Sunny Dua
It was on May 30th 2000 that we experienced a 360-degrees bird’s eye view of entire New York City from an observatory located on top of one of the buildings of World Trade Centers (WTC) located at Manhattan, New York. The steel deck raised above the roof top was having railings as protective measure and was built little inwards from parapet walls for safety purposes. Away from noise and air pollution, a walk on this observatory at 417 m could make anyone experience how birds’ fly and look at objects from this height. The $30 ticket to this place where high speed elevators took us was worth it from where one could also see breath-taking view of entire NY City.
Having landed at South Terminal of Newark International Airport, New York on May 29, 2000 we had first felt the breeze coming from Manhattan – the financial, cultural and administrative Centre of New York City that housed United Nations , Wall Street, several multinational companies and very important universities. Manhattan cruise departure point in Lower Manhattan was the place form where cruise took us to Statue of Liberty. The farther we were sailing the better view of Manhattan became visible with two iconic WTC towers dominating the City Skyline that matched no other city in the world and people clicked themselves in the backdrop of this magnificently raised cluster of skyscrapers.
However, who knew that this ‘Skyline’ will change forever the very next year leaving an indelible scar on the hearts and souls of people across the globe. This universally recognized skyline that was part of several hundred movies and film shoots was changed forever. No one could ever imagine that New York City that has more than 2,000 arts and cultural organizations and more than 500 art galleries visited by artists from around the globe could see dust and rubble of twin towers scattering all over streets paralyzing that art life for months rather years.
Back home in Jammu, almost a year later in 2001, while sitting in newsroom we saw television screen beamed flames billowing out of top few floors of one of the high-rise buildings of same World Trade Centre (WTC) in New York on which we were standing a year ago. The site primarily looked like a fire incident but sooner the stories started unfolding, it was established that an aero plane has hit one of the iconic buildings of United States of America (USA) which later confirmed that this was the biggest ever terror attack on the soil of America. We stayed glued to the televisions till we saw first building come down like a pack of cards in the financial district of lower Manhattan.
“This was the moment when I felt ground beneath my feet slipping”. It was a horrific scene seeing the same very building going down, on top of which I was standing a year and four months ago. After few hours of this incident, the second tower also came down leaving about 2,606 people in the buildings and around them besides all 157 on board the two aircrafts dead and several others including fire fighters injured many of them seriously. Having stood on one of the towers a year ago, one would imagine how high the buildings were and how on could feel when the same stories collapse beneath your feet. This was shocking!
Today when the world is observing 20 years of collapse of twin towers and America soldiers are being recalled from Afghanistan, one gets reminded of magnificently designed twin towers of New York that had a restaurant on its top floor, an observatory deck and a cantilever glass platform where one could step on and experience the depth below the WTC building. Standing on this glass floor one could experience oneself hanging in the air and see tiny toy like cars and people moving on cross roads of NYC. Then a virtual tour of NYC in a helicopter was like icing on the cake.
Strangely, a building that was so magnificently constructed, had all the amenities, stood as tallest buildings of the world till 1973, was preceded by Empire State Building and surpassed by Willis Tower, had high speed elevators, was pride of NY City and housed very important offices that no one could ever imagine that the same can be brought down like pack of cards. When the two buildings were hit by two different aero planes, the burning fuel raised the temperature to the extent that steel girders melted and threw their weight on the floors making them collapse as if some Lego toy blocks were crumbling.
This was perhaps first time that America ‘tasted the terror’ to this extent that it, after establishing the role of founder of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, declared ‘war on terror’ and planned air strikes on Afghanistan. America established itself on the soil of Afghanistan only to call back soldiers after twenty years of Afghan war in August/September this year. Osama was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) list of most wanted terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 US embassy bombings as well as masterminding the September 11 attacks. This was the time when President George W. Bush initiated the war in Afghanistan which ended after twenty years.
Frank George Wisner, during his tenure as United States Ambassador to India from 1994–97 had once visited Jammu and on being asked why is America fishing in deep troubled waters viz-a-viz Kashmir, had said, “whenever peace is disturbed anywhere around the globe, America is bound to intervene”. During an exclusive interview to this writer, he stayed glued to US statement that Kashmir was a bilateral issue between India and Pakistan and both must sit and resolve the same amicably. However, when US witnessed biggest ever terror attack on its soil, it bombarded Afghanistan and pegged its forces there only to return after twenty years.
Coming back to WTC buildings, left building known as North Tower with an antenna spire was called WTC 1 work on which was started in 1966 and completed in 1972. Built at a cost of $400 million the complex housed 12.40 Lakh M2 of office space. However, this day (September 11) twenty years ago Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers within minutes of each other; less than two hours later, both towers collapsed. Experts believed that impact of the jetliners was so strong that it fractured two-thirds of the support columns on both buildings making some floors collapse and their impact later caused rippling effect and made both towers of 110 stories come down crumbling.
Housing hundreds of companies, both these towers used to be on the wish list of travelers for the simple reason that they were featured in the movies so much that visit of NY without scaling these towards stayed incomplete. In addition, walking through the streets of Manhattan in New York one could imagine several Spider-Man like characters moving around or aliens trying to invade Manhattan. These fantasies besides the structure of WTC and iconic buildings always made visitors spend money to experience the world from top of the buildings that housed nearly 500 companies and had a footfall of about lakhs of travelers besides half a lakh people who worked in them.
Today when world is observing 20th anniversary of one is reminded of colossal damage done to the pride of America. Designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki World Trade Centre stayed as tallest building in the world for two years after Empire State Building which had stayed as tallest building for almost 40 years. The damages done at the site were so colossal that it took authorities eight months to clear the debris. Thereafter a memorial remembering those killed was built at the site and a One World Trade Centre, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere about 541 m was built in 2013.
The world will be observing many more such anniversaries for decades to come but fact remains that indelible scars left on the hearts and souls of people on seeing the two towers collapse will never be erased. South Tower of WTC that witnessed 1995 PCA world chess championship on its 107th floor was hit by a hijacked aero plane at 9:59 a.m. on 9/11 and then collapse after burning for about an hour. This was followed by collapse of North Tower at 10:28 a.m. after burning for about two hours. Today we have a National September 11 Memorial at the site where names of all 2,983 victims have been engraved on 152 bronze panels but if ever, I get a chance to visit NY again, neither the city skyline will be the same nor the breeze that greeted us from world’s biggest financial and cultural hub.
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