Michael Bloomberg on reviving lower Manhattan through the arts
CBSN
In the shadow of where the Twin Towers once stood in New York City, glowing above the memorial pools honoring the nearly three thousand people killed on September 11, 2001, stands a shining new monument to the living. The $500 million Perelman Performing Arts Center opens its doors later this month. The PAC, as it's known, is the final major piece of the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site.
It is also the coda to a remarkable story of the revival of a neighborhood that many thought would never recover. Yet, while there were 30,000 people living in downtown Manhattan in 2001 just before the attacks, in 2020 that number had grown to roughly double.
"Today it is a residential area," said former Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "When I worked on Wall Street, there was nobody at the streets at night, and now the streets are packed with people."
