The building, built during the American colonial period was one of the last remaining art-deco style buildings that survived World War II. The mayor battled the country's three major oil companies, the partly state-owned and Saudi Aramco managed Petron, Dutch-owned Pilipinas Shell and Caltex-Chevron. Atienza and the city council decreed that the presence of oil distribution depots in the heavily populated district of Pandacan poised as a security and safety danger and issued an eviction notice to the oil companies. The concern was raised after the terror attacks that started on September 11, 2001 that destroyed the World Trade Center in New York. Atienza and the council decreed that the Pandacan district was to be converted from an industrial zone to a residential-commercial zone. A moratorium was set and the oil companies have agreed to gradually scale down their operations. Since the early-1960s, Atienza aligned himself with the Liberal Party and up to the present, he has been a staunch party supporter. During the political upheavals calling for the resignation of President Gloria Arroyo in 2005, Atienza established himself and those who supported Arroyo as the “true” Liberal Party and expelled party members who are opposed to Arroyo. After the review made by the Supreme Court of the Philippines, the faction of Senator Franklin Drilon was considered the legitimate Liberal Party. Recently, the Drilon faction expelled all Atienza faction Liberal Party members from the party. During the second week of December 2006, Atienza, in his show of commitment to "Pro-Life," terminated the Commander of the Manila Police District (MPD) detachment in Quiapo district for failing to rid the area of herbalists who are supposedly selling concoctions that induce abortion. On February 2007, Atienza formally and officially announced that his second son, the Presidential Adviser on Youth Affairs and Manila's Chair of the Inner-City Development Committee, Arnold Atienza or more popularly called Ali would run for Mayor of the city on May 14, 2007. Ali lost the mayoralty race to Sen. Alfredo Lim.  Lito Atienza had been severely criticized by cultural activists for his heavy-handed decision to demolish the famed Jai-Alai Building along Taft Avenue, which was designed by the Hollywood architect, Welton Beckett. One of the finest edifices of art deco "streamline-moderne" in the world was destroyed unheeded by the mayor.