The gleaming new office tower at 7 World Trade Center opens today. Let those who have charged over the past few months that Larry Silverstein was dragging his feet redeveloping at ground zero contemplate Mr. Silverstein’s building. That is what new construction in New York looks like, and it happened because the government kept its hands off. Across the street from 7, the Port Authority has yet to excavate the sites of the three towers Mr. Silverstein will build under the deal he ultimately struck with the authority and the mayor. With two groundbreakings completed already, New Yorkers are in danger of losing count of how many times politicians have hailed the start of the Freedom Tower.

Even when it has looked like the path was finally clear, new problems have cropped up, as with the stir last week when everyone remembered they needed to double-check with Mr. Silverstein’s insurance companies to make sure his pay-out, a key part of the financing for his deal with the Authority, was indeed as transferable.

Meantime, fewer than five years after the September 11 attacks, the private sector has brought New Yorkers a shimmering new office tower downtown. And how does the city’s government react? It hires Daniel Doctoroff to mock a private entrepreneur (and taxpayer) for having leased only 20% of the building so far. Well, 20% of one building is more than the 0% of no buildings that the geniuses at the firm of Doctoroff, Bloomberg, Pataki & Corzine have managed to lease at ground zero.

Whether Lower Manhattan will support as much office space as Mr. Silverstein plans to offer at the rents he’s willing to take is still an open question that only time will be able to answer. But he’ll know when to adjust, or pay the consequences. New Yorkers give Mr. Silverstein enormous credit for being willing to bet on the future of this city and for putting his money, and his cranes, on the line. That’s something the Port Authority and the city government have yet to do at ground zero.