After a bitter legal battle with representatives of the Radio Row merchants, the Port Authority won the right to continue its plan.

The PATH terminal was on the west side of Lower Manhattan, and Tobin’s team decided to move the prospective trade center location from east to west, combining the two projects.Ī region bounded by Vesey, Church, Liberty and West Streets–known as “Radio Row” for its many consumer electronics shops–would have to be razed for the trade center to be built. The Port Authority had just agreed to take over and renovate New Jersey’s Hudson and Manhattan commuter railroad, the PATH (Port Authority Trans Hudson) train, built in 1908.

The Port Authority had been chartered in 1921 by New York and New Jersey to build and operate all transportation terminals and facilities within a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty.īy 1960, after constructing the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge, the Port Authority was rapidly expanding its influence, with 5,000 employees and more than $1 billion in freight and transportation structures all presided over by its powerful director, Austin J. The Port Authority Signs Onįor the resources and power to make the project work, Rockefeller turned to the Port of New York Authority. In May 1959, Rockefeller formed the Downtown-Lower Manhattan Association, which planned a $250 million complex near the Fulton Fish Market on the East River, including a single 70-story office tower and several smaller buildings. Rockefeller, David decided to revive the World Trade Center concept as the core of a revitalized lower Manhattan. The grandson of Standard Oil founder John D. Market research indicated that the city would benefit more by modernizing its ports, however, and the plan was soon scrapped.ĭid you know? More than 10,000 workers were involved in building the World Trade Center complex.Īldrich’s nephew, David Rockefeller, didn’t forget the idea. Aldrich, headed a new state agency with the proposed goal of creating a permanent trade exposition based in New York.

The 1939 New York World’s Fair included an exhibit called the World Trade Center that was dedicated to the concept of “world peace through trade.” Seven years later, one of the exhibit’s organizers, Winthrop W.

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