*As New York City began shutting down due to COVID-19, World Trade Center and once-bustling Financial District are now weirdly devoid of crowds

*Pandemic is a temporary pause in downtown Manhattan鈥檚 ascendance, New York is too resilient, says WTC master planner and developer

Alexander Davis | 绿帽献妻

As the ruins of New York鈥檚 World Trade Center (WTC) in the United States (US) smouldered, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, skeptics had doubted it could ever rise again.

However, as the 19th Anniversary of 9/11 approaches Friday, September 11, the grand vision set forth after its destruction has largely been realised, reports Reuters.

But then, the rebuilt World Trade Center complex currently, is said to be under threat anew 鈹� this time, from a microscopic virus otherwise christened COVID-19 pandemic.

Vishal Garg, Chief Executive of mortgage refinance startup Better.com, headquartered at 7 World Trade Center adjacent to the site known as Ground Zero, said: 鈥淧eople are much more worried about someone coughing on them than someone blowing up a building.鈥�

It is recalled that after the Twin Towers and surrounding buildings were destroyed by al Qaeda hijackers, killing 2,753 of the nearly 3,000 people who died September 11, 2001, the economy of lower Manhattan was devastated.

However, it was learnt that a plan was born, and a lengthy metamorphosis turned the disaster zone into a giant pit, then a walled-off construction site, and finally, some $25 billion later, a tourist attraction and business center with three skyscrapers, a transportation hub, a museum and a memorial.

The Coronavirus pandemic has stalled its completion, with a performing arts center under construction and a fourth and final skyscraper planned.

Six months after New York City began shutting down due to COVID-19, the World Trade Center and the once-bustling Financial District are now eerily devoid of crowds.

鈥淚t鈥檚 pretty melancholy. A bit gloomy,鈥� said James Busse, a retail stock broker taking a cigarette break nearby.

Ground Zero became both a solemn memorial and a leisure destination. Choked-up visitors to the 9/11 museum or memorial could step onto an esplanade of children eating ice cream or out-of-town visitors admiring the glass-sheathed towers.

One World Trade Center, America鈥檚 tallest building at 1,776 feet (541 meters), was built with a bomb-resistant base, as the old World Trade Center had been attacked in a truck bombing in 1993, report stated.

The vision laid out in Daniel Libeskind鈥檚 2003 master plan drove a renaissance that has diversified the local economy, previously reliant on finance.

The public and private sectors have invested some $25 billion in reconstruction, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the land.

Libeskind in an interview, said: 鈥淓verybody coming to New York wants to come to Ground Zero.

鈥淚t is the center of New York. It is the great public space.鈥�

At its heart are two reflecting pools designed by Michael Arad, marking the footprints of where the Twin Towers once stood, with a pair of four-sided waterfalls draining into an abyss.

The names of the victims are etched into its bronze borders.

According to report, pre-pandemic, hundreds of visitors would gather there. But on a recent afternoon a family from Wichita, Kansas, were the only people at the south tower pool.

In terms of nostalgia over the Twin Tower, report stated that Towers grew after they were destroyed along with so many innocent lives, but they were unloved in their time.

Completed in the 1970s, the World Trade Center replaced a neighbourhood known as Radio Row with an oversized block containing the Twin Towers and little else.

The site was frequently called a 鈥渨indswept plaza.鈥�

Carl Weisbrod, a former city planning official who worked on the redevelopment of the new site, remarked that 鈥渢he problem with the World Trade Center is that it never really was that good.

鈥淲hat鈥檚 emerged is a central business district that is now a model for the 21st Century as opposed to a sort of a historical artifact of the 20th Century.鈥�

Planning the new site stirred public emotions associated with the attack on the United States, the loss of life, and fears of working in tall buildings again.

Critics say the end result still lacks affordable housing and lament the absence of a direct rail link to major regional airports.

Architectural critics also have called One World Trade Center lackluster.

But there is agreement that, considering all the interests and complexities, it works.

鈥淭hey did a really wonderful job of knitting it back in the city, but still honoring that sacred site,鈥� said Leslie Koch, President of the complex鈥檚 Performing Arts Center.

In New York鈥檚 vertigo-inducing real estate market, prices rarely drop except after events like 9/11 or a recession, and prices are falling again now.

Nancy Wu, an economist with the real estate database StreetEasy, said that downtown Manhattan rents are down 1.4% through July, the largest annualised fall since 2010.

As of 2019, it was gathered that the neighbourhood鈥檚 rental market was the city鈥檚 fastest-growing.

But the inventory of available apartments rose 80 percent this July from a year earlier, Wu said.

Guy Khan, 鈥痙irector of banking at a financial services company, said the downturn was apparent around his home near City Hall, with chain stores and mom-and-pops closing and neighbors fleeing for the suburbs.

鈥淵ou see moving trucks every day,鈥� he said.

Developer Larry Silverstein acquired a 99-year lease on the Twin Towers from the Port Authority for $3.2 billion just six weeks before 9/11. He has spent the past 19 years rebuilding.

In 2015, Silverstein forecast the entire site would be rebuilt by 2020, but that changed after the planned anchor tenant for 2 World Trade Center pulled out.

鈥淟ife is so unpredictable,鈥� said he.

Silverstein and Libeskind, the master planner, see the pandemic as a temporary pause in downtown Manhattan鈥檚 ascendance, noting how predictions of decline after 9/11 proved wrong.

鈥淧eople said New York will never come back. And it鈥檚 the same thing during the pandemic,鈥� Libeskind said. 鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 believe it. New York is too resilient.鈥�

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