Rebuilding from an insurance windfall is much less costly than i
f he had had to wait for leases to end, demolish the buildings himself, then rebuild.
There were undoubtedly other reasons why he wanted them down, but two of them may be that the towers required asbestos abatement, and there has been some suggestion that rewiring them for fibre optics with the existing t/c infrastructure was going to be problematic.
No idea what this is referring to.
As I said above, waiting for leases to run out and the building to slowly empty would have cost much more. These costs may also have been included in the insurance claim.
I have no doubt the PA has been giving him a good deal, in addition to the fact that all these considerations would not only be tax write-offs but may again have been included in the insurance claim.
He was awarded two claims for two separate "acts of terror". Yes, I think he did make out like a bandit.
"The Process of Creating a Ruin" In 1999's Divided We Stand, author Eric Darton speculated on the World Trade Center's demise -- literally and economically: