Some of my remembrances on the World Trade Center over the years.

A photo of the World Trade Center under construction from the 1971 Parsons School of Design catalog I have from my high school days when I was looking at colleges. I considered applying to Parsons, but my maternal grandmother said RISD was the best place to go for an art school, so I never pursued going there and living north of the newly built twin towers.

As mentioned yesterday on Lea's post about where she was on 9/11, I said in my comment that I was in my sons' elementary school in a meeting when the news was announced in the conference room. In an interesting twist this is the same elementary school that I was attending when JFK was shot, however, I was home with a bad cold that day. The JFK tragedy, along with the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters were all days when I happened to be at home with the TV on and saw each event unfold in real time.

In the case of 9/11, as soon as the meeting was over my wife and I were heading back to our house with the radio on, WCBS Newsradio 88, just like Cranky was listening to the same morning. As we approached our driveway we saw two neighbors with worried looks on their faces talking to one another in a driveway. I knew that neither of their husbands worked at the trade center but there could have been a situation where one was in a meeting there during the fateful morning. Luckily, that was not the case.

Back at our house I turned on the TV and hit the record button on the VCR. In less than two days four tapes were already filled with the news of what was taking place real time. We were watching as the second tower came down and that added to the shock of the first tower having already fallen.

In the days following 9/11 when commercial flights were suspended it was rather spooky at night to not hear the large planes traveling to nearby Westchester Airport and we knew that any jet in the sky was a military one.

The World Trade Center was too out of the way for me to visit there very much. Our consulting business had an office at 599 Lexington Avenue, across the street from the Citicorp building (as seen in the photo below) and we didn't have any clients that far downtown to frequent the towers. In the time following 9/11, the Citicorp building would have structural additions made to the lower part of the tower to prevent a catastrophe in case of a terrorist bomb of any powerful type. Later I moved to the Chrysler Building which is such a heavy masonry building that it would never be a susceptible to damage from large bombs as many newer buildings might be.

My first visit to the twin towers was in 1978. I decided to take a sunny and warm day in the spring and simply walk around the city. The observation floor was my first stop that morning after arriving at Grand Central. In a strange coincidence a family that sat a few seats ahead of me on the train arrived at the observation floor around the same time and we were about the only ones present at that early point soon after the floor opened for the day to visitors.

Most of the time that I walked through the World Trade Center was to catch a PATH train to Penn Station in Newark and beyond that I went to a New York State office to pick up some forms for a new business I was starting.

I had no friends who died in the towers during 9/11, but some six years after the event a family moved in next door to me and the husband's father had been a casualty that day.

After 9/11 I avoided that area of the site of Ground Zero altogether. I had no desire to see the pit of where the buildings had stood and I remained very sad about the lives that had been lost and the total destruction of the area.

It was actually last year on the day before 9/11 that I returned and took lots of photos and videos. Having the community of Open Salon to share this visit with meant a lot to me. I brought one of my sons along that day and he saw that part of Manhattan for the first time. Because new buildings were now on the rise the World Trade Center was a beehive of activity of construction and no longer a recovery and excavation site such as it had been for many years after 9/11.

The new construction taking place was a positive note in a site that had so many negative connections since 2001. My son was about the equivalent age that I was when the twin towers were being built, for him seeing One World Trade Center already under construction would be part of his lifetime connection with the place.

As you will recall there were demonstrations at that time about the proposal to build an Islamic cultural center just a few blocks north of the World Trade Center. That day I captured photos and video of the groundswell of activity along Park Place.

Returning to the same area last February with my son, we noticed no TV crews or demonstrators to be found anywhere which was to be expected. The election was over and the politicians who had raised a fuss about the center had already moved on to new targets.

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My first return to the World Trade Center site on 9|10|10 after avoiding the place in the years after 9/11, as seen in my post from last September

After riding the subway south to the vicinity of the World Trade Center construction site I passed three news vans.

Just around the corner and on Park Place, location of the proposed Islamic cultural center is a large group of news crews.

BBC News in the midst of an interview.

More news crews and reporters.

Just up the block on Park Place the former Burlington Coat Factory building and site of the proposed cultural center.

A Jesus truck passing in front of the site.

Below are construction scenes from the World Trade Center site. Unless you work in a nearby building with a good view it is difficult to get any shots of the progress made on the ground.

Some video footage I shot last September, 10th of construction at the site also contains a Jets' Rally that was held over at Pier 17 later that day.

After leaving Ground Zero, I headed over to the Wall Street area where it looked like business as usual. The shot below is of the old Federal Building. With cars and trucks banned from these narrow streets it is much more pleasant to walk around here than before.

After taking in the financial district, a short stroll over to the East River and I was at the South Street Seaport where lots of people had gathered at the end of the afternoon for drinks, dinner and for fans of the Jets--a rally featuring the pop punk band Good Charlotte.

This is one painting job I will take a pass on!

You can't beat a free concert complete with handouts like Jets keychains and several free tickets handed out for Monday's game.

A Jets photographer with two of the largest Nikon digital cameras known to mankind.

The Jets cheerleaders, called the Flight Crew, cheered on the crowd.

Since MetLife was a co-sponsor of the event, Snoopy made an appearance.

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 Return to the World Trade Center site in February, 2011

Down to Park Place the scene of so much protest prior to the election. The news cameras and reporters are gone and a lone NYPD car is parked in front of the proposed Islamic center. It is a reminder of how politicized the Islamic center issue was when you walk the street and see no protestors in sight.

 (The same location as seen on September 10, 2010 with news crews and a few protesters with opinions at the opposite end of the political spectrum.)

The facade of the proposed site of the Islamic center looked very much as it did last September. In terms of protestors there was not one to be found. Two middle-aged fellows with cowboy hats were standing there and spoke a few words about the site, but they were simply checking the place out, not protesting in any way.

Approaching the World Trade Center site from the north.

The Freedom Tower (One World Trade Center) is far higher than last September when I posted some photos of it.

Life continues on at the World Trade Center site and the city retains its place as one of the world's most vibrant metropolitan communities.

As part of my posting Salon.com stories that appeared in the days and weeks after 9/11 I present two more today. Click on the screen images for the each full article:

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The image of American aircraft and missiles bombing Arab states and producing massive casualties -- many of them, inevitably, civilians with no ties to terrorists -- will surely confirm the belief among many ordinary Muslims that bin Laden is right: that the United States is intent on tormenting and subduing the Islamic world. As Bruce Shapiro has observed, out of the rubble of American attacks will come thousands of new volunteers for bin Laden's anti-American jihad.

--Michael T. Klare, Salon

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Whatever anyone thinks of this president or his political legitimacy, there are few issues more fundamental in a constitutional democracy than the physical security of the head of state, especially when the nation is under attack. The tale of the supposed targeting of the president, the White House and Air Force One by terrorists is among the most serious fabrications ever promulgated by federal officials. 

--Joe Conason, Salon

All photos (except top photo) and text in the post (except Salon articles) are © 2011 by B+Co., Inc.