http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/busin ... wanted=all
First issue, the new WTC 1 tower is a scam, the people will pay for it for years to come.
With an expected completion date of 2013, 1 World Trade Center is the most expensive skyscraper ever constructed in the United States, with a price tag currently estimated at 3.3 billion. By contrast, the spanking new Bank of America Tower in Midtown Manhattan cost about 2 billion. That is pretty much the going rate for building new skyscrapers in New York City. Just to break even, 1 World Trade Center will require rents far higher than the going rate in Midtown, much less downtown New York, where the building is located and where rents are considerably lower. (...)
Since 1 World Trade Center is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it seems fair to assume that any shortfall between the building’s annual rental income and its carrying costs will most likely be borne by the people who pay the toll to cross the George Washington Bridge, or use the Lincoln Tunnel, or ride the PATH rail system, all of which the Port Authority controls. It also seems fair to say that no private developer in his right mind would build a 3.3 billion high-rise office building in a marketplace that tops out at 2 billion. Only a government entity would do such a thing.
Second issue, nobody dares speak against it because of 9/11, it'd be like speaking against climate change or the holocaust. Even if what you have to raise are simple questions of money.
It turns out that there are plenty of people, including former New York State officials and New York City developers, who believe that 1 World Trade Center is folly. “An emotionally induced misuse of money,” said one such person. “You can only understand this as a political statement,” said another. “It makes no sense as a commercial real estate endeavor.”
Not one of these people, however, would go on the record; there was simply no percentage in it. As a result, the notion that a government agency would spend 3.3 billion constructing an uneconomical high-rise in a depressed market has drawn far less scrutiny than it deserves.
If this cowardice, this spell is in place and working, 9 years later, only in front of some thieving going on, we can imagine how it is still effective for much more sensitive issues, the sacrilegious thought that the original terror event of 9/11, which created all these thinking and social boundaries, never. really. happened.