Larry Silverstein did not own the property at Ground Zero, he just had purchased control of the property for 99 years from the Port Authority. At the same time he purchased control of the WTC center, he upped the insurance clause. The insurance he purchased 2 months before 9/11 would award him $3.6 billion dollars for planes used against the buildings in a terrorist event.
Since Larry saw 2 planes hit 2 towers, he figured it should be worth double the amount of a single terrorist event and asked for $7 billion. Larry was awarded with $4.6 billion dollars from the insurance companies along with his initial deposit of $125 million on the World Trade Complex being returned. Larry had gained control of the WTC complex for $3.2 billion in 2001 along with another company called Westfield America. In 2004 he filed a suit against the airline companies for another $12.8 billion in damages.
The property is still apparently owned by the Port Authority in New York, but the true nature of this complex relationship and responsability is hidden from public; kept in lease and legal documents that are not public record. -ed
source: AP
NEW YORK — The five skyscrapers were all supposed to rise by early in the next decade to replace the ravaged World Trade Center, with the city’s tallest towers set in a spiral evoking the Statue of Liberty’s torch.
They would frame a massive memorial in a tree-filled park, plus a theater and a transportation hub with uplifted wings — one of several symbols intended to defy the terrorists who destroyed the 16-acre site in under two hours.
Standing on the site now — a multi-level labyrinth of concrete and steel, from the entrance resembling the rooftops of an underground city — the sweeping design unveiled 6 1/2 years ago still hasn’t materialized
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Posted by Brian 
