September 14, 2006--Mayor Nagin Was Right

Mayor Nagin of New Orleans was right about one thing—to point a critical finger at New York, the real estate capital of the world, tweaking us for still having a hole in the ground at Ground Zero.

To bad he whisked up here to apologize. He should have stood his ground when chastised for his Sixty Minutes comments; and said, “Get on the PATH train and take a look; five years after the fact, it’s still a hole in the ground.”

There is blame to share—the impossibility of coming up with an architectural plan when it has to be vetted by a large committee of aesthetically challenged fat cats and posers (to see what I mean check the latest tasteless designs for three more towers that were unveiled last week);

The battles among and about those cultural institutions vying with each other to be included in the rebuilding (the Drawing Center, for example, one contender, was told that there would have to be restrictions on what they would be allowed to display—God forbid anything too controversial—read political or sexual);

Then there have been struggles between politicians, civic leaders, and real estate moguls over who will be front and center when the news media show images of symbolic groundbreaking ceremonies and ribbon cuttings. See how presidential aspirants George Pataki and Rudy Giuliani push and shove each other, seeking face time when the cameras are rolling.

And of course, closer to the truth, how much will it cost; where will the money come from; and, now the real story, who will profit.

We do know the answer to this latter question—real estate developer Larry Silverstein who has the lease on the property and all the insurance money from the destruction of the Twin Towers.

A deal was struck recently to take control of the project away from him since it was suspected that all he cared about was how much he could make from this national tragedy. For example, to assure him that at least some space in the Freedom Tower would be rented, the owners of the land, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, agreed to lease 600,000 square feet.

We should thus be on our way, no? Guys in hard hats should be swarming all over the site, and we who live in lower Manhattan should be awakened each morning by the sound of rivet guns, right?

Wrong. According to a report in this morning’s NY Times (linked below), things are still stalled because Larry wants more rent than the Port Authority can pay--$78 rather than $68 a square foot. This extra $10, if you are wondering, over a ten year lease would net good old Larry an additional $240 million!

One might think that Larry, well into his seventies, with his fortune and toys assured (he has had a series of hundred million dollar yachts and lives lavishly on Park Avenue and elsewhere), with his children secured with trust funds and employment in his real estate empire, and as an avowedly observant Jew who believes in Tikkun, healing the world, one might think that he would see the fact that he signed a 99-year lease for the Twin Towers just a few months before 9/11, that he would see what happened there to be a calling to him from God (George Bush did!) and do the right, or Tikkun thing.

But, no, all he can see are the dollar signs dancing before his greedy eyes. Just think what kind of yacht he will be able to build for that extra $240 million.

I just hope he names it the Titanic.