In Memoriam

Lileks on the Twin Towers:

They were more impressive than beautiful, really. Blunt brute size did what the monotonous details could not: it made them compelling and magnetic. When you think of it, every city had one, half its size at most. Sheer straight 50-story towers with thin windows are common. A tower one hundred stories was not.

And there were two. Two! As though anyone could build one. Twins though they were, they didn’t seem like siblings; they always struck me as individuals whose identities were masked in a scrim of steel and glass, like guards whose helmets show only their eyes. (They never looked like twins after nightfall, when different floors were illuminated.) They seemed to be warily competitive of each other, too.

Read the whole thing here. I intend to be one of those who does not forget.