NEW YORK — High above lower Manhattan with skyline views once reserved for bankers and lawyers, graffiti artist Michael Grimace lets loose with a can of spray paint.
“I’ve painted in a lot of unique places in New York and around the world, and this has gotta be literally at the top of uniqueness,” he said.
Four World Trade Center is one of the newly finished buildings that rose from the ashes of 9-11. Now the 69th floor is a colorful collaboration of street artists, now working here for free.
One of their biggest fans visits in a pin-striped suit and pocket square.
“We’re putting the graffiti back. It’s all going back,” said billionaire developer Larry Silverstein.
Silverstein took the lease here just two months before the 9-11 attacks and has overseen the rebuilding of lower Manhattan.
The newest residents are the modern titans: high tech giants like Spotify, which leased 14 floors.
Dr. Kenneth Ouriel’s hi-tech healthcare research company Syntactx recently moved in.
“When you get a company like Spotify and you get young people I think it makes it easier for us to recruit you intelligent people at the start of their career.”
Silverstein not only accepts this new vibe – he embraces it.
So the days of the World Trade Center being a buttoned up financial hub are over.
Now 86, Silverstein watched the original Twin Towers go up and then come down. Sixteen years later, he sees a transformation from darkness to light and color.