Battle for Ground Zero

Resumen del libro

On the eve of the opening of One WTC, a revealing look at the heated politics behind the long struggle to rebuild at Ground Zero



In the aftermath of 9/11, Americans came together in a way not seen for a generation, pledging unity to rebuild after the horrific loss of the Twin Towers. People were signing up to go to war; rescue workers were laboring to clear rubble. But instead of becoming a rallying symbol in the fight against terrorism, Ground Zero has been plagued by intense conflict and controversy from the very start. Battle for Ground Zero goes behind the scenes of this fight to rebuild, revealing how grieving families, commercial interests, and politicking bureaucrats clashed at every step of the way, confounding progress and infuriating the public. Since the fall of 2001, author Elizabeth Greenspan has been documenting the drama'conducting interviews with neighborhood residents, architects, officials, rescue workers, and victims relatives, as well as key New York players like uber-developer Larry Silverstein, and Governor Pataki. Here she provides a warts-and-all look at this pivotal decade'from the bitter feuding between city officials and victims families, to the endless controversy over the memorial design, to the fraught tenth anniversary, against a long-delayed opening. Battle for Ground Zero is an exhaustively researched reminder of how long it took to put a brave face on the horror of 9/11.