page_title: World Trade Center (1973–2001)
section_title: On the surrounding community
hierarchical_section_title: World Trade Center (1973–2001) / Impact / On the surrounding community
caption_attribution_description: English: The World Trade Center in New York. Nederlands: Het World Trade Center in New York.
context_page_description: The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. At the time of their completion, the Twin Towers—the original 1 World Trade Center, at 1,368 feet; and 2 World Trade Center, at 1,362 feet —were the tallest buildings in the world. Other buildings in the complex included the Marriott World Trade Center, 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC. The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet of office space.
  The core complex was built between 1966 and 1975, at a cost of $400 million. During its existence, the World Trade Center experienced several major incidents, including a fire on February 13, 1975, a bombing on February 26, 1993, and a bank robbery on January 14, 1998. In 1998, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey decided to privatize it by leasing the buildings to a private company to manage. It awarded the lease to Silverstein Properties in July 2001.
context_section_description: The original World Trade Center created a superblock that cut through the area's street grid, isolating the complex from the rest of the community. The Port Authority had demolished several streets to make way for the towers within the World Trade Center. The project involved combining the twelve-block area bounded by Vesey, Church, Liberty, and West Streets on the north, east, south, and west, respectively. 7 World Trade Center, built on the superblock's north side in the late 1980s, was built over another block of Greenwich Street. The building acted as a physical barrier separating Tribeca to the north and the Financial District to the south. The underground mall at the World Trade Center also drew shoppers away from surrounding streets.
  The project was seen as being monolithic and overambitious, with the design having had no public input. By contrast, the rebuilding plans had significant public input. The public supported rebuilding a street grid through the World Trade Center site. One of the rebuilding proposals included building an enclosed shopping street along the path of Cortlandt Street, one of the streets demolished to make room for the original World Trade Center. However, the Port Authority ultimately decided to rebuild Cortlandt, Fulton, and Greenwich Streets, which had been destroyed during the original World Trade Center's construction.
caption: The World Trade Center, as seen from a nearby street in 2000
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