Meet Silverstein, The Billionaire Developer Who Rebuilt The World Trade Center To Heal New York After 9/11

A legacy on pushing ahead and rebuilding the World Trade Center complex after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 was built by Silverstein, though when there were lack of support from city and state governments and challenges like widespread bureaucracy, lawsuit.
In the process, he’s
established his company’s position firmly as a major developer in New York. He has also built up a $1.4 billion fortune, shared with his family, that FORBES estimates is nowadays almost entirely tied to his rebuilding of 7 World Trade Center.

Silverstein has this to say later during an interview

 “It’s been a 15-year challenge, And something we dedicated ourselves to a long time ago. Happily, we were able to stay with it.” 

He and his World Trade investors have since donated $10 million towards the 9/11 memorial and also gave half the site, about eight acres, to the monument and museum.

Silverstein was born during the Great Depression in working class Brooklyn, Silverstein’s father was a classical pianist who became a real estate broker to make ends meet. After graduating from New York University, Silverstein joined him, but with a wife and growing family, he soon realized that his best shot at providing for them would be buying buildings and fixing them up instead.

Silverstein recalls

“Being a broker, I felt we would starve to death. We could not make a decent living,”. 

In 1957, he and his father cofounded the company and purchased its first office building on East 23rd Street for $600,000. The Silversteins had no actual money of their own in the deal: it was financed through a $350,000 mortgage and a group of investors they put together.

Silverstein adds

“We did not have a shilling to our name. We had no equity in it ourselves. We had nothing. Just a hope and a promise,”

They secured rents for more than they had anticipated after fixing up the space. It worked well enough that soon they bought more buildings with private investors’ money. Eventually, the Silversteins later had enough capital to secure loans on their own.

Silverstein lost his dad before his Properties became a big success: The first major commercial development Silverstein Properties built from the ground up was 7 World Trade in the 1980s. It became the real estate company’s headquarters and also the company’s signature asset. ( Based on bond documents, descendants of Silverstein’s only sister, who has since died, are also stakeholders in the company, ).