Before The World Trade Center
The western portion of the World Trade Center site was originally under the Hudson River, with the shoreline in the vicinity of Greenwich Street. It was on this shoreline close to the intersection of Greenwich and the former Dey Street that Dutch explorer Adriaen Block's ship, the Tyger, burned to the waterline in November 1613, stranding Block and his crew and forcing them to overwinter on the island. They built the first European settlement, in Manhattan. The remains of the ship were buried under landfill when the shoreline was extended starting in 1797, and were discovered during excavation work in 1916. The remains of a second ship from the eighteenth century were discovered in 2010 during excavation work at the site. The ship believed to be a Hudson River sloop was found just south of where the Twin Towers used to stand, about 20 feet below the surface.
The area that was cleared for construction of the original World Trade Center complex was previously occupied by various electronics stores in what was called Radio Row. These streets and stores were demolished in the 1960s to make way for the World Trade Center.
Read more about this topic: World Trade Center Site
Famous quotes containing the words world, trade and/or center:
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—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“Until the end of the Middle Ages, and in many cases afterwards too, in order to obtain initiation in a trade of any sort whatever—whether that of courtier, soldier, administrator, merchant or workman—a boy did not amass the knowledge necessary to ply that trade before entering it, but threw himself into it; he then acquired the necessary knowledge.”
—Philippe Ariés (20th century)
“There is nothing more natural than to consider everything as starting from oneself, chosen as the center of the world; one finds oneself thus capable of condemning the world without even wanting to hear its deceitful chatter.”
—Guy Debord (b. 1931)