Talk:Larry Silverstein

Proposed rewrite of Insurance Dispute section

I find the section on the insurance disputes a bit confusing as it jumps around somewhat in the chronology and doesn’t really explain the policies and the court decisions as clearly as it might. I propose a collaborative rewrite to make it clearer, and offer the following as a starting point for discussion.

As a private developer with a 99-year lease on WTC1, WTC2, WTC4, and WTC5, Silverstein insured the buildings. The insurance policies on these four buildings were underwritten by 24 insurance companies for a combined total of $3.55 billion in property damage coverage.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Silverstein sought to collect double the face amount of that coverage ($7.1 billion) because, he contended, the two separate airplane strikes constituted two “occurrences” within the meaning of the policies. The insurance companies took the opposite view.

Because some of the policies contained certain limiting language and some did not, the court split the insurers into two groups for jury trials on the question of whether their policies were subject to the “one occurrence” interpretation or the “two occurrence” interpretation.

The first trial resulted in a verdict on April 29, 2004, that 10 of the insurers in this group were subject to the “one occurrence” interpretation, so their liability was limited to the face value of those policies, and 3 insurers were added to the second trial group. [The jury was unable to reach a verdict on one insurer, Swiss Reinsurance, at that time, but did so several days later on May 3, 2004, finding that this company was also subject to the “one occurrence” interpretation. Silverstein appealed the Swiss Re decision, but lost that appeal on October 19, 2004.]

The second trial resulted in a verdict on December 6, 2004, that 9 insurers were subject to the “two occurrences” interpretation and, therefore, liable for a maximum of double the face value of those particular policies ($2.2 billion).

The total potential payout, therefore, was capped at $4.577 billion for buildings 1, 2, 4 and 5.

(I propose a minor edit only to the following section, as italicized: In 2007, 6 years after the attacks, Silverstein and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey filed a $1 billion lawsuit ($250 million in unpaid claims and $750 million in damages) against Royal & Sun Alliance Group Plc and its U.S. affiliate and this litigation was subsequently settled (need citation)

Silverstein's lease with the Port Authority for World Trade Center requires him to continue paying $102 million annually in base rent. He is applying insurance payments toward the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site.)

I propose to retain the citations from the existing article and perhaps add one or two as required. Well, what say you? All suggestions and comments are welcome. {Jazz2006 (talk) 23:13, 11 May 2008 (UTC)}

Thank you for rewriting the section. It's much more clear now. I did some minor formatting (e.g. paragraph breaks), and added a few "wikilinks". I also moved the references around, to match them up with the facts and information in the article. This is so people can see where we got the information from, especially when we give amounts, numbers, ... I'm not sure I moved them all the references to the correct place, so please check them. --Aude (talk) 05:10, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I've checked and it appears that the references match up correctly. Thanks for moving them. {Jazz2006 (talk) 06:04, 25 May 2008 (UTC)}

The arithmetic is unclear. Is $2.2 billion "the face value of those particular policies" or is it double the face value of those policies? And "therefore was capped at $4.577 billion" implies that the reader can do his or her own arithmetic to arrive at $4.577 billion. But $3.55 billion plus $1.1 billion is $4.65 billion, and under the other interpretation of the ambiguous sentence, $3.55 billion plus $2.2 billion is $5.75 billion. I'd appreciate a rewrite of the sentence about the "total potential payout". C. Cerf (talk) 19:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I see your point. There is some play in the numbers due to rounding up or down of numbers, but here is a more detailed breakdown and explanation of the numbers.

Two companies - ACE Bermuda and XL Insurance, Ltd. - settled in Feb. 2002, paying a total of $365 million ($298 million by ACE and $67 by XL)

Three companies - Hartford, Royal Indemnity, and St. Paul Fire - brought motions for summary judgment seeking a declaration that they were subject to the "WilProp" language (i.e. the "one occurrence" interpretation) rather than the Travelers language (i.e. the "two occurrence" interpretation). They were successful and the decision was upheld on appeal by the Circuit Court in September 2003. These three were subject, therefore, to a maximum liability of $112 million.

The remaining insurers were split into two groups for jury trials on the question of whether they were subject to the "one occurrence" or "two occurrence" language.

The first trial resulted in a verdict that 10 of those insurers whose liability totalled $1.9 billion, were subject to the WilProp language and thus their total liability was limited to $1.9 billion (three of the 13 insurers in this group were found to be liable to the "two occurrence" language so were added to the second trial group).

The second trial resulted in a verdict that the remaining insurers were indeed subject to the double occurrence language, so their $1.1 billion in coverage resulted in these insurers being liable for a maximum of $2.2 billion

As a result of these lawsuits, the total potential payout is capped at $4,577,000,000 for buildings 1, 2, 4, and 5.

But yes, there is a discrepancy in the numbers due to rounding. The $4.577 billion is a more precise number taken from the various court decisions, with very little rounding.

Hope that helps to explain, and I'll work on a rewrite of that sentence when I can. --Jazz2006 (talk) 04:49, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

This section is also unclear as to whether WTC7 was included in the insurance total, mention is made only of WTC 1,2,4 and 5. Was the WTC7 insurance handled separately and if so what was the amount payable by the insurers? This should surely be a relevant inclusion in this section. Otherwise just amend the section to make mention of that building since it is rather important in the larger scheme of things. DubhGlass (talk) 02:24, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Reasons for moving credits away from lead section

This is in response to User:Jazz2006. I did that minor edit to make the article less biased. As it is, after your undoing, all those credits in the lead section look only as a futile attempt to make Mr. Silverstein look respectable, especially in view of the very suspicious circumstances that, in spite of all the tragedies involved in the 9/11 horror, made him wealthier still -- thus giving more strength to conspiracy theories. Leave the article as you wish, I couldn't care less. --AVM (talk) 21:23, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

You removed neutral, verifiable information from an article about a living person, in order to further your clearly biased point of view. That is not in keeping with the Wikipedia guidelines, nor is it a "minor" edit. Further, including neutral, verifiable information in a biographical article about a living person is not "a futile attempt to make Mr. Silverstein look respectable.." He is, by all neutral and verifiable accounts, a very well respected and respectable businessman. Wikipedia is not a dumping ground for conspiracy fantasists to re-write history based on nothing but innuendo, unfounded accusations, unsupported allegations, and the voices in their heads. If and when you have any evidence to back up the claims and innuendo in your post above, please produce same. Until then, it serves no useful purpose to vandalize articles in an effort to slant them to your non-neutral point of view. {Jazz2006 (talk) 02:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)}

Bullshit. I did NOT "remove" nor "vandalize" anything. All I did was to move texts from the article's lead to its body, as explained in my edit: (moved credits away from lead) for the very valid reasons cited above. All odds, however, predicted that some paid editor would probably revert my edit, and defend his/her actions with a pre-cooked argumentation, as it indeed was the case. Luckily, however, other editors basically repeated what I did to arrive at the present article's shape. What will you do about that? It appears that for you, whoever doesn't agree with you has a "non-neutral point of view". Rubbish. --AVM (talk) 15:55, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

Pull it?

Why are there no mentions of his infamous "pull it" comment on PBS document "America rebuilds" in 2002? In other words, that is alleged (mostly by conspiracy theorists) to have been Larry's decision to bring down WTC 7 on 9/11. I'm not necessarily saying he was already aware of what was going on, but that comment has been very popular, so it should be mentioned. -- 88.112.34.29 (talk) 05:21, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

We thought, you know, we've wasted so much time and space on this phrase. The smartest thing to do was just to pull it. Tom Harrison ^Talk 17:05, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

ya but considering the scumbag move to try get paid out double the insured policy over 3,000 dead americans graves, there should be some conflict of interest noted in the process, if there is an article cited from a legitimate news source with such contents would it be removed? Or should i not even waste my time? how is it Maoipedia even up in the discussion page? --99.8.7.49 (talk) 14:19, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

On April 21, 2010, Fox News writer Jeffrey Shapiro wrote an article(http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/21/jeffrey-scott-shapiro-jesse-venture-book-lies-truthers-ground-zero-sept-shame/) shaming Jesse Ventura and other 9/11 skeptics. In this article, he writes of being told that Larry Silverstein was on the phone with insurers trying to authorize a controlled demolition on the day of 09/11/01. Shapiro writes:

"Shortly before the building , several NYPD officers and Con-Edison workers told me that Larry Silverstein, the property developer of One World Financial Center was on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building – since its foundation was already unstable and expected to fall."

This is huge evidence as Silverstein himself has denied requesting a controlled demolition for the last eight years. Let's see this on his wiki page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.39.74.191 (talk) 18:20, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

That he was attempting to authorize a demolition of the WTC building 7 on Sept. 11th now gives vindication to the probability that this indeed is what actually occurred. Try and feed this to the masses. If convincingly digested, we would have a revolution the size of which George Washington's corpse would stand to attention! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.175.85.59 (talk) 01:18, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

Please be aware that Wikipedia does not aim at propaganda. I have just reverted an edit which used (some) unreliable sources as well as synthesis and bolding. This does not adhere to Wikipedia's style and aim. Please discuss edits here before putting them into the article, especially if the topic ("Pull it") has already been discussed and is so obviously controversial. 78.55.171.1 (talk) 08:42, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

It's not really propaganda, it's whats there. He said it, no denying it, what did he mean by it? Is it a coincidence that he had a Doctors appointment on the day of the attack? It's not propaganda, it's fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Albert Cole (talk • contribs) 23:00, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes it is propaganda. He was quoting Fire Chief Dan Nigro, and even if he did have a doctor's appointment that day, I have no doubts he would've had to cancel it. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 12:53, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

No it is not. Substantiated hard facts of interest such as this one deserve to be stated. — SniperMaské (talk) 12:46, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes it is! Not one accusation made by you people is a "substantiated hard fact." It was Chief Nigro who told Silverstein that they were going to pull their people out. To suggest otherwise is pure WP:CB and WP:FRINGE. ---------User:DanTD (talk) 20:13, 3 September 2013 (UTC)

Disinforming readers gives wings to conspiracy folks. It should be mentioned. Wiki should not be a gov. press office. --83.33.144.86 (talk) 22:01, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

The only people disinforming anybody are those in the so-called "9/11 truth" movement. This has nothing to do with your presumption of anyone using Wikipedia as a "government press office." ---------User:DanTD (talk) 21:14, 4 November 2017 (UTC)

Page semiprotected

I have placed this article on long-term semiprotection based upon persistent and seriously defamatory edits from multiple IPs violating the biographies of living persons policy. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:03, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

I concur with this...the article has been haunted off and on by IP's making BLP violations.--MONGO 04:00, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Building 7

I might be missing it, but I'm not clear for the article what Silverstein's relationship to building 7 was. Rich Farmbrough, 16:23, 19 October 2011 (UTC).

Ethnicity

There is a mistake in the Ethnicity. His religion is written instead. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.244.6.71 (talk) 21:54, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 12 November 2015

ALEXKAYYY (talk) 05:21, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

 Not done as you have not requested a change. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. --I am k6ka ^{Talk to me!} _{See what I have done} 12:47, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

No mention of 2013 lawsuit

On 2013, Larry Silverstein tried to trying to sue airlines for BILLIONS for 9/11 attacks... even though he was already paid $5billion in insurance .Why no mention about it?? Books Nash (talk) 08:42, 5 January 2016 (UTC)

WIkipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit. If you can find multiple reliable sources that state Silverstein "tried to sue the airlines in 2013" you could possibly add that material to the article, keeping a neutral point of view in mind. Of course, if other editors objected or altered the content, you would have to work out any issues through editorial consensus. Shearonink (talk) 05:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

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photo

Please add the photo of him here .. File:Three World Trade Center topping out ceremony.png

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other projects

I added some additional information about other projects such as 30 park place and One west end. Disclosure: On my day job, I am employed by Silverstein Properties. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ashspi (talk • contribs) 16:03, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

Philanthropy

I expand this section. Disclosure: on my day job, I am employed by Silverstein Properties Ashspi (talk) 16:13, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

redevelopment

I expanded Silverstein redevelopment projects in the World Trade Center. Full disclosure: On my day job, I am working for Silverstein Proerties. Ashspi (talk) 22:51, 23 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 October 2020

The $4.55 billion insurance settlement was the single largest insurance settlement ever. U.Anon.93 (talk) 21:43, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 21:45, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

References