I remember the late 60s watching these 2Towers rising in Lower Manhattan. At the time thinking, damm theyre ugly and destroying the skyline I had grown to admire. As it surpassed my favorite building, named after an automobile company and eventually grew taller than even the Empire State I thought there goes the neighborhood. New York City will never be the same. Little did I know how true that was. My last apartment was a 2 bedroom on the Upper East Side that had been in the family for 3 generations and the rent an exhorbitant 86 dollars a month. I grew to tolerate the Towers! But never saw them as the marvel they truly were. Fast forward 30 years and upon my return NYC had changed, the Towers somehow were a welcome sight. I was home. They had become a symbol of the tremendous growth and anchored the most spectacular skyline imaginable. Yes NY had changed, that 2 bedroom apt. had been carved into 3 studios garnering over 1500 a month. My community was being devastated by a virus, neighborhoods had changed into a foreign land, no longer well defined enclaves, each with its own distinctive feel. It had become much more of the melting pot I had grown up in. But the Towers remained. Until one fateful day while driving through the hills of Northern New Jersey I saw a cloud of what I would learn was dust blackened the sky behind me. As it grew I started to hear reports on the radio. Remembering Orsen Wells War of the Worlds I thought it to be unreal. When I heard the first Tower had gone down I pulled over in disbelief. A bit later the report came the that the second one had fallen as well. Once again NYC had changed and would never be the same. We will never forget.. And now like the Phoenix, out of the ashs a new day has dawned on Lower Manhattan..
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 11:51:25 +0000
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