World Trade Center: An Icon Destroyed

John McIntosh

For the thing which
I greatly feared is come upon me,
and that which I was afraid of
Is come unto me.
I was not in safety, neither
had I rest, neither was I quiet;
yet trouble came
-Job
Katrin and I are very fortunate. We have productive and creative lives. Yet, we never fully appreciated our good fortune until we began living within view of the World Trade Center. We were indeed very lucky, and we felt as much each time we took stock and pleasure from our magnificent view of New York.
For 18 months, we enjoyed an unobstructed view of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. You cannot imagine how many times each day we would look to see the tower; every morning, every night, during the middle of the night.
There were a few disturbing moments when the World Trade Center disappeared from our view. Ominous storms moving up the Hudson River obscured even the brightest lights on Manhattan. The first time we saw this, we were sure there was a power failure, a blackout. We could not imagine why the television was not reporting the event. Each time after that when we lost sight of the World Trade Center we would joke, “It’s gone again.”

Tuesday, September 11th was a clear and beautiful late summer day. At dawn the World Trade Center was glistening in red morning sun. We were up early and enjoying the morning. Then it began. Katrin heard a loud bang that she assumed came from a nearby construction site. Moments later I noticed a beautiful cloud hanging directly over the World Trade Center. I yelled to Katrin to come and look but before I could finish the sentence, I saw the fire and smoke coming from the upper floors of the North Tower. It looked bad but not nearly as bad as we would soon understand. Of course it rapidly became worse and worse.
Minutes before I took the picture below, the Waterway commuter ferries unloaded their passengers and headed full-speed down the Hudson River to the Wall Street area. A number of the boats began taking refugees to New Jersey ports. Suddenly all the ferries turned and sped away from lower Manhattan. Minutes later the South Tower collapsed. It looked as if an atomic bomb had exploded. The Jersey shoreline was jammed with commuters, all staring, slack-jawed or weeping uncontrollably. It appeared that all of lower Manhattan was lost. It was horrible.

This last image of the World Trade Center is the image I will not forget. In a sea of tragic images, surreal and disturbing, we all have our own memory of the events of September 11, 2001. This is mine.
I can think of a thousand times I looked up at the World Trade Center. It altered the New York skyline, dominating and imposing. I loved those moments in New York when you would catch a glimpse of the World Trade Center looming between buildings, standing above the avenues. I never could ignore its presence. I never took it for granted.
I have always understood the significance of the place, the politics of its construction, and I even felt ambivalent about the implications of the financial empires it housed. They were never pre-eminent in my mind as I admired the structure and the skyline but they were never completely out of my mind either. I was looking at structure, a magnificent sculpture. It was a visual anchor, a guidepost. It was an icon. It was not a symbol.
I realized that for some people the World Trade Center was a symbol. A symbol they despised. A symbol so strong in their minds that they would kill themselves and thousands of innocent bystanders to destroy it. I always felt ill at ease at the target I knew it had become. I dreaded the thought that this could happen, and I never spoke of it.
Five days after the disaster, we still see plumes of smoke where the World Trade Center once stood. The smell is a disturbing combination of industrial waste, construction materials, and human remains. The smoke burns your eyes, your lungs, and your heart. We will never forget the destruction and the tragic loss of life. We lost far more than an icon.
Yet, we are still fortunate. We will still live productive and creative lives. A building on our horizon is gone. We can live without it. In fact, today more then ever before, when we look at New York we can see the people and the place that we are proud to call home.
John McIntosh is chair of Computer Art at the School of Visual Arts in New York.