Justin Berzon rose to national prominence in 2002 when he conducted a landmark planning survey of the World Trade Center site, which the media christened the "Standing Tall" configuration. Berzon undertook the land-use research study in order to verify rebuilding officials' claims that it would be impossible to reposition and rebuild the fallen Twin Towers. His findings made headlines when they ultimately disproved the authorities' stance, illustrating a scheme that could accommodate the reconstructed towers in accordance with infrastructure requirements and public demands for a memorial. As a result of the publicity generated by the study, Berzon established many contacts with New York reporters who had discovered irregularities in the rebuilding process, but who couldn't make heads or tails of their random information snippets. They turned over their notes and encouraged him -- as a trained investigative journalist and skyscraper researcher -- to pursue the story. Berzon subsequently has become the foremost repository for documenting corruption, cronyism and irregularities in the rebuilding effort. He regularly consults for the media.

The "Standing Tall" land-use research study initially was conducted as an academic exercise. It was NOT designed as a concrete architectural plan, but rather as an investigation of the feasibility of reconstructing two 110-story towers with a diagonal offset at Ground Zero.

As a Lower Manhattan resident in the aftermath of 9/11, Berzon listened to the local community voice its support for rebuilding, and he became curious when Port Authority officials declared it impossible to resurrect the fallen towers elsewhere on the site. More than a matter of shifting buildings around like chess pieces on a 16-acre game board, any legitimate master plan would demand the commercial buildings be functionally integrated with the necessary underground infrastructure. As it turned out, there was such a viable configuration permitting new Twin Towers.
The Berzon Report, released before officials unveiled the first Libeskind-Childs vision for the Freedom Tower, alerted the media to Berzon's preliminary collated findings. Chief among them was that the official poll numbers used to validate Daniel Libeskind as Ground Zero's "democratically elected" master planner didn't add up. Berzon also conducted a computer re-scaling of Libeskind's signature skyline image and discovered the architect had grossly exaggerated the heights of his buildings in the rendering, promoting a much taller restored skyline than his plan would actually offer.
In response to feedback from the 2003 Report, Berzon produced a media primer of sorts, for the first time centrally compiling dozens of inexplicable irregularities in the rebuilding process, and summarizing the position of every significant constituency with a vested interest in the rebuilding outcome. At the request of various advocacy groups, a limited number of copies also were bound and made available to the public through this Web site under the title, "The Ground Zero Rebuilding Scandal." 

The monograph ultimately concluded that the international design competition for the new World Trade Center had been rigged before it ever began. More importantly, after receiving copies of the monograph, several "insiders" in the rebuilding process came forward to offer Berzon the full details of how and why the competition had been rigged, telling stories of unexposed bribery, graft, and fraud. This prompted Berzon to team with New York-based syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock to write a book bringing these travesties to light (see 2006). 
The media monograph of 2004 explicitly concluded that, upon attempting to create blueprints for the Libeskind-Childs "Windmill" Freedom Tower, engineers would find the structure technically and economically unviable. Fully one year later, in May 2005, every conclusion proved true in a moment of public humiliation, when officials acknowledged the tower would need to be redesigned.

As architects reworked the Freedom Tower, New Yorkers widely supported an alternative campaign by pop culture developer Donald Trump to rebuild an updated version of the original complex. Berzon earlier had provided background information and current site plans to structural engineer Kenneth Gardner, whose model for replacement Twin Towers was endorsed by Trump on national television in March 2005.
Berzon and co-author Deroy Murdock finished the manuscript for their collaborative book, "Sex, Lies and Ground Zero," detailing the as-yet unreported scandals swirling behind the rebuilding effort. Their agent in New York currently is in talks with publishers to arrange a 2006 release date.

On May 1, 2006, Berzon appeared as a testimonial expert on Penn & Teller's television show, "Bulls#@t!" The program, which airs on Showtime, combines documentary journalism with the comedic duo's editorialized commentary to produce biting exposés on controversial topics in American culture.