Former NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly secretly sat down with developer Larry Silverstein to force improved anti-terrorism measures at 1 World Trade Center after 9/11, the ex-top cop reveals in his memoir.
Kelly says that when he first saw design plans for what was originally called the Freedom Tower, he immediately realized that it was a security nightmare.
Constructing a glass tower alongside a thoroughfare was a very bad idea, he writes in “Vigilance: My Life Serving America and Protecting Its Empire City.”
In 2003 and 2004, cops repeatedly sounded the alarm that erecting the building just 25 feet from West Street was like inviting the terrorists to bomb it, Kelly says.
But top state officials and then-Port Authority Executive Director Joe Seymour repeatedly brushed off his concerns, he says.
Frustrated, Kelly decided to meet directly with Silverstein before it was too late. He had the NYPD’s head of counterterrorism prepare a confidential report explicitly detailing the design’s vulnerabilities.
Kelly also brought in heavy hitters, including Cofer Black, then-President George W. Bush’s counterterror coordinator.
Black told Silverstein that, without significant changes, the building couldn’t be protected from a truck bomb.
On May 4, 2005, then-Gov. George Pataki announced the building would be redesigned to meet NYPD security standards.