Timing is everything.

I had originally planned to write this column last week, on the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people who were working in the two buildings that awful morning. The topic is the economics of 1 World Trade Center  the building, formerly known as the Freedom Tower, with one of the most tortured construction histories in New York history  that is finally being erected at ground zero. When it is finished, it will stand 1,776 feet in the air, making it the tallest building in New York.

With an expected completion date of 2013, 1 World Trade Center is the most expensive skyscraper ever constructed in the United States, with a price tag currently estimated at $3.3 billion. By contrast, the spanking new Bank of America Tower in Midtown Manhattan cost about $2 billion. That is pretty much the going rate for building new skyscrapers in New York City. Just to break even, 1 World Trade Center will require rents far higher than the going rate in Midtown, much less downtown New York, where the building is located and where rents are considerably lower.

Since 1 World Trade Center is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, it seems fair to assume that any shortfall between the building’s annual rental income and its carrying costs will most likely be borne by the people who pay the toll to cross the George Washington Bridge, or use the Lincoln Tunnel, or ride the PATH rail system, all of which the Port Authority controls. It also seems fair to say that no private developer in his right mind would build a $3.3 billion high-rise office building in a marketplace that tops out at $2 billion. Only a government entity would do such a thing. My plan was to question whether 1 World Trade Center really made sense for the city and its taxpayers.

But I blinked last week. Even nine years later, the events surrounding 9/11 remain so emotional that it seemed somehow sacrilegious to ask tough questions about 1 World Trade Center on the day of the anniversary. Although the Port Authority claims it changed the name from Freedom Tower precisely because it wanted the building to be viewed as a commercial office building and not a civic symbol, it is difficult to rid the building entirely of its symbolism.