25 Years After: Revisiting Trump’s Role as a Champion for New York
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His push to rebuild the Twin Towers — and the Freedom Tower design he never got credit for.
A lot has been made about the special occasions President Trump has presided over during this term: America 250, the FIFA World Cup, and the ensuing Summer Olympics coming to Los Angeles in 2028. However, another important, albeit more somber, event Trump will preside over is the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Any ordinary native New Yorker holding the office of president during this occasion would be a wholesome footnote.
But that it is Donald Trump — a man more synonymous with the fighting spirit of New York than any other, who played a key role in building its skyline and served as the voice for countless Americans and New Yorkers demanding their desires be heard about how to rebuild Ground Zero after 9/11 — is especially poetic.
Trump was a symbol of hope, strength and resilience in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and in the years that followed.
In the days after Sept. 11, he not only sent crews to aid in the cleanup and recovery efforts at Ground Zero, but also personally appeared there on Sept. 13 — when it was still considered a great risk to do so given the uncertainty surrounding the threat of additional attacks, the falling debris and continuing fires at the site, and the health hazards that have now claimed the lives of more Fire De[artment of New York firefighters than the attacks themselves (343 on 9/11, more than 600 since) — as a sign of unity, support and appreciation for the job being done.
It would have been worthy of praise if all he did was make a generous financial contribution toward recovery efforts, as many other ultra-wealthy New Yorkers and Americans did.
But putting himself potentially in harm’s way and immediately offering his vision for moving forward as a non-public official surely impacted first responders desperate for any morale boost available. In hindsight, it also foreshadowed the unshakable courage and resolve he would exhibit during assassination attempts against him years later as president.
While it was unimaginable for a long time — even to the present day for many — to imagine the New York City skyline without the Twin Towers, decisions about what would come next ultimately had to be made, presenting no shortage of strong opinions. Some — specifically family members who did not want something built over a graveyard of their deceased loved ones—felt rebuilding Ground Zero into a peaceful and quiet space was most appropriate, since thousands lay somewhere beneath the ground, never identified. An overwhelming majority, however, wanted the Towers rebuilt as a sign of national strength and resilience, believing a void in the skyline would signify that the terrorists had won.
Trump strongly shared the latter opinion, quickly stating his belief that rebuilding was an absolute necessity for both the city and country. But after the first design for the new One World Trade Center — the Freedom Tower — was decided on, Trump strongly criticized it as an “egghead design, an empty skeleton” and a “disgusting pile of junk” that was the “last thing we needed representing the World Trade Center.”
Not long after Trump’s critiques, the initial Freedom Tower rendering was ultimately scrapped. And while it is impossible to know how big a role they played, Trump was undeniably the most prominent voice in the public pressure campaign against it.