Search - World Trade Center - In Memoriam on DVD

History demands you watch this

Matt Morgan | KC, MO USA | 09/10/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I watch this film every year, on or around 9/11. Today is 09/09/04, and I sit in amazement as I realize there are still people in the world who have not yet seen this film.



Tonight, I watched it for the first time since last year. All the old feelings of pain, anger, and yes, even hate are new again.



What amazes me more than the fact that some have not seen it, is the fact that my mind blocks out the feelings this film exposes every year.



Watch the movie.

Never forget.



"

Bittersweet Celebration of a modern marvel that was - The Wo

Scott T. Shier | St. Clair, MI | 06/08/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The History Channel was in the final post-production phase of this documentary about the World Trade Center, when September 11, 2001 happened before they got it aired.



This would have been another installment in their "Modern Marvels" series....a celebratory look back at the genesis, birth, and construction of the Twin Towers in Manhattan -- financial symbol of America in the world. It became instead, as host Harry Smith states, "an obituary".



It is sad to see that many of the people interviewed in the program were killed on 9/11, or were still officially "missing" as of this program's first airdate in 2002. Harry Smith --classy and respectable as always-- is particulary sensitive and in-command here.





I highly recommend this program for anyone who was a fan of the WTC as an architectural & structural engineering feat in itself, for its time. Not counting dams/bridges/tunnels, the WTC was the largest, most expensive, overwhelming building-complex project up to that time in history. The fact that the ground material removed to make way for the complex alone, was responsible for increasing the size of Manhattan itself; thereby creating "Battery Park City" and the future complex of the World Financial Center & Winter Garden. Very impressive!



This gives a good review of the initial politics and wrangling necessary to commence construction of the WTC, and it shows the construction process, and then follows by showing day-to-day operation/maintenance of the WTC, and how the Twin Towers (slowly!) became beloved and respected icons -- indeed, sentinels of "the island at the center of the world".



It's deeply ironic (and again, cruel) that the very aspect of the Twin Towers' design which made them so tall, so strong-yet-flexible, and able to have such open floorspace on each of their 110 stories, was their then-revolutionary design of exterior support -- ie., the "skin" of the Towers. This is what supported them, not interior columns and beams. And yet, it is because of this that when the planes were ingested by the Towers, the "skin" (exterior walls/glass/columns) of the Towers shifted their load burden to what were fast becoming warped, melting floor grids inside. The rest is well-known.



For those of you looking for a "September 11, 2001" type documentary, this is not it. It is introduced, and then closed on that basis, but this is simply a biography of the World Trade Center....its origins and 30 years of life.





take care,



Scott T. Shier, Michigan





P.S. ~ STRONG FOLLOW-UP RECOMMENDATION:

"World Trade Center: Anatomy of Collapse", 2002 - TLC (The Learning Channel), elegantly hosted & narrated by Bill Kurtis; aired September 2002 [approx. 52 mins.]

**This program will give you the detailed, scientific, and architectural examination of the destruction of the Twin Towers & surrounding sites. This is the most thorough "how's and why's" of their demise I've seen. Note: this isn't about terrorism and the attacks in general, again, just the engineering viewpoint of what happened, while paying proper respect to the human toll as well. Watch this for understanding, but not on a day where you're not wanting to think hard and become melancholy."