Design
When the Original World Trade Center Was New
Forty years ago, the EPA's Documerica project captured the first weeks of life in Lower Manhattan after the Twin Towers debuted.
One World Trade Center officially became the tallest building in the Western hemisphere last week, its spire bringing the new tower's height to 1,776 feet. Forty years ago, New York City completed a similarly ambitious project, constructing the original World Trade towers on the site of a former landfill in Lower Manhattan.
There's been no shortage of complaints about the slow timeline for the current World Trade Center's redevelopment (groundbreaking occurred in 2004), but the truth is the Twin Towers project took much longer, with the initial idea proposed in 1943, the first designs released in 1962, a groundbreaking in 1966 and the official ribbon cutting in 1973.