“Billionaires, Bruised Egos and the Death of a Grand Project” (nytimes):
For Barry Diller, the turning point came at a Sept. 5 settlement meeting with the small band of opponents who had tied up his plans for a $250 million park and cultural center in the Hudson River for more than two years.
Instead, Mr. Diller said, after all the questions, “I ended the meeting so depressed.” He had grown “disillusioned” about the project in the spring, when a federal judge revoked the permit for the pier, stopping preliminary work. When settlement talks began in July, he was “uncomfortable” sitting down with the people who had used the courts to wage a war of attrition against the project.
With that phone call, Mr. Diller ended a six-year saga that had cost $40 million before construction had started in earnest.
Whatever the merits of this project might have been, it should be inspiring to young people that $40 million in revenue was generated for lawyers and bureaucrats.
Don’t forget the lucrative field of “environmental impact consultant”.
It is pretty sad that one couldn’t simply read the law, and determine if building the park and cultural center is legal.