9/11. The Twentieth Anniversary.

By Karen and Erica

Saturday will mark the twentieth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It is always a somber day, here in New York City, and across the country.

We remember that day vividly. It dawned clear and bright, the sky azure and the sunrise limning the Towers in gold. It was Election Day. And a school day for children.

We had spent a lot of time, working and playing, in the Twin Towers, and on the plaza below. The buildings were massive, and seemed almost eternal. And beautiful, in that morning light.

Then the planes came over our heads, and the buildings fell, with so many people. The world changed, and we knew that we, and our children, were now living in a changed, more fraught, reality.

All kinds of things have happened since then to confirm our vulnerability. Financial collapse. Hurricanes. Earthquakes. Fires. COVID. Civil unrest. Floods. Violence. Deepfakes. Misinformation. Climate change. Obviously, there was plenty of upheaval in the world in the centuries before 9/11, but somehow being able to see so many epochal events in real time changes our experience of them. And 9/11 was truly shattering.

But the Twin Towers had meaning for us before that fateful day. They were emblematic of the City we loved in a time we loved too.

The story of Windows On The World, the restaurant at the top, is the story of New York City in the latter half of the twentieth century, as you can read in this brilliant book. We learned about wine, up there in the sky, from the effervescent Kevin Zraly, who unaccountably seems to have retired. The restaurant and bar were part of a new epicurean world.

And then there is the story of Philippe Petit’s walk. In 1974, while the Towers were still under construction, he walked back and forth on a tightrope he had (surreptitiously and illegally) installed between the Towers. We remember that day vividly too. His was an act of joy and affirmation, if more than a little crazy. It is documented in a wonderful film, Man on Wire, and in a moving children’s book, The Man Who Walked Between The Towers. You can hear him talk about it here, 44 years later. And if you are in New York you might see him walking on a wire between trees in Washington Square Park.

Why talk about Windows and Phillipe Petit’s walk? Because they are part of the chronicle. Nothing can change the horror and pain of the loss of life on 9/11. But the restaurant was gracious, and innovative, in its place on top of the city, and the walk was a boldly beautiful act invoking the power of buildings that reached to the sky. Both encapsulated so much of what the World Trade Center encapsulated too—aspiration, hubris, light, seagulls, risk, catastrophe, New York, America. The exact characteristics that made the Towers a target.

The grief of 9/11 is indelibly marked on this site, and as we cry, yet again, we also remember a past era that ended in a flash.