When I was back in college, I worked summers at the WTC for the Port Authority of NY and NJ, the agency that runs the airports, tunnels and most of the bridges in the NY/NJ area. I remember looking down onto Church Street from the eigthieth floor of the north tower (the pedestrians looking like ants far below). What a view!
I thought that if a really bad fire occurred in the buildings, it would probably resemble a scene from Irwin Allen's disaster film, "The Towering Inferno." Who would have ever thought that terrorists would crash two hijacked jetliners into the towers? (Well, maybe Tom Clancy envisioned a similar scenario.)
I worked in the Merrill Lynch building, on Church Street directly across the street from the WTC, for five years. You could run into the Brooks Brothers store on the first floor of the building to do some last minute Christmas shopping. Down on Church Street, across from Trinity Church, is the Stapleton Shoe Company, a great men's shoe store that has been there for years.
I was fortunate to meet many out-of-town Dark Shadows fans at the 1999 festival at the WTC. When they asked what to see in downtown Manhattan, I recommended that they check out the great J & R Music World, arguably the finest record store/stereo equipment dealer, over on Park Row across from city hall. You could also spend a great deal of time at the Strand Book Store on Fulton Street as you made your way over to the old Fulton Fish Market, enroute to all of the shops and restaurants at the South Street Seaport over on the east side of the financial district. There were a number of terrific Friday night rock concerts at the seaport, where thousands of financial workers would unwind and get loaded at the end of the work week.
As I watched the twin towers collapse from across the Hudson River on 9/11, I heard a reporter on WINS radio announce that the Merrill Lynch building might topple down after the WTC across the street. (Thankfully, the building, like the Millennium Hotel next door, was spared.) I later learned from a friend on the police force, that the firemen had used the Brooks Brothers store as a makeshift morgue that day.
As a college student and, later, as an adult in the so-called "real world," I always enjoyed the financial district. People may not know, that with so many corporations and law firms downtown, there are literally hundreds of computer professionals and attorneys working round the clock. (One of my friends at a large firm on Water Street, used to joke about the undersized "sleeping rooms" that were maintained to allow harried attorneys to get some much-needed sleep during some hectic and prolonged litigation.)
I particularly enjoyed stolling through Battery Park with my "significant other," on a quiet Sunday afternoon in the city, before an early evening dinner at the seaport. Yet, today, I don't believe that I could ever enjoy frequenting some of those wonderful downtown locations again. It would seem almost sacrilegious to enjoy oneself, knowing what transpired on 9/11, a very sad and tragic day in our nation's history.
