[Leica] Twin Towers

[Afterswift at aol.com (Afterswift@aol.com)]

In a message dated 6/22/06 4:27:53 PM, lug-request@leica-users.org writes:


> While everyone regrets the tragic loss of life that the
> attack on the towers caused, there are some New Yorkers who feel that
> the towers should never have been raised in the first place.
> ---------------------------------------------------
I'm one of those who thought the WTC was a bad development. It cut streets 
off North and South, East and West. It deprived NYC of very interesting 
special 
interest retailers. In effect, it was a huge wall that partitioned lower 
Manhattan. It was oversized and underbuilt. It was giganticism for its own 
sake. 
There was no shortage of office space at the time it was planned and built. 
I 
was amazed at how fast the Twin Towers went up. I lunched at the same coffee 
places around Church Street where the high steel guys ate and I remarked to 
them 
how few there were of them visible up there and yet floors went up by the 
score every week. They just smiled. When you're good at your work, a nod or 
smile 
is enough commentary. 

The WFC (World Financial Center), on the other hand, has a raison d'?tre. It 
connects the Hudson with the shore and marina and walkway and creates a true 
performance space within the Winter Garden. It was great shooting the 
corporate 
yachts there, with the tables set by uniformed crewmen on the fantails for 
Wall Street bigwigs.

Families with kids from the high rise apartment houses were all over the 
place. Unlike the WTC, it is human scale and fun.

I recall solar powered cars exhibited at the WFC almost 10 years ago. Even 
Ford and GM were represented. I shot a number of rolls on that Meet. 

It seemed to me then that NYC at that time was the center of the world, not 
a 
bullseye for some religion-inebriated, sacrificial, Islamic fundamentalist 
theo-nationalists. It was a more innocent and rational time and I was a 
younger 
man. 

Best,
Bob