The World Trade Center
I miss the World Trade Center.
Not architecturally, but viscerally. The twin towers was not a gracious edifice; indeed upon its completion, it was said to be no more attractive than "two sticks of butter." But I grew up about twenty miles from Manhattan, and you could see the World Trade Center from the high point of my hometown. Like millions of others, I developed a relationship with those buildings that transcended their design shortcomings.
On three occasions I took good friends, none of whom had ever seen New York City, on the train from Ridgewood, NJ to Hoboken, followed by the PATH subway to the subterranean labrynth below the Twin Towers. We rode the elevator to the observation deck, and my buddies enjoyed their first view of New York - from 110 stories up.
One Thanksgiving Day, while visiting a great friend in Brooklyn, I went for a run over the Brooklyn Bridge. Headed uptown on Broadway (this was during Mayor Koch's bike lane fantasy, so there was a clear running lane) to Herald Square, then headed back downtown on Fifth Avenue, with the World Trade Center as my destination.
After stopping briefly to stretch at Washington Square Arch, which framed the Towers perfectly against a bright blue autumn sky, I continued on to the financial district. As I ran past the towers, the wind funneled up the Narrows and into the Upper Bay, and passed between the towers. As I ran out of the shadow of Tower 1 in mid-stride, I was literally blown over. Knocked flat down.
I got up laughing at myself, checked for blood (only minor scrapes), and continued back past City Hall, over the bridge and through the Fulton Street Mall, where a pedestrian, seeing my Clemson shirt shouted "Go Tiger!" as I zoomed past him laughing and waving. A wonderful afternoon in New York!
Now, whenever I visit The City, my eye is drawn to the gap in the skyline that the towers used to occupy. Like a tongue to a missing tooth, my eyes are drawn to the hole in lower Manhattan, and I find myself yearning for the Towers' solid anchor. Over the years, the Towers had morphed themselves from sticks of butter to railroad spikes, driven firmly into the southern tip of Manhattan.
And I come back to the fact that my relationship with the World Trade Center was largely peripheral. It was there as I grew up, I dismissed it as poor architecture, I looked at it from the Bridge, I visited with friends, I ran around it. And still I miss it. Three years later.
What of the people that lost loved ones? What to me is a missing tooth in lower Manhattan must to them be more like a stinging, persistent cold-sore. I can't even imagine their pain.
I miss the World Trade Center.
Not architecturally, but viscerally. The twin towers was not a gracious edifice; indeed upon its completion, it was said to be no more attractive than "two sticks of butter." But I grew up about twenty miles from Manhattan, and you could see the World Trade Center from the high point of my hometown. Like millions of others, I developed a relationship with those buildings that transcended their design shortcomings.
On three occasions I took good friends, none of whom had ever seen New York City, on the train from Ridgewood, NJ to Hoboken, followed by the PATH subway to the subterranean labrynth below the Twin Towers. We rode the elevator to the observation deck, and my buddies enjoyed their first view of New York - from 110 stories up.
One Thanksgiving Day, while visiting a great friend in Brooklyn, I went for a run over the Brooklyn Bridge. Headed uptown on Broadway (this was during Mayor Koch's bike lane fantasy, so there was a clear running lane) to Herald Square, then headed back downtown on Fifth Avenue, with the World Trade Center as my destination.
After stopping briefly to stretch at Washington Square Arch, which framed the Towers perfectly against a bright blue autumn sky, I continued on to the financial district. As I ran past the towers, the wind funneled up the Narrows and into the Upper Bay, and passed between the towers. As I ran out of the shadow of Tower 1 in mid-stride, I was literally blown over. Knocked flat down.
I got up laughing at myself, checked for blood (only minor scrapes), and continued back past City Hall, over the bridge and through the Fulton Street Mall, where a pedestrian, seeing my Clemson shirt shouted "Go Tiger!" as I zoomed past him laughing and waving. A wonderful afternoon in New York!
Now, whenever I visit The City, my eye is drawn to the gap in the skyline that the towers used to occupy. Like a tongue to a missing tooth, my eyes are drawn to the hole in lower Manhattan, and I find myself yearning for the Towers' solid anchor. Over the years, the Towers had morphed themselves from sticks of butter to railroad spikes, driven firmly into the southern tip of Manhattan.
And I come back to the fact that my relationship with the World Trade Center was largely peripheral. It was there as I grew up, I dismissed it as poor architecture, I looked at it from the Bridge, I visited with friends, I ran around it. And still I miss it. Three years later.
What of the people that lost loved ones? What to me is a missing tooth in lower Manhattan must to them be more like a stinging, persistent cold-sore. I can't even imagine their pain.
I miss the World Trade Center.
posted by Kurt at
4:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home