This morning, on the twenty-third anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I reflected on my one and only visit to Windows on the World, the restaurant located at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. Both towers of the WTC, as we now know, collapsed after the planes crashed into them on that terrible day.
My visit occurred a couple of years before the attacks. My first book was published in the spring of 1999, and I had been invited by Dr. Leonard Sweet, who at the time was a professor of theology at Drew University in New Jersey, to give a couple of talks — one to a class and a more general public lecture. The evening after those talks, he took me and a few select students to Manhattan for dinner at the renowned restaurant on the 107th floor of the WTC North Tower.
I don’t recall what was on the menu that night, but the view of the Manhattan skyline was spectacular. The Empire State Building rose like a crown jewel among the lights. Small-town boy in the big city that I am, I was awestruck.
Two years later, the memory of dining at that swanky restaurant and viewing the breathtaking skyline at night would be just that — a memory, never to be repeated.
Today, as a nation we pause to honor the memory of the 2,977 people who lost their lives in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon, and aboard the plane that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001.
May we never forget.
Main image via Off the Broiler‘s post: Six Years After 9/11: The Legacy of Windows on the World.
Andy writes! 