As executive director of the New York and New Jersey Port Authority, Joseph Seymour, M.C.P. ’76, is a leader in the development of the World Trade Center site.
By David Gregorio ’80Photo by William Kauffman used by permission of New York Construction News. Background image © 1994 Photodisc, Inc.
Planning has been Joseph Seymour’s bread and butter ever since he received his Master’s in Community Planning from URI in 1976. But there was no way he could have planned for the phone call he received in November 2001, when New York Governor George Pataki asked him to become executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that owned the World Trade Center and was responsible for planning and building whatever was to replace the towers destroyed two months earlier.
“I was aghast,” recalled Seymour, who got the call while touring a power plant in Queens as head of the New York State Power Authority. He asked for time to think about it, and Pataki joked that he could either take it or “go to Afghanistan instead.” Seymour replied: “Can I at least talk to my wife?” Pataki answered: “Of course, talk to Susan. Call me back in two hours.”
So Seymour called his wife at their home near Albany. Her advice: “Get an apartment in Manhattan.”
Within weeks, Seymour was at the helm of a mammoth agency responsible for LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark Airports; the Holland and Lincoln Tunnels; the George Washington Bridge and several other spans; not to mention seaports, bus terminals, and rail lines. The executive director of the Port Authority reports to the governors of two states, manages thousands of employees (including a security force of 1,600), and administers an annual capital budget of $2 billion. Seymour hit the ground running. There could be no help from his predecessor, Neil Levin, a friend who died on Sept. 11 at a breakfast appointment atop the World Trade Center.
Seymour was immersed in a whirlwind of tasks that included finalizing 10 years of negotiations for airport leases; working with a Congress member on a proposal for a new freight tunnel, developing a new rail spur for the Staten Island Railroad, dredging ports, and working on a proposed water link to Kennedy Airport. He also had to negotiate with myriad government agencies and interest groups with stakes in the redevelopment of Ground Zero. Meanwhile, there was also the effort to build a temporary PATH train station in lower Manhattan to replace the one destroyed when the towers fell. The station, vital to thousands of commuters from New Jersey, opened ahead of schedule just 16 months after the rubble was cleared and the Port Authority was given the go-ahead to start rebuilding.
This summer Seymour finally had time to sit down with a reporter for QUAD ANGLES in his office on Park Avenue and 18th Street and reflect on the most challenging two years of his career.
It was a challenge for which he felt well prepared. After receiving his bachelor’s degree from Northeastern University in Boston, Seymour already had five years of work experience in urban redevelopment agencies when he enrolled at URI to get his master’s degree. He fondly remembers courses with Professor Howard Foster in planning principles and land use planning, and studio sessions working on projects in Providence, Philadelphia, and Narragansett.
“It was a pretty competitive group, but we had a lot of fun,” he said. “I think I gained a good, solid planning background.” He took those skills with him to Peekskill, N.Y., where he served as planning director and city manager and met an up-and-coming George Pataki, who gave him the chance to distinguish himself at various jobs in state government before tapping him to run the Port Authority.
Professor Foster, who recently retired after 40 years on the Community Planning faculty, remembers Seymour well. “Joe has demonstrated that the combination of a business degree and URI’s master’s program in community planning is an excellent way to prepare for a career in public service,” Foster commented. “His current job is arguably one of the highest level public sector planning and management positions in the country.”
Seymour was pleased when the PATH station in lower Manhattan reopened last winter and impressed at the hard work and skill of the team that brought it back into service. “I think that’s one of this agency’s greatest accomplishments, the restoration in 16 months of the temporary PATH station,” he said. While they were rebuilding the temporary service, Seymour and his crew were also planning a new $2 billion transportation hub that will link ferries, trains, and subways with a series of pedestrian walkways, tunnels, and bridges.
Seymour pulled out plans for the transit center, which he thinks can be the catalyst for the redevelopment of lower Manhattan in the 21st century just as Grand Central Terminal was for midtown Manhattan in the 20th century. But as big a project as the transit center is, it’s still only one leg of the World Trade Center redevelopment project that also includes a new office tower and a memorial for the victims of 9/11.
“I think the biggest project that I’ve ever been involved with, consuming a tremendous amount of my time and this agency’s time, is working to develop a final site plan for the World Trade Center,” he said. The effort requires work with community boards and business groups, New York City Hall, World Trade Center lease holder Larry Silverstein, and neighbors of the World Trade Center site including the World Financial Center, which itself holds 9 million square feet of office space—almost as much as downtown Denver.
Despite complex negotiations with all the interest groups, plans are coming along for both a memorial for those who perished in the twin towers—a priority for the families of the victims—and a 1776 Freedom Tower with 10 million square feet of office space that is important for big Wall Street firms that want to ensure lower Manhattan remains the world’s financial hub. The Port Authority is also seeking a partner to develop 600,000 square feet of retail space that will help keep workers and tourists shopping and dining in the area after the offices empty out in the evening.
While revitalizing lower Manhattan is vastly more complex than any other job Seymour has undertaken, he said the same planning principles he studied at URI still apply. “You sift through competing demands and different interests, identifying common interests and strategies for implementation,” he said. “It really is the same process.”
A former reporter for The Good 5¢ Cigar, Dave Gregorio ’80 is a copy editor at the financial news desk of Reuters in New York City.
