A Disgusting Loss Of ‘Freedom’
I was not aware of this until recently but obviously felt this is important to tell people. The new tower to be built at Ground Zero, for quite some time now, was expected to be called the Freedom Tower. However, the Port Authority of New York, in an effort to help market the office space and bring in tenants, has dropped the name in favor of ‘1 World Trade Center.’
And just who happend to be the first tenant once the name was changed? The Chinese government.
First to sign on
The change came after board members voted to sign a 21-year lease deal with Vantone Industrial Co., a Chinese real estate giant, which will become the first commercial tenant at Ground Zero. It plans to create the China Center, a trade and cultural facility, in 191,000 square feet on floors 64 through 69.
The negotiations with Vantone, which is closely affiliated with the Chinese Communist government, had nothing to do with the name change, PA officials insisted, but was based primarily on bottom-line marketing considerations.
Despite a five-year global hunt and millions of dollars plowed into marketing efforts, until the Chinese deal was inked, the PA had failed to snag a single private-sector tenant at Ground Zero. It has tentatively lined up a number of state and federal agencies to take big chunks of space.
The Daily News editorialized on this a few weeks back. Here is their commentary:
When you’ve broken your promises on everything else to do with redeveloping Ground Zero, it’s no big deal to discard the name by which the public has come to know the iconic skyscraper at the heart of the plan.
When you’ve engaged in massive schemes to lie about costs and when you have failed to meet every solemnly pledged construction deadline, tossing a name like Freedom Tower is child’s play.
You just do it. Because there’s no need to consult the public. Because you’re the mighty Port Authority – and you damn well say and do what you please.
So, when your marketing team says it prefers to sell the building to prospective tenants as 1 World Trade Center rather than as the Freedom Tower, you give them the green light.
Apparently, “Freedom” doesn’t test-market very well when you’re trying to draw tenants from all parts of the globe. Including from Communist China, an arm of which has just leased more than five floors of the building to house a “China Center.” This is planned as a locus of Sino-American commerce.
The name Freedom Tower came into popular use on April 24, 2003, when then-Gov. George Pataki and the Port Authority established a timetable for Ground Zero construction.
The Freedom Tower would soar its full 1,776 feet by Sept. 11, 2005, and be ready for tenants by early 2008.
A permanent PATH train station would be open in 2006.
A new Fulton St. subway complex would be done by 2007.
There would be direct rail service from downtown to Long Island and JFK Airport by 2013.
None of that came true. None of that will be done for years, if ever. The Port Authority made a liar out of Pataki on every project it was responsible for. And now the imperious, unaccountable agency has dropped the last vestige of the past, as if erasing history.
It and its new tenant should be quite comfortable with each other.
To say this is a disgusting, outrageous insult to every person who died on 9/11 and, really, to every American citizen doesn’t even go far enough.
Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!
