But our latest accomplishment speaks to the reason that Larry and I are here together today, and indeed to the shape of things to come at the World Trade Center. We recently completed the excavation and preparation work where towers 3 and 4 will soon begin to rise and turned those sites over to Larry to begin construction.

Much of the work to date – the accomplishments I described above – were Port Authority led, but with this handoff, our partnership with Larry is going to begin to show itself in construction, not just in contracts.

What is falling into place is a construction coordination machine of truly unprecedented complexity. A site-wide integrated master schedule tracking more than 6,000 tasks with thousands of interdependencies. A whole series of regular meetings up and down the command chain and constant communication among all the senior leadership about every detail of the project.

Steve Plate, Janno Lieber – these guys eat, sleep and breathe this project, and they’re making sure their teams do too.

So what I want to do today is take all of you through what you can expect to see across the World Trade Center site over the coming years – to show you what this machine we’ve created is going to build.

I’ve shown you the site today. This is the site at the end of this year. The Freedom Tower is above street level. The Vesey Street PATH entrance is open and operating. Steel for the Memorial has begun to rise. The foundations for Santiago Calatrava’s iconic Oculus are under way. As are the foundations for Towers 3 and 4. (shows slides)

By the end of 2009 the Oculus infrastructure will be visible and the Memorial steel erection will be complete. By the end of 2010, the Freedom Tower will reach rooftop level, and even the work on its antenna will have begun. The Oculus will be taking its signature shape and the Memorial Plaza will already be complete.

By the end of 2011, then, the Oculus and the rest of the Hub will be complete, as will T3 and T4, the remainder of the Memorial and the VOEC.

By the end of 2012, as they say, it’ll all be over but the shouting.

Construction is scheduled to be complete site-wide, and all that will be left is the build-out of the office and retail space for the new tenants.

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