yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
I'm not American, but with the 10th anniversary of the event coming up when I saw the title of the article I was interested enough to read it. What I came out with was actually a mild sense of optimism - that sounds bad, but if you think about it, what we're really seeing here is resiliency and the ability to make any situation normal (and profitable). In a capitalist society, there truly is nothing that is sacred.
It's a very long article (the only kind I like!) so I've cut it up some, focusing more on the large-scale and less on the small time hucksters.
Village Voice - 9|11: The Winners
It's a very long article (the only kind I like!) so I've cut it up some, focusing more on the large-scale and less on the small time hucksters.
Village Voice - 9|11: The Winners
The September 11, 2001 attacks have been a symbol of many things and many causes, but like the lavish, flag-draped rebuilding of the site, it has also been a vehicle for enrichment. From corporations to politicians to government officials to nonprofits to the security industry to publishers to the health industry (not to mention the incidents of outright fraud over the years), many people have found ways to profit from one of the nation's biggest disasters. 9/11 has created an economy all its own.
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Last August 16, irate commuters stepped to the microphone at a Port Authority hearing, and blasted a plan to jack up tolls on the bridges and nearly double the cost of a PATH train ride.
The Port Authority, a bistate agency that owns the World Trade Center site, initially claimed that the increase was necessary because of maintenance needs in its capital plan. But soon, the real reason emerged: $2.2 billion in more cost overruns at the World Trade Center site.
One World Trade Center is over budget by $186 million, the transit center is $200 million over budget, and other site work is $422 million over estimates from just two years ago. And those costs don't include $500 million the agency is trying to recoup from the September 11 Memorial, the MTA and the state DOT.
In other words, the already gold-plated construction plan for Ground Zero has blown its budget again and the people who are least responsible for the increase, the people who actually pay their taxes and suffer the daily commute into Manhattan, have to come up with the money to pay for it. And they have no choice in the matter. (Construction unions were all for the toll hike, and appeared at the hearing to cheer for it.)
There are several official explanations: too many cooks in the kitchen, union rules, the complexity of the project, and safer and better buildings cost more. But no one is admitting that politics, mismanagement or profiteering could have anything to do with it.
Consider that in 2002, the respectable Real Estate Board of New York estimated that rebuilding the site would cost $10 billion. Now, the public and private price tag is $20 billion. At $3.3 billion in taxpayer money alone, or about $1,000 dollars per square foot, One World Trade Center will cost double the price of a typical skyscraper, rents will have to be astronomical to break even, and government will once again subsidize those costs, just like it did 30 years ago.
For some observers, it feels like all this spending is little more than a vehicle for dispersing cash into the economy, and enriching certain members of the construction industry—the Bovises, Tishmans, Skanskas and Turners of the world.
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Meanwhile, giant corporations continue to get government subsidies. Conde Nast, the publishing giant, got a sweet reduced price to move into 1WTC, one of dozens of big corporations which have received billions in 9/11-related subsidies and aid. Goldman Sachs, not the least controversial company in the world, obtained $1 billion in Liberty Bonds from then Governor George Pataki for its plush building across from the site. Mayor Bloomberg used $764 million in Liberty Bonds for a Durst tower in midtown and a Bruce Ratner office tower in Brooklyn—not even remotely WTC projects.
"When we were eating and sleeping post-9/11 stuff, the powers that be insisted that these subsidies would rescue lower Manhattan," says Bettina Damiani, of the watchdog group Good Jobs New York. "If ten years and billions of dollars later, we're still proposing the same subsidies, we need to do some rethinking."
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And then there are the lawyers. From the victim's compensation fund to the 9/11 health litigation, a select group of law firms have reaped close to a billion dollars in legal fees, often amid sharp criticism. In the WTC Captive Insurance fiasco the city used federal funds meant to help ailing workers to pay $165 million to three law firms fighting the case. Some of those lawyers billed at nearly $600 per hour. Meanwhile, at the time, only a handful of claims had been settled for something around $300,000.
When the city finally settled it's 9/11 health claims for $600 million, Worby, Groner, the firm representing ailing responders, got $115 million, and that was actually a bargain. The firm originally sought $200 million in fees.
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Next let us consider the National September 11 Memorial and Museum itself, which will cost at least $700 million to build, and will have a $60 million annual operating budget. The Oklahoma City Bombing memorial cost $29.1 million to build. The World War II Memorial cost $175 million.
And despite the name, it's not really a "national" monument, as in something owned by the public. It's actually a private, not-for-profit entity.
The memorial is so expensive that the Port Authority, not known for its frugality, is demanding $150 million from it to cover its own outlays.
The top 11 officials of the September 11 Memorial and Museum make at least $190,000 a year, with four of them—Joseph Daniels, Alice Greenwald, Joan Gerner, and Cathy Blaney—making well over $300,000, tax records show. That's $2.8 million in salaries just for 11 people. And when former general counsel Frank Aiello left in 2009, he got a $180,000 severance payment.
To put it in perspective, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly makes just $210,000, and he only runs the nation's largest police agency and oversees a $4 billion budget.
Daniels has mounted an aggressive fund-raising campaign, which includes selling just about everything that can be sold, including stones ($100-$1,000), coins ($66.95), an "official" book of the memorial ($19.95), charter memberships ($25), "visionary" memberships (If you have to ask...), and of course the obligatory gift shop, currently housed at the "preview center." (Necklace which says "No day shall erase you from the memory of time," $80)
On top of all that, after pledging to raise its budget privately, the organization is now lobbying in Washington for federal funding.
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In the wake of the attacks, public contributions flooded into the city, spawning a growth industry in the nonprofit business. Hundreds of tax exempt 9/11 charities were formed, many of them by relatives of the dead to support each other and to make their views heard.
Naturally, controversy ensued. One of the more prominent dustups took place when the Red Cross tried to divert 9/11 donations for other purposes. The director resigned and her replacement issued an apology.
"They wanted to put the money in a general fund so they could get into it and give to other types of charities," says William Rodriguez, a north tower survivor who helped others escape the collapses and has been outspoken on a range of 9/11 issues. "They then charged 60 cents per dollar for operations costs. Come on. When you're asking people to donate their time, where are the operating costs?"
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One of the more controversial of the charities is the September 11th Widows and Victims' Families Association, Inc. One of the oldest and most well-known of the 9/11 nonprofits, the group's stated mission is to "provide assistance to the victims of terrorist acts and their families and to others who experience suffering as a result of such terrorist acts."
But, according to financial records and interviews, that noble and somber mission has been subsumed to an entirely separate goal, which is managing the substantial revenues of a museum on the southern edge of the World Trade Center site, and tours around Ground Zero.
That museum, a modest venture known as the WTC Tribute Center, "connects and educates visitors with personal experiences of the 9/11 community." It's a big room with some artifacts from the towers, some videos playing and, of course, a gift shop crammed with 9/11 merchandise.
Amazingly, the museum takes in about $3.5 million a year, the majority from admissions ($15 a ticket), but nearly $500,000 from the merchandise, including a $19.95 tribute umbrella and a $69 10th Anniversary FDNY shield. An army of some 300 unpaid volunteers, largely survivors and relatives of the dead, give tours, which cost $10 per person. A typical tour includes 20 people, which means each tour brings in at least $200 an hour.
The group spends the lion's share of that money on the cost of operating the museum ($3.6 million). Some $231,000 was spent "communicating directly with victim's family members." That communication apparently means a newsletter and a website ("Make a difference, donate today").
The Tribute Center's executive director, Jennifer Adams, earns at least $177,000 a year. A third official, Wendy Aibel-Weiss makes $118,000 as curator.
In all, the organization spent $1.5 million in salaries in 2008. In 2009, that figure climbed to $1.85 million, meaning that an organization chiefly made up of several hundred volunteers spent more than half of its income on salaries.
Somehow, though, even with the flood of visitors to Ground Zero, the group has operated at a substantial deficit of minus $600,000 in 2008, doubling to negative $1.1 million in 2009, records show.
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Even the so-called 9/11 Truth movement is raising funds. The president of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth took in about $344,000 in contributions in 2009—substantially more than the group raised in the previously three years. The group's director, Richard Gage, of Lafayette, California, made $75,450, in 2009.
The group claims to have evidence that explosive residue was found in the 9/11 dust, suggesting that "explosives brought down the towers." Some 1,500 architects and engineers have signed a petition calling for a new investigation.
Naturally, you can even buy 9/11 Truth merchandise: baseballs caps which say "9/11 was an inside job," and bumpers stickers which read "Bush knew."
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