Dermatology and a stubborn wife saved Larry Silverstein.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Silverstein, a billionaire property developer, was preparing for his regular breakfast appointment at Windows on the World on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. Six weeks earlier, at the tender age of 70, Silverstein had paid $3.2bn for a 99-year lease at the Trade Center. It was then the largest ever real estate transaction and the capstone of a rags-to-riches career.
He had just taken the title deeds and each morning the eager owner would meet one of his new tenants over breakfast. But that morning, as Silverstein tells it, his wife Klara intervened. “She said, ‘where are you going?’ I said, ‘I’m going down to work — I have a tenant meeting.’ She said, ‘well, you can’t go this morning.’ I said, ‘why not?’ She said, ‘I made an appointment for you with the dermatologist.’ I said, ‘cancel this morning. I’ll go next month’. She said, ‘you cancelled last month, you cancelled the month before. You can’t cancel — you’ve got to go.’ And she got upset.”