Even on the 16th anniversary of 9/11, Lynn Sagalyn’s exhaustive account of the conflicted planning and troubled execution of the epic redevelopment of Ground Zero is still engaging—especially to those who care about New York’s symbolic center of business. A professor at the Columbia University Business School and founder of its Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate, Sagalyn explains how disunified stakeholders, splintered site control, and shifting leadership resulted in extensive and litigated delays, ballooning budgets, and compromises in design and programmatic elements.

Sagalyn does not offer architectural or urban design evaluations beyond reporting on others’ critiques of Michael Arad and Peter Walker’s National September 11 Memorial, 1 World Trade Center tower designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, and other key architectural components. This may disappoint some readers. Yet she incisively analyzes how the often conflicting objectives of an array of political and business protagonists, along with 9/11 survivors, shaped (and delayed) a tumultuous process of redevelopment.