First, every community interest in Lower Manhattan came out in opposition to the idea of a West Street tunnel opposite the World Trade Center site. Now Goldman Sachs is so against it that it has said that it will abandon its planned $2 billion, 40-story headquarters building at the northwest corner of Vesey and West Streets.

The plan crafted by NY State DOT would locate a tunnel portal in front of the Goldman Sachs entrance on West Street. The state has another plan, which would omit the tunnel, save a lot of money and create a perfectly good urban boulevard along that lower Manhattan portion of West Street. But Governor Pataki and the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. are bent on imposing the tunnel option that no one else wants.

According to the NY Times, Goldman Sachs officials say the tunnel portal "would send traffic racing past the building's entrance, making it too perilous for pedestrians, and too daunting and forbidding for clients or visitors." This has been the root of opposition to the plan in the community as well, because if the portal is moved a block or two, the same conditions will potentially be imposed in front of other buildings.

The Goldman Sachs project is the only major new private project moving toward construction in the nearby the World Trade Center site. It would be a big blow to downtown’s recovery if Goldman Sachs decides to locate its headquarters elsewhere. Why is the governor micro-managing West Street’s design to the point of jeopardizing large private investment? 

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