Empire State Bldg. Reopens, $7 Billion Cost of WTC Cleanup

As New Yorkers slowly began to recover from the shock and horror of the terrorist attacks on the city that destroyed the World Trade Center, the Empire State Building reopened its 86th floor observation deck to the public amid greatly increased security and a poignant sense of loss.

One of the premier attractions had been the view of the WTC towers rising to the South, now there’s nothing but emptiness in the NY Skyline and a still smoking mound of rubble.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani indicated that it would take between 9 months and a year to complete the complex task of cleaning up the site and restoring the lost infrastructure. Earlier reports indicated it could take two to three years to reconstruct the damaged train and subway lines which ran under it. The cost, which has been running at around $100 million a week, could eventually top $7 billion, but most of it will be paid by the State and Federal government in the form of disaster relief, rather than by private insurers.