WTC

 Developer Reaches Deal to Finish 80-Story Tower (NYT)Larry A. Silverstein agreed to finance the rest of his stalled building privately, after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey provided $159 million in insurance funds

* Visitors to the memorial at Ground Zero have been scratching messages into the bronze panels for loved ones, and while it is illegal the Power Authority police is saying pursuing the misdemeanors is not a high priority, the New York Post writes: http://goo.gl/VXmCyY
* De Blasio has not moved on a plan that would allow billionaire Warren Buffet to take over a $300 million taxpayer fund expected to pay future claims by Ground Zero workers who develop cancer, the Post writes: http://goo.gl/kuqaW

 

* The Daily News calls on the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to regain some credibility by voting down a real estate deal for the rebuilding of 3 World Trade Center: http://goo.gl/HlrcER   

The owners of the tallest tower at the World Trade Center are cutting office rents just months before it opens because of slow leasing activity.

BACKSTORY -- “Michael Bloomberg and the path to 9/11 museum,” by Politico’s Maggie Haberman: “Michael Bloomberg was an unlikely savior of the museum that honors the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — a project stalled for years in a morass of debate among family members, urban planners and politicians. … Yet today, as the city prepares for the museum to open to the general public on May 21, many credit the billionaire former mayor for bringing the project under control and pushing it across the finish line. Even some of his sharpest critics have softened their tone toward Bloomberg, who left office last year after three terms.
“‘There’s 3,000 families and there’s one or two that still aren’t happy,’ Bloomberg said in a recent interview … ‘But generally speaking, I think it’s fair to say everybody now says it’s the right thing. And nobody remembers how long it took, incidentally.’ … [H]e convinced people ranging from conservative businessman David Koch to comedian Jon Stewart, a darling of liberals, to join the board. He also got American Express to deliver on a $10 million pledge. ‘For 3,000 families, it is a place to grieve … But for the rest of the city, state, country and the world … this is the ways to educate the next generation that freedom isn’t free.’” http://goo.gl/xLRb7w

City Debates What To Do With Sculpture That Survived 9/11(Huff Post)

Future unclear for WTC 9/11 sphere(Fox 5) * Calls to save a sculpture that survived 9/11(WABC) * "The Sphere" Statue, A Remnant Of 9/11, To Be Moved From Battery Park(NY1)

 

 

* Two years after the launch of The Victim Compensation Fund, a $2.8 billion program to pay sick Ground Zero workers, the fund has made only 112 payment decisions on the nearly 55,000 applications filed, The Wall Street Journal writes: http://on.wsj.com/1aVcdHZ



A Billion Dollar Tunnel

Monumental waste (NYDN Ed)

A lavish PATH passageway is a symbol of excess. Come with us to a world of wonder. Come deep underground into a vast space, a gleaming white Italian marble temple, 600 feet long and 40 feet wide with a soaring, vaulted ceiling ringed by 54 arches.In other words, it’s just a pedestrian tunnel that enables a fraction of the station’s 45,000 daily riders to cross under West St. without going outside — at a cost of a quarter billion dollars.

 

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A Tail of Two Tall Buildings 

A tall tale (NYDN Ed)

Tall is tall, the new WTC gets the prize. A committee of architects in Chicago is deciding whether or not 1 World Trade Center, built to stand 1,776 feet tall, will, with its 408-foot beacon and spire, be officially deemed the tallest building in the country. Oh, perfect: The Second City is passing judgment on the first.