The rebuilt Seven World Trade Center opened for business on Tuesday. City Journal's Nicole Gelinas celebrates:
Seven World Trade Center officially opens its doors May 23 after an efficient two years of design and construction. Seven is a stunning piece of work. Just as important, it’s the first tangible evidence that lower Manhattan will triumph over 9/11, both architecturally and economically. Who built Seven? Not Governor Pataki or Mayor Bloomberg, but private-sector developer Larry Silverstein, who completed the 52-story tower while the pols dithered over 16 still-scarred acres across the street.Silverstein could build Seven so quickly—replacing the office building of the same name he owned before 9/11—because it’s adjacent to the World Trade Center site, not part of it. Thus, Silverstein’s lease with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the bistate entity that owns Ground Zero, doesn’t govern the site. Free from the government “direction” that has overseen Ground Zero redevelopment, Silverstein did what he does best: he built.
The city hasn't even started on the WTC replacement, and several ofther nearby buildings that it's responsible for continue to literally sit and mold.
Naturally, the politicians, bureaucrats, and self-styled guardians of the "public interest" don't like being made to look like the petty, squabbling, egotistical busybodies that they are:
By finishing Seven, Silverstein has replaced with hope the dread that infused lower Manhattan after 9/11. Yet pols and the press condemn him—because he’s in the private, not the public, sector.When negotiations over a revised lease at Ground Zero broke down temporarily in March, Port Authority chief Charles Gargano called Silverstein “greedy.” Pataki said Silverstein had “betrayed the public trust.” The New York Times published an editorial called “Greed vs. Good at Ground Zero,” castigating Silverstein for failing to “think beyond the . . . bottom line here.”
Silverstein quickly built Seven World Trade Center on private land even as politicians argued for years over what to build at the adjacent World Trade Center Site, which is owned by the Port Authority.
Gargano and Pataki should be ashamed of their slander of Silverstein, who has been nothing but patient as they and Mayor Bloomberg have turned Ground Zero into a political swamp. As for the Times: of course Silverstein must think of the bottom line. If he doesn’t earn money, he can’t build more buildings like Seven. That’s how the private sector works. The Times fails to explain why it is bad for New York that Silverstein actually wants what goes up at Ground Zero to succeed.
Seems to me that the Times wasn't beyond a little real estate greed of its own when it wanted a new headquarters at Times Square a few years ago. Then again, the way their income statement looks, maybe they really don't understand the profit motive.
