Clearly, the horrific loss of life at the 9/11 attacks was the greatest tragedy to befall us at the Word

Trade Center site. But I do want to speak for a bit about the buildings themselves, what I call the iconic World Trade Center. why were these buildings built? What was their history? why was it that Al-Qaeda was drawn to attacking them not once, but twice? And what does the loss of these buildings mean for the United States and New York City? Our story really begins with post World War II in the United States. Europe of course was in economic shambles, the Soviet Union was communit, communist and attempting to expand their empire. So it was really up to the United States to build and lead the global economy. and, and, its vision was a liberal vision of building on free trade, on finance, on capitalism. And, New York City was poised to be, the head of this. of course United Nations had come to Manhattan in 1945, other, international financial institutions were being developed, for the US to take, the lead and shape the future of the global economy. Now as you can see from this photo, the island of Lower Manhattan was really a giant port. You can see the dockyards extending from every inch of Lower Manhattan, and it was ringed, really, by low scale, kind of small, shops, industry. not the, you know, the titans of capitalism, as it were. And this didn't really fit with David Rockefeller's vision, of course, Rockefeller was part of the Rockefeller family, from standard oil fame. in 1955 he became the chairman of Chase Bank. And Chase had made a longterm commitment to Lower Manhattan, it had pledged to build a 60 storey building right across from the Federal Reserve. David Rockefeller really wanted Lower Manhattan, to be the, the locust of the new financial economic order. but was concerned that because of the

infrastructure, because of the port nature of Lower Manhattan. That businesses were actually moving away from lower Manhattan up, uptown. and, so he developed a plan and, and did all the political work and groundwork needed to get support for it. And a, a ground plan was actually issued in 1958, which called for the redevelopment of Lower Manhattan. Widening of the streets, elimination of the port. and the cornerstone of this proposal was the building of a world financial center, or World Trade Center. there would be a large scale office complex of office buildings that would house the new companies that would be drawn to New York. Because it was to be the capital of global finance. and Rockefeller was, assisted in this endeavor by his brother, Nelson, who was elected governor of New York in 1959. And, Nelson Rockefeller was also an ambitious, doer, a builder, a thinker of big things. And, he, was the as the governor of New York he was head or the co-head of the port authority of New York and New Jersey. Which was the entity which was assigned to supervise and oversee this building of the World Trade Center. Which was an interesting choice because the port authority previously had built infrastructure projects the bridges, over the Hudson river. airports, port and then New Jersey. and had not been a real estate developer, but was seen as the entity that had the most power and wherewithal to actually get a project, a massive project of this size done. Now as this plan was developed America was taking the lead of the, of the new financial order of the new global economy. And there was a lot of optimism and kind of a go, go enthusiasm. John F Kennedy elected president of the United States in, in 1960, John Glenn had orbited the world And you know, the, the, the, the car manufacturers are

bringing modern manufacturing technology to Detroit. And was building cars for not only the United States, but the world and fueling our spiraling economy. And the World Trade Center plan that developed kind of reflected these times. architect was hired Minoro Yamasaki. Who went through numerous of proposals, but the one that he and Rockefeller and the city and the state all settled on was the to build these two giants tower. 110 storeys high, it would 10 million square feet of office space to Lower Manhattan. they would be the tallest buildings, both of them, in the world. reaching 13, 1,368 and 1,362 feet into the air. So this was a giant ambitious plan. There would actually be other smaller buildings that would be part of the World Trade Center complex. And would require clearing a, a massive area in Lower Manhattan, as this project, this picture reflects. ground was actually broken in 1996, and you can see the scale spanning multiple city blocks. Towards the Southern Manhattan a little bit more towards the west side. but this was a, a gigantic public works project, on a, on a, on a scale that New York City had never seen before. Now as the optimism of the late 50s faded into the late 60s and early 70s things were changing in both United States and, and New York. Of course the United States was admired and a divisive war in Vietnam, the economy had slowed. there was a stagflation more unemployment and problems like crime and disorder had come to New York as reflected in this picture. With massive graffiti on the New York City subway. And New York's finances were not good either. Indeed, it teetered towards bankruptcy, in the early parts of the 1970s. So in many ways, this grand project, this project of the, the World Trade Center as it was reaching into the sky through the construction process.

The question was is the Trade Center out of touch with the times? Why are we spending so much money on this grand infrastructure project when New York is, is essentially broke? and, and what was this, what is this going to do for the city this infusion of all this office space? Was it going to depress prices? Was it actually going to be a benefit or a, a boondoggle? And there's a lot of concerns about that. the buildings were topped off in December of, December of 1970 and January of 1971. the opening ceremony took place in 1973, and it was actually a pretty dismal affair, it rained. the mayor of New York, John Lindsay, didn't even show up. so there was a sense at the beginning that these towers were seen in a negative light, not as a grand architectural achievement. Not a grand symbol of the rebirth of lower Manhattan, but rather a burden. and the, the reviews were very critical. Number one, architecturally, the tower seemed unimaginative. the windows inside were very small, the workers actually didn't have great views, of, of New York. it, there was the infusion of all this office space actually did, depress, the rental market. There were not an abundance of new tenants to come into the building. as a matter of fact, it was mostly filled by a lot of Government agencies, a lot of the Port Authority was moved over to take occupancy. and indeed, the project was losing $10 to $15 million a year, in its early years. There's also concern about its impact on the fabric of civic life in Lower Manhattan. the way the towers were constructed, all the commercial buildings, all the stores and all were actually underground. where the train station, the subway station was, and so indeed it took this, these multilple blocks of New York and kind of sucked the vitality out of them by not having stores.

And the Grand Plaza between the two towers was seen as kind of a vacant vacuous space that was devoid of civic life. so the critics of the towers when they were really first formally open in 1973 were, were very harsh. Now an incident occurred that really began to change things around in 1974. six years earlier, a young man, a Frenchman, a Philippe Petit was 18 years old. And he was sitting in a dentist office and reading the story about the construction of these magnificent towers, and it caught his imagination. And he was obviously a dreamer. And he decided he wanted to do a stunt really where he would walk on a tight wire across the spans of these two magnificent towers. at the time where they were scheduled to be built as the tallest buildings in, in the world. And he pursuit this dream, and actually came to New York in January 1974 to pursue it, six years after reading that magazine article. And at when he was first came he he broke into the construction site, he got to the top of the building, he was scoping out his plans. He posed as a journalist and was asking everybody involved with the project, all kinds of questions. Indeed he even got an interview with the head of the port authority from New York and New Jersey. Who he said in retrospectively, boy he asked a lot of questions about the wind and the extent to which the towers would move. which of course was a primary concern to what Petit was going to do. In any event he, he started to pull this caper off on the night of August 6, 1974. A group of his friends went up one tower and he went up the other tower, with another group. with all their supplies, the cable, all the things he would need. The pole that he would carry while he was doing his tight wire act. And and they had to use a bow to actually send the first small

plastic line across the spanse, between the two towers which was 130 feet. And once they got the plastic line they could use that to try to pull the cable across. And they secured the cable at night, 250 feet of cable to cover this spanse of 130 feet between the buildings. And on the morning of August 7th, he was, ready to go. And off he went, with this pole. Walking on the spanse between the two giant towers. of course, he was immediately noticed, by, people, below. Where hundreds and then thousands of people gathered, to watch this, truly audacious act. No net, of course, and the media was attracted. And, it became, a national, spectacle. police, from the port authority, went up to the, site. And, the head of the police department, reports later, that, Petit looked at him as he was getting closer to the wire. He smiled, he almost started to do a dance, where his feet actually even left the wire and came back down. at one point he actually laid down on the wire and he spent he made numerous transverses across from the one tower to the next. And finally when his when his day was over he came back in and was he was actually arrested on multiple misdemeanor counts by the port authority police. but, he was an immediate celebrity. And, got all kinds of media attention for this tremendous act and, no one could, face charging him criminally. So all the charges were dropped the next day. And he was given a, you know, kind of a sentence to, do a performance for children. Petit said, in pursuit of this, explaining why he did it, you need dreams to live. It's essential as a road to walk on and as bread to eat. the dream was as big as the towers. There's no way it could be taken away from me by authority, by reason by destiny. And so this audacious act really had a, an effect of humanizing the towers.

It made them part of New York lawn, lore and New York culture in a way that they hadn't been before. other things that happened to the towers, a, the observation deck was opened and immediately became the number one tourist attraction of all of New York City. because of the magnificent views of of New York Harbor, of the other parts of Manhattan. the whole Metropolitan area that you could see. And then in the other tower a famous restaurant opened, Windows on the World which became incredibly popular. You can only get reservations months in advance with a spectacular view of Manhattan at night. and so gradually these things began to soften the image of the Towers. But what really worked, what really was important, was what happened in the 1980's as the economy began to hum, and globalization began to kick in. Globalization that brought people of all cultures and opened up the opportunities for commerce. Coming to New York as what was become the financial capital of the world. with the New York stock exchange at its hub, but also large financial firms. Based in New York, which were capable of moving capital billions of dollars of capital in a moments notice across international boundaries. the idea that anything was possible that and what the, the purpose of the towers in this instance were that when companies finally work. I mean there was growth, and there was excitement in New York, there was now a place to absorb all these new clients, new tenants. so the government agencies had moved out and private companies moved in. And in some way David Rockefeller's vision of Lower Manhattan as the financial capital of the world. And the World Trade Center serving as the hub for all this activity actually began to take place in the 1980s. By 1987 the complex was actually making a

large profit $137 million a year for the Port Authority. And the towers, which were once viewed so skeptically now were perceived much more of a success. And the anchor, the iconic landmark of Lower Manhattan. But of course, as we'll, we'll discuss a little bit later the globalization, which made great benefits, and for people in the United States. And great excitement for many across the world, and in New York City, that definitely did not have a universal appeal. And globalization was seen as a threat to many of their traditional ways. And we'll talk about how globalization was part of the, what fueled some of the opposition, the grievances of Al-Qaeda. and it was on February 26, 1993, the first attack on the World Trade Center by radicals lead by Iram Yusif/g. A harsh of the United States, a harsh critic of of Israel who executed this attack. And it was a devastating attack, but as I said, only six people were killed. Look at the massive destruction by a 4000 pound bomb, car bomb placed in the garage. the damage extending down four storeys. But in all the building held, and it was able to be reopened. the perpetrators were caught and in many ways it was seen as a, a dramatic and a horrible criminal event. but some of the tensions that what was it that motivated this attack and the critique of globalization. and the prevalence of this, detestation of New York and the finance, and, and all that globalization stood for. Was not really absorbed and fully understood, certainly by New Yorkers, or even, the nation as a whole. And of course, it was these forces, that ultimately led to, the 9/11 attack. Now interestingly, it was not the impact of the planes that brought the buildings down. Indeed the towers were built to withstand a 500 year weather event the types of winds that would possibly be blowing in that kind of event.

And the structure architectural structure of the towers were able to adsorb the blow, but it was the fire that was caused. And the the way that the collision of the plane and the explosions when the plane came in that exposed many of the structural beams in the building to this tremendous fire. Now the fire could not reach the heat of that would melt the steel. But it did weaken the steel beam structurally, and the weight above the buildings it compromised the integrity of those beams. And caused the buildings to collapse. And you can imagine half a million tons of steel, concrete, glass cascading to the ground at a rate of 125 miles an hour, Buildings that took decades to plan and then to erect in a matter of two hours from the first crash to the second building coming down, all of a sudden were gone. Something had never been done to the Manhattan skyline where our building was not added but removed. so the, the devastating impact of this end of course creating the greatest pile of wreckage. And of course tragically interspersed with human remains as well, steaming at the World Trade Center complex in the matter of a day. Being turned to something called ground zero. and this was wound. not only was it attacked against the symbol of New York and the global economy and globalization. creating you know a permanent scar in a sense on the city. And on our country where once two enormous towers once stood. now they're being only spaced at nothiness. a wound in the heart of New York City. that could never, ever truly be fully healed. [BLANK_AUDIO]