The World Trade Center, despite its eventual role as a concrete symbol of New York's financial prowess, was not originally intended to be one of the world's great landmarks. Instead, it was simply a way for business leaders to clean up the neighborhood and boost rents.
In the 1950s David Rockefeller, co-chairman of Chase Manhattan Bank, had recently opened up headquarters downtown and wanted to stimulate the surrounding real estate market. Concerned that most businesses flocked to midtown, and even financial professionals deserted downtown after work, Rockefeller envisioned a world-class complex that would be the center of international trade.
With his brother Nelson serving as New York's governor, Rockefeller lined up support from the bi-state, New York/New Jersey Port Authority agency. A wealthy, quasi-public commission (voting members are appointed by each state's governor), the Port Authority was created at the turn of last century and given "full power and authority to purchase, construct, lease and operate terminal, transportation and other facilities of commerce."
For the most part, that meant operating Hudson River crossings as well as Newark's airport. But at the urging of the Rockefeller brothers, the Port Authority agreed to build the World Trade Center. In the 1970s, critics suggested the towers No. 1 and No. 2 be called by their true names, David and Nelson.
Midtown's real estate developers adamantly opposed the project, afraid the new complex would glut the market with too much new office space and open the floodgates to a downtown migration.
Displaced local businesses located along a now-forgotten downtown section of the city known as Radio Row also protested. But the Port Authority enjoyed the power of eminent domain, giving it free rein to raze buildings for construction. (This was at a time when neighborhood objections to construction were routinely ignored by government-sponsored developers.)
By the time construction began, the Port Authority had upped to 10 million square feet the amount of office space it needed in order to make the deal economically viable. According to author Darton, Yamasaki, who had settled on a twin tower approach, then heeded the advice he received from a chief Port Authority planner: "Do a project that will get noticed."
When the towers were officially opened in 1972, New York Gov. Rockefeller again came to the towers' aid, solving a widespread vacancy problem by housing tens of thousands of state employees in the buildings. The state paid just $10 per square foot in rent. When vacancies began to shrink in the mid '80s and new tenants were paying office rents in the $30-$40 range, New York state opted to move its employees out, conveniently freeing up valuable space for the Port Authority to lease.
Although the twin towers were never seen as one of the city's most prestigious business addresses, by the '90s early shipping and merchant marine tenants from the '70s had been largely replaced by multinational banks and investment brokers such as Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. At the time of the attack the towers' occupancy rate was a robust 98 percent. Few if any of its remaining tenants had any real connection to port trade.
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