Statement From Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver

Governor Paterson's letter criticizing the delays in reconstructing my Downtown Manhattan community is a bold demonstration of the leadership we need to get this massive and critically important project back on track. The Governor's assessment of the state of the rebuilding effort is as realistic as it is disappointing.

Recognizing that the patriotic fervor to lift New York from the rubble of 9/11 would gradually wane, I have repeatedly urged the governors of New York and New Jersey as well as the Mayor to embrace the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan as a national and a moral obligation, and to provide the leadership necessary to honor that obligation. I am pleased that Governor Paterson is listening to me and providing the kind of passionate and focused leadership in the Executive that was absent from Lower Manhattan during the Pataki Administration.

With the exception of Larry Silverstein, who built Seven World Trade and is making significant progress on World Trade Centers Three and Four, the litany of construction delays is an embarrassment to New York and an insult to those who acted with heroism and expedience during the rescue, recovery and the clean-up. The cost of these endless delays, compounded over the years, is incalculable.

We must recommit ourselves as a city, as a state, as a nation to the moral obligation we declared almost seven years ago. We must finish the job that was so violently forced upon this community and we must do so swiftly and with the utmost concern for the safety of Lower Manhattan's residents and visitors.

There will always be grand and important projects to complete in this City. Lower Manhattan must be accomplished first.