Lynne Sagalyn begins her story of the battle over the World
Trade Center site with the battle of Mayor Guiliani versus American Express.
The nation’s most respected credit card, also a mainstay of downtown Manhattan,
was asking for a little too much; a huge NYPD security detail in exchange for
staying. Rudy, in typical Rudy style, said no, and said it loudly. He wouldn’t
give what he called “private contracts” that would tie the hands of the NYPD.
Say what you like about him as the meanest mayor, but he was no bagman for the
1%. The problem was that even without the WTC tragedy, downtown Manhattan was
already losing business.
In the 1960’s, when
the Chase Manhattan Plaza was going up, firms were moving from the Wall Street
area to midtown. The Twin Towers would have more office space than the city
could possibly need, and in the decades afterward, half the complex was empty.
It was built on the site of Radio Row, where the electronics repair shops were
located, and few in the area were happy about losing their stores. Sagalyn’s
book portrays the World Trade Center as something built for show, rather than
for offices.
In most of the
book, the problem seems to be finance. Port Authority ended up with most of the
cost, but how could a tiny police agency be expected to handle a construction
project, let alone the management? There would be the cost of clearing the site,
the design, and the construction, which would take years and millions of
dollars. Then there were the politicians in Albany, most of whom didn’t trust
Larry Siverstein, and weren’t convinced that Port Authority could steward the
project.
With regard to
Mayor Rudy, he wasn’t in charge when the WTC went up. He didn’t have to deal
with the massive crisis that the city was going through, and his problem was
crime, not finance. In this book, the WTC is seen as a financial issue that
either a disaster that crippled the city or an experimental medicine to cure
the disease. Rudy, unlike earlier mayors, wasn’t swayed by huge business. He
wasn’t going to give Amex a free security detail, any more than he would build
the Yankees a new stadium. But his predecessors didn’t have a choice.
Sagalyn doesn’t
give a positive look on the World Trade Center. It was clearly a megaproject in
an era when the city was bankrupt, and it was not a time to be borrowing money.
Ironically, the architect who designed the place was the same guy that designed
Pruitt-Igoe, another megaproject that never paid off. Maybe that shows us
something about the effect of megaprojects on a city? You also have to wonder
if the city would’ve been better off without the WTC. There was already a
surplus of office space, so nobody needed those huge buildings. As for
“revitalization,” there were other areas, like the South Street Seaport, that
were ripe for improvement.
Looking back on
the WTC, I’m reminded of something Donald Trump wrote in The Art of the Deal. Back in the 1980’s, when he turned the
Commodore Hotel into the New York Hyatt, he had to go through acres of red tape
to get it started. The New York Central Railroad, which owned the hotel, owed
millions in taxes, and the city, famously bankrupt, needed the tax money. But
it wasn’t like Mayor Kotch jumped at the opportunity to pay off the debts and
revamp the area; on the contrary the Mayor waffled on it. The same thing
happened when he tried (and eventually begged) to fix the Wollman skating rink
in Central Park. It was probably easier to get the permits to build the World
Trade Center than it was to get a permit to fix that skating rink.
Sometimes I wonder
if it’s easier in this city to do a megaproject than it is to do a small one.
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