Remembering Windows on the World

Today is the 18th anniversary of the 9/11/2001 attacks and, as always, solemness reigns. The names of those killed are published and read out, tributes are paid to the first responders who saved lives and recovered bodies and cleared the massive debris, and people are forced to reflect  on how NYC, the country, the world, and the course of history was forever altered.

And in remembering 9/11, particularly nearly two decades on, it helps to remember the tangential casualties, the places and things that ceased to exist in the wake of nearly 3000 deaths. 

One of them was Windows of the World, the fashionable restaurant at the top of the towers.

On 9/10 it was thriving and on 9/11 it was gone, vaporized into history. Windows on the World, or WOW, was a popular and famous eatery where the food was secondary to the experience of dining a quarter mile into the sky, the entire city at its patrons feet. WOW was actually the highest grossing restaurant in the country until 9/11, and people clamored to take the long, head rushing elevator trip to eat overpriced food against an amazing view. As I recounted once before, I went to a party there once and the food was forgettable but the views were memorable. This was about two years before the tragedy and, in the years afterward, I couldn't believe that a place where I had once been was now totally and violently erased. 

This article recounts the story of WOW, it's beginning and its sudden end. Interestingly, WOW didn't open until 1976, about three or four years after the World Trade Centers opened. It was created, in part, to generate visitors and business to the towers. It worked -- big time. Amongst the tragedies, WOW was planning to celebrate its 25th anniversary in October, 2001 -- an anniversary that never happened, along with all the almost 3000 birthdays and life milestones that were also extinguished that day. 

It might be easy to say, "Well, who really cares about a restaurant?" when so many people died . But it's important to remember that some of the people who died worked and ate at WOW. Also, WOW wasn't just a business but a community of employees and patrons -- people loved going there and people loved working there. It was a unique place and a unique experience, one that can never quite be replicated -- just the like the World Trade Centers, just like NYC before 9/11/2001, and just like the past itself.