Counting Coup on the Towers
[originally published 11 September, 2022] a friend just reminded me of a special moment we shared on the plaza between One and Two. i used to visit WTC now and then, sketch people in the plaza, sit and read with my back to Two or One; basically just savor being in the only place in Manhattan where you couldn't see the hateful towers. many, many new yorkers hated them, resented them, cursed at them. They were visible down every avenue, bigger and uglier than anything rich people have ever built, soulless boxes full of the money and power that was mutating the city into the playground of the rich, driving out more and more of those who had grown up in manhattan or brooklyn or the bronx, who loved and knew the city, and resigned themselves to shitty service jobs or moving away. I think a lot of people forget how much we hated the towers, hated seeing them everywhere you went, gargantua and pantagruel keeping oppressive watch over a horde of vermin. so the day we saw the airplanes pie...