As we prepare for the new incarnation of the World Trade Center site, the Times has a video commemorating the twin towers as they were: artistic, architectural, and structural feats of human ingenuity.
Philippe Petit, the French artist who walked across the towers in 1974, is interviewed along with principle architect Henry J. Guthard, who worked on the World Trade Center, as well as a structural engineer Leslie Roberston. All muse on what the towers meant to them, along with the buildings' relationship to the environment, and the people who worked inside them.
"They were so tall looking, a constant reminder to believe in humanity," Petit says, "to believe in imagination to believe in miracles, and fairy tales and myths and legends—and they are legends."
Paired with the commentary is an interactive map of the World Trade Center site before September 11, 2001. To look forward, DNAinfo also has an interactive look at the new buildings going up at One World Trade Center and 4 World Trade Center.
