I'm a born, and bred NYC'r. Among the things I love are Art, Crafts, and Architecture. In our city we have an abundance of all three (plus the other Arts). I love, and enjoy a variety styles of in all three.
I was an Art Student ('70-'74) at Cooper Union: a well regarded College for Art, Architecture, Engineering, and Science while the towers were being built. I sometimes hung out with the Architecture students, and picked up their attitude about The Towers:
"they were "the boxes" that the real buildings came in!". Snarky, huh?!
That remained my attitude - though they were a useful visual marker for the occasional directional short comings: until, I went to work in one - the South Tower 2. I'd already eaten there once at Windows on the World, gone the Observation deck. Probably had taken a look at the massive underground shopping center.
But now this was going to be a five day/week thing: up on the NE corner office of the 73rd floor! Geeeebz, how many people especially back then worked that high up! If you've seen photos of the whole complex you know there was a massive plaza between the two, along with the famous "The Sphere" ?bronze sculpture that sat in the center of a round, low, sluicing black granite water fountain.
It took me the first four of my M-F work week to get up the nerve to walk across that plaza from the short but wide set of stairs that took you up from the street, look up at that seriously tall building, go inside, and take two elevators. And how many people took two... (you know).
Then what did I do those First Four days?
Ah, ha - I had a trick! The way I'd naturally go to work (no extra travel manuverings) would leave me getting off of either two subway trains that came in nearby under, or right next to under the Tower Complex where you could go up to the street, or walk towards, then right into the underground shopping mall, and go right to your elevator(s) to take you up. Me: B1 - 70th flr, then elevator #2 70th flr - 73rd flr.
I didn't have to see it at all(!); just how high up I was going. Yet on my very first day, on my very first work break I walked right to the windows to look out. I guess a couple of my childhood vacations where my dad would drive us to this, or that mountain - "you can see 3 States from here!" must have had some subtle effect on me. Not to mention that literally about 6 wks earlier my cousin took me up into, and down out of The Rocky Mountains Northwest of Denver, CO to visit a lake 10,000 ft up! So, really, what was like around 700+ ft in comparison.
So we had this incredible view! Out across Brooklyn, maybe a some of Queens. Going northward straight up Manhattan - Midtown like a forest of stone, glass, and steel often with bits of gittering from the sunlight! The East River turning into The Harlem River, parts of The Bronx Following up the Hudson River a bit northwest up to the more green sections to the Tappen Zee Bridge. Some part of northwest NJ.
The look of the weather! The wildest was being fogged in. A soft gray cloud of "nothingness" all around us! If it was windy - well, I not yet drinking coffee never saw the subtle sway of the coffee in a cup that my co-workers mentioned; but when I used the bathroom I could hear the pipes creaking. Yeah.
Otoh, on a sunny day with a few clouds - wow, it was like being on a quite high hill when looking at
the area north of the WTC, Soho, The Village, where the buildings were relatively low 4 - ?10 stories because you could see clearly defined shadows of these clouds over Manhattan slowly marching across it. So cool!
There were the winter months where we'd see part of the sunset. And I'd watch the shadows of the towers march from East Manhattan into Brooklyn.
Some of my work associates would listen to what I'd point out. I happen to work only afternoons. One day I came in, and they said, "you missed the rainbow over NJ this morning!" I was disappointed, you don't see that many rainbows in NYC (I have seen a few!), and see one from that height. I was also kind of proud that they noticed it, and told me. Like I got some of them looking.
Now from the ground coming into, or leaving work I'd see the difference casts of light onto the whitish structure, regular midday, then more yellow, and golden later in the day, to even a pinkish sunset cast. I'd see the colors of the sky reflected in the windows: shades of blue, clouds of white, blue white, light grays, blue grays, darker grays, peach, orange, and pinks It was a panoply of Nature's sky reflected on them. A built, gigantic, unexpected "canvas".
And that's how I fell in love with The Twin Towers.
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