Larry Silverstein at SafeBuild 2025.
Legendary developer Larry Silverstein is unquestionably one of the most important New Yorkers of the 21st Century for his extraordinary leadership in rebuilding the World Trade Center after the September 11 terrorist attacks. In addition to playing host to the BTEA’s 2025 SafeBuild Conference at 7 World Trade Center, Silverstein also appeared on stage for a memorable live interview with BTEA President Elizabeth Crowley. The following interview is taken from part of that discussion. A video of the entire interview, which includes additional content such as Silverstein talking about his experience growing up in New York, some reflections on his long, complicated relationship with the Port Authority, and the story of how he beat out all of the city’s top developers to win the bid to purchase the World Trade Center in 2000, can be viewed here.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and ease of reading.
ELIZABETH CROWLEY: When you built the first seven World Trade Center, you fondly referred to it as a “keystone” property. Can you share with us what’s so great about this property in comparison to all the other properties that you’ve built?
LARRY SILVERSTEIN: Well, several things. The first 7 World Trade Center, which we built back in 1987—a separate lease with the Port Authority at that time, separate from the World Trade Center—we built to produce as much office space as we possibly could at the cheapest possible rent, so we didn’t really pay much attention to quality of the architecture. When the building was finished, Ada Louise Huxtable, the then architectural critic of the New York Times said of the building that it was an “oversized shoe box.” So, I looked at that and I said to myself, “Okay, this is the last time we build a building that’s an oversized shoe box. From now on, we’re going to use quality architects and build first class, first in class.”
EC: There were a lot of naysayers after September 11 that said nobody would ever want to work in the office towers again. Nobody would ever want to spend time down here. And back then, there was only a fraction of the amount of people living in lower Manhattan. But your determination, your belief in the future, has really transformed this whole community, not just the 16 acres [of the WTC complex]. What draws New Yorkers to live right down here in Lower Manhattan and work at the World Trade Center?
LS: You cite the exodus from Lower Manhattan after 9/11 and there was a time when people said, “The last one out, turn off the lights.” Naysayers were in total abundance. It’s amazing, absolutely amazing the number of people who said, “You can’t, you won’t. Never, never, never, never.” And I said to myself, “Don’t listen to them.” So, 7 World Trade Center was the last building to come down on 9/11. We decided it was the first building to go back up. Now one of the reasons it had to be the first building was because Con Edison had a substation at the base of the original 7 and I got a call from the chairman of Con Edison right after 9/11 and he said, “We’ve got to rebuild this as quickly as possible, because it supplies all of the electricity to Lower Manhattan.” And he said, “Today, we’re operating with emergency generators, and those are subject to failure at any time.” So he said the most important thing we could do is get this rebuilt as quickly as possible, so they could provide electricity to Lower Manhattan again. And so that’s when we started rebuild. We delivered the substation to Con Edison by September of ’03. We gave them the keys to the substation, and, by golly, from there, we simply decided to keep going and build the building above it, which we did, and the result was, by ’06 7 Trade Center was the first building to be rebuilt at the Trade Center site.
EC: When you look at these 16 acres one has to assume that it’s the greatest achievement of your life. But what do you think is your greatest accomplishment?
LS: Well, I suppose my greatest achievement is the woman I married. Because without her, I couldn’t have done this. There’s little doubt in my mind about that. So, I got very lucky in life. I met the right person, we married, and today we’ve only been married for 68 years. And we’re still talking to each other!
EC: I love that! Where were you and your wife, Clara, on September 11, 2001?
LS: I was at home dressing to come downtown to the Trade Center, because every weekday, David after, after taking title—we took title [of the WTC], I think it was the middle of July of ’01—every morning I spent with one of the tenants at the Trade Center getting to know them, getting to find out what their needs were, and so forth. And so that morning, like all other mornings, I was scheduled to have a breakfast meeting with one of the tenants at Windows on the World. So, I was due downtown, and my wife sees me getting dressed, and she said, “Where are you going?” I said, “I have an appointment down at the Trade Center.” She said, “You can’t go.” And I said, “Why can’t I go?” She said, “I made an appointment for you with the dermatologist.” [I have] light skin, light colored hair, so, dermatologist. I said, “Sweetheart, I’ll go next month.” She said, “You can’t go next month, because you missed last month. You missed the month before. You’ve got to do this.” And she got upset. Now, at that time, we were married for only 45 years. So, I said, “Okay, please don’t get angry. I’ll do anything you want.” She saved my life that day.
EC: One more question, because we’re in a room with a lot of contractors and union leaders who’ve had the pleasure in their lives of working on one of your projects. Do you have any news to share about 2 World Trade Center, 5 World Trade Center, the casino?
LS: Now that you ask, 2 World Trade Center, it’s a $4 billion project. It will employ about 5,000 union workers. The casino, $6.5 billion dollar project, it will employ about 5,500 workers. So, between the two projects, we will have in excess of 10,000 all-union employees. Every building at the Trade Center were built by union people, constantly, totally. They did first class work. They got the buildings done on budget, on time. I couldn’t ask for better quality work than was accomplished at the Trade Center, and for that I have to thank a guy by the name of Gary LaBarbera. Gary was extraordinarily helpful to us during this 23-year period that we’ve been involved in rebuilding the Trade Center. Working with him was an absolute pleasure. There were issues, there were problems. When you’re doing a project of this scale, this magnitude, issues constantly arise. And so having [Port Authority Executive Director] Rick [Cotton] and having Gary available to us to solve these problems and work with us to get it done was absolutely fantastic. Without them, it never would have happened, but with them, we were able to do it, so I thank them both for being there for us.