The Twin Towers contained 5000 tons asbestos (of the worst kind there is). In the mid-1990s, the New York Port Authority was looking at an asbestos abatement bill of as much as $1 billion dollars – representing well over 10 times the buildings' original cost. When the buildings' insurers, Affiliated FM, refused to cover the asbestos removal/abatement costs and won their subsequent lawsuit over the the matter, the Port Authority was left with some untenable choices; The outdated buildings could not be demolished because of the asbestos; for the same reason, they could not be remodeled and updated in any cost-effective manner. The only other option was to slowly dismantle the Towers a piece at a time – the cost of which would have run into several billions of dollars. Conveniently, real estate developer Larry Silverstein was willing to take over the buildings, the first time in its 33-year history the complex had EVER changed ownership. The deal was signed late July of 2001, only weeks before the attacks(!), with a 99-year lease to the Port Authority. Mr. Silverstein, who made a down-payment of $124 million on this $3.2 billion complex, promptly insured it for $7 Billion. Not only that,…