We fear this is an access issue. During the course of Raab’s four stories, the Port, which has all the PR legerdemain of the big, dumb, bureaucratic and unaccountable government agency that it is, gave him only one official interview—noted at the end of his June 2007 piece, in which he includes one quote from the Port chairman. Compare this to quote after quote from Silverstein. This is not just a problem in Raab’s pieces. Throughout the press, the more Silverstein talks, the better his coverage seems to be. But just because Silverstein is talking doesn’t make what he says either new or true.

The extent of Raab’s and others’ financial analysis is to repeat endlessly the fact that Silverstein makes his lease payments. This is Silverstein’s line. But those payments are from insurance proceeds, a finite and already-too-small pool of money that dwindles with each hour the developer dithers.

The New York Observer writes that Silverstein got $4.55 billion in insurance proceeds. But he’s wasted way more than any additional sum he may have won in litigation.

We wish there were more emphasis on Silverstein’s lease, signed in July 2001, which has been kept in place as if it were holy writ despite the fact that it was written for buildings that no longer exist. It is the lease that drove Silverstein’s longstanding, now-abandoned “requirement” for ten million square feet of office space, and which physically distorted all planning on the site.

Deborah Sontag’s long recounting of progress—or lack of it—at ground zero, published in The New York Times on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, has some insightful comments on Silverstein’s claim to the site. Here is an example:

‘They could have gotten Larry out,’ [former director of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation Roland W.] Betts said. It would have meant writing a check, [co-chairman of Brookfield Properties Corp. John E.] Zuccotti said, but it could have been done. Robert D. Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association, said the mayor and the governor ‘could have gotten in a room with Larry Silverstein and said, “You’re out of here.”’

So why didn’t they? Sontag continues:

But Mr. Yaro said the Port Authority had multiple motivations for retaining the Silverstein lease. ‘They saw it as their key to hanging on to the site,’ he said. ‘They were afraid of losing control to the city or the state.’

Another important point from Sontag’s story:

Although the public would not realize it for some time, there was little room for any wholesale reimagining of the World Trade Center site once the Port Authority made the decision to respect Mr. Silverstein’s lease.

We pause for a moment to take note of the word “decision.” To continue:

‘You had this very quiet, very rapid elimination of the idea that it could be something other than 10 million square feet of office space plus a decorative necklace of ancillary institutions,’ said Michael Sorkin, director of the graduate urban design program at City College of New York.

And one more from Sontag:

[In early 2002], it came to light that the government was treating Mr. Silverstein’s lease as sacrosanct, that it wanted to replace the 10 million square feet of office space that was lost.

‘This was a disastrous decision, and no one could believe it,’ said Mr. Yaro of the Regional Plan Association.

The upshot? Because Silverstein’s lease went unchallenged—until the renegotiation in 2006—the Port and Silverstein were honest-to-goodness partners for a long time. Uneasy partners, yes. But partners nonetheless.

All along, Silverstein has had a financial incentive to create the appearance of forward motion. And “appearance” is the key word here, because not then and not ever did Silverstein demonstrate that he had the money to rebuild. Alas, the press has bought this bill of goods. “The Port Authority and Pataki,” wrote Raab in 2005, “both have stonewalled Larry Silverstein since 9/11.”

As for Pataki, he was Silverstein’s closest ally and biggest supporter—until late 2005,
when it became clear to even that inept and timid governor that he would not have the Freedom Tower as his administration’s legacy.

In April 2006, during negotiations to split the site—and finally rewrite the lease—the Daily News took note of Pataki’s growing impatience with Silverstein:

Gov. Pataki, who has been Silverstein’s closest political ally, has also tired of Silverstein’s delays.

The 2005 and 2006 negotiations did expose public anger on the part of state and city officials against Silverstein. But the point is that this acrimony—finally extreme enough to lead to action—represented a shift in alliances that had stood (even if shakily) since the towers fell. Raab’s first piece appeared in September 2005, and he may not have looked closely enough at what had come before.

By the way, we agree with Raab that the Port is sclerotic, opaque, secretive, incompetent, and mean. But that doesn’t mean Silverstein isn’t incompetent, underinsured, greedy, inexperienced, undercapitalized, and the weirdest kind of 9/11 entrepreneur.

And, on the positive side, we do give Raab credit for talking with the workers who are down in the construction pit and who will ultimately rebuild the World Trade Center. In fairness to Raab, his articles were not just about Silverstein, but also about the tough work of building at the ground zero site. He introduces us to some compelling characters and offers valuable glimpses into the lives of people who are playing important roles at ground zero, but who aren’t politicians or developers. We commend him for venturing out of the cubicle. Especially because we don’t hear enough in the press about how the buildings are going up.

But still, we must take issue with his reporting on Silverstein and the finances of the project—on the forces above the workers in the pit, the forces that are really driving the story.