The Twin Towers

Going through my photos of old trips, and pre-digital cameras, these couple of shots here seem surreal to me now! Their presence in my old physical photo albums stopped me in my tracks for a bit.

This first one of the World Trade Centre in New York City was taken in 1999, when I visited Talia on my way to a 3 month stay in Nashville. This was the view from the end of her street, when walking to the subway.

Shrouded in clouds, the tops of these towers had vanished on this particular day. Standing tall above the city, high above everything else. It was December, and there was the remainder of a recent snow storm all around the streets.

These photos, along with rolls of others I took on this excited first visit to NYC, were poorly developed by a place I took them to in Nashville, thus the pink shading. I was so devastated about the quality of these developed photos, which taught me to remember and savour real time images like this, rather than counting on photos, or taking in the view from behind the camera.

This photo of the Manhattan skyline with the towering Twin Towers was taken on the way back from Nashville, in about February 2000, again when visiting Talia as a stopover on the way home. This shot is taken from Jersey City overlooking the Hudson River to the city. A crisp, cold day, it was amazing to me that it could be so cold with the sun shining!

During these visits, Talia and I went to the WTC, and used the subway stop a couple of times. I remember trying to get the whole building into a frame of my little camera from the foot of one of the buildings, and I know we also went up to the floor where you could access the observation level. But we didn't go any higher. Who was to know that just 19 months later, no one would get the chance again!

I remember how I heard about the planes going into these buildings, and those Western world changing weeks and months afterward. I'm sure everyone does.