How Business Acumen, Drive, and a Law Degree Forged the Career of Larry Silverstein ’55

Larry Silverstein '55, the founder and chairman of Silverstein Properties who rebuilt the World Trade Center, is a real estate legend whose extraordinary vision and unflagging commitment transformed the skyline of Lower Manhattan.  

His Manhattan-based real estate development and investment firm has developed, owned, and managed more than 45 million square feet of office, residential, hotel, and retail space.  

A lesser-known side of Silverstein’s career story is his legal background. He is a 1955 graduate of Brooklyn Law School who has  been named 2026’s Alumnus of the Year. When Silverstein first started attending Brooklyn Law School, his plan was to join the fledgling real estate business that his parents had started. From his teenage years, he was riveted by discussions of the business that took place every night over the dinner table. "The family focused on properties in Lower Manhattan, primarily in the neighborhood that would become known as SoHo, which was a manufacturing and industrial hub at the time.  

"After college, I decided to go to Brooklyn Law School because it offered me the opportunity of going to law school in the morning, and going to my father’s office in the afternoon," Silverstein recalled. "By 12:30 I was in his office and spent the afternoon there, learning to be a real estate broker." 

At the time, the Law School was located at 375 Pearl Street, in downtown Brooklyn. 

"I thought going to law school would help me learn to be a better businessman and give me an exposure that I thought would be beneficial to me," Silverstein said. "It was good experience. It taught me how to think like a lawyer, and that’s beneficial in any course that you want to enter in life, particularly in the field of business." 

For someone in the real estate business, a legal education provides a particular edge because in closing any kind of transaction, one must deal with the owner of the property and the owner’s lawyer. "It became obvious to me that understanding how to function as a lawyer, understanding what the legal ramifications were, or the different moves that could be taken, was important," Silverstein said. 

'An Obligation to Rebuild' 

Although he never practiced law, Silverstein has earned a reputation for negotiating deals and making projects happen, against all odds.  

While Silverstein had developed many important buildings over the years, the $3.2 billion, 99-year lease he signed for the World Trade Center in July 2001 was his most ambitious and audacious deal to date, and it also happened to be the largest real estate transaction in New York history. Six weeks later, 9/11 happened. 

Fraught with engineering, financial and political complexities, not to mention a fierce public debate over what to build, redevelopment of the 16-acre site unfolded slowly over more than two decades.  

From the beginning, Silverstein insisted that new office towers should be built at the World Trade Center, and he predicted, correctly, that the redeveloped space would attract tenants and revitalize downtown. His vision included a memorial for those lost, and a new, architecturally stunning World Trade Center that would transform the skyline and revive Lower Manhattan as a thriving residential and commercial destination. 

"I had the realization that if I didn’t do it, no one else would or could," he said. "I felt I had an obligation to rebuild." 

In 2024, Silverstein published a warmly received memoir titled The Rising (Knopf, September 2024) in which he chronicles the many battles he fought and won in rebuilding the World Trade Center. "Silverstein’s account never lacks for melodrama," a Publishers Weekly review states. "This classic New York saga about the symbiosis of grand civic ambition and rugged pragmatism stands tall." 

Today, Silverstein Properties has completed 7 World Trade Center, 4 World Trade Center and 3 World Trade Center. American Express announced on Feb. 25, 2026 that the 16-acre site’s final office tower, 2 World Trade Center, would become the site of its new headquarters, which clears a longstanding hurdle for Silverstein Properties to build that final tower, too.