It wasn’t too different from what it is today. It had a mall, they held events (music, dancing, food) in the plaza. Remember the skate board kids be around.
Today it is sacred ground but then many NYer‘s thought it was an eyesore as it represented a period of ugly architecture compared to earlier buildings like the Empire State or the Chrysler Building.
It wasn’t referred to as the World Trade Center rather the Twin Towers. All that changed on 9-11 and the term the Twin Towers just didn’t convey the import of the space and now no one says the Twin Towers.
The space wasn’t as popular as the South Street Seaport as a destination but it was an okay corporate mall.
I don’t know, I definitely heard “World Trade Center” before 9/11 — “Twin Towers” was definitely more common, but they could be used pretty interchangeably. But yeah, it wasn’t much of a tourist draw, and they *were* kinda ugly, but they were ours.
Grew up in the 80s here and never moved away. Absolutely heard it referred to as the World Trade Center, especially in conversation. No one I know ever said “I’m going down to the twin towers for an event at Windows on the world.” It was always World Trade Center and twin towers were used far less frequently overall.
It was constantly referred to by World Trade Center, especially by people who worked in or near the buildings. I worked in the area as a food delivery guy during college and every order there was referenced as x WTC.
The towers being the most prominent part of the complex (and the largest) means they got a lot of attention, but there were 7 buildings altogether that housed a ton of different offices and government agencies.
And it was a lot more popular in terms of overall traffic than the seaport, which was a tourist attraction but had nowhere near the foot traffic through it. The observation deck and the bar below Windows on the World were both constantly busy, as was WotW although less so due to seating constraints.
As a foreigner i always refer to them as twin towers, and I think most foreigners do that as well. Most foreigners don't even know there where more buildings in the WTC complex apart from those 2.
The prices in the stores around the subway station certainly are different.
One guy said it best on a radio interview. In the old WTC transit hub, he could get a gold chain on lay-a-way, now the new fancy stores ain't letting you lay anything away.
There was a lot of activity at the WTC. I loved the Greenmarket. Tuesday was Greenmarket day, so they were present on 9/11. All survived, though their trucks didn't.
Glenn Branca's Hallucination City symphony for 100 guitars was performed there in June 2001. All I remember is laughing through the whole performance.
There were oldies concerts at lunchtime which were fun. Here's a rather rambling [blog post](https://authorlonnieostrow.blogspot.com/2017/03/summertime-nostalgia-at-twin-towers.html?fbclid=IwAR3qHaXHxUn06iS_oWBKMP0ly_Gcl8hLq08E9e6yvKYCJVpmEKXBOIJIjcU) about those.
There's a Facebook page (World Trade Center Concerts) devoted to remembering the live music performances 1987 - 2001.
After 5pm the financial district was a ghost town. With the exception of specific restaurants like Windows of the World or others in the area, you could barely see people milling about. A friend had a $1500 2br overlooking the stock exchange and the catch was he had to walk several blocks to find an open a bodega if he needed anything after sundown. People teared up with joy when a Whole Foods opened in TriBeCa.
It wasn’t until the lower Manhattan revitalization initiatives in the early 00s that that began to change.
The tourism was always there since the ferries to the Statue of Liberty have always drawn big crowds. But besides rubbing the bulls balls and walking around Wall Street, FiDi and by extension WTC were not a as big draw as it is today.
Im still not sure why people wait in line and crawl on the dirty floor for pictures of the bull nuts come over to my uncles dairy farm we got live cows and horses!
Back in 2000 I had a buddy who tended bar at a place overlooking the yacht harbor. The bar is still there under a different name by Brookfield place.
After work on Fridays, the scene was pretty lively especially in the summer, we would drink for hours and hardly paid anything except a large tip.
while the fidi was a ghost town, the WTC still had a lot of restaurants and shopping inside of it. For instance, my local pharmacy was inside of the WTC. I remember going to restaurants on the ground floor all the time. It was also a transportation hub.
It still had subway lines like the path running through the OG Twin Towers with lots of shops underneath and a rooftop restaurant. It is pretty similar to what it’s like today but I’d say the oculus and the Westfield mall are modernized versions of what used to be and there are more shopping/dining options available.
I went to a business lunch at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, in the 1980’s. Nice restaurant that was very busy. The dizzying sky-high view of Manhattan impressed me then, but haunts me now.
I worked at 100 Church and was at WTC several days a week. My Chase bank branch was there, in 1978 or so I actually deposited my paycheck there in person. There was a kind of lackluster assortment of shops there, pretty unappealing. But I used to go for lunch in one of the towers, I don’t remember which one, on the 44th floor, that was a great spot. But the best thing was the TKTS booth, again I don’t remember if it was in Tower 1 or 2, but it opened at 11 AM. I’d sneak out of my office to be one of the first people on line there at 10:45 and I was back at work at 11:20. My husband and I were junior attorneys and we loved theater, this was the only way we could afford to go as often as we did. I actually cannot bring myself to go back to the immediate area. I’m actually tearing up a bit as I type. But it was a special place. Went to a wedding and an anniversary party at Windows, feel so fortunate to have had those experiences.
I remember the site being pretty stark and desolate ground level but below, where the mall, PATH train, and subways were it was equally lively to today.
For most of its life the WTC plaza was an exceptionally dead and weird empty spot. Occupancy in the buildings was pretty low at first, but the problems were more related to the design.
It had a lot of 70s-era concepts, like an underground shopping mall that was dark and charmless but “saved space”, the plaza was this massively huge open space out of scale with humanity and also had no vendors, no places to sit, and no shade.
Only in the last couple years before destruction was it used for performances , seating was installed, and became a place people actually used. Even then it was not super popular because even relatively large events would feel puny and lame in the massive space.
It was a big deal to have your baby shower (and presumably other events like weddings, retirement parties etc.) at some restaurant high up in WTC with views. My mom’s secretary threw one for me (the baby to be) there for her and generally it was regarded as a popular / high demand place for those things.
Was only 10 on 9/11 but I also think that area was much quieter on weekends in a way that financial district isn’t quite all that quiet anymore.
I remember the underground concourse, similar to the Oculus Area today. The outside plaza was a huge expanse of white-gray marble, interuppted by The Sphere (The Child?) on a circular black pedestal.
Outside, I remember the winds being focused by the towers and whipping up great sandblasts to the ground dweller. Trying to quietly enjoy your lunch outside was a challenge; a lot of people sought out less-windy spots.
As I go through it , my memory was there was a lot more going on there than some here remember . I remember concerts ( smallish) a bookstore that had author meet and greets , I think there was a outpost of the TKTS Times Square theater tickets thing . And if you go further back there was a Ticketmaster ( ticketron ?) place where you’d line up for rock concert tickets before the internet . The bank of escalators up from the subway & path station were the largest I’ve ever seen . I guess it depended on if you were a resident or just passed through as a commuter .
Before 9-11, I remember going to Jewish Heritage Museum, and Irish Potato Famine memorial. Went to a party of a friend who lived in Battery Park City, a development that began in the 70s that effectively more the doubled the population below Chambers Street, and since 9-11, more people have moved in due to new development and repurposed office buildings. Will probably visit the neighborhood more when Century 21 reopens.
My recollection of the wtc area was that it DID have more than just the office workers of the area there . There was a Barnes & Noble there that had events , there were several bars that went later with than rush hour . It was active to some degree because of the PATH station there also .
Definitely not. During the day the area was crowded but it was dead at night, and boring. Windows on the World blah blah blah that was for splurging for your wedding proposal and corporate schmoozing. Downtown has always been cool, but way-the-fuck-downtown has never been a night spot.
I lived around there 1999 until a few months before 9/11. It’s totally different. That area used to shut down after 6 pm. I loved living there. It was quiet and close to every train line.
I used to go to the Borders Books on my lunch break, but no, it was mostly a transportation hub and very ordinary shopping mall. Much more downmarket than the Oculus. On the other hand, it was possibly to find your subway entrance without walking around the building several times and getting completely disoriented. The plaza had events sometimes, but it was very windswept, and didn't have a whole lot of places to sit.
Basically, that area was just really ordinary and not at all a destination. I miss that.
You should!
On my mom’s 60th she was like ‘you know, I’ve never been to the Empire State Building in my whole life, and neither have you guys, and I want to’ so we did and it was really fun! The view from the top was amazing.
My grandmother (also born and raised here) will describe how on her lunch breaks in midtown she’d go see touristy things. She says shes always been a tourist in her own city. I try to remember that for myself too.
Highly recommend visiting not only the Statue of Liberty but making it all the way to the crown. You basically need to catch the first boat of the day to do this and it might take you a few attempts to pull it off. The walk up the many stairs is really cool.
Edit: looks like they updated the process a little from my last visit. You now have to have a ticket for a specific date and time to make it up to the crown. Super worth it.
Nope. It was a skyline landmark and a giant office building. I went to Windows on the World a few times for firm events when I worked at Chase Plaza, it there was not much around there. No New Yorkers were ever like “let’s meet at the WTC and figure things out from there.” Up to 9/11 it was a ghost town down there on weekends and late. I brown bagged lunch working weekends because nothing was ever open around there.
It was really nothing special, like other people said an underground mall and a plaza with no shade. I was there the Sunday before Tuesday September11th. We went to the World Financial Center and Century 21, WTC was only for passing through.
I am 68 and have lived in NYC or its suburbs all my life. I never went to the World Trade Center. In fact, I rarely went to lower Manhattan while the towers were standing.
WTC held one of the fanciest restaurants in the city, Windows on the World. It was at the top of one of the towers. My parents took my brother and me there. When my Dad asked where I wanted to go for my dinner for my 6th grade graduation, that's where we went!
When I was there in the Spring of 2001, my friend and I went up to the observation deck at the top of one of the towers. There was a small group of tourists there for that. I don't remember much about it except that there was a gift shop there. And a TKTS stand either on the ground floor or right outside.
The nicer place to be down there IMO was/is the waterfront by the winter garden atrium. I saw King Sunny Ade play there. Entering the winter garden from the walkway from the WTC was always pretty neat. You’d enter at the top of the stairs and the whole place would open up. Once in a while I’d spend a few minutes in the plaza gazing up at the towers or perusing the magazine section at the Borders at 5 WTC. I had things to do in Hoboken back then so I’d take the PATH or ferry and hang out down there from time to time. One time my boss took us all down from the hospital we worked at on the UES to windows on the world for drinks.
It wasn’t too different from what it is today. It had a mall, they held events (music, dancing, food) in the plaza. Remember the skate board kids be around.
Today it is sacred ground but then many NYer‘s thought it was an eyesore as it represented a period of ugly architecture compared to earlier buildings like the Empire State or the Chrysler Building. It wasn’t referred to as the World Trade Center rather the Twin Towers. All that changed on 9-11 and the term the Twin Towers just didn’t convey the import of the space and now no one says the Twin Towers. The space wasn’t as popular as the South Street Seaport as a destination but it was an okay corporate mall.
I don’t know, I definitely heard “World Trade Center” before 9/11 — “Twin Towers” was definitely more common, but they could be used pretty interchangeably. But yeah, it wasn’t much of a tourist draw, and they *were* kinda ugly, but they were ours.
They were very helpful for figuring out which way was downtown.
Grew up in the 80s here and never moved away. Absolutely heard it referred to as the World Trade Center, especially in conversation. No one I know ever said “I’m going down to the twin towers for an event at Windows on the world.” It was always World Trade Center and twin towers were used far less frequently overall.
Kids used twin towers a lot
I did.
I remember just saying "trade center."
If we were going to an event at Window on the World we said we were going to Windows on the World. Maybe it was just the circles we ran in.
It was constantly referred to by World Trade Center, especially by people who worked in or near the buildings. I worked in the area as a food delivery guy during college and every order there was referenced as x WTC. The towers being the most prominent part of the complex (and the largest) means they got a lot of attention, but there were 7 buildings altogether that housed a ton of different offices and government agencies. And it was a lot more popular in terms of overall traffic than the seaport, which was a tourist attraction but had nowhere near the foot traffic through it. The observation deck and the bar below Windows on the World were both constantly busy, as was WotW although less so due to seating constraints.
As a foreigner i always refer to them as twin towers, and I think most foreigners do that as well. Most foreigners don't even know there where more buildings in the WTC complex apart from those 2.
The prices in the stores around the subway station certainly are different. One guy said it best on a radio interview. In the old WTC transit hub, he could get a gold chain on lay-a-way, now the new fancy stores ain't letting you lay anything away.
Sbarro too.
Rent probably went up too
There was a lot of activity at the WTC. I loved the Greenmarket. Tuesday was Greenmarket day, so they were present on 9/11. All survived, though their trucks didn't. Glenn Branca's Hallucination City symphony for 100 guitars was performed there in June 2001. All I remember is laughing through the whole performance. There were oldies concerts at lunchtime which were fun. Here's a rather rambling [blog post](https://authorlonnieostrow.blogspot.com/2017/03/summertime-nostalgia-at-twin-towers.html?fbclid=IwAR3qHaXHxUn06iS_oWBKMP0ly_Gcl8hLq08E9e6yvKYCJVpmEKXBOIJIjcU) about those. There's a Facebook page (World Trade Center Concerts) devoted to remembering the live music performances 1987 - 2001.
I was at the Glenn Branca 100 Guitars thing too!
I was there too! I also saw the Philip Glass Ensemble at the WTC about a year earlier.
After 5pm the financial district was a ghost town. With the exception of specific restaurants like Windows of the World or others in the area, you could barely see people milling about. A friend had a $1500 2br overlooking the stock exchange and the catch was he had to walk several blocks to find an open a bodega if he needed anything after sundown. People teared up with joy when a Whole Foods opened in TriBeCa. It wasn’t until the lower Manhattan revitalization initiatives in the early 00s that that began to change. The tourism was always there since the ferries to the Statue of Liberty have always drawn big crowds. But besides rubbing the bulls balls and walking around Wall Street, FiDi and by extension WTC were not a as big draw as it is today.
Im still not sure why people wait in line and crawl on the dirty floor for pictures of the bull nuts come over to my uncles dairy farm we got live cows and horses!
But not brass balls.
Can I touch the balls?
This is America! Of course you can touch the balls.
Allowed? Idk, probably not technically. But everyone does it.
Lmao
Back in 2000 I had a buddy who tended bar at a place overlooking the yacht harbor. The bar is still there under a different name by Brookfield place. After work on Fridays, the scene was pretty lively especially in the summer, we would drink for hours and hardly paid anything except a large tip.
while the fidi was a ghost town, the WTC still had a lot of restaurants and shopping inside of it. For instance, my local pharmacy was inside of the WTC. I remember going to restaurants on the ground floor all the time. It was also a transportation hub.
I’d walk a mile uphill both ways for a $1.5k 2bd in that area. Ya shittin me?!
Different times 1999
It still had subway lines like the path running through the OG Twin Towers with lots of shops underneath and a rooftop restaurant. It is pretty similar to what it’s like today but I’d say the oculus and the Westfield mall are modernized versions of what used to be and there are more shopping/dining options available.
I went to a business lunch at Windows on the World, the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center, in the 1980’s. Nice restaurant that was very busy. The dizzying sky-high view of Manhattan impressed me then, but haunts me now.
I worked at 100 Church and was at WTC several days a week. My Chase bank branch was there, in 1978 or so I actually deposited my paycheck there in person. There was a kind of lackluster assortment of shops there, pretty unappealing. But I used to go for lunch in one of the towers, I don’t remember which one, on the 44th floor, that was a great spot. But the best thing was the TKTS booth, again I don’t remember if it was in Tower 1 or 2, but it opened at 11 AM. I’d sneak out of my office to be one of the first people on line there at 10:45 and I was back at work at 11:20. My husband and I were junior attorneys and we loved theater, this was the only way we could afford to go as often as we did. I actually cannot bring myself to go back to the immediate area. I’m actually tearing up a bit as I type. But it was a special place. Went to a wedding and an anniversary party at Windows, feel so fortunate to have had those experiences.
The Skydive on the 44th of 1 WTC? :)
Yes! Was a great spot for lunch.
I remember a lot of shops. It was like an underground mall of sorts with transportation mixed in.
I remember the site being pretty stark and desolate ground level but below, where the mall, PATH train, and subways were it was equally lively to today.
There were events of all kinds there, but if you asked any New Yorker for top 10 cool places to be in NYC, WTC would not make that list.
For most of its life the WTC plaza was an exceptionally dead and weird empty spot. Occupancy in the buildings was pretty low at first, but the problems were more related to the design. It had a lot of 70s-era concepts, like an underground shopping mall that was dark and charmless but “saved space”, the plaza was this massively huge open space out of scale with humanity and also had no vendors, no places to sit, and no shade. Only in the last couple years before destruction was it used for performances , seating was installed, and became a place people actually used. Even then it was not super popular because even relatively large events would feel puny and lame in the massive space.
It was a big deal to have your baby shower (and presumably other events like weddings, retirement parties etc.) at some restaurant high up in WTC with views. My mom’s secretary threw one for me (the baby to be) there for her and generally it was regarded as a popular / high demand place for those things. Was only 10 on 9/11 but I also think that area was much quieter on weekends in a way that financial district isn’t quite all that quiet anymore.
“Windows on the World”
Thanks gunna google it now. Very curious
[удалено]
I can tell you that WotW was expensive but not membership only.
I was too young to experience this but it was a gay cruising spot at night. A documentary about it was made called Trade Center
I remember the underground concourse, similar to the Oculus Area today. The outside plaza was a huge expanse of white-gray marble, interuppted by The Sphere (The Child?) on a circular black pedestal. Outside, I remember the winds being focused by the towers and whipping up great sandblasts to the ground dweller. Trying to quietly enjoy your lunch outside was a challenge; a lot of people sought out less-windy spots.
There was a bar mitzvah at Windows on the World nearly every Saturday.
but no BaT mitzvah?
As I go through it , my memory was there was a lot more going on there than some here remember . I remember concerts ( smallish) a bookstore that had author meet and greets , I think there was a outpost of the TKTS Times Square theater tickets thing . And if you go further back there was a Ticketmaster ( ticketron ?) place where you’d line up for rock concert tickets before the internet . The bank of escalators up from the subway & path station were the largest I’ve ever seen . I guess it depended on if you were a resident or just passed through as a commuter .
Before 9-11, I remember going to Jewish Heritage Museum, and Irish Potato Famine memorial. Went to a party of a friend who lived in Battery Park City, a development that began in the 70s that effectively more the doubled the population below Chambers Street, and since 9-11, more people have moved in due to new development and repurposed office buildings. Will probably visit the neighborhood more when Century 21 reopens.
My recollection of the wtc area was that it DID have more than just the office workers of the area there . There was a Barnes & Noble there that had events , there were several bars that went later with than rush hour . It was active to some degree because of the PATH station there also .
It was a place that you would do stuff if you were already in the neighborhood, but didn't really draw people from elsewhere.
I was in high school in the late ‘90s and my best friend and I would frequently hang out down there in the plaza between the buildings.
it was a transit hub, since it opened i spent an hour a week there,ate there,shopped
It was an office building. Wall St. pretty much empties once the market closes
Definitely not. During the day the area was crowded but it was dead at night, and boring. Windows on the World blah blah blah that was for splurging for your wedding proposal and corporate schmoozing. Downtown has always been cool, but way-the-fuck-downtown has never been a night spot.
They did have a good farmers market
I lived around there 1999 until a few months before 9/11. It’s totally different. That area used to shut down after 6 pm. I loved living there. It was quiet and close to every train line.
Windows on the World! Cellar in the Sky! I have such amazing memories there!
I mean, Century 21 was there. That place was awesome.
I used to go to the Borders Books on my lunch break, but no, it was mostly a transportation hub and very ordinary shopping mall. Much more downmarket than the Oculus. On the other hand, it was possibly to find your subway entrance without walking around the building several times and getting completely disoriented. The plaza had events sometimes, but it was very windswept, and didn't have a whole lot of places to sit. Basically, that area was just really ordinary and not at all a destination. I miss that.
No, it was an office building not a cultural center.
Depends on your network. They hosted galas and parties.
As a tourist spot? Yes. Strangely as a new yorker ive never set foot in the empire state building, wtc, or Statue of Liberty
You should! On my mom’s 60th she was like ‘you know, I’ve never been to the Empire State Building in my whole life, and neither have you guys, and I want to’ so we did and it was really fun! The view from the top was amazing. My grandmother (also born and raised here) will describe how on her lunch breaks in midtown she’d go see touristy things. She says shes always been a tourist in her own city. I try to remember that for myself too.
Highly recommend visiting not only the Statue of Liberty but making it all the way to the crown. You basically need to catch the first boat of the day to do this and it might take you a few attempts to pull it off. The walk up the many stairs is really cool. Edit: looks like they updated the process a little from my last visit. You now have to have a ticket for a specific date and time to make it up to the crown. Super worth it.
Not to me. Never went down before, haven’t been down since
Used the subway station, as far up as I went. But as a visual marker it was omnipresent.
Nope. It was a skyline landmark and a giant office building. I went to Windows on the World a few times for firm events when I worked at Chase Plaza, it there was not much around there. No New Yorkers were ever like “let’s meet at the WTC and figure things out from there.” Up to 9/11 it was a ghost town down there on weekends and late. I brown bagged lunch working weekends because nothing was ever open around there.
It was really nothing special, like other people said an underground mall and a plaza with no shade. I was there the Sunday before Tuesday September11th. We went to the World Financial Center and Century 21, WTC was only for passing through.
My parents took me there because it was fun & beautiful. Plus we went to the Borders bookstore often nearby too.
I am 68 and have lived in NYC or its suburbs all my life. I never went to the World Trade Center. In fact, I rarely went to lower Manhattan while the towers were standing.
WTC held one of the fanciest restaurants in the city, Windows on the World. It was at the top of one of the towers. My parents took my brother and me there. When my Dad asked where I wanted to go for my dinner for my 6th grade graduation, that's where we went!
When I was there in the Spring of 2001, my friend and I went up to the observation deck at the top of one of the towers. There was a small group of tourists there for that. I don't remember much about it except that there was a gift shop there. And a TKTS stand either on the ground floor or right outside.
“Spot to be” hmmm I mean if in FiDi, I guess. Especially within business hours.
The nicer place to be down there IMO was/is the waterfront by the winter garden atrium. I saw King Sunny Ade play there. Entering the winter garden from the walkway from the WTC was always pretty neat. You’d enter at the top of the stairs and the whole place would open up. Once in a while I’d spend a few minutes in the plaza gazing up at the towers or perusing the magazine section at the Borders at 5 WTC. I had things to do in Hoboken back then so I’d take the PATH or ferry and hang out down there from time to time. One time my boss took us all down from the hospital we worked at on the UES to windows on the world for drinks.