Port Authority issues ‘stern threats’ against developer in ‘mob film’ World Trade fight: Book

In the spring of 2012, more than a decade after the 9/11 tragedy, developer and tenant Larry Silverstein was home to the completion of Four World Trade Center — after facing security criticism from the NYPD over its all-glass facade. and initial doubts from the Bloomberg administration about the possibility of filling the building with tenants. But he had another old, familiar one to contend with: the Port Authority, which had been a thorn in his side for much of the build. In an excerpt adapted from his new book, “The Rising: The Twenty-Year Battle to Rebuild the World Trade Center” (Penguin Random House), out now, Silverstein recounts how what seemed like a conciliatory phone call from PA turned into something. like “a scene in a mob movie.”

“How would you feel about a joint overthrow ceremony?” Pat Foye, the newly appointed chairman of the Port Authority, asked in a phone call one morning in April. “Would you like to talk about it?”

I was puzzled. It was obvious that my Tower Four was going to finish before Tower One, so at first I didn’t understand what he was suggesting.

“The thing is,” he continued sheepishly, “it would be embarrassing for the Port if your building went first.

I could see his point. We had started construction two years after the agency. We would now raise the final steel beam to the roof of Tower Four before the steel was placed on top of their tower. Plus, we had delivered our building on budget, $1.67 billion as promised. It was a seventy-two-story LEED-Gold rated environmentally sophisticated building designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Fumihiko Maki. A refined, meticulously detailed skyscraper that rose with a somber and dignified grace above the two dark pools of the 9/11 Memorial.

And now we would beat them in the headlines. It would be the first building to top the new World Trade Center. This would not help the agency’s already dubious reputation.

Part of me wanted to say, “Serves you right. After all the pain the Port has caused me, after all the millions I’ve had to spend on lawsuits just to get a fair shake from the agency, it would be nice to laugh for a long time.”

But … our future in this country was intertwined; any success they had would translate into good news for Silverstein Properties and our towers as well.

“My God,” I said to Foye, “if you want to do a joint filling, let’s do a joint.”

When I got off the phone, I texted my team overseeing construction in Tower Four. “We must delay lowering the final roof beam,” I ordered. “Everything else – full speed ahead.”

Two months later, Foye called again. “There has been a change of plans,” he began… “There will no longer be a joint filling. We will go first.”

I was blind and stunned. “Pat, we had a deal.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “But a new decision has been taken upstairs. From people with a higher salary than mine.”

He explained that the Port would be ready to complete Tower One in about two weeks. Once they had done that, I could then do my ceremony for the Fourth Tower a few weeks later.

“Pat,” I began evenly, determined not to lose my temper. “We won’t do that… As far as I’m concerned, you want to go together, we’ll go together. But if not, we won’t wait. We are ready to go. We can go tomorrow, or, at worst, two days from now. But if we’re not doing this together, there’s no need to wait weeks. We’ll be going soon.”

“You can’t.”

“What do you mean, I can’t?” So much for my decision to keep calm.

His answer was cryptic and ominous at the same time.

“There are people who don’t want you to go before us.”

By now I had heard enough. “Pat, that’s not going to happen,” I said with firm determination. “… We’re prepared to honor the agreement we’ve made with you. If you don’t want to go ahead with that agreement, then we’re going to go ahead ourselves. And you should know – we can have the fill-in tomorrow.”

“You can’t”, he repeated once more, and this time with more desperation. “The port will stop you. They’ll find a reason to stop you.”

I felt like I was in a scene in a movie with a crowd. I was being presented with an offer I couldn’t refuse. Would I find a severed horse’s head in my bed one morning?

“Larry,” he warned once more, “they will stop you. The port will find a reason to stop you.”

The port, he added, would look silly.

By this point, I had come to think the whole conversation was bullshit. I had had enough. “Do whatever you want, Pat,” I told him. “But you’re aware. We’ll soon be over the top.”

Our closing was set for June 25th and all the invitations had been sent out … just a few days before the ceremony, I got a call from Foye.

“Okay,” he began, “we won’t stand in your way.”

Stand in my way? I thought. What could they do? Send a bunch of thugs to block the entrance to my building?

However, I kept my secret thoughts to myself and tried to be compassionate instead. “Pat,” I said, “you and your colleagues are invited. In fact, we’d like you to speak. You’d be an honored guest. The Port is our partner.”

“Okay, we’ll come,” he finally said.

But he never did. Not even anyone from the Port.

However, the June 25, 2012 ceremony was a huge success.

However, even after the ceremony at Tower Four, I continued to be confused by what had happened to the Port. Who exactly wanted the joint filling? And on whose author-
Had that plan been scrapped, only to be replaced by a new decree insisting that their building had to go first, on its own? Even more mystifying, who had authorized the harsh threats, trying to tell me what I could or could not do in my building?

A few weeks after the ceremony I had the opportunity to speak with David Samson, who had been appointed chairman of the Port’s board by New Jersey Governor Christie.

“Listen,” I said, “can you tell me what that was about? My port and filling ceremony?”

It was clear that he had no idea, and so I went through everything. Broken deals. Strange threats. Refusal to come to the event.

“Larry,” he said, “I’ve never heard any of this before. I never had an idea. And I can tell you, it didn’t come from anybody in New Jersey. If it came from the governor or any of his appointees, I would have heard of it… you have no idea how weird things are at the Port… The level of dysfunction…”

As for who had issued the order that Tower One had to finish itself first, and who thought it would be a good idea to try to intimidate me, well, that still remains a mystery.

From RISE: The Twenty-Year Battle to Rebuild the World Trade Center by Larry Silverstein. Reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright © 2024 by Larry A. Silverstein.