Tag: World Trade Center

Read More

Where They Stood

Twenty-one years ago today, terrorists flew commercial airliners into the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. Of course, I vividly remember the unfolding events, like so many Americans. That said, meaning fades with time.

Surely everyone alive when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December 1941 shares similar experience. Think of what occurred during the following 21 years to make the event’s emotional impact diminish. Little things, like the Cuban Missile crisis in October 1962 that brought the world to the precipice of nuclear war.

Read More

Flickr a Day 254: World Trade Center

We pause to remember the fallen buildings and the brave people tragically fallen with them on this 14th 9-11 memorial. I lived in the Washington, D.C. metro area that day, and the terrorist attack on the U.S. Pentagon was more immediate. My wife, a New Jersey native, more keenly felt for New Yorkers. I shared my reflection of that morning 10 years ago today.

Our selection recalls what was when it started. Wil Blanche captured this poignant moment from the Staten Island Ferry sometime in May 1973. Tenants started moving into the towers in December 1970, during construction. The buildings officially opened, as the tallest in the world, about a month before Wil shot the photo. Camera and other information isn’t available. The pic is courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.

Read More

What They Saw

Today, a couple released video footage they shot on September 11, 2001, “36 floors up and 500 yards from the North Tower” of the World Trade Center. The video, “September 11, 2001: What We Saw“.

The video is riveting, because of the raw emotion expressed by the observants’ disbelief and grief shared by so many of us that day—and because the viewer knows what is yet to occur: The second plane hitting the South Tower, the collapse of the South Tower, and the collapse of the North Tower. If there is a perspective of looking with hindsight, this video is it.