Say you’ve lived in New York for a while. Fifteen years, twenty years. Maybe your whole life. You’re coming out of the subway, on your way to an appointment, or a party, and you’re a little turned around when you get to the street. A little confused. You’re not sure which way is uptown, and which way is down. Automatically, without thinking about it, you gaze around for the one landmark (or rather, the two landmarks) that always helped orient you in the past — those enormous, companionable markers that silently indicated, at a glance: This is south. This is Lower Manhattan. Take your bearings.
Then you remember: the Twin Towers are gone. So you cast about for some other clue, some other sign that will tell you which way is uptown, which way is down, and as you get your bearings and head off in the right direction, the vanished towers hover at the edges of your thoughts — a ghost image that fades, and is gone.
The two towers of the World Trade Center anchored Lower Manhattan for almost three decades. While they still stood, no one would have characterized them as “beloved,” or even as very well-liked. They were too gargantuan, too lacking in character (it seemed) to elicit the sort of affection — and even near-reverence — that structures like, say, the Empire State Building or the Brooklyn Bridge can stir in almost anyone who encounters them. The Twin Towers were sleek, utilitarian monoliths, each one possessing all the personality of an I-beam. They were unavoidable, but they were also unlovable.
Gradually, though, people did warm to the pair. There were times, for example, when the setting sun burnished the soaring glass sides of those two buildings in such a way that they — or the reddish-gold light shining on them, at least — was truly beautiful. And seen from a distance, from the east or from the west, the Twin Towers added a certain balance to the island’s famous skyline — a modern counterpoint to the celebrated skyscrapers (the Chrysler and Empire State buildings, Citicorp Center and the rest) that rose above midtown like so many self-satisfied urban stars. The Twin Towers, meanwhile, located several miles south of their famous cousins, were a constant visual reminder to the rest of the region that Lower Manhattan not only mattered: it was, in some ways, the true center of the metropolis.
[See the LIFE gallery, "Lower Manhattan: Where New York Was Born."]
The towers are gone now. A dramatic new skyscraper, One World Trade, is rising from almost the exact same spot where the Twin Towers once stood, and the skyline of the city has once again been reshaped, transformed — as it always has been, and always will be. And who knows? Maybe future generations of commuters will walk out of subway stations all over town, a little turned around, a little confused, and will automatically look around for the one landmark that has always helped orient them — an enormous, companionable marker that silently indicates, at a glance: This is south. This is Lower Manhattan. Take your bearings.
— Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com
