WP: Ground Zero Funds Often Drifted Uptown (Money to Luxury Apts)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46524-2004May21?language=printer

Six months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Congress approved an $8 billion program to repair this city's damaged office towers, build apartment buildings and finance the rebirth of the financial district.

But two years later, city records show that much of the money, dubbed Liberty Bonds, has gone to developers of prime real estate in midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and to builders of luxury housing.

Local and state officials -- over the objections of their own downtown development chief -- gave one developer $650 million from the Liberty Bonds to erect an office tower for the Bank of America near Times Square, miles from the shattered precincts of Ground Zero. According to city records, another developer got $113 million to build a tower for Bank of New York in Brooklyn. One of the few projects downtown has gone to actor and sometime developer Robert De Niro, who picked up nearly $39 million from the bonds in November to build a boutique hotel in Tribeca, directly north of Ground Zero.

Congress designated $1.6 billion of the Liberty Bonds for rental housing. Nearly all the money from those bonds has gone to prominent developers to build luxury apartment towers in the neighborhoods around Ground Zero, accelerating its transformation into one of New York's richest neighborhoods, the city records show.

Local political leaders, urban planners and neighborhood residents have sharply criticized these spending choices, saying that wealthy developers shouldn't need subsidies to build office towers in midtown -- where private construction is booming -- or luxury housing downtown. The new luxury towers will contain just a small percentage of apartments for the tens of thousands of moderate-income residents who live in Lower Manhattan.

[Alerter_]

1. rich people are utterly shameless

I can't even feel shock and disgust anymore I'm so used to it.

[mhr]

2. Just One More Example Supporting The Notion That The Divide

between the right and left is so great that we are on a collision course with revolution in this country.

No flames for the remark or the observation.

When two trains running in opposite directions have been switched onto the same main line, virtually nothing can stop the carnage.

The rich don't care about the rest of us. They are in this game only for themselves.

The destructive outcome is inevitable.

[AlCzervik]

3. This part is telling

Congress put few conditions on the Liberty Bond program, but the program's advocates said the intention was clear -- and it was not for luxury apartments and commercial projects far from the site of the World Trade Center. In fact, the program stipulated that New York's governor and the city's mayor had to deem a downtown project "not feasible" before diverting money for use elsewhere in the city.

[bluedeminredstate]

4. Speechless...

I know this is Congress' deal, but I'll never forget my kids washing cars and selling lemonade to make $125.00 to send along to a NYC charity with a letter signed by all the kids who worked.
I found out after it was Babs Bush's pet charity and they've hounded me mercilously since.
I often wonder what happened to all that money that millions of people sent without question. Is someone getting filthy rich off of it?
There sure seems to be a huge silence about the money that so many generous Americans - nevermind Congress - sent from their own pockets.