9/11: Historical Perspectives

To help put the events in context, we are providing here a variety of perspectives on September 11th.

See below for monographs, essays, and links.

After the World Trade Center: Rethinking New York City (Routledge, 2002), edited by Michael Sorkin and Sharon Zukin, focuses the critical sights of 19 prominent New York urbanists on what the Twin Towers represented in the city's history and how rebuilding can transform the arrogance of power into an ambitious vision of democracy. The essays focus on the history of Lower Manhattan from the 1600s to the building of the World Trade Center, the impact of the terrorist attack on the financial system, ethnic groups, and public culture, the relation between architecture and terrorism, and the need to build a more humane, more culturally diverse, and low-rise downtown.

Authors include Marshall Berman, Eric Darton, Sharon Zukin, Edwin G. Burrows, John Kuo Wei Tchen, Beverly Gage, David Harvey, Mark Wigley, M. Christine Boyer, Andrew Ross, Neil Smith, Moustafa Bayoumi, Arturo Ignacio Sanchez, Peter Marcuse, Setha Low, Keller Easterling, Robert Paaswell, Michael Sorkin, and Mike Wallace.

On Edge, Again
By Max Page

Brave New World? New York City's Journey Toward and Away from Its Twin Towers
By Eric Darton

A Talk On The Future of New York City
By Mike Wallace

History After the Eleventh
By Robert Fitch

The Symbol and Reality of Finance
Rosemary Scanlon

New York City: 1945 - September 11, 2001 and Beyond
Frank Branconi

World Trade Center - The Giant that Defied the Sky*
By Peter Skinner, Preface by Mike Wallace