There’s some interesting stories about the building. It’s amazing the cast of characters who make huge projects possible. I came across this kitchensisters podcast late one night. It’s on Guy Tozzi, the construction, and the Building Stewardesses.
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THE BUILDING STEWARDESSES: CONSTRUCTION GUIDES AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER
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“I started at three dollars an hour, which was still a lot of money for a summer job. I think that whoever had the idea must have been someone with an incredible amount of insight and understanding of human nature. Because to think that you could find young girls like this, and instill us with that sense that we were almost as invincible as the building. We were the building, we were the World Trade Center.”
— Elizabeth English, who worked as a guide at the observation deck
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http://www.kitchensisters.org/fugitivewaves/episode-30/
I watched 1WTC, the North Tower, come down looking south from the 30th floor of a building on 50th street. We were just staring south at the tower pouring out black smoke. For a bit the smoke died down from that huge black hole. But it was just a shift in wind. Then it came mostly straight down in the images that everyone had seen.
But after that, when the dust was blown away, what was left is something I’ve never seen in images. There was the exterior structural steel framework that went up to a point. It was early on a bright, sunny, day so it was strongly backlit. An almost black lattice pattern of steel. And then it just started to fall from the top. Slowly crumbling, the pattern disappearing as the steel fell down. And then it was completely gone.
Some days later, down at the pile of what was left, I happened to be staring at the skeleton of steel still standing. Then a guy nearby says, “It sounded like bells.”
“What’s that?”
“The steel, when it came down after the building it sounded like church bells. I was down here and heard it.”
Came of age in the 60’s and died young:
Brian Jones - 27
Jimi Hendrix - 28
Janis Joplin. - 27
Jim Morrison - 27
World Trade Center - opened April 4, 1973 - September 11, 2001 - 27 years
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The Woolworth Building, once the tallest building in the world, is poking up near the Manhattan side tower of the Manhattan Bridge.
Photo before the Vista Hotel between the Towers, before 7 WTC which would be built in the open space left of 6 WTC. Building 6 held US Customs in 2001. In the picture it’s the low dark building with light roof just to the left of 1 WTC, the North Tower. The antenna on top would become much bigger. Building 4, the US Commodities Exchange, is behind the South Tower. It was part of the storyline in the movie “Trading Places”, which has nice shots of the Towers.
The North Tower was hit first but collapsed second. Building 7 collapsed later that day.
Fill, from digging the foundation, makes the flat land in the photo upon which would be built Stuyvesant HS, PS 89, Battery Park City, the World Financial Center, and recently, the Goldman Sachs Building. The West Side Highway is still elevated in this photo. That was torn down in the mid to late ‘80’s.