🗽 “Miracle Below 34th St” — New York’s 9/11 comeback. Bumble’s ultimate breakup. The Boring Company’s fundraise. +Pokemon $$$

Twenty-five years after the September 11th attacks turned Lower Manhattan into a mountain of smoldering rubble, the neighborhood has pulled off what the hosts call "the greatest urban comeback in American history." That story anchors a Friday news roundup that also covers Elon Musk's Boring Company raising $3 billion despite still operating in just one city, and Bumble losing its biggest Wall Street investor as the dating app's stock sits 96% off its high. The episode weaves in a lighter opener about Pokemon cards as a potential post-apocalyptic currency, but the core is three substantial business developments.

The Miracle Below 34th Street

Before 9/11, the Financial District was a commuter zone — people worked there in finance and left. After the attacks killed 2,753 people and left a "smoldering debris" site visible from space, no one knew what to do with the area. Twenty-five years later, the population of the Financial District has tripled compared to the year before the attack. The hosts credit $20 billion in redevelopment spending — more than the Panama Canal cost, roughly the GDP of Jamaica — that created 10 million square feet of office space, 500,000 square feet of retail, a new transit hub, and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum.