[NYguy]

Another opinion...not likely though.


https://www.crainsnewyork.com/op-ed/...-redeem-amazon

Trade Center site can redeem Amazon
Queens campus is lost, but there's a feel-good alternative in Lower Manhattan

Michael Burke
Februar 26, 2019

At about the same time Amazon was bailing out on Long Island City, developer Larry Silverstein announced he might build 2 World Trade Center without an anchor tenant signed.

Call me naive, but I see an opportunity here. Maybe Amazon and Silverstein should talk. It might be a marriage made in heaven. Literally.

My brother Billy, Captain of Engine Co. 21, gave his life at Trade Center on September 11. When the design for 2 WTC was introduced, I contacted Bjarke Ingels, the architect, to tell him that it invoked the heroic stair climb of the firefighters, 9/11.

To his credit he wholeheartedly embraced the image, mentioning it in TV interviews.

On September 11, Billy managed to secure the safe evacuation of all of his men and the civilians they reached. He stayed to assist Ed Beyea and Abe Zelmanowitz, co-workers at Empire Blue Cross. Ed was a quadriplegic trapped in his mechanized wheelchair in a tower with no working elevators. Abe was his friend, who would not leave without him.

Only minutes before 1 WTC collapsed, they telephoned out to let family know they were still alive. Billy called a friend, who begged him to stay safe. “This is my job,” he told her. “This is what I do.”

If Amazon headquartered at 2 WTC, that’s the spirit it could be part of.

It’s a shame that Queens will lose Amazon and all the economic benefits that would’ve come with it. However, with a little imagination and work they can still make a home in New York City. I know Captain Billy Burke, a native New Yorker, would’ve been a great supporter of that.