New Jack City
September 30th, 2004, 12:31 AM
Interesting read...
Jersey Journal
WTC in Jersey City? That was plan in '63
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
The dual beams of concentrated light that recently broke through hurricane-influenced night clouds over Manhattan were a wrenching sight, an illuminated remembrance of what was lost three years ago.
Driving south on Sinatra Drive in Hoboken, I reminded myself that the leveled towers of the World Trade Center were more closely connected to Hudson County than most people realize.
Those ghostly rays resurrected a startling discovery I made not long ago in the Jersey City Free Public Library - a discovery that was almost impossible to accept as it first flashed on a microfilm machine.
In the winter of 1963, The Jersey Journal featured an extensive front-page story announcing that the "twin 107-story towers" of the sprawling World Trade Center complex might be built in Journal Square - the city center of Jersey City and hub of Hudson County - and not on the lower west side of Manhattan as previously planned.
"Twin office towers in Journal Square - each taller than the Empire State Building?" asked the Journal, its editors excited about the economic renaissance that such a colossal undertaking would undoubtedly bring. "If that sounds like a campaign promise, know that some of the best brains in finance, engineering, law and real estate met last week in New York to discuss such a project."
That meeting turned out to be part of a series of clandestine sessions initiated by an outraged Austin Tobin, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the quasi-governmental bi-state agency in charge of the development of the financial center.
Tobin was fed up with interminable anti-Trade Center demonstrations held by long-time Lower Manhattan merchants, tenants and corporations who were, as a result of the forthcoming center, threatened with displacement and/or financial ruin. Further, he was furious with the lower courts, which sympathized and sided with the organized protesters, thereby stalling the Port Authority's lofty plans. (The victories and defeats of these impassioned citizens are captured in "City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center," a gripping book by New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton; Times Books/Henry Holt and Company; 2003.)
Whether Tobin was serious about erecting the towers in Journal Square will probably never be known, but his intimation sent shock waves through Port Authority headquarters and across the black-and-white pages of local newspapers, seizing the imaginations of reporters, editors and readers.
In the end, Tobin never had to test the dense Bergen Hill bedrock of Journal Square, for the prospect of paired sky-bound towers on the left bank of the Hudson River died on the judicial bench in early 1964, almost as fast as it was born in the boardroom.
Sudden higher court decisions in favor of the Port Authority were publicly announced in the press and on PATH platforms - to the tearful dismay of the opposition - enabling the agency to yield the dreaded swords of eminent domain and condemnation to carry out an ambitious building scheme in Lower Manhattan that would, the courts agreed, benefit the region, the country and the world.
Tobin's monumental pet project, whose inception could be traced to the 1939 World's Fair, would not be halted. The Jersey Journal ran a follow-up story, showing no sign of disappointment, calling instead for the resumption of an earlier plan to build a new bus and office terminal in Journal Square over PATH tracks deep below the street surface.
There is no greater "what if?" in Hudson County.
The construction of the two man-made monoliths would have resulted in the toppling of every structure on the vast Journal Square plateau, including the Loew's, State and Stanley movie palaces; the Trust Company of New Jersey office tower; The Jersey Journal building; and multitudes of surrounding dwellings bounded by Summit Avenue, Tonnelle Avenue, Newark Avenue, and Academy Street.
The memorial lights that pierce the Manhattan atmosphere annually will, I am certain, trigger thoughts of my microfilmed find. For me - and perhaps now for others, too - the lost towers will always appear every September as spectral skyscrapers on both sides of the Hudson. NEXT WEEK: Heights church that's full of Grace
John Gomez can be reached at jclandmarks@earthlink.net.
Jersey Journal
WTC in Jersey City? That was plan in '63
Wednesday, September 29, 2004
The dual beams of concentrated light that recently broke through hurricane-influenced night clouds over Manhattan were a wrenching sight, an illuminated remembrance of what was lost three years ago.
Driving south on Sinatra Drive in Hoboken, I reminded myself that the leveled towers of the World Trade Center were more closely connected to Hudson County than most people realize.
Those ghostly rays resurrected a startling discovery I made not long ago in the Jersey City Free Public Library - a discovery that was almost impossible to accept as it first flashed on a microfilm machine.
In the winter of 1963, The Jersey Journal featured an extensive front-page story announcing that the "twin 107-story towers" of the sprawling World Trade Center complex might be built in Journal Square - the city center of Jersey City and hub of Hudson County - and not on the lower west side of Manhattan as previously planned.
"Twin office towers in Journal Square - each taller than the Empire State Building?" asked the Journal, its editors excited about the economic renaissance that such a colossal undertaking would undoubtedly bring. "If that sounds like a campaign promise, know that some of the best brains in finance, engineering, law and real estate met last week in New York to discuss such a project."
That meeting turned out to be part of a series of clandestine sessions initiated by an outraged Austin Tobin, the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the quasi-governmental bi-state agency in charge of the development of the financial center.
Tobin was fed up with interminable anti-Trade Center demonstrations held by long-time Lower Manhattan merchants, tenants and corporations who were, as a result of the forthcoming center, threatened with displacement and/or financial ruin. Further, he was furious with the lower courts, which sympathized and sided with the organized protesters, thereby stalling the Port Authority's lofty plans. (The victories and defeats of these impassioned citizens are captured in "City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center," a gripping book by New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton; Times Books/Henry Holt and Company; 2003.)
Whether Tobin was serious about erecting the towers in Journal Square will probably never be known, but his intimation sent shock waves through Port Authority headquarters and across the black-and-white pages of local newspapers, seizing the imaginations of reporters, editors and readers.
In the end, Tobin never had to test the dense Bergen Hill bedrock of Journal Square, for the prospect of paired sky-bound towers on the left bank of the Hudson River died on the judicial bench in early 1964, almost as fast as it was born in the boardroom.
Sudden higher court decisions in favor of the Port Authority were publicly announced in the press and on PATH platforms - to the tearful dismay of the opposition - enabling the agency to yield the dreaded swords of eminent domain and condemnation to carry out an ambitious building scheme in Lower Manhattan that would, the courts agreed, benefit the region, the country and the world.
Tobin's monumental pet project, whose inception could be traced to the 1939 World's Fair, would not be halted. The Jersey Journal ran a follow-up story, showing no sign of disappointment, calling instead for the resumption of an earlier plan to build a new bus and office terminal in Journal Square over PATH tracks deep below the street surface.
There is no greater "what if?" in Hudson County.
The construction of the two man-made monoliths would have resulted in the toppling of every structure on the vast Journal Square plateau, including the Loew's, State and Stanley movie palaces; the Trust Company of New Jersey office tower; The Jersey Journal building; and multitudes of surrounding dwellings bounded by Summit Avenue, Tonnelle Avenue, Newark Avenue, and Academy Street.
The memorial lights that pierce the Manhattan atmosphere annually will, I am certain, trigger thoughts of my microfilmed find. For me - and perhaps now for others, too - the lost towers will always appear every September as spectral skyscrapers on both sides of the Hudson. NEXT WEEK: Heights church that's full of Grace
John Gomez can be reached at jclandmarks@earthlink.net.