Bullish on the Big Apple

Special Issue | The city thrives after 9/11—but healing doesn’t happen in a New York minute | Mindy Belz

NEW YORK— Osama bin Laden failed. That's the message thrumming and whirring from a dozen construction cranes hoisted above the skyline in lower Manhattan. Even on a late winter day of pelting rain and slicing wind, the clatter of construction is the dominant soundtrack on the streets at this southern tip of New York City.

If the al-Qaeda leader meant as he said to take out the financial heart of America—and the free world—when 19 hijackers took down seven buildings here on Sept. 11, 2001, then New York's financial district is rebuking him with a vengeance.

Condo cluster high-rises have sprung across from the southwest border of Ground Zero, and developers throughout the financial district—particularly in the neighborhoods of Tribeca and Battery Park City—rapidly are converting existing rentals.