To keep the promise of “meeting or exceeding” the code, the Port Authority’s executive director, Charles Maikish, and its chief engineer, Frank Lombardi, took over space occupied by a record store, a five-and-dime, a restaurant, a bankrupt department store. These were demolished and turned into corridors, part of $34 million in improvements to the concourse. They had done underground what could not be done to the towers themselves: given more people better chances to get out.
