Page 22 - DIVA_No.18_2005
P. 22
Interview with Mr. Guy Tozzoli,
President and founder
of the World Trade Centres Association
Nobody knew the World Trade "his building". "Whenever I pass "Before I continue," my host says,
Centre in New York City better by, I feel sad. The World Trade "you have to understand that
than he did. From the conception Centre represented forty years of Manhattan is in fact divided into
of the trade centre in the early my life," he says. "I was there two parts, on one side you have
1960s to the completion of the ever since the beginning." mid-Manhattan and on the other
Twin Towers in 1973, he led the lower Manhattan (also called
team of planners, architects and In 1962, Mr Tozzoli was appoint- Downtown). Believe it or not, it's
builders who overcame countless ed Director to the World Trade like two different cities. The
obstacles to construct the tallest Department under the Port Stock Exchange is in lower
buildings on earth. He is Mr Guy Authority in New York and New Manhattan. In the 1960s, lower
Tozzoli, a real New Yorker of Jersey in charge of the huge proj- Manhattan was dying; the only
roj-
Italian descent. He receives us ect new office building that had been
ect that became the landmark for
kindly in his office in the Lincoln New York City—the World built there was the Chase
Building the day before Trade Centre—but also a terrible Manhattan Building. The people
Christmas 2004. "This is nothing memory for millions around the were, in fact, moving out and it
like the office I used to have on world. "You have to go back fur- was a dying part of the city. David
the seventy-seventh floor in the ther though to understand the Rockefeller, who was the
World Trade Centre, but .....On whole story. The story starts with Chairman of the Chase Manhattan
9/11, Mr Tozzoli was late, being Mr David Rockefeller, who was Bank, had an idea. He went to his
blocked in traffic from where he the Vice-President of the Chase brother Nelson, who was the
watched the planes going into Manhattan Bank. Governor of the State of New
24 Diva 1.2005
