A Childhood Memory of the Twin Towers

Colin Wilson is a native of Pleasant Valley, where his mother still lives, and a graduate of Northwest Regional High School, where he was a member of the baseball and basketball teams. He now lives in Manchester, NH with his wife, Wendy, and their 7-month-old daughter.

When I was growing up, my grandmother lived in Irvington, New York. For those who don't know where that is, it is on the eastern side of the Tappan Zee Bridge, an exit off of the Saw Mill Parkway, adjacent to Sleepy Hollow. My family and I would travel from Connecticut to Irvington and across the Hudson River on the Tappan Zee to Rockland County, where my aunt, uncle and cousin lived. From the bridge, on a clear day, you could see the most impressive skyline in the world—the skyline of New York City. And the most impressive sight about that skyline was the World Trade Center—the Twin Towers.

The sheer mass and beauty of those two giants always fascinated me. As a boy of nine, I read about them. I stared at pictures of them. I dreamt about going to the top of them. My brother and sister would playfully team up on me in a child's argument of "What's the best building in New York?" They would announce, proudly—and incorrectly, I might add—that it was the Empire State Building. My response, emphatically, was always the Twin Towers. You see, we went into the city all the time, but generally did 5th Avenue—Tiffany's, Steuben Glass, Trump Tower, the Plaza Hotel, Rockefeller Center, Central Park and, of course, FAO Schwartz.

On one trip, mercifully, I was able to talk my family into going to the World Trade Center. I herded my family as quickly as I could from Grand Central into a cab. (We would always take the train into the city from Irvington's train station.) Death hung in the balance as our cab driver endangered all our lives racing downtown, narrowly missing other cars as if he were dodging asteroids on my Atari at home.

With our prayers answered, we thankfully exited the cab at the World Trade Center. Because of all the fish markets downtown, the scent of fish wafted strongly, but not unpleasantly. New York has all kinds of smells. None of them mattered to me at that time, however. We were there. As we approached the glass doors, I stopped and looked up, up, up at the skyscrapers. Balance becomes quite tricky when you do something like that. Try it sometime.

The lobby was as grand and as busy as you can imagine, but I wasn't interested in the lobby—I wanted to see the top. Secretly, I know my brother and sister were as excited as I was and my mother, a native of Brooklyn, was eager to show her children (especially me) yet another of New York's wonders.

We boarded an elevator that went straight up the tower nonstop at an incredible rate, leaving my stomach 110 stories beneath. I was filled with anticipation that fueled me with adrenaline. I remember wondering if I would bounce off of its ceiling when the elevator stopped. I didn't. The elevator stopped. The doors opened. The sun was bright in our eyes. We walked out.

The roof looked like the roof of any other building—cement, hard, clean. The main difference was that not just any building has a view impeded by nothing. I remember that there weren't a lot of people there. From behind us, the elevator operator called out that the first thing we should do is stand in the middle of and close our eyes. He said that if we concentrated, we could actually feel the tower sway—very, very slowly. I had never heard that one before, so that just added to my excitement. Of course, I went directly to the center and stood there with my eyes slammed shut, feeling for it beneath my Keds. The operator was right. I came to find out later that the buildings were designed that way. Once again, I felt queasy with anticipation. I looked around.

From the middle of the tower, spinning slowly in a circle, all I could see was blue sky and clouds. The perimeter was peppered with coin-operated binocular machines. I picked my mouth up off the roof and made my way to the edge.

Seeing the greatest city in the world from atop the tallest building in that city is a feeling that is indescribable. Directly below stood an amazing, old stone church with a gold top that reflected sunlight like a prism. Its size, from the top of the tower, was like what I saw when looking from above at the town church in my train set.

The Empire State Building was one of only two structures at eye level. The positioning of the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building was equally important to the mystique, as the towers were downtown, the Empire State Building at midtown, leaving nothing but smaller, less significant buildings between them. From another side, all you could see from above was the sparkling water of the Atlantic, and its one resident—the Statue of Liberty. Been there, done that.

From yet another side, I was looking directly at the North Tower, standing strong, powerful, in all its reflective brilliance. My mother leaned down, and pointing, told me that there was a very exclusive restaurant at the top of the other building. Naturally, I looked around for our restaurant. I remember feeling upset that all that our tower had was a cafeteria. But my mom bought me a warm New York pretzel there and I felt amazingly better.

After about an hour of jaw gaping, it was time to leave. The elevator zipped as fast down as it did up. It was like an amusement park ride. The impressive lobby once again went unnoticed as my jelly legs carried me out into the bustle of lower Manhattan. Fish again.

I thought that I would share my first memories of the Twin Towers with you all, in case you have never had the opportunity to ascend to its breathtaking heights. The grandest city on the planet seems shorter now—by two. I wish my memory from those days was more vivid now. I'm sure some of what I've written has been sensationalized, as I was much younger at the time. I looked at things differently then. But, I write this for you anyway—and for me, to help me keep that memory alive.

You know what's funny? In all the time I spent admiring the Twin Towers, reading about them, looking at pictures of them, seeing them in the skyline, actually being at their peak, I never once thought about the employees who worked there. It never occurred to me that actual work was carried on there; that real people like you and me made livings inside their walls. To me, the buildings were only landmarks. Now that the Towers are rubble, for the first time I really understand their true importance and just what they meant to everyone else. I will miss them. We will miss them. I, like you, now wait.