The World Trade Center [Something You Can do With Special Old Pictures]

With today’s anniversary of the terrorist attacks, I wanted to find old shots I have of the World Trade Center…one in particular. 

I was born in New York City but moved away before this immense project was completed.  In the years since, it had become the symbol of the New York skyline.  If a TV show or movie was set in New York, there would always be a scene, a segué or fade-out that included the towers. 

Lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center from the Statue of Liberty (July 1976)

Like millions of residents and tourists, I have visited the towers.  I knew people who worked there and once called on a consulting firm that worked for my Louisiana power company.  This cubicle rat certainly appreciated a window office on the 90^th floor…even if the building was known to sway a couple of feet in high winds.

When we lived in New Orleans in 1976, New York was a stop on the Bicentennial Road Trip through the Colonies.  From the observation deck on the roof, you could see forever.  I recall the odd feeling of looking down on airplanes flying over the Hudson River. 

View of the East River from the World Trade Center (July 1976)

Even if you didn’t make it to the site, it was easy to see the Twin Towers looming in the distance and they turn up in pictures from all around the city.

Lower Manhattan West Side Neighborhood (July 1988)

The iconic buildings and what happened ten years ago and are on everyone’s mind today.  September 11, 2001 is a day that anyone who has lived through will remember forever.  But this is no place for me to go off on 9-11 and what has happened since.  There is actually a photography tip here and it’s about these old images.

I’ve been shooting digital pictures for only six years.  For thirty seven years before that, it was 35 mm slides, those positive transparencies that make people groan when you drag out the projector and put up the screen…although, people did like my slide shows…at least that’s what they said…some of them anyway.

The tip is that slides and prints from days gone by do not have to be lost because the world has gone digital.  They can be scanned and turned into digital files just like the shots you took yesterday.  On top of that, they can be edited to look even better than the originals. 

I have a simple flatbed Canon scanner (Thank you, Ray for that great gift).  A few years ago, I made a CD of collected Christmas images for my family after pouring through my mother’s photo albums and my slide archives.  Last year, another compilation of old prints and slides was made for my in-laws’ 60^th anniversary.  Digital files are easy to copy and CD’s are easy to burn.  

Once again, as I looked for World Trade Center slides, I found other family favorites that needed to be brought to the present and shared.  There are pictures of babies who have grown up.  There are pictures of people who are no longer with us and places that are no longer there. 

So that’s the recommendation today.  If you have a scanner, use it to make the old new again.  If you don’t have a scanner, most photo stores offer scanning services at reasonable rates.  Then you can attach the shots to e-mails and spread them around.  You can make gifts of collections or ‘slide shows’…even include music as part of the show and put it on a DVD…with the right software.  I hope to do that one day.

Finally, the shot I have often thought about the last ten years was taken three months after I left New York to attend graduate school in Wisconsin.  Easter break was the first opportunity to come home and I spent a day in lower Manhattan.  My first job after high school was in the Financial District and I always liked the small, narrow streets and hints of the colonial period you can still find there.  From the graveyard of St. Paul’s Chapel, through the bare, late winter tree and hazy sky, I took this one shot of the World Trade Center under construction. Half complete, it was still impressive…even by New York standards.

World Trade Center Under Construction (April 1970)

The building was supposed to stand longer than 30 years.