What we will have is a beautiful and unique institution – a complex that will integrate public and private space more fully than any other site in the city, memorialize our past while pointing to our future, and operate with an unprecedented level of safety and security

Kurt Vonnegut once called Manhattan “skyscraper national park.” He hardly meant it as a compliment, but even for those of us who love New York, there’s something to that idea. For better and for worse, New York is and always has been a city of industry and restless progress – a building city in every sense of the word.

And if most national parks are meant to capture the serene and unchanging beauty of our natural environment, then we can think of our skyscraper park as intended to capture the mercurial beauty of a place that is constantly constructing and reconstructing itself. After all, skyscrapers came of age here.

In this sense, the work that the Port Authority, Silverstein Inc. and all our partners are doing at the World Trade Center site is an extension of the City’s building tradition. This is a tradition I know each of you is familiar with, and one I think I can confidently say we’re all proud to carry on.

Thank you.

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