Larry Silverstein is a businessman who is the founder and owner of Silverstein Properties. On April 26, 2001, he finalized a negotiated bid to lease-purchase the World Trade Center.

The bid was accepted on July 24, 2001; just 49 days before the September 11 attacks.

Larry Silverstein in 2018

The insurance policies for the destroyed buildings had a collective face amount of $3.55 billion. How- ever, Silverstein sought to collect double the face amount, ~$7.1 billion, on the basis that the two separate airplane strikes into two separate build- ings constituted two separate attacks within the Meaning of the insurance policies. The insurance companies opposed this view, and the matter went to court, where it was concluded that the total po- tential payout was capped at $4.577 billion. Silver- : stein continued to seek more damage compensa- The Tribute in Light, a

‘memorial for the tion in the years following the verdict. poemncel (ont

Silverstein has said in interviews that he usually spent his mornings in breakfast meetings at the top of the North Tower. However, on the morning of September 11th, his wife insisted he attend a medical appointment, which resulted in him avoiding almost certain death. His son, Roger, was in the parking garage of the original WTC 7 when the first plane hit, and his daughter Lisa was turned away by police farther uptown; both The Twin Towers prior to Were Working for their father, and were fortunate

the attacks. The North enough to have their lives spared as well. Tower is on the lft

Silverstein was very close friends with then-lsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Net- anyahu, who reportedly called Silverstein

every Sunday afternoon New York time

(Haaretz). Their friendship began when Net-

“We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv quoted the former prime minister as anyahu served as the Israeli ambassador to saying. He reportedly added that these events

the UN. A few years after the attacks oc- 1 ‘ A ani ” ‘ormer Israeli swung American public opinion in our favor. curred, Netanyahu claimed that the 9/11 at- Pasa serail 3 P P

tacks had been good for Israel.

Sourced from Haaretz, The New York Magazine, and more

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