Posted on 05/12/2007 6:22:52 AM PDT by Wuli
Larry Silverstein began spending every morning at the World Trade Center shortly after he inked a 99-year deal to operate the complex in July 2001. The New York developer would have breakfast at Windows on the World, the restaurant on the 107th floor of the North tower, and then meet for several hours with tenants. But on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, he was at home, dressing for a doctor's appointment his wife had made for him, instead of at his usual table at Windows. "I had said to my wife, sweetheart, cancel my doctor's appointment. I have so much to do at the Trade Center," he recalls. "She got very upset and told me I had to go. As it turns out, that saved my life."
While he was still getting ready for his doctor's appointment, Mr. Silverstein learned that the first plane hijacked by terrorists had struck the North tower. He turned on his television just in time to see the second plane fly into the South tower. No one at Windows on the World survived.
A few weeks ago, as Mr. Silverstein and I met at his headquarters on the 38th floor of 7 World Trade Center, the 52-story skyscraper that he quickly rebuilt just north of where the twin towers once stood, we could watch the reconstruction of the rest of the Trade Center site proceed. He pointed out to me the footprints of the three other office towers he is developing there and predicted with some confidence that the site, which will include a fourth skyscraper, the so-called Freedom Tower, as well as a new transportation terminal, will be completed within five years. "I just want to..........
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
republicans like bloomberg and pataki don’t deserve the moniker ‘rino’.
they need to be called ‘marxists’.
Has anybody written a book about this yet?
Apparently the mayor and other government officials feel it is their job to criticize, pressure, and excoriate a private citizen according to how he manages his own property. Where did they get that idea?
But since then Mr. Silverstein has managed to lease 1.1 million square feet of 7 World Trade to blue-chip tenants like Moody's, at rents that are 50% higher than what officials were urging him to accept. "I simply did not listen to all the naysayers because I was spending my money, not theirs, and fortunately I had no government involvement in 7 World Trade, which gave me the opportunity to do what I do best," he says.
That is exactly as things should be. The developer should be spending his own money, not the government's (read taxpayers'), and he should be making the decisions. We would all be better off if the government did not meddle in such matters.
“Has anybody written a book about this yet?”
Why? You want to collaborate on one, or don’t you figure that some writer with an established rep is already on the idea - as we speak? We could call Mr. Silverstein and ask for an exclusive?
No, I would like to read one. Don’t have time to write it - but it would be interesting to follow the history of the WTC, and learn how the PA came to own it, how that changed the world, etc.
“republicans like bloomberg and pataki dont deserve the moniker rino......they need to be called marxists.”
Exactly. While touting the “Charter School” movement in New York State - private not-for-profit organizations given a ‘Charter’ to run a separate public (comes out of the same government budget as a regular public school), they have allowed that movement to be used by every Marxist political group to set up their own “public” school.
In one case, the Beacon School, a Middle School teacher has been - illegally - running “field trips” to Cuba for his class, with the knowledge and consent of his superiors - and not a single word from Bloomberg himself on the issue (why would there be, after he tried to help the NYC Marxists turn the WTC memorial into a hate-America “Freedom Museum”).
Now, NYC is getting a “Muslim” public school, in Brooklyn, with Arabic and Muslim “culture” standard aspects of the “curriculum”. One does not even have to guess how much Saudi-Wahabi and Muslim Brotherhood influence will be brought into that “curriculum”.
And, we, the taxpayers, are just supposed to say: “Why thank you Mr. Bloomberg, and of course we cannot think of a better person for President.” /sarc
Yes. Search under “world trade center” at amazon.
It takes an extraordinary person to accomplish free enterprise in New York, especially in something this high profile.
“but it would be interesting to follow the history of the WTC, and learn how the PA came to own it, how that changed the world, etc.”
It “belonged” to the PA from the beginning. It was a public construction project, run by the PA, for the PA and it was 100% a PA run building until just a few months before 9/11, when they finally sold a 99-year lease on the building - just the building, not the land. The land was taken by eminent domain by a city-state “development” agency and is considered “city” land.
It was a “white elephant” building for most of its existence (part of the reason the PA did not - could not - sell a lease on it), requiring city, state and federal agencies to be cajoled into taking leases there so that it’s occupancy rate would not be a drag on the finances of the PA.
Using 100% public funds and public borrowing, NY city and state used the PA as the builder, developer, managing agent for the project.
When it was completed and ready for leasing its office space (taking much longer and costing much more than budgeted), the bottom dropped out of NYC commercial office high-rise construction market (with the millions of square feet of public financed available office space hitting the market at once).
In fact the city’s largest builder of commercial office space at the time (Carl A. Morse, Inc. - they built the Sears Tower in Chicago), left the commercial high-rise construction market in NYC shortly after the opening of the publicly financed WTC.
Had the WTC never been built, dozens of smaller builders - commercially viable buildings - would have been built with private capital and private builders all around the Wall Street area. With the publicly financed WTC bringing so much office space into the Wall Street market, the project chased a lot of the private capital away, for many years.
In fact, it was only just a few years before the PA finally leased the WTC to Silverstein - indicating, the occupancy rate could finally survive without political cajoling of politically sensitive offices - that commercial high-rise construction in lower Manhattan was having a rebound.
In addition to all of that, the construction innovations incorporated into the WTC are probably what led to its collapse and most likely would have been too expensive for a private developer to risk. But, when you are using public funds - debt of the PA - go ahead, risk it.
In my opinoin, what led to its collapse, were the two airplanes that crashed into it on a clear blue September morning.
In my opinoin, what led to its collapse were the two airplanes that crashed into it on a clear blue September morning.
“In my opinoin, what led to its collapse were the two airplanes that crashed into it on a clear blue September morning.”
Yes, I know you are right, in the sense of what “caused” the WTC collapse. But, had it been built in the conventional manner that almost all high-rise steel-and-concrete buildings are constructed (which it wasn’t), I doubt that it would have collapsed from the terrorist attack on it - greatly damaged, yes, but not collapsed.
The WTC was a Rockefeller brain child. Nelson and David were the point men, but a couple of the other brothers were also involved.
Nelson was in love with international style high rises and large public projects. He overbuilt most of the state university campuses during his long reign, and you can still see the results of his destructive urban planning mentality in Albany. People used to say that he had an “edifice complex.”
Old man Rockefeller made the family fortune, but the Rockefeller brothers were trained up as socialists. The old robber baron helped build the country but his do-good heirs have done much to undermine it since. Among other things, they pretty much singlehandedly kicked off the international population control movement, doing good by killing people.
One contributing cause of the collapse was that they stopped using asbestos insulation part way up the buildings because of the anti-asbestos craze.
Let's keep our eyes on the real culprit.
The towers went down because of the planes and the jet fuel.
To suggest they would not have fallen because of this or that is uesless speculation.
As for me, I really don't it to ever happen again to prove who is right and who is wrong in this Saturday morning argument.
I think we basically agree. The reason why it’s important to look for contributing causes is that it may help avoid errors in future building construction.
There are two basic reasons to do engineering post mortems of disasters: to find or confirm the cause (Muslim terrorists flying airplanes) and to discover correctible design or engineering flaws to improve future buildings.
I just didn't want the abestos (or lack of it) to become more important than the planes.
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The Man Who Predicted 9/11 =
9/11 Lifesaver RICK RESCORLA, ..R.I.P.
http://www.RickRescorla.com
(The Website)
http://www.RickRescorla.com/The%20Statue.htm
(The Pictures)
http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
(The Rest of the Story)
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