As the skyline in Lower Manhattan changed during the reconstruction following the 9\/11 terror attacks, the neighborhood around it transformed.<\/p>\n
Once known as the center of world finance, it\u2019s changed into more of a residential community and tech hub.<\/p>\n
Carl Weisbrod, a city planner, had this vision years before the attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was obvious that the loss of human life, the fact that no one could be safe anywhere was just heart wrenching and on a very personal level, for me, to see the progress we had made before 9\/11 apparently disintegrated in a heartbeat, was very, very painful,\u201d he told NY1.<\/p>\n
At the time, he led the business improvement district, the Alliance for Downtown. Downtown then was an area known as the home of Wall Street, major corporations and going dark after 5 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeighborhoods require diversity and uses, dynamism activity and not just a nine to five community but a 24\/7 community. So we had already embarked on that approach,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For instance, converting old office buildings into new apartments.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was always part of the game plan after 9\/11. In fact, it was redoubled after that,\u201d Weisbrod said.<\/p>\n
The redevelopment, reconstruction and government aid paid off, as the business district transformed into a neighborhood home to thousands of families and young professionals.<\/p>\n
Over the years, its population more than tripled to 70,000.<\/p>\n
There are 351 buildings, which is nearly double the number from 25 years ago.\u00a0 The number of shopping and retail spots topped 1,100, from fewer than 1,000 before 9\/11.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe changes have been so dramatic in terms of number of housing units, the diversification of the economy of downtown Manhattan and it reflects the energy and resilience of the people in the community but also huge investments,\u201d State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli told \u201cMornings on 1.\u201d<\/p>\n
The businesses there, too, have diversified.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used to be about two-thirds finance. Now we\u2019re about one-third finance,\u201d Jessica Lappin, president of the Downtown Alliance, said. \u201cBut you\u2019ve seen StubHub Uber, Spotify, companies like that choosing to locate in the neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the progress keeps going, with American Express this year breaking ground on its future headquarters at the final commercial tower to be built on the World Trade Center site.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the skyline in Lower Manhattan changed during the reconstruction following the 9\/11 terror attacks, the neighborhood around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":343384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[109,25,13408,75,84,83,9,24,12,63,87,27,200],"class_list":["post-343383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-app-top-stories","tag-dan-rivoli","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}