Let the Man Make It Happen

Forbes Magazine

July 4, 2005 issue | By STEVE FORBES

The can-do Donald, no apprentice at daring achievements, unveils new Twin Tower models.

Time to put Donald Trump in charge of rebuilding the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan. That New York has done virtually nothing there since 9/11 is outrageous testimony to its political incompetence. After all, the Pentagon - also a victim of 9/11 - was quickly rebuilt. Never have New York's bureaucratic tendencies and inability to make decisions reached such sad, headshaking proportions as they have at Ground Zero.

The Donald knows how to get things done. In the mid-1980s he shamed the Big Apple by swiftly rebuilding the Wollman Rink in Central Park at a fraction of what the city would have spent, assuming it could ever have done the job. The rink had been in bureaucratic limbo for a dog's age. Trump recently unveiled an impressive model for the new Twin Towers at Ground Zero, including an appropriate memorial. Many risk-taking, want-to-get-ahead businesses and people are willing to move to and work in the new buildings. These structures would be a fitting memorial for those who lost their lives on 9/11 and a fantastic rebuke to the terrorists who destroyed the originals.

Trump has the tenacity to see this project through. He's instigated and managed the construction of numerous buildings. He has the iron-fisted stick-to-itiveness to surmount seemingly insurmountable political and economic difficulties. Let him loose on this task and there will be no stopping him - or it.