(Photo: Fred J. DeVito) See a Slide Show
Fred J. DeVito, 55, sees the World Trade Center wherever he looks. This has nothing to do with illusions or phantasms. Rather, it has to do with the keen eye he has developed over 20 years as an art director and graphic designer in Manhattan.
And it has to do with the fact that twin-tower imagery was woven too tightly into the cityscape to have been eradicated after 9/11. Minoru Yamasaki, the architect of the original World Trade Center, was criticized in his day for having created a soulless composition of unfathomable scale. But let it be said that the notion of two colossi side by side turned out to have been one of the more powerful architectural statements of the modern era, instantly recognizable worldwide as a symbol for New York City.
Those parallel lines were also irresistibly graphic. They can be discerned in “9/11″ itself. And in “Scaramella,” as in the J. Scaramella Ltd. trucking company of Staten Island. Mr. DeVito found and photographed the twin towers on the cab of a Scaramella truck.
He has found them in neon signs and store windows and tote bags, on keys and packages, on T-shirts and satellite dishes, on book covers and uniform patches, even on the tray under a slice of pizza. Most of these are not memorial silhouettes. Instead, they are images that were part of everyday commerce until Sept. 11, 2001. And — to a surprising degree — they still are.
With more than 750 photographs in hand, Mr. DeVito hopes to publish a book, tentatively titled, “To World Trade Center: All Times” (after the destination signs on E trains). In the meantime, he has shared his work with City Room, in the slide show above.
“While the architectural towers are no longer with us,” Mr. DeVito said, “they transcended the physical and are still with us everywhere, all at the same time.”
Comments (39)
Related
Latest Design Is Unveiled for 9/11 Museum
The See-Through Skyscraper
Among the Hard Angles, a Few New Curves
These Wings Will Not Fly
-->
39 comments so far...
1.
September 11th,20087:33 am
Yes, they are everywhere… except where they belong.
A couple of weeks ago I took my lady friend’s grandkids to Adventurers Amusement Park (formerly Nellie Bly, for those of you my age) in Brooklyn. While on the BQE passing Manhattan on the left, I pointed over and said, “That’s where the Twin Towers used to be.” I’m reminded of them — and the friends I had who died there — every time I drive by. But usually I work alone, and I have no one with me to point it out to.
The kids are only 10 and 8, so although they were alive during the attacks, they’re too young to remember them firsthand. Nonetheless, they still seemed to be overcome by a certain silent reverence when I pointed to the place where the Towers once stood — and these kids aren’t silent very often.
I guess they’ve been taught about it in school, much the way I was taught of December 7; or maybe they’d heard adults around them talking about it. I know that they have heard at least one adult talking about it now, though; and they seemed to sense the pain with which I did so.
I hope and pray that our conversation while on the BQE is the closest they ever get to witnessing anything like that in their lifetimes. There has to be a better way to resolve differences between human beings, if only we could find it. I hope that their generation is a lot smarter than my own and finds that way.
LL
— Posted by Liberty Lover
2.
September 11th,20088:01 am
Before 9/11, the Chock full o’ Nuts coffee can had an image of the New York skyline that included the twin towers. It has since been removed, but I kept one of those cans, will email the image to you.
— Posted by Nat
3.
September 11th,20088:34 am
You might also link your “The Towers of Memory, Before and After” piece at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/nyregion/11thennow.html?hpEven these years later, I find myself very frequently thinking, the World Trade Center used to be in the background here — when looking down Fifth or Sixth, or when looking from anywhere downtown. Funny thing is, one didn’t necessarily like the Twin Towers architecturally, or if you worked there, as I did one year, as a building in which to work. But, like everything that persists in NY, they established their place and presence, and now it is there absence that tugs at memory.
— Posted by Nat
4.
September 11th,20088:58 am
ILt is sad that the Twin Towers are memories only, but the people of the U.S. should be grateful that more of the structural icons of the U.S. were not destroyed before. Think of the European devastation of World War II. Think of beautiful Dresden, firebombed into extinction. Think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki flattenend into non-existence in seconds.–posted by Betsy
— Posted by Betsy Herring
5.
September 11th,20088:59 am
I wish there is as much or even HALF the attention paid to 8/8/45 as there is paid to 9/11. America has still not apologised to the world for having microwaved 2 hundred thousand humans in a split second of that early morning across the Pacific.
— Posted by San Ying
6.
September 11th,20089:08 am
“Yes, they are everywhere… except where they belong.”
Amen, LL, your eloquent statement sums it up.
— Posted by rich
7.
September 11th,20089:08 am
The civilians of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been innocent, but their nations were not. Their nations deliberately and intentionally provoked war with the rest of the world. Was there ever an apology for that? Millions upon millions of people were killed in World War II in many countries, so don’t reduce it to an offense by the United States. It was not. The United States came to the defense of freedom against the aggressions of the Axis powers.
— Posted by M.B.
8.
September 11th,20089:08 am
Now, more than ever, God Bless America.
— Posted by true north
9.
September 11th,20089:08 am
The simple truth is that one cannot cause oneself happiness by causing others unhappiness. This is universally true, irrespective of passports, religion, etc.
— Posted by ravi anantaraman
10.
September 11th,20089:10 am
Betsey Herring, I don’t think asking for gratefulness from New Yorkers is very thoughtful or compassionate on 9/11. I don’t think the thousands of people who perished and their families are grateful either. On any other day, maybe, we can reflect on the landmarks and monuments this very young country can still marvel at. But today, and forever, the twin towers were our grandest.
— Posted by Jessie
11.
September 11th,20089:18 am
San Ying needs to read his history books mroe carefully. The A bomb attacks were terrible events but neither comprable in nature to 911 or different in scale than earlier air attacks in WW2 including the Fire-bombing of Tokyo. They proabably saved many more lives than were taken amongst allied and japanese forces and japanese civilians. My own Uncle (still alive) was in NYC at the time as part of the first wave of the Brtish “Tiger Force’ sent to help the US in the invasion of Japan after the Nazi’s had surrendered he did not expect to survive this invasion. (Incidently this was the first time British soldiers were in NYC since November 25, 1783 returning as friends and allies. My uncle remembers the warmth and kindness of his treatment by New Yorkers to this day.)
— Posted by Jerry Whittingham
12.
September 11th,20089:19 am
Discussion of WWII atrocities is valid…but let’s do that another day. For those of us who were in Manhattan seven years ago and still call it home, today is unspeakably sad. Being here and being scared for my life is something I still carry with me.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to bring up 1945. That can be a productive, thoughtful discussion… but let’s do it tomorrow.
— Posted by A. Time
13.
September 11th,20089:30 am
Don’t bring Japan into this. Japan started an unprovoked war. I’m so sick of hearing about what we did to them. What about the American prisoners of war that they burned alive? What about the death march that they forced our soldiers to march? No one from Japan has EVER apologized for THAT. But, our government gave reparations to the Japanese citizens here in the states that were interned. People so easily forget the real history. Microwaved? Give me a break! War is hell. It’s ugly, but Japan saw an opportunity to expand her empire and she attacked FIRST. Get your facts right! There would have been no Hiroshima or Nagasaki if they hadn’t started the war and if they had surrendered when they began losing, there wouldn’t have been any reason to use the H-bomb. They would never have stopped. Why? Because of their misguided sense of honor. Where in the world is there honor in war, tell me that? You’ve got a lot of nerve bringing that up when we are mourning our losses from 9/11.
— Posted by Phthalo Blue
14.
September 11th,20089:33 am
In August of 2001 I got off the bus from Newark Airport and somehow ended up at a restaurant called The Amish,located right below the towers.It was such a unique place I went back there with a friend on my return to Newark Airport.We ended up walking over to the towers to ge a closer look.One of the towers had small black figures in an atrium at the entrance.You couldn’t see them unless you peaked inside.It struck me that for the immense size of those structures,the hidden art made it even more immense.
— Posted by Steve
15.
September 11th,20089:38 am
San Ying and Betsy - I do not disagree that all tragedies deserve to be remembered in some way. But we pay special attention to 9/11 because it is so fresh in our memories. 7 years is not a long time, but 60 years is. I don’t think we’ll be commemorating 9/11 in 2060 like we do now.
— Posted by Bostoniano
16.
September 11th,20089:38 am
I am reminded of the towers every time I get lost navigating the named streets of the West Village or Lower East Side. Every time that happened before 9/11/01 I could just lift my head to see the towers and know what direction to go.
Also, I now live in Chicago and recently hired a gentleman who was also from New York but has lived here for several years longer than I. There was an ‘Air and Water’ aviation show here a few weeks ago, and a few of the planes passed the area where my office is located in downtown Chicago. I did not see the low-flying planes but could definitely hear them, and they gave me an eerie feeling that I did not immediately identify. Then I looked over at my colleague, who was clearly shaken by the noise (which did not seem to bother anyone else). I called him over to ask if he was okay, he then revealed he had been in the towers that day.
Let us never forget the innocent and brave people who perished seven years ago today, continue to fight for our freedom and way of life, and exhibit the goodwill and sharing that especially existed in the months following the attacks.
— Posted by Jim Chicago
17.
September 11th,20089:49 am
The 1999 NY marathon was the first year they used chips for timing and they were sold as souveniers of the race. The logo that year was two runners with the skyline and the towers in the background. I still have my chip.
— Posted by Jane Cates
18.
September 11th,20089:56 am
My heart profoundly aches for this day 9/11…& all the lives lost to this terrorist act; I PRAY our children (of the world) NEVER have to WITNESS such an unspeakable attack AGAIN.GOD BLESS AMERICA.
— Posted by Donna Crouse
19.
September 11th,200810:06 am
In the 70s when I was growing up, the old TV station WPIX, channel 11, had a great ad for itself featuring a guy hurrying through the city, trying to find something that would symbolize the station (ie, the “11″). He never does; at the end of the commercial he stands, vainly scanning the street, while what I remember as very cool music plays and the twin towers loom, unseen, behind him.
— Posted by Jim Bourne
20.
September 11th,200810:12 am
I will never forget the morning in 1975, at age 23, when I moved into my first very own Manhattan apartment, on Sullivan between Spring and Broome. I was overjoyed with the place, but it was only on that morning that I noticed, standing on the sidewalk, that I could look north to an unobstructed view of the Empire State Building and south to an unobstructed view of the World Trade Center. I’m not sure how many other places in Manhattan were on that precise axis. I think about it when I walk around post-9/11 lower Manhattan and strain my memory, at various places, to recall what the sight lines were…”could you see them from here?” I imagine others do that too.
— Posted by JG
21.
September 11th,200810:13 am
I am deeply saddened to see how people use 9/11 as an excuse to air their views on topics that have no place for discussion on this terrible day. Give us all a break from your liberal rhetoric for once and let us stand together to mourn as one people who have a common bond of unity on a day that is still such an open wound to most of us. I did not lose anyone personally in the 9/11 attacks but I have lost something else equally important. I have forever lost my sense of security, my peace of mind and my belief that my family and I are safe from such atrocities. Maybe that is a good thing in a way, but it still hurts so much.
— Posted by Denise T.
22.
September 11th,200810:17 am
After seven years, ENOUGH with the sorrow. ENOUGH with the never-ending funeral for 9/11 and the WTC. It’s an absolute disgrace that seven years after the attacks, it’s still a building site over there and we’re all talking about it as if they attacked us yesterday. I see that hole every day I go to work, and I read about all the groups squabbling over it. I’m disgusted. I need and New York needs something new. New buildings, new construction, and new businesses setting up there. That hole over there is a scar on New York, an injury. It’ll only be healed by the construction finally completing, and new towers being built. If you keep prodding a cut it’ll never heal. New York needs to heal. The best thing we can do as a city and as a nation, is to show our enemies, ANY enemies that if you strike us, we don’t hang our heads forever, instead we rebuild, and we bounce right back. ENOUGH with the funeral.
— Posted by Steve
23.
September 11th,200810:29 am
Very well said, A.Time. Today is the day to grieve those lost on that terrible day.
At the same time, of course we shouldn’t forget other victims throughout the world, over a huge span of time, who also were victims of terror, military might or just plain hatefulness.
— Posted by Jim Niceflyer
24.
September 11th,200810:40 am
To be honest, I never really liked the towers, they scared me. I live on Long Island and whenever I went to Jones Beach when crossing over the Goose Creek Bridge far off in the distance on clear and sometimes not so clear days you could see them. Now whenever I cross that bridge my eye quickly scans the horizon knowing what I won’t see leaves an indelible mark on my memory. I remember coming out of the subway with my sister who lives in the West Village, we were on our way to Century 21, climbing those stairs and and being greeted by those two monoliths gave me an uneasy feeling. To this day I can’t put my finger on it, they just plain scared me. May the souls who died that day never be forgotten.
— Posted by Lori
25.
September 11th,200810:40 am
I remember that commercial, Jim Bourne. I was growing up in Montclair, across the river in NJ, when that commercial was running.
The Twin Towers were always on the horizon much as the Holyoke Mountain Range is now in my home in Western Massachusetts. Knowing such a permanent landmark is gone is just as incomprehensible as imagining one of these mountain peaks disappearing. From my vantage point in NJ, the Twin Towers, and all of the city skyline for that matter, were just as seemingly sprung up from the earth.
— Posted by Kelsey Flynn
26.
September 11th,200810:42 am
To San Ying, #5, do you not remember Peal Harbor and that fateful Sunday Morning?
— Posted by Lori
27.
September 11th,200810:46 am
Mr. DeVito is not the only WTC obsessed photographer! Over the last 7 years I have also been photographing company logos, signs, and other evidence of the retention of the towers’ outline. We have almost no overlap in our photos! I guess I have not really been amazed at the number of stores and companies which have kept the towers as part of their sense of NYC and the skyline. The towers are still important to our visual geography of NYC. I am not even including the number of Greek diners which have the etched mirror mural of downtown, including the towers and Brooklyn Bridge.
— Posted by Karen
28.
September 11th,200810:47 am
@Jim Chicago, I also work downtown in Chicago. You and your coworker are not the only people who are shaken by the Air and Water show: everyone in my office flinches when we hear the fighter jets tearing past our upper-story office the first time. In truth, every year it makes me reflect on how slim my chances would be of getting out in time if something like 9/11 were to happen here in Chicago, and I am reminded what a loss we suffered as a nation and what a terrible end the victims met. As the years pass, I wonder if this is just something that has been burned into the American psyche, or if there are less of us who flinch at those noises each year…
— Posted by also in Chicago
29.
September 11th,200810:51 am
Loss of lives (or anything, for that matter)is absolutely a loss. Why do we wanna bring petty politics and ideologies and nationalities into 9/11? I don’t really understand. 9/11 is for the innocent victims of brutal politics and some crappy ideologies. Who do we care for? The victims or the politics & ideologies??
— Posted by Sid
30.
September 11th,200810:52 am
God cries for our fallen
— Posted by Nick
31.
September 11th,200811:08 am
“God Bless America” is beside the point. May America find the wisdom and moral leadership that the world expects and needs from us, in order to achieve that which is achievable with will and desire: just and lasting peace the world over. This and only this is the key to no more 9-11s.
— Posted by JSB
32.
September 11th,200811:09 am
Several years ago I photograghed two church steeples that aligned near each other much like the twin towers. It gave me hope and a new meaning to the view of twin standing vertical structures.And today is my birthday, so I can be happy and reflective on this day.
— Posted by Pam Brooks
33.
September 11th,200811:10 am
I was there that morning, 7 years ago, I worked right across the street, and have suffered through post traumatic stress disorder. But I have lived through my issues remembering that I am still alive, and grateful for every single second I have on this earth, with my family and friends, and even strangers I tend to meet along my routine of daily life. I still work in Manhattan, however now in Midtown. Downtown will never be the same for me and for a lot of others I’m sure. I am disappointed in the way the city and government have gone about rebuilding the WTC and I can only hope that one day in the not so distant future, we will all see a great accomplishment of humanity and strength. PLease love and respect one another and be grateful for every day you get to spend with your loved ones.
— Posted by Terese
34.
September 11th,200811:14 am
What a horrifying THING to happen!! What we humans can do to each other….what monstruos barbarity…may God take pity on all of us.
— Posted by Cucolio
35.
September 11th,200811:16 am
San Ying, your name sounds Chinese but I suspect you are actually Japanese, unlike myself. I am one of millions grateful for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagakasi, esp. after Japan’s infamous Rape of Nanking. It is ridiculous to compare the nuclear bombing of one of Hitler’s allies to 9/11, which was truly a tragedy.
— Posted by Jennifer
36.
September 11th,200811:21 am
By the way,I used to live in Montclair and as a matter of fact went to Montclair State College(now University)and then went to work and teach middle school at Montclair’s Hillside Middle School but I do not remember being able to see NYC’s skyline from Montclair…..does anybody remember otherwise?Txs and let me know if you will.
— Posted by cucolio
37.
September 11th,200811:24 am
I miss the pre-9/11 New York. I remember meeting an Israeli girl in 1997 who said she was so happy to be in the New York, where she could finally relax and not worry about terrorism, unlike her homeland. I miss the insouciant days of air travel when the worst thing you worried about was crashing or losing your luggage. I miss the shopping center beneath WTC where I used to hang out on weekends. I miss going up to Windows on the World and having dinner with friends. I miss looking out at the NYC skyline from the top of the WTC. I miss it all.
— Posted by Alison
38.
September 11th,200811:44 am
I am glad that many businesses chose not to blot out the Twin Towers. It would just seem wrong. There are even websites such as NYC Tourists that still keeps them there as well as still having them on the made skyline at Shea Stadium. This brings me up to a question. Why can’t we just rebuilt them since they are inorganic rather than just remember them? If this was the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty, would there be any debates on if they should be rebuilt or just be remembered as if they can never come back only to remind us of the attacks or being disrespectful? I am not saying that they should have been destroyed instead. I condemn former Governor George Pataki and his friends for making sure that it could never happen just to turn into the battle of the egos.
— Posted by Tal Barzilai
39.
September 11th,200812:06 pm
The Twin Towers were “woven too tightly into the cityscape”? The fact that their image remains throughout the city to this day is testimony to their power as an icon of New York and, indeed, of the United States. I can’t imagine that the group of buildings that will replace them–under the forcful hand of egotistical politicians–would have the same impact.
— Posted by Michael Koy
Those parallel lines were also irresistibly graphic. They can be discerned in “9/11″ itself. And in “Scaramella,” as in the J. Scaramella Ltd. trucking company of Staten Island. Mr. DeVito found and photographed the twin towers on the cab of a Scaramella truck.
He has found them in neon signs and store windows and tote bags, on keys and packages, on T-shirts and satellite dishes, on book covers and uniform patches, even on the tray under a slice of pizza. Most of these are not memorial silhouettes. Instead, they are images that were part of everyday commerce until Sept. 11, 2001. And — to a surprising degree — they still are.
With more than 750 photographs in hand, Mr. DeVito hopes to publish a book, tentatively titled, “To World Trade Center: All Times” (after the destination signs on E trains). In the meantime, he has shared his work with City Room, in the slide show above.
“While the architectural towers are no longer with us,” Mr. DeVito said, “they transcended the physical and are still with us everywhere, all at the same time.”
Comments (39)
Related
Latest Design Is Unveiled for 9/11 Museum
The See-Through Skyscraper
Among the Hard Angles, a Few New Curves
These Wings Will Not Fly
-->
39 comments so far...
1.
September 11th,20087:33 am
Yes, they are everywhere… except where they belong.
A couple of weeks ago I took my lady friend’s grandkids to Adventurers Amusement Park (formerly Nellie Bly, for those of you my age) in Brooklyn. While on the BQE passing Manhattan on the left, I pointed over and said, “That’s where the Twin Towers used to be.” I’m reminded of them — and the friends I had who died there — every time I drive by. But usually I work alone, and I have no one with me to point it out to.
The kids are only 10 and 8, so although they were alive during the attacks, they’re too young to remember them firsthand. Nonetheless, they still seemed to be overcome by a certain silent reverence when I pointed to the place where the Towers once stood — and these kids aren’t silent very often.
I guess they’ve been taught about it in school, much the way I was taught of December 7; or maybe they’d heard adults around them talking about it. I know that they have heard at least one adult talking about it now, though; and they seemed to sense the pain with which I did so.
I hope and pray that our conversation while on the BQE is the closest they ever get to witnessing anything like that in their lifetimes. There has to be a better way to resolve differences between human beings, if only we could find it. I hope that their generation is a lot smarter than my own and finds that way.
LL
— Posted by Liberty Lover
2.
September 11th,20088:01 am
Before 9/11, the Chock full o’ Nuts coffee can had an image of the New York skyline that included the twin towers. It has since been removed, but I kept one of those cans, will email the image to you.
— Posted by Nat
3.
September 11th,20088:34 am
You might also link your “The Towers of Memory, Before and After” piece at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/nyregion/11thennow.html?hpEven these years later, I find myself very frequently thinking, the World Trade Center used to be in the background here — when looking down Fifth or Sixth, or when looking from anywhere downtown. Funny thing is, one didn’t necessarily like the Twin Towers architecturally, or if you worked there, as I did one year, as a building in which to work. But, like everything that persists in NY, they established their place and presence, and now it is there absence that tugs at memory.
— Posted by Nat
4.
September 11th,20088:58 am
ILt is sad that the Twin Towers are memories only, but the people of the U.S. should be grateful that more of the structural icons of the U.S. were not destroyed before. Think of the European devastation of World War II. Think of beautiful Dresden, firebombed into extinction. Think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki flattenend into non-existence in seconds.–posted by Betsy
— Posted by Betsy Herring
5.
September 11th,20088:59 am
I wish there is as much or even HALF the attention paid to 8/8/45 as there is paid to 9/11. America has still not apologised to the world for having microwaved 2 hundred thousand humans in a split second of that early morning across the Pacific.
— Posted by San Ying
6.
September 11th,20089:08 am
“Yes, they are everywhere… except where they belong.”
Amen, LL, your eloquent statement sums it up.
— Posted by rich
7.
September 11th,20089:08 am
The civilians of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki may have been innocent, but their nations were not. Their nations deliberately and intentionally provoked war with the rest of the world. Was there ever an apology for that? Millions upon millions of people were killed in World War II in many countries, so don’t reduce it to an offense by the United States. It was not. The United States came to the defense of freedom against the aggressions of the Axis powers.
— Posted by M.B.
8.
September 11th,20089:08 am
Now, more than ever, God Bless America.
— Posted by true north
9.
September 11th,20089:08 am
The simple truth is that one cannot cause oneself happiness by causing others unhappiness. This is universally true, irrespective of passports, religion, etc.
— Posted by ravi anantaraman
10.
September 11th,20089:10 am
Betsey Herring, I don’t think asking for gratefulness from New Yorkers is very thoughtful or compassionate on 9/11. I don’t think the thousands of people who perished and their families are grateful either. On any other day, maybe, we can reflect on the landmarks and monuments this very young country can still marvel at. But today, and forever, the twin towers were our grandest.
— Posted by Jessie
11.
September 11th,20089:18 am
San Ying needs to read his history books mroe carefully. The A bomb attacks were terrible events but neither comprable in nature to 911 or different in scale than earlier air attacks in WW2 including the Fire-bombing of Tokyo. They proabably saved many more lives than were taken amongst allied and japanese forces and japanese civilians. My own Uncle (still alive) was in NYC at the time as part of the first wave of the Brtish “Tiger Force’ sent to help the US in the invasion of Japan after the Nazi’s had surrendered he did not expect to survive this invasion. (Incidently this was the first time British soldiers were in NYC since November 25, 1783 returning as friends and allies. My uncle remembers the warmth and kindness of his treatment by New Yorkers to this day.)
— Posted by Jerry Whittingham
12.
September 11th,20089:19 am
Discussion of WWII atrocities is valid…but let’s do that another day. For those of us who were in Manhattan seven years ago and still call it home, today is unspeakably sad. Being here and being scared for my life is something I still carry with me.
I’m not saying you’re wrong to bring up 1945. That can be a productive, thoughtful discussion… but let’s do it tomorrow.
— Posted by A. Time
13.
September 11th,20089:30 am
Don’t bring Japan into this. Japan started an unprovoked war. I’m so sick of hearing about what we did to them. What about the American prisoners of war that they burned alive? What about the death march that they forced our soldiers to march? No one from Japan has EVER apologized for THAT. But, our government gave reparations to the Japanese citizens here in the states that were interned. People so easily forget the real history. Microwaved? Give me a break! War is hell. It’s ugly, but Japan saw an opportunity to expand her empire and she attacked FIRST. Get your facts right! There would have been no Hiroshima or Nagasaki if they hadn’t started the war and if they had surrendered when they began losing, there wouldn’t have been any reason to use the H-bomb. They would never have stopped. Why? Because of their misguided sense of honor. Where in the world is there honor in war, tell me that? You’ve got a lot of nerve bringing that up when we are mourning our losses from 9/11.
— Posted by Phthalo Blue
14.
September 11th,20089:33 am
In August of 2001 I got off the bus from Newark Airport and somehow ended up at a restaurant called The Amish,located right below the towers.It was such a unique place I went back there with a friend on my return to Newark Airport.We ended up walking over to the towers to ge a closer look.One of the towers had small black figures in an atrium at the entrance.You couldn’t see them unless you peaked inside.It struck me that for the immense size of those structures,the hidden art made it even more immense.
— Posted by Steve
15.
September 11th,20089:38 am
San Ying and Betsy - I do not disagree that all tragedies deserve to be remembered in some way. But we pay special attention to 9/11 because it is so fresh in our memories. 7 years is not a long time, but 60 years is. I don’t think we’ll be commemorating 9/11 in 2060 like we do now.
— Posted by Bostoniano
16.
September 11th,20089:38 am
I am reminded of the towers every time I get lost navigating the named streets of the West Village or Lower East Side. Every time that happened before 9/11/01 I could just lift my head to see the towers and know what direction to go.
Also, I now live in Chicago and recently hired a gentleman who was also from New York but has lived here for several years longer than I. There was an ‘Air and Water’ aviation show here a few weeks ago, and a few of the planes passed the area where my office is located in downtown Chicago. I did not see the low-flying planes but could definitely hear them, and they gave me an eerie feeling that I did not immediately identify. Then I looked over at my colleague, who was clearly shaken by the noise (which did not seem to bother anyone else). I called him over to ask if he was okay, he then revealed he had been in the towers that day.
Let us never forget the innocent and brave people who perished seven years ago today, continue to fight for our freedom and way of life, and exhibit the goodwill and sharing that especially existed in the months following the attacks.
— Posted by Jim Chicago
17.
September 11th,20089:49 am
The 1999 NY marathon was the first year they used chips for timing and they were sold as souveniers of the race. The logo that year was two runners with the skyline and the towers in the background. I still have my chip.
— Posted by Jane Cates
18.
September 11th,20089:56 am
My heart profoundly aches for this day 9/11…& all the lives lost to this terrorist act; I PRAY our children (of the world) NEVER have to WITNESS such an unspeakable attack AGAIN.GOD BLESS AMERICA.
— Posted by Donna Crouse
19.
September 11th,200810:06 am
In the 70s when I was growing up, the old TV station WPIX, channel 11, had a great ad for itself featuring a guy hurrying through the city, trying to find something that would symbolize the station (ie, the “11″). He never does; at the end of the commercial he stands, vainly scanning the street, while what I remember as very cool music plays and the twin towers loom, unseen, behind him.
— Posted by Jim Bourne
20.
September 11th,200810:12 am
I will never forget the morning in 1975, at age 23, when I moved into my first very own Manhattan apartment, on Sullivan between Spring and Broome. I was overjoyed with the place, but it was only on that morning that I noticed, standing on the sidewalk, that I could look north to an unobstructed view of the Empire State Building and south to an unobstructed view of the World Trade Center. I’m not sure how many other places in Manhattan were on that precise axis. I think about it when I walk around post-9/11 lower Manhattan and strain my memory, at various places, to recall what the sight lines were…”could you see them from here?” I imagine others do that too.
— Posted by JG
21.
September 11th,200810:13 am
I am deeply saddened to see how people use 9/11 as an excuse to air their views on topics that have no place for discussion on this terrible day. Give us all a break from your liberal rhetoric for once and let us stand together to mourn as one people who have a common bond of unity on a day that is still such an open wound to most of us. I did not lose anyone personally in the 9/11 attacks but I have lost something else equally important. I have forever lost my sense of security, my peace of mind and my belief that my family and I are safe from such atrocities. Maybe that is a good thing in a way, but it still hurts so much.
— Posted by Denise T.
22.
September 11th,200810:17 am
After seven years, ENOUGH with the sorrow. ENOUGH with the never-ending funeral for 9/11 and the WTC. It’s an absolute disgrace that seven years after the attacks, it’s still a building site over there and we’re all talking about it as if they attacked us yesterday. I see that hole every day I go to work, and I read about all the groups squabbling over it. I’m disgusted. I need and New York needs something new. New buildings, new construction, and new businesses setting up there. That hole over there is a scar on New York, an injury. It’ll only be healed by the construction finally completing, and new towers being built. If you keep prodding a cut it’ll never heal. New York needs to heal. The best thing we can do as a city and as a nation, is to show our enemies, ANY enemies that if you strike us, we don’t hang our heads forever, instead we rebuild, and we bounce right back. ENOUGH with the funeral.
— Posted by Steve
23.
September 11th,200810:29 am
Very well said, A.Time. Today is the day to grieve those lost on that terrible day.
At the same time, of course we shouldn’t forget other victims throughout the world, over a huge span of time, who also were victims of terror, military might or just plain hatefulness.
— Posted by Jim Niceflyer
24.
September 11th,200810:40 am
To be honest, I never really liked the towers, they scared me. I live on Long Island and whenever I went to Jones Beach when crossing over the Goose Creek Bridge far off in the distance on clear and sometimes not so clear days you could see them. Now whenever I cross that bridge my eye quickly scans the horizon knowing what I won’t see leaves an indelible mark on my memory. I remember coming out of the subway with my sister who lives in the West Village, we were on our way to Century 21, climbing those stairs and and being greeted by those two monoliths gave me an uneasy feeling. To this day I can’t put my finger on it, they just plain scared me. May the souls who died that day never be forgotten.
— Posted by Lori
25.
September 11th,200810:40 am
I remember that commercial, Jim Bourne. I was growing up in Montclair, across the river in NJ, when that commercial was running.
The Twin Towers were always on the horizon much as the Holyoke Mountain Range is now in my home in Western Massachusetts. Knowing such a permanent landmark is gone is just as incomprehensible as imagining one of these mountain peaks disappearing. From my vantage point in NJ, the Twin Towers, and all of the city skyline for that matter, were just as seemingly sprung up from the earth.
— Posted by Kelsey Flynn
26.
September 11th,200810:42 am
To San Ying, #5, do you not remember Peal Harbor and that fateful Sunday Morning?
— Posted by Lori
27.
September 11th,200810:46 am
Mr. DeVito is not the only WTC obsessed photographer! Over the last 7 years I have also been photographing company logos, signs, and other evidence of the retention of the towers’ outline. We have almost no overlap in our photos! I guess I have not really been amazed at the number of stores and companies which have kept the towers as part of their sense of NYC and the skyline. The towers are still important to our visual geography of NYC. I am not even including the number of Greek diners which have the etched mirror mural of downtown, including the towers and Brooklyn Bridge.
— Posted by Karen
28.
September 11th,200810:47 am
@Jim Chicago, I also work downtown in Chicago. You and your coworker are not the only people who are shaken by the Air and Water show: everyone in my office flinches when we hear the fighter jets tearing past our upper-story office the first time. In truth, every year it makes me reflect on how slim my chances would be of getting out in time if something like 9/11 were to happen here in Chicago, and I am reminded what a loss we suffered as a nation and what a terrible end the victims met. As the years pass, I wonder if this is just something that has been burned into the American psyche, or if there are less of us who flinch at those noises each year…
— Posted by also in Chicago
29.
September 11th,200810:51 am
Loss of lives (or anything, for that matter)is absolutely a loss. Why do we wanna bring petty politics and ideologies and nationalities into 9/11? I don’t really understand. 9/11 is for the innocent victims of brutal politics and some crappy ideologies. Who do we care for? The victims or the politics & ideologies??
— Posted by Sid
30.
September 11th,200810:52 am
God cries for our fallen
— Posted by Nick
31.
September 11th,200811:08 am
“God Bless America” is beside the point. May America find the wisdom and moral leadership that the world expects and needs from us, in order to achieve that which is achievable with will and desire: just and lasting peace the world over. This and only this is the key to no more 9-11s.
— Posted by JSB
32.
September 11th,200811:09 am
Several years ago I photograghed two church steeples that aligned near each other much like the twin towers. It gave me hope and a new meaning to the view of twin standing vertical structures.And today is my birthday, so I can be happy and reflective on this day.
— Posted by Pam Brooks
33.
September 11th,200811:10 am
I was there that morning, 7 years ago, I worked right across the street, and have suffered through post traumatic stress disorder. But I have lived through my issues remembering that I am still alive, and grateful for every single second I have on this earth, with my family and friends, and even strangers I tend to meet along my routine of daily life. I still work in Manhattan, however now in Midtown. Downtown will never be the same for me and for a lot of others I’m sure. I am disappointed in the way the city and government have gone about rebuilding the WTC and I can only hope that one day in the not so distant future, we will all see a great accomplishment of humanity and strength. PLease love and respect one another and be grateful for every day you get to spend with your loved ones.
— Posted by Terese
34.
September 11th,200811:14 am
What a horrifying THING to happen!! What we humans can do to each other….what monstruos barbarity…may God take pity on all of us.
— Posted by Cucolio
35.
September 11th,200811:16 am
San Ying, your name sounds Chinese but I suspect you are actually Japanese, unlike myself. I am one of millions grateful for the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagakasi, esp. after Japan’s infamous Rape of Nanking. It is ridiculous to compare the nuclear bombing of one of Hitler’s allies to 9/11, which was truly a tragedy.
— Posted by Jennifer
36.
September 11th,200811:21 am
By the way,I used to live in Montclair and as a matter of fact went to Montclair State College(now University)and then went to work and teach middle school at Montclair’s Hillside Middle School but I do not remember being able to see NYC’s skyline from Montclair…..does anybody remember otherwise?Txs and let me know if you will.
— Posted by cucolio
37.
September 11th,200811:24 am
I miss the pre-9/11 New York. I remember meeting an Israeli girl in 1997 who said she was so happy to be in the New York, where she could finally relax and not worry about terrorism, unlike her homeland. I miss the insouciant days of air travel when the worst thing you worried about was crashing or losing your luggage. I miss the shopping center beneath WTC where I used to hang out on weekends. I miss going up to Windows on the World and having dinner with friends. I miss looking out at the NYC skyline from the top of the WTC. I miss it all.
— Posted by Alison
38.
September 11th,200811:44 am
I am glad that many businesses chose not to blot out the Twin Towers. It would just seem wrong. There are even websites such as NYC Tourists that still keeps them there as well as still having them on the made skyline at Shea Stadium. This brings me up to a question. Why can’t we just rebuilt them since they are inorganic rather than just remember them? If this was the Empire State Building or Statue of Liberty, would there be any debates on if they should be rebuilt or just be remembered as if they can never come back only to remind us of the attacks or being disrespectful? I am not saying that they should have been destroyed instead. I condemn former Governor George Pataki and his friends for making sure that it could never happen just to turn into the battle of the egos.
— Posted by Tal Barzilai
39.
September 11th,200812:06 pm
The Twin Towers were “woven too tightly into the cityscape”? The fact that their image remains throughout the city to this day is testimony to their power as an icon of New York and, indeed, of the United States. I can’t imagine that the group of buildings that will replace them–under the forcful hand of egotistical politicians–would have the same impact.
— Posted by Michael Koy
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario