city that has long been under intense security because of its proximity to prime potential targets like the New York Stock Exchange, and critics say the elevators could pose a threat in an area where police and bomb-sniffing dogs routinely check vehicles driving through.