Glimpse Inside 2 WTC

[Femme Folle]

I have posted these photos before on FB, but some of you wouldn't have seen them there (it's the time of year when these things come up in my FB "memories"--good old Facebook, reminding you of things you don't need to be reminded of).

These are photos I took sometime during summer of 2001. My office (depicted) was on the 92nd floor, but in late July or early August, my department was moved to the 98th floor. I would lose my office with a door and get a cubicle. The upside was that the cubicle was near the windows (my office had no windows because it was in the interior of the building, near the stairwell). I loved sitting near the windows and always found it amusing to look down and see a helicopter flying by. These photos were taken late in the day, after everyone else had gone home (in case you're wondering where the people are).

This is the 92nd floor elevator lobby:

[Femme Folle]

This is the 92nd floor reception area:

[Femme Folle]

The hallway outside my office (with ugly carpet):

[Femme Folle]

My former office:

[Femme Folle]

My messy desk:

[Femme Folle]

The outer portion of the floor, where the file cabinets and cubicles were:

[Femme Folle]

And finally, a photo of the cubicles and the windows:

[ursus arctos]

Oh my goodness

These bring so many emotions to the fore

[Sporting]

How long were you there?

[Femme Folle]

Oh my goodness

These bring so many emotions to the fore

My apologies.

[Femme Folle]

How long were you there?

About a year.

[Sporting]

I hate to ask but where were you on the day?

[ursus arctos]

No need to apologise. Those memories are always with us and are not all negative.

[Sporting]

No need to apologise. Those memories are always with us and are not all negative.

Well said

[San Bernardhinault]

The weirdest and utterly mundane feeling that triggers in me is how much less glamorous it looks than what I had pictured in my head.

[ursus arctos]

They were profoundly unglamorous buildings (with the exception of Windows on the World).

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

I had the same reaction as SB.

[Femme Folle]

I hate to ask but where were you on the day?

Well, around the time of the move to 92, management had made a lot of changes, not only to where our offices were located, but also to our job descriptions and titles--everything. They also decided that departments that serviced other departments needed coverage from 7am to 7pm because we had offices all over the world. It was left to departments to decide how to cover it--either each person would have to cover the early or late shifts on a rotating basis, or people could be designated to cover them. I volunteered to cover the 10am-7pm shift, because I am not a morning person. The 7am-3pm shift was covered by Tamitha Freeman, a young single mother who volunteered for it so she could be home early for her son (she died in the attack).

So that morning at 8:45am, I was at home eating breakfast and reading emails and thinking about getting ready for work.My phone rang, and it was my sister. "Oh good, you're still at home. I don't think you're going to work today. Call Dad and tell him that you're OK, then go turn on the TV". So that's what I did, and I remember thinking that it must have been a small commuter plane and that they would repair the damage in a few months. But it was Tower 1, so it didn't really affect my company. Then as I was watching on TV, the second jet slammed into my building and the people on TV started saying that it was definitely an act of terrorism. It was all very surreal.

[diggedy derek]

It's really interesting to see these, just as a matter of simple curiosity. I hope it's a positive thing to revisit.

[Femme Folle]

It's really interesting to see these, just as a matter of simple curiosity. I hope it's a positive thing to revisit.

The curiosity factor is why I decided to post these. Everyone knows what the outside looked like, but the interior was really so mundane. And what went on inside was so mundane (for the most part). Just everyday people going to work, doing their everyday jobs.

[elguapo4]

A work colleague was 21 at the time and on a temporary Visa in New York, she was working in a restaurant called, I think, Suspenders in the WTC complex, luckily she was due the late shift, she was in JFK,seeing her sister off home, when the alarm went off.

[ursus arctos]

Suspenders was a couple of blocks away (closer to "my" building, in fact). But it played an important role in the period after the attack

It has since re-opened in a different location nearby, but I believe the ownership and management is different.

[Femme Folle]

The weirdest and utterly mundane feeling that triggers in me is how much less glamorous it looks than what I had pictured in my head.

The carpeting in that hallway is very 1974.

[Femme Folle]

[ursus arctos]

I have had the opportunity to to visit offices in most of the "most iconic" buildings in New York (the WTC, Chrysler, Woolworth, Empire State, 30 Rock, 9 West 57th, Seagram, etc).

Many of them don't look very different from this at all, perhaps with the exception of a few "trophy" floors or offices. It makes me think that there is a book to be done juxtaposing their grand exteriors with the mundanity of what lies inside (though permissions would be difficult to get).