60 Minutes 60 Minutes
Silverstein, the CEO of Silverstein Properties Inc., expressed concern and frustration that the entire project might not be finished until 2037, the date projected in a 2009 study conducted for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. "I'm 78," he told 60 Minutes. "I'd like to see this completed within my lifetime."
The segment noted that an arbitration panel recently ordered SPI and the Port Authority to come up with a new timetable for the mega-project. Silverstein acknowledged that his company and the Port, ostensibly partners on the project, lately talk to one another mostly through their attorneys.
The program also gave camera time to Chris Ward, executive director of the Port Authority, who asserted that the 9/11 memorial would be open on Sept. 11, 2011, although it would not be finished by that date. He gave completion dates of 2013 and 2014 for WTC Towers 1 and 4, respectively; the timetable for the rest, he said, was "uncertain."
Ward pointed out the project's complexity and the interdependence of all of its components. "It's like a game of pick-up sticks down here," he said, adding that if one aspect of the project is thrown off, it delays all of the others.
Such delays have been going on for years, the 60 Minutes segment reported. It blamed them on a mixture of political infighting, incompetence, egos and the lack of a strong leader along the lines of New York Gov. Al Smith, who oversaw the construction of the Empire State Building in about a year's time at the height of the Great Depression.
Also interviewed was Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for the New Yorker and author of the 2005 book Up from Zero: Politics, Architecture and the Rebuilding of New York. Commenting on the gap between what was originally planned for Ground Zero and what has actually been accomplished to date, Goldberger said, "The dream was nibbled away gradually."
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Paul Bubny
Paul Bubny is managing editor of Real Estate Forum and GlobeSt.com. He has been reporting on business since 1988 and on commercial real estate since 2007. He is based at ALM Real Estate Media Group's offices in New York City.
