Twelve Years Later

Like probably every other New Yorker that’s spent a significant amount of time living downtown, I took an awful lot of photographs of the former World Trade Center, whether by design or by accident (they did have a way of working themselves into several pics). While, to my mind, they weren’t the most architecturally inspiring buildings (essentially two flat, grey rods), there was still something very striking about them.

Here are just a couple of shots I took back in 1999 or so. Today seemed like the day to post them if I was ever going to. Those are pigeons, by the way, flying in front of the tower on the right.

Like many other people, I took a roll of photographss of the towers as they burned and when they fell on this day twelve years ago, but I don’t believe there will ever be a reason to put those up. If you’re intent on reliving those particular events, you never have to look very far. 

There’s a new building downtown now, of course. I still find myself saying “where’d that come from?” when I look to the south. It’s quite impressive, but I can’t say it does very much for me. Like everyone else, I imagine, I’d prefer to have the old ones back.... along with the city as it was.