1987: Office of Special Planning Closes Down

The New York Port Authority’s Office of Special Planning (OSP) is closed down. It had been established in 1984 (see Early 1984) to evaluate and address the vulnerabilities of Port Authority facilities, including the World Trade Center, to terrorist attacks. [Village Voice, 1/5/2000; New York County Supreme Court, 1/20/2004] The reasons for the closure are unknown. However, Peter Goldmark, who’d created the OSP, had resigned as executive director of the Port Authority in 1985 to take a new job. [Glanz and Lipton, 2004, pp. 226-228] So the absence of his support for the office may have been a factor.