larry silverstein built and owned WTC7 since 1987, when the port authority of NY decided to privatize the whole WTC complex he ended up winning the lease because the other buyer dropped out at the last minute, so by july 2001 larry owned the entire complex of buildings. his contract obligated him to purchase an all encompassing insurance plan which at that time included clauses for terrorist attacks. when the WTC was destroyed, larry suddenly had all this unusable real estate with an estimated rebuilding cost of $10 Billion. as such he tried to argue in court that each plane crash counted as a separate terrorist attack (or “occurrences” as they’re called in the legal world) instead of one big terrorist attack. this would have awarded him a $7 billion payout instead of a $3 billion one. the courts disagreed and they ultimately settled on $4.5 billion. larry also caused problems with the rebuilding by interfering with the design process. originally the PANYNJ held a competition to choose the design but since larry owned the land which the complex resided he felt he had final say and hired another architect behind their backs, in addition to immediately rebuilding WTC7. this is why WTC7 was the first building to be completed in 2006. today larry only owns buildings 7 and 4, he gave his ownership of 1WTC back to the port authority before construction began in 2006, as well as providing some of his insurance payout to be used towards rebuilding. a lot of conspiracy theories were created about him profiting from 9/11 but he actually lost a shit ton of money and real estate and has never fully been able to recover. More on reddit.com

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Even if the deck had been opened and occupied by tourists, this presupposes that a video camcorder would have survived and been recovered from the collapse of WTC. Very low odds of that, unless a helicopter managed to make a roof landing and rescue people from the observation deck like they originally attempted. More on reddit.com

Here's my own personal idea about this. Osama bin Laden was a very good terrorist. He knew how to not only kill people, but also how to make their deaths as traumatic as possible. The WTC, being a pair of towers, presented an opportunity to him. See, with most terror attacks, the only images you see are of the aftermath. The bomb going off happens in an instant, and no one has their cameras going until afterward. But with a double attack, on a pair of towers, he can have his attack broadcast live on every news network in the world. Think about it. The first plane hits. Everyone is freaking out. No one is sure what's going on. The news shows up to cover the disaster. They have time to set up their cameras, conveniently pointed at the target of the second plane. Just as they're all situated, the second plane hits. The impact is broadcast live, to millions of people around the world, who are already glued to the TV. This was bin Ladens goal - He wanted us to see the attack, in real time. He wanted the video. Terrorism is about violence, but it's also about PR. A terrorist wants to impact people beyond the direct victims of his attack. By attacking a pair of neighboring towers, bin Laden ensured that there would be that terrible footage of the attack occurring live. That footage would certainly prove to be far more impactful than images of the aftermath would've been. Osama bin Laden wanted his attack immortalized for all time. He wanted us to see it. More on reddit.com