Welcome to the
World Trade Center in exile.
Seven years after the Twin Towers were
destroyed, Guy Tozzoli, the man who directed the
construction of the World Trade Center and knew
every inch of it, carries on the center's
founding mission of peace and stability through
trade in a building miles north of Ground Zero.
There, in a fifth-floor suite near Grand Central
Terminal, Tozzoli, 86, oversees the World Trade
Centers Association, the organization that
proves the ideas embodied in the World Trade
Center transcend 110-story skyscrapers, rooftop
restaurants and observation decks. It's also the
philosophical home of New York's World Trade
Center -- that is, until the association moves
into a gleaming new tower at Ground Zero in
2012.
That will be exactly 50 years after Tozzoli --
his Port Authority career soaring from a
high-profile World's Fair assignment -- was
tapped to get the trade center project done, a
feat that the world watched closely during the
1960s.
"When people came to visit me, the question was
always the same, what's a World Trade Center,"
said Tozzoli of the curiosity the Twin Towers
elicited as they went up. The story of the
association is wound up in the epic, if
short-lived history of New York's trade center.
In 1970, the year the North Tower reached its
full height, Tozzoli founded the World Trade
Centers Association, a private, nonprofit and
nonpolitical group that harkens back to the
trade center's pioneering days, when businesses
in the pursuit of international trade were
clustered together for their greater good.
"Everyone helps everybody else, because it's in
their benefit, they don't compete, they actually
work," Tozzoli said of the association, which
consists of 750,000 companies in 91 countries.
New York's original World Trade Center may be
gone, but hundreds of WTCs flourish around the
globe. Indeed, the attacks on the Twin Towers
have done nothing to destroy the idea of trade
centers: there were 289 just after 9/11, and
today there are 311, with dozens more in the
planning stages.
Tozzoli, known as Mr. World Trade Center, and
his team kept the organization alive even during
the dark days of late 2001.
Tozzoli himself witnessed the attack on his
buildings from his car in New Jersey, and
despite desperate attempts, was not able to
reach the towers. He had played a key role in
evacuating people from the North Tower when it
was first struck by terrorists in 1993. On the
morning of Sept. 11, a bus accident snarled
traffic on his way to work, and that may well
have saved his life. He was scheduled to be at
Windows on the World when the two planes hit.
"And I said to myself, God says you're not
supposed to go there today. I drove back to
Westwood N.J. at 25 miles an hour," Tozzoli said
of that morning.
It was during that wrenching period that an idea
was born that dramatically underscores the motto
"peace through trade." Months after the attack
that destroyed the Twin Towers, a World Trade
Center was opened in Kabul, the capital of
Afghanistan, the nation that hosted al-Qaida
leader Osama bin Laden.
"A very strong inspiration came a little later
that we should make a World Trade Center there,"
said John Dickson, co-chairman of World Trade
Center Kabul. "The trade center's the best way
for a country that's been forced into isolation
under the Soviet system for so long to get ...
immediately back in a network of people. It was
kind of as radical idea, but Guy really loved it
and the board got behind it."
It's a small affair now -- just three stories,
hardly an iconic skyscraper -- and it still
lacks a strong foundation for business, given
the violence that roils the country, but it's
symbolism is beyond words.
"When people are doing business with one
another, they're not going to start banging each
other on the head. That's very, very important,"
said Robert DiChiara, the association's
executive vice president.
Indeed, WTCs opened in places like Moscow during
the Cold War, a fact that makes Tozzoli proud.
"I said the United States and you don't quite
get along, but it might be a good idea if we
work together and they have a beautiful World
Trade Center in Moscow," Tozzoli said.
His eyes light up as he enthusiastically tells
stories of dealings with global leaders, and
with New York's high and mighty like powerbroker
Robert Moses, who became a close friend, WTC
architect Minoru Yamasaki, and Mayor John
Lindsay, who he says was initially reluctant to
accept the landfill from WTC excavations that
would become the base for Battery Park City.
Tozzoli's life changed forever in 1962, when
Port Authority chief Austin Tobin put him in
charge of building something called the World
Trade Center. The project was seen by David
Rockefeller, the head of Chase Manhattan, as a
bold stroke to revitalize the Financial
District.
"Rockefeller asked the Port Authority to look
into the matter. It was more than that. His
brother [Nelson] was the governor of New York.
And what he said to the Port Authority was, 'You
will do this.' And I was told, 'You're in
charge. You're going to do this.' And it was a
great journey," Tozzoli said.
It was difficult in the beginning – renting out
the towers proved harder than thought, a story
today's WTC planners know too well. But by 2001,
the World Trade Center had become an intrinsic
part of the skyline and an unqualified success,
its vast office floors full and its restaurant
and observation decks teeming with visitors.
This 9/11, Tozzoli will be away from New York,
traveling on World Trade Center business.
"I'm usually here on 9/11, and I usually just go
about my business because I did what I could do.
I have a lot of theories about how you should
work," Tozzoli said.
Indeed, Tozzoli is optimistic and
forward-looking by nature. While in is heart, he
wishes his lost towers could be rebuilt, Tozzoli
points to an image of the new World Trade
Center, and Tower 4, which the association will
occupy. "That's the future over there."
But for the man who built the towers, the pain
over the human loss is never far away.
"A lot of people died, I can't bring them back
to life. And I can get quite angry at what the
people did. But the trade center was beyond
that."
http://www.amny.com/news/local/groundzero/am-wtc0910,0,5789163.story
