Thursday, May 27, 2010

World Trade Center

I watched them go up as a kid. Yeah, I’m that old. And it was exciting. They were to be the tallest buildings on earth. And they were, for a while.

It was cool. It made you feel like something big was happening in New York, that huge city thirty miles away that was filthy, ridden with crime and hot dogs.

And then they came down. I was in Ojai. I thought the store clerk who told us about it must have been mad. Then I called my Dad who said in his strong Art Carney accent, “Can you believe this? It’s unbelievable.”

And then we went back to the B&B and watched it on the T.V., cut our trip short and went back to Los Angeles and watched it on television night after night. Like everyone else.

Now, we are here and we are watching the new building go up. I keep ending up near there. And it keeps going up. I feel like a kid, like a kid who is so excited about something going up.

It looks pretty sturdy. But who knows?

2 comments:

dexter-smith said...

At one time, I lived on Franklin Street in Tribeca NYC. My friends and I would head down to the trade center and hang out by the fountain. Late at night we would lay on the benches and look straight up at the towers. So many things didn't survive the last half of the 20th century, no one could have imagined that the 2 most famous buildings in the world be left behind as well.

Tandava (Carol Henning) said...

I worked near the WTC in the early 90s and would have lunch there frequently, watching whatever entertainment they had during the summer. I spent tons of time in the mall but rarely went to the top... maybe only once or twice when I was a little kid. I had a job interview in mid-2000 for a firm in Tower 2. I didn't get it.

Recently I was watching The French Connection. There is a press conference scene on the SI Ferry; you can see the half-built towers in the background.....