We’re delighted Esquire has made the commitment to continue coverage, and we, seriously, have every confidence Scott Raab and others can help bring the historical record into focus.
To help push ground zero coverage foward, here are a few questions we’d ask Silverstein and the Port:

1. How much in insurance proceeds has been spent to date?
2. How much is left?
3. How much has Silverstein received in development fees and expenses?
4. How much has he paid out in legal fees to Wachtell Lipton and others?
5. How much equity does Silverstein currently have in the project?
6. Who will control ground zero upon Silverstein’s death or retirement?

Raab’s final word:

The “legal and financial” bond between the Port Authority and
Silverstein Properties is not evidence of a friendly partnership; it
is the very basis of the landlord-tenant battles I describe. That both
parties sought to rebuild the 10 million square feet of office space
destroyed on 9/11 is, likewise, the foundation of their war for control
of the rebuilding process, not a sign of bliss.

Whether the Port “could have found Silverstein in default on Septermber
12” is open to question. I myself have zero doubt — and I imagine that
the PA would agree — that Larry Silverstein would have questioned such
a finding, in court and with all the means at his disposal.

Blaming Silverstein for “that hole at the corner of Church and Liberty
Streets” grants Silverstein far more power than anything I’ve written
on the subject. He neither picked the idiotic “master plan” that
seduced George Pataki, nor decreed that the Freedom Tower must come
first, nor ignored the NYPD when they first tried to raise the alarm
about the security flaws in that building’s prior design. To suggest
that Pataki and his appointees — at the PA, the LMDC, and the Empire
State Development Corporation — have somehow been Silverstein’s
hapless victims, while Larry himself has been their “extraordinary
beneficiary,” is stunning in its denial of reality. As the leaseholder,
Silverstein had a seat at the table — a 99-year, $3.2 billion seat —
and he either outplayed or outbluffed the PA, Pataki, and the Bloomberg
administration. Whether this makes Larry more or less heroic or
villainous than Goldman Sachs — now there’s an “extraordinary
beneficiary” of bureaucratic ineptitude — is a matter of opinion.

I have written about all of this — and plenty more — in my 30,000
words. And I don’t think it’s sour grapes to say that for any
journalist to read the Esquire series and conclude that I’ve offered
“no evidence for an assertion that fatally mis-frames the problems at
ground zero” says far less about my own work than it says about
journalistic prejudice. Taking issue with my failure to parse the finer
details of Silverstein’s years-long legal struggle with his WTC
insurers, and his use of the insurance proceeds, is valid — although I
think it’s only fair to acknowledge that I write for a far-flung
general-interest readership — but to insist that this failure is
sufficient to dismiss my work is nonsense. Rather than proof of the
Port’s largesse, its “support” of Silverstein’s litigation against his
insurers consisted of collecting $120 million per year in rent on the
empty pit out of those “vital proceeds.” And it is — in my opinion, at
least — worth noting that a few yards north of “that hole” stands 7
World Trade Center, a very nice office tower that Silverstein managed
to design, build, and lease, without any help at all from George Pataki
or the Port Authority.

**********

Access is always an issue on any story. My access to Larry Silverstein
himself has been limited, but Silverstein Properties understands that
rebuilding ground zero is a matter of genuine historical importance,
and they have let me do my job without asking for favor or refusing my
requests for help — even when they have taken issue with my work.

The way the Port Authority deals with the press — or simply chooses
not to deal — is no anomaly. They prefer not to answer to anybody; the
PA, in fact, was created and designed to answer to no one. But over the
two and a half years that I’ve worked on the WTC rebuilding, I have
talked repeatedly and at length with off-the-record sources whose
knowldege of the Port and its role at ground zero derives from
first-hand, intra-agency experience. This can’t balance the quote
count, but it is nonetheless germane.

**********

One final word: Phrases like “the press has been played” and “violating
basic journalism standards” at some point sound less like accusations
of laziness or naivete and more like attacks on the targets’ honesty
and integrity. Two of journalism’s most vital tools — two of life’s,
actually — are a clear mirror and the guts to look into it.