World Trade Center: Rise & Fall of an Icon

Life and events

On a typical weekday 50,000 people worked in the towers[75] with another 200,000 passing through as visitors.[76] The complex was so large that it had its own zip code: 10048.[77] The towers offered expansive views from the observation deck atop the South Tower and the Windows on the World restaurant on top of the North Tower. The Twin Towers became known worldwide, appearing in numerous movies and television shows as well as on postcards and other merchandise, and became seen as a New York icon, in the same league as the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty.[78]

French high wire acrobatic performer Philippe Petit walked between the towers on a tightrope in 1974,[79] Brooklyn toymaker George Willig scaled the south tower in 1977.[80] In 1983, on Memorial Day, high-rise firefighting and rescue advocate, Dan Goodwin, for the purpose of calling attention to the inability to rescue people trapped in the upper floors of skyscrapers successfully climbed the outside of the North Tower.[81][82]

The 1995 PCA world chess championship was played on the 107th floor of the South Tower.[83] In January 1998, Mafia member Ralph Guarino, who had gained maintenance access to the World Trade Center, arranged a three-man crew for a heist which netted over $2 million from a Brink's delivery to the eleventh floor of the World Trade Center.[84]