This morning I heard the story about the new World Trade Center buildings and the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey factored in heavily in the decisions.
I have always lived in landlocked states so "Port Authority" means Wildlife, Fish, & Game to me. What events caused the governing body of ports to have so much influence in building construction far from the ports?
To add a bit of context, especially for landlocked folks: Port authorities are cross-state entities, legal interstate compacts that help build, regulate and manage infrastructure like bridges, dams, ferries, ports, trains, etc. that cross borders or otherwise require a lot of overhead and interstate collaboration. There are inland entities like the Tennessee Valley Authority, who performs similar functions for river systems in the southeast.
My expertise is more with the Delware River PA, but the NJ/NY one formed amid a very similar situation, with two states squabbling over infrastructure and being resolved by the establishment of an entity managed jointly.
After formation:
With their new legal jurisdiction and the ability to raise bonds and charge tolls, the port authority was able to add many additional river crossings in its early existence (GW bridge, holland tunnel, lincoln tunnel,etc.) In the mid 1900's they began managing airports: Newark, JFK and LaGuardia, and were very successful at making them financially solvent, modern and viable. After this they began work on the WTC complex, which is built on bayfront property (mostly on reclaimed land) right among PA ports. There was a lot of resistance from Radio Row tenants and neighbors obviously, more than a few lost some land via eminent domain.
The decisions of the Port Authority to build WTC was certainly backed by the state governors and port authority committee boards through the years, with a lot of money to be made by developers and other parties certainly also having a part to play. There were a lot of stipulations regarding the site, requirements, etc. and it was not a quick process.
Austin Tobin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_J._Tobin was essential to much of this development, running the Port Authority for some 30 years and steering it towards financial accountability and solvency, while personally overseeing and pushing for many huge changes beyond bridges and tunnels.
As public transportation in the US became the responsibility of government, the Port Authority got stuck with the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, essentially a subway from New Jersey to Manhattan. One asset that could be leveraged for additional income was the H&M (now PATH) train's Lower Manhattan terminal, and that's where the World Trade Center was built.