Results tagged “twintowers”

     

After being greeted by a 21-gun salute, the warship built from World Trade Center steel USS New York is back home. A New Yorker who knows the harbor better than anyone else, not to mention the pain of Sept. 11, guided it into the city. Harbor pilot Neil Keating, whose firefighter brother Paul was killed on Sept. 11, pulled the warship into place this morning. He told the Post, "It's fitting that 7.5 tons of Twin Towers steel were used to make the bow, because that's where the ship takes a pounding and keeps trudging forward through roughs seas. We're like ambassadors when we go on board."

As we mentioned yesterday, this week marked 32 years since George Willig's climb up the World Trade Center's south tower. When he got up there, he signed his name on a piece of metal on the observation deck, and now a reader has scanned in his photo of it, taken in 1983. We like that Willig even drew the two towers!

The cover of Sesame Street magazine circa October 1976 depicts a giant Cookie Monster putting aside his favorite snack for a few bites of the Twin Towers. Sort of makes you think about how innocent the world seemed before the terrorists started blowing shit up, no?

   

In August of 1974, a 24-year-old Frenchman named Philippe Petit snuck into the World Trade Center, reached the top, and walked across a wire cable that was strung between the Twin Towers. New York watched captivated below. Some fun facts: it took 6 years to plan the stunt, the gap between the towers was 140 feet, and even though it was illegal, charges were dropped and Petit was merely sentenced to entertaining kids in Central Park (where he walked over Belvedere Lake).

Infinite emails (all from the same source) flooded inboxes citywide last night (following a Reuters photo that was published) with messages pondering "how Americans would feel if they knew that just before the Olympics start, a theme park in Beijing still shows the Twin Towers standing in a NYC exhibit of mini models?" With many Americans already protesting the Olympic Games, this might not help the Chinese government's boffo P.R campaign.

Before going for the gold, French actress and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard made some remarks in a 2007 interview regarding 9/11, and some aren't as charmed by her words as they were by her Oscar speech. Nonetheless, Cotillard sides with the conspiracy theorists when it comes to 9/11...and the moon landing! BBC News has a partial transcript:

"We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes, are they burned?" she asks. "There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burned for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed."

Continue reading "Oscar Starlet Questions 9/11 (and Moon Landing)"

For the past few years, the French game and humor site called Uzinagaz.com has been featuring an online video game which challenges players to prevent jetliners from flying into the Twin Towers. As the game progresses, the planes arrive with increasing frequency and eventually each tower collapses in a plume of digital dust. The tagline for the game, called New York Defender, says "Go beyond your powerlessness and use your mouse to fight back."

That medical condition Paris Hilton had that led the LA County Sheriff to release her from jail? The Daily News reports that the socialite was worried guards would take a photograph of her using her jail cell bathroom and then put it on the Internet. From a Hilton insider who spoke to the News:

"She didn't eat or drink a single thing for three days because she didn't want to use the toilet. She was in real danger."

Continue reading "Paris's Jailhouse Bathroom Fears"

Law enforcement officials held a press conference Saturday to outline the details of the thwarted terror plot directed against JFK airport. The group of four men, three of whom were arrested yesterday, were planning on exploding the pipeline that carries aviation fuel to JFK. Their hope was that it would set off a chain reaction along the length of the pipeline, which is 40 miles long and runs through several residential neighborhoods, in a bid to kill thousands of people. They also wanted to plant explosives aboard an aircraft and in or near one of JFK's terminals.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a power outage on Beach Channel Drive in Queens, a shooting on Hale Ave. in Brooklyn, and a shooting at East 157th St. and Cortland Ave. in the Bronx.
• The Gowanus Lounge has a post on the giant inflatable water slide that Thor Equities intends to erect at Coney Island. The slide manufacturer's web site advertises that when it comes to entertaining children "size does matter," so good luck explaining what the heck that means when you bring your kids.
• Seattle transplant Tricia Romano ends her run covering NYC's rhythm and flow for the Village Voice's "Fly Life" column. In a male-dominated scene, she was a rare distaff voice and we wish her luck on future endeavors, like writing features for the paper.
• Giuliani was heckled by activists at his birthday fundraiser, demanding to know more about his knowledge of the Twin Towers' collapse.
• A homeless panhandler has urged his court appointed lawyer to file a First Amendment suit after being arrested for begging in public and then reading about a similar case in the paper. The Times doesn't specify, but we suspect it might be the case of the panhandler who sued the city for $100,000 and won.
• Several Inwood, Manhattan high school students were injured when a car ran over a bottle of Drano, splashing them with its contents.
• It's getting down to brass tacks time in the wrongful death lawsuit centered around the killing of Malcolm Ferguson by a member of the NYPD seven years ago.
• Venerable talk show host Joe Franklin wants New Yorkers to help identify the cab that ran him down at 35th St. and 8th Ave. earlier this month.

• Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an attempted abduction at Balcolm and Barkley Aves. in the Bronx, loose horses on Tremont Ave. in the Bronx, and a school bus fire at the toll booth plaza of the Throgsneck Bridge in the Bronx.
• Not showing a lot of confidence in the Ivy Leaguers he was cheating money from, Columbia's student-aid head wrote emails to the loan company he held stock in outlining that he needed an "idiot-proof way" to send students to Student Loan Xpress for their educational loans.
• Get ready for Fleet Week. It begins this Wednesday with the Parade of Ships up the Hudson.
• A fascinating story on the development of DUMBO and how the neighborhood came about its name. It was conceived by a group of drunken writers and artists one night as a way to make the area seem unattractive or embarrassing to people looking to buy million-dollar residences there.
• Bernie Williams met chants of "Bernie! Bernie!" as he received an honorary degree and addressed the graduation ceremony at Iona this weekend. Mets Manager Willie Randolph also received an honorary degree and addressed graduating students, but at Fordham, where his own daughter was one of the graduates.
• Edward R. Murrow High School's renowned chess team, dubbed "Kings of New York" and the subject of a recent book, was beaten by a team of middle-schoolers from Williamsburg's I.S. 318 at the Brooklyn High School Chess Championship over the weekend.
• NY1 looks at the changes that have occurred in Red Hook, Brooklyn over the past 15 years, and the murder of a popular school principal that seemed to mark the community's turning point.

Jeremy Olshan created this map, the Twin Towers Diaspora, which gives an interesting overview of where former tenants of the World Trade Center have moved after September 11, 2001. Some have stayed in Manhattan, but others have moved to the outer-boroughs and out of the state. You can click on the markers to see the company name and where the company was originally located in the WTC.

Set your DVRs, because tomorrow night's 20/20 should be a doozy. The Barbara Walters interview with Rudy and Judith Giuliani will air, and they talk about marriages (and divorces), their first meeting ("instant" attraction), and how Rudy would be fine if Judi sat in on policy meetings at the White House. Oh, yes. According to ABC News' preview, Giuliani says, "If [the meetings] were relevant to something that she was interested in. I mean that would be something that I'd be very, very comfortable with."

We noticed a short NY Times review of documentary film that instantly intrigued us. The Cats of Mirikitani is about Jimmy Mirkitani, an elderly homeless Japanese-American man, who filmmaker Linda Hattendorf meets when he is drawing cats under the awning of a SoHo grocery. The two become friends and Hattendorf started shooting the documentary about him in 2001.

Jesus of the Twin Towers, Dyker Heights by gkjarvis.

This morning, workers will take down the iron cross at Ground Zero and prepare to move it to St. Peter's Church this afternoon. There will be a small ceremony for the cross's transfer, and St. Peter's will be its home until the World Trade Center Memorial Museum is open. If you're near the site, you may see a flatbed truck bringing the cross to St. Peter's around 2PM. WABC 7 explains the cross's history: "The two cast-iron beams left in the shape of a cross after the collapse of the Twin Towers were hoisted onto a 40-foot foundation on October 4th, 2001 and quickly became one of the best-known symbols of the site."

We thought it was odd that the NY Post had a prominent Monopoly scratch-n-win promotion on their September 11 front cover, whereas the Daily News had a subdued cover that just listed the times the Twin Towers were struck five years ago. Sure, the Post is tacky, but it also rushes to take advantage of people's sympathies. We suppose that Post had some contractual obligations with the promotion, but lately, the Monopoly Man has been dominating the cover. And on today's covers, the Daily News elegantly shows a man at the Ground Zero reflecting pools, while the Post's cover is a hodge-podge of scratch-n-win, Bush's speech and Anna Nicole's son's death (the Times' NY Times above the fold coverage is part September 11 anniversary, part coverage of war in Iraq, and part Harvard-ends-early-admission next year). We're curious which issue is more popular on newsstands - continued, solemn reverance or the chaos of life (and scratch-n-win).

EVENT: Rev Billy and the Stop Shopping Gospel Choir have been unleashing their rowdy anti-corporate exorcisms at the Spiegeltent, “a wondrous 1920’s venue of billowing velvet, stained glass, teak, and a thousand mirrors.” But righteous consumers beware: The Spiegeltent is part of the South Street Seaport Mall, which is made unclean by wicked corporations like Victoria’s Secret – all the better for the Rev’s antics. He chastises the company for clear-cutting Canadian boreal forests to produce one million catalogs per day. (A Village Voice blog reports on Victoria’s Secret’s struggle to silence the Rev) On this day he rests from damning their unmentionables to observe the fifth anniversary of 9/11. - John Del Signore

Today at 2PM until dusk, artist Fynn Sloyan will be at the Fulton Ferry Landing handing out transparencies of pre-September 11 skyline so people can see where the World Trade Center's Twin Towers once were. He also has a PDF that you can print out to make your own transparency at the WTC Outline Project.

Some readers have been asking about events related to the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Aside from the official city plans, which include moments of silence, reading of victims' names and time for the families to lay flowers at Ground Zero, as well as the lighting of Tribute in Light, a number of organizations and groups have events all weekend and on Monday. For instance, the September 11 Memorial Quilts will be dedicated tomorrow at the Marriott Financial Center, the World Trade Center Survivor's Network will plant a "Survivor Tree" in City Hall Park on Sunday, New York Buddhist Church will have a floating lighted lantern ceremony at Houston and the Hudson River on Monday.

Ah, there's nothing like politicians sinking their teeth into a national tragedy for their own gain. Someone on Gothamist Contribute pointed out something happening in the Ohio Senate race between Republican incumbent Mike DeWine and challenger, Representative Sherrod Brown. DeWine's campaign used a doctored photograph of the World Trade Center burning in a television ad that touted his national security platform. According to CNN, "The senator was notified Wednesday by a reporter at U.S. News & World Report that the image of the burning Twin Towers could not have depicted the actual event because the smoke was blowing the wrong way." Good grief. His campaign spokesman said, "The senator thought it depicted the actual events of 9/11 and when he found out that wasn't the case, he wanted an actual picture used." Hear that? If you're trying to exploit a tragedy, make sure you've got the real goods; DeWine had Rudy Giuliani at one of his events, so he really should have known better.

Before the September 11 attacks, the Vesey Street Staircase was seen and used by the public on a daily basis. Located near the intersection of Vesey and Church streets, it consisted of two granite-clad outdoor flights of stairs and an escalator that led from the World Trade Center plaza to Vesey Street. When terrorists crashed two planes into the Twin Towers, the staircase provided a path of escape for hundreds of individuals. The staircase now leads nowhere and consists only of concrete slabs and blocks, a few remaining pieces of stone cladding, and steel supports – but it is nonetheless an authentic and invaluable reminder of the World Trade Center that once stood here.

Sara Schwittek has a powerful set of WTC and 9-11 pictures up at Four Eyes. Many were taken looking into the city from DUMBO on the day of the attacks. She also has a few pages of pictures taken during the days that followed. Our personal favorites, however, are the pictures she took before September 2001, like the one shown above. [Related: our two previous posts about pictures of the Twin Towers.]

Fashionistas and music snobs descend upon the city over the next week with both CMJ and Fashion Week starting. We'll most likely only be attending the former. Before it begins though, we'll ease into the hectic schedule with a few of the following events...even if we should be resting up for the week ahead.

Yesterday's groundbreaking ceremony of the World Trade Center transit hub saw a number of politicians and designer Santiago Calatrava to the mark the first construction activity at Ground Zero. Calatrava and his daughter Sofia released doves/white pigeons into the air from Falcon Environmental Services with Governors Pataki (NY) and Codey (NJ), Senator Clinton, Mayor Bloomberg, and Tranportation Secretary Minetta looking on. The $2.2 billion transporation center will bring an estimated 10,000 construction jobs downtown, but construction won't officially begin until after September 11, when families traditionally get to visit the Twin Towers' footprints at Ground Zero. The NY Times has a cross-section graphic of the new hub and how it will hold various transit lines.

NY1 reports that the WTC Memorial, Reflecting Absence, has been tested by a fountain consultant. The consultant constructed a "full-scale mock-up of some fountain configurations" to look for "potential problems with freezing and winter conditions"; the design has two pools in the footprints of the old World Trade Center Towers, with waterfalls around them. Outgoing Lower Manhattan Development Corportation President Kevin Rampe says that memorial groundbreaking is still "on track" for 2006, even in spite of the Ground Zero issues. You can learn more about Reflecting Absence at the LMDC.

Here's the LMDC's press release on the event, plus the "Master Site Plan" for the WTC site. The NY Times had a profile of Elio Cettina, the man who led the building of 7 WTC for Tishman Construction originally and is heading it up again this time around. And a study says that design flaws in the Twin Towers may not have caused them to fall - it was more the extraordinary combination of circumstances (plane traveling at such a speed, the heat from the fire).

Gothamist saw Libeskind with wife Nina in Tribeca the other weekend, and boy, they are tiny and are their glasses hip. A great Shining parody: The Simpsons' The Shinning. Daniel Libeskind's official site and the plans for Freedom Tower at the WTC site. Plus Gothamist on Libeskind.

Before twentysomething Glaswegian art rock quartets were bestowed all the credit for generating the highest level of audience excitement and participation since the mosh pit craze of the early nineties, Ted Leo taught the indie kids how to dance. Churning out high energy punk-pop, the ever-enthusiastic and hardworking Leo tours relentlessly (even during massive blackouts and severe thunderstorms), and has been described as the Chevy trucks of indie rock. He lives and breathes rock 'n' roll... Gothamist witnessed him putting every available dollar bill into the jukebox at his very own listening party back in August. We have also been helplessly, spastically rocking out to the latest album, , which shakes the streets next Tuesday, October 19.

NY1 will have live coverage of the ceremony; they have also been examining what the status of the rebuilding is, lingering health issues, how WTC Memorial designer Michael Arad feels the weight of responsibility and much more. The NY Times also has their section on "Rebuilding Lower Manhattan", in addition to recent stories about the after effects of September 11; yesterday's story about different companies' and organizations' decisions about keeping an image of the World Trade Center did resonate with us, as we wonder about some storefronts and vans that still have the Twin Towers standing in their logo's sklyines. Also, check out the NY Times' A Nation Challenged section, which includes Portraits of Grief - profiles of victims.