If We Don’t Open A Restaurant 100 Stories In The Air Then The Terrorists Will Have Won

Maybe a bar will be better, so as to smooth out customers’ jitters:

The Freedom Tower will be topped by New York City’s highest restaurant, a 34,000-square-foot space on the 100th and 101st floors that the Port Authority, which owns the tower, yesterday offered up to entice interest among potential operators.

The Port Authority’s request for expression of interest for a restaurant and banquet space high in One World Trade Center is already eliciting commentary from New York’s top restaurateurs and real estate analysts.

A co-owner of Nobu, Drew Nieporent, said the attacks of September 11, 2001, had a lasting effect on the mentality of diners. About 150 restaurant employees and guests at Windows on the World were killed in the attack.

“I’m not advocating that it’s the best idea, I think it has to sink in a little,” he said. Of the terrorist enemy, he said: “You know, these people could do just about anything, they can be very creative and it doesn’t just have to be something in a tall building. If they want to wreak havoc, a public space is better where there’s a large congregation of people.”

. . .

But the proposition of renting such a unique space at such an extreme height on soil with such a history could pose a number of challenges.

“Every floor you go above sidewalk level makes it more difficult,” the owner of the River Café, Michael “Buzzy” O’Keeffe, said. “If you had only one floor like that — in a city like New York — it would probably be a big tourist attraction. But there are many floors like that here. There are many big tall buildings with tall views,” he said, adding that “it was not easy to make Windows on the World work.”