He's the only architect listed on the Observer's Dec. 2000 list of Players in New York's real estate game. Engineering a backroom takeover of the WTC rebuilding project may just be one step in David Childs' larger plan: to 0wn the West Side of Manhattan. The site is in line--the Eighth Ave. subway, to be specific--with other major Childs' projects in NYC:


42nd St: 7 Times Square, good for spying on Conde Nast.
50th St: Worldwide Plaza (I bet the model looked great)

116th St: East Campus Towers at Columbia, which would've gone where the Law School now is.