Mystery deepens over $10 World Trade Center deal
Monday, September 9, 2013 Last updated: Monday September 9, 2013, 10:15 PM
BY SHAWN BOBURG
STAFF WRITER
The Record
The Port Authority said Monday that it had no record of its governing board approving a 1986 deal that handed over ownership of the World Trade Center name for $10. And the agency’s top executive at the time said he didn’t recall it ever coming across his desk.
That added to the mystery surrounding how the Port Authority came to sell the vaunted name of its Manhattan landmark to a group run by a retiring agency executive who made millions in the years that followed.
The Christie administration, which jointly steers the agency with New York’s governor, slammed the deal on Monday, in response to a story in The Record a day earlier.
“You can be sure that would never happen under this administration,” Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said. “I’d venture to say that if something like that was done today, it would probably draw the attention of the United States Attorney’s Office.”
The World Trade Centers Association, meanwhile, defended its stewardship of the name it inherited a quarter-century ago, and said the deal was far from a “secret” pact, as described by the Port Authority’s deputy executive, Bill Baroni, a Christie appointee. Baroni, who was appointed in 2010, said he had never dealt with the group and called for a “review” of its activities.
The WTCA said it had struck an agreement with the bi-state agency as recently as 2006 that allowed the Port Authority to use the name on the buildings now under construction to replace the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan. The two organizations recently began a new round of negotiations over the Port Authority’s plans to sell merchandise that carries the World Trade Center brand name.