Life and Events
On a typical weekday 50,000 people worked in the towers with another 200,000 passing through as visitors. The complex was so large that it had its own zip code: 10048. The towers offered expansive views from the observation deck atop the South Tower and the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the North Tower. The Twin Towers became known worldwide, appearing in numerous movies and television shows as well as on postcards and other merchandise, and became seen as a New York icon, in the same league as the Empire State Building, Chrysler Building and the Statue of Liberty.
French high wire acrobatic performer Philippe Petit walked between the towers on a tightrope in 1974, as shown in the documentary film Man on Wire.
Brooklyn toymaker George Willig scaled the exterior of the south tower in 1977. In 1983, on Memorial Day, high-rise firefighting and rescue advocate Dan Goodwin successfully climbed the outside of the WTC's North Tower. His stunt was meant to call attention to the inability to rescue people potentially trapped in the upper floors of skyscrapers.
The 1995 PCA world chess championship was played on the 107th floor of the South Tower.
Read more about this topic: World Trade Center
Famous quotes containing the words life and/or events:
“when this life is from the body fled,
To see it selfe in that eternall Glasse,
Where time doth end, and thoughts accuse the dead,
Where all to come, is one with all that was;
Then living men aske how he left his breath,
That while he lived never thought of death.”
—Fulke Greville (1554–1628)
“It is clear to everyone that astronomy at all events compels the soul to look upwards, and draws it from the things of this world to the other.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)