Who

One of New York's most prominent real estate developers, Silverstein became a household name after the Sept. 11 attacks. He's since been at the center of the dispute over how, what, where and when to rebuild.

Backstory

The son of a Bed-Stuy music-teacher-turned-real-estate-broker, Silverstein worked for his father to put himself through NYU. Unhappy with the meager commissions leasing space for 50 cents a square foot—and with relying on his schoolteacher wife's salary—Silverstein started buying, renovating, and flipping cheap buildings in dumpy neighborhoods in the '50s. (It helped that Harry Helmsley served as his personal real estate tutor.) As the business grew, Silverstein moved into Manhattan and acquired some choice pieces of real estate like 11 West 42nd Street and 120 Broadway; by the '80s he controlled more than 10 million square feet of property in the city. He continued to expand in subsequent years, amassing a portfolio that eventually included One River Place, Two River Place, 529 Fifth Avenue, and 570 Seventh Avenue.

Silverstein's connection to the World Trade Center site dates back to 1980 when he won the bid from the Port Authority to construct the 47-story 7 World Trade Center. Two decades later, when the opportunity to lease the Twin Towers came up, he and his partners (including Lloyd Goldman and Joe Cayre) leapt at the chance, successfully bidding $3.2 billion for a 99-year lease. They signed the deal just six weeks before Sept. 11th.

Of note

In the span of a few hours on that fateful Tuesday, 2,974 people were killed and Silverstein's multi-billion real estate investment was reduced to a smoldering pile of rubble. The rebuilding process was a game of political football from the start, with Silverstein's vision for the site initially seen as crassly commercial. Silverstein elbowed for screen time with George Pataki (who, as governor, controlled the Port Authority, which owns the land), then-Mayor Giuliani (who wanted the whole site to become a memorial), and Mayor Bloomberg (who wanted the whole site to become an apartment/school complex), and, eventually, Daniel Libeskind. Although Silverstein was marginalized at the beginning of the process—the powers-that-be tried to elbow him out by offering him various other properties as well as cash compensation in exchange for his leasehold—he eventually prevailed, bolstered by a 2004 legal victory (see below).

Currently

Despite the political hassles and his advancing age—he's in his mid-70s—Silverstein has attacked the World Trade Center rebuilding process with a fury. In 2006, he unveiled the David Childs-designed 7 World Trade Center, which has generated buzz for its environmental friendliness, buttonless elevators and art installation by Jenny Holzer. (Tenants include ABN Amro and Ameriprise Financial.) He's also busy developing three other buildings on the World Trade Center site—office towers designed by starchitects Sir Norman Foster, Richard Rogers, and Fumihiko Maki, which will cumulatively house some six million square feet worth of space. (In 2006, he relinquished control of the site's contentious centerpiece, the Freedom Tower, which he'd also hired David Childs to design.) But he's active elsewhere, too: In 2007, he acquired 1177 Avenue of the Americas for over a billion dollars, and he's building a 60-story hotel-condo at 99 Church Street.

Legal file

Silverstein waged a protracted legal battle against his insurers for six years following Sept 11th. His team of lawyers—headed by boyhood pal Herb Wachtell—contended that the attack on the towers constituted two separate events, entitling him to double the $3.5 billion insurance payout. He lost the first legal skirmish, but managed to prevail in the subsequent cases. When all the outstanding suits were finally settled in 2007, Silverstein was left with a total reimbursement of $4.6 billion from insurers.

Close call

While negotiating the lease on the World Trade Center in January 2001, Silverstein was hit by a drunk driver on 57th Street and nearly died. He ended up negotiating the deal from his hospital room, where he was recuperating from a pelvis broken in 16 places. He says he turned down morphine so he could be lucid enough to negotiate the deal.

Personal

Silverstein has been married to his wife Klara since 1956. (They met as counselors at a Jewish summer camp.) They have three kids who all work for the company—Lisa, Sharon, and Roger—and live on Park Avenue in the same building as their interior designer John Barman and, until recently, Naomi Campbell.

Toys

A big boating enthusiast, Silverstein owns a 130-foot yacht. If fact, it was the captain of the yacht, which was anchored at Chelsea Piers at the time, who first phoned Silverstein to inform him of the World Trade Center attacks.