JIM AND LINA ALLEN TAKE TIME OUT ON AUGUST 13, 2001 TO VISIT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER AND ITS "WINDOWS OF THE WORLD" AND ITS "OBSERVATION DECK" FOR ONE LAST TIME.
Even the song the band is playing has an eerie feel. 1:15 "Please, please remember me...when I'm 6 feet in the ground". And then at the end, when the guy said "We will fade to oblivion." It's unreal knowing what happened less than a month later. Tragic.
@@axrpad1228 hell is real and heaven we get signs from god in life that gives us choices sometimes music could be satans message to people who committed sins
It's crazy when you think about it. When the buildings fell, it wasn't just the debris. But everything in every floor that came crashing down. The chairs, the tables, the dishes, the ovens, the washers, ... printers, microwaves, computers... every small thing all came down and crushed. All that memories all came down.
I truly believe the 1990’s were the last great decade in American history when you consider the music,television, and just the feeling in America that I felt growing up as a teenager, ever since the year 2000 it’s pretty much been downhill since then for me and it’s getting pretty bad thinking about this in 2023
Just think, older people were saying the same thing about the 1960's. Nothing has changed except you are getting older and doing the same thing that the older people do every decade, whine about the future. Of course one thing I will agree with you on is that for the first time in our history, we have an insurrectionist and individual whose supporters stormed our Capitol and tried to steal an election. That is truly a first in this nation.
I miss the emotional connection with people. I know technically is moving with the times but I would love for this young generation to experience what it was like for us. I guarantee they would have loved it too.
+cindypltnm Even worse, that all changed just in a couple of hours, in the early morning the both huge towers were standing completely intact there and even before noon there was only dust left from them. It's still hard to believe that something like this is possible.
Yup binladen already had his minions here in the U.S. with hearts full of hate, just too bad we didn't have President Trump back then and maybe this wouldn't have happened. Thing that gets to me is the musical stage and canopy at 0:38, in less than a month people will be falling through that very sad.
@@wendybarendsma2359 Step 1 do not own a smartphone. Try it. I can do anything I really need to on a laptop. It's a start anyway and I can spend hours of the day without looking at a device if I want to, apart from watching an actual TV. My phone has no appeal for me to keep with me as it just calls and texts. It's switched off at night time so as I can sleep.
This must hit home hard, considering that if you were doing this 28 days later, this film would have ceased to exist. Life is precious. Thank you for this film, it gives me a view I'll never be able to attain otherwise.
There is actually ONE photograph from I believe the restaurant on the top of the North Tower that was taken on 9-11. It was of two guys in suits talking. The photographer snapped the photo and then hopped in an elevator back down to the lobby, a move that saved his life. It's chilling seeing that picture and knowing the fates of the guys in it, and everyone else up there was sealed minutes later.
I never got to experience that, as I was born October 29th, 2001. These videos make me yearn for a society like this. My grade level, made up majority by people born in 2001, have always been a kind of sad group. During assemblies we’re always quiet in our grade stands, and we aren’t a very motivated grade. It’s almost like the ghost of this event follows the children born that year.
I miss those days. Aaliyah was still alive, people took themselves less seriously, life was easier, society was a bit more collective, tolerant and patient, etc... see this type of videos always soothe me.
Seeing that concert playing on the stage in the beginning is truly eerie and extra heartbreaking. Many of the jumpers had landed on that very stage, I sadly caught one of the graphic videos that was circulating back in 2005-2006. Wish I had never seen it… one of those things that stays with you, that you can never unsee. 😢 My happy memories of the WTC… as a child growing up in NJ in the 80s & 90s, my parents would take us to visit my grandparents in the Bronx every weekend. We had a great view of the Twin Towers from the Turnpike en route to the GW Bridge. My brothers and I would yell, “Twin Towers! Twin Towers!” every time we spotted them. I remember driving over the GW bridge and staring at them out the back window. I will always remember that. I was a freshman in college when 9/11 happened, and that childhood image was shattered into oblivion for a while. I couldn’t comprehend that the twin towers would no longer be a part of the skyline anymore. To me, they WERE the skyline and the essence of NYC. We all shared a collective trauma on that day. My cousin’s wife’s brother lost his life in the North Tower, he was an employee of Cantor Fitzgerald. My dad worked in NYC, luckily his building was by Battery Park but he could see everything in real time from his office window. I’ll never forget the terror when I didn’t know if my dad was ok or his proximity to the towers. I remember in the days after, my dad helped his cousin’s family hang up missing person fliers around the city. We will never, ever forget. 🩵🗽🇺🇸
@@user-yv4mm6bx3cI’m pretty sure the video he’s speaking of is no longer on RU-vid, most of that stuff got wiped off the internet when the big censorship law came into play
If you look hard enough, you can still find some of them. In the comments sections there are also links to discord servers with videos and photos that have been previously wiped, super graphic and raw
i thought this restuarant was in the north tower? Also remember it was said that over the intercom they told workers in south tower to remain in the building because it was safer for them.
No one above the crash in the North Tower survived (including anybody inside Windows On The World at the time), while only very few did in the South Tower.
They probably couldn't if they had already made it to the upper floors because when the plane hit, the force of the impact wiped out all the elevators and damage to the stairwells made them literally impassable, not to mention the thick acrid black smoke pouring through the corridoors and offices, those above the impact zone stood absolutely no chance, sad but it is true 🙁
Thanks for all your comments. We know Jose our waiter (you get to see him for about a second) worked mornings that day and he was later killed in the attack-- so it is sad. It took us 7 years to get someone to transfer the HI-8 tape to You-Tube. Whn you stood between those two magnificant buildings, they seemed to reach up
Thank you for this video. I'm obsessed with the World Trade Center and how nice to just watch a video that shows the Towers in their everyday life. Not the day of 9/11 or the plethora of documentaries of the events unfolding and also the rampant conspiracies. Just showing the Towers. These buildings fascinate me.
Me too. I have gotten pretty damn tiring of all the 9/11 and conspiracy video's etc. This is just an amazing video that shows the Twin Towers and the original wtc as they truly were in their magnificent and wonderful form.
I agree. I'm in New York City right now and went to the 9/11 Memorial today. It was great! The Freedom Tower is really nice but man oh man watching this video you get to see how awesome the Twin Towers were and all the buildings aren't them that aren't there anymore. Seeing the band play in this video was also really touching. So nice to see everyone happy in this video and sad that everything changed a month later..... I was 4 in 2001 and although I did go to NYC when I was little when they were still up I never got to see them while being old enough to be aware of them :(
0:10 You did good, not to stop the recording. These recordings are very valuable today, not in terms of money, but in terms of historical value. Thank you for making that video, and make the world an access to it!
Footage like this is priceless to us now. Not in a money sense but in our hearts. Because you don’t see the twins on fire or falling or anything like that but you see the peace and amazingness the towers had. Footage like this helps us remember and never forget. For me I’m working on a tribute to the towers in Minecraft and these types of videos will help me build them as close as I can
I really feel this to my core. Don't know what sent us down this odd ball evil fun house version of reality, but I long for the previous timeline with a homesickness. Look up the word hiraeth
I remember Y2K on New Years eve 1999. We all met at my moms house and was wondering if the power was going to go out at midnight. My brother kept playing the song party like it's 1999.
Man does this bring back memories. I used to work down there back then, by battery park. Used to see the twin towers quite a lot but truth be told, as a New Yorker , i didn’t really pay too much attention to them as they were always there. All i knew is that they were huge, that there was a mall under them where i vividly remember a Godiva store, and that there was an observation deck. One day in Winter 2001, around January, it was snowing and I’d gone to work a few hours way early in the morning and was done by 10am when i started making my way uptown. I walked by the twins and walked in as i wanted to go up and see this observation deck everyone alway talked about. I can’t remember the price but i new it was expensive for what i was making which was peanuts so i decided to take a rain check and said to myself I’ll see them someday, that someday never came. Of course my dad took me up there when i was 9yrs old but i wanted to experience it as an adult. Hard lesson learned to never take things for granted, they may be here today but they may be gone tomorrow.
I called them the sleeping giants because they always just stood up there so tall over the rest of the city, almost like they were watching over it. When I would fly home from Europe, I would always look for the towers when I have a little more than half way across the Atlantic Ocean. Each time they would come into view...like tiny toy buildings off in the far distance...I knew I'd be home in a few hours. I miss those buildings....and I miss the innocence we lost.
My wife, 2 and 4 year old children and I were on the observation deck Memorial Day weekend of 2001. So a little more than a week before. I had chills looking down over the city, could only imagine how horrible it would have been to trapped above the fire.
And then decide to jump in order to not burn to death.. it's heart crushing just to imagine how a person must have looked down that tower, the flames behind them, deciding to let go in that surreal moment.. I was just a kid as I watched all of this happening life on TV on the other side of the planet. I never managed to get over it. Not only America but the whole world has changed since 9/11 💔
As a gen Y kid I would've loved the privileges gen Z get. After a crap lesson at school learning some English text from 500 years ago I could've done with a smartphone to escape the boringness. Now gen Z want to skip school for climate protests....they don't know how good they got it
im 40 now and all i can say that those years before the attack were some of the best years to live i wish i could have just stayed at that time it's not that i don't enjoy myself now but it was just different in such a way i will always remember how good it was
Good quality camera for the time. The lack of mobile phones is refreshing. No social media crap back then too.. refreshing.. shame I didn’t grow up in these times.
@@Wrestling316, Yeah but does anyone remember MySpace nowadays? Oh wait it wasn't a thing yet in 2001 lol. Um Friendster I guess? Wait that also wasn't going to be launched until more than two years later. What about SixDegrees? Wait no one knows what that even is. Never mind I guess that the only forms of social media existed back then were chat rooms I guess since Facebook and Twitter weren't going to be founded for another five years and wouldn't even achieve worldwide status until around the tail end of the early 2010s (2010-2013) to the start of the mid 2010s (2014-2016) or maybe even earlier if someone can tell me more about their pre-2014 experiences with it back then.
Lina and I got there at about 1:30pm and first stopped by the Towers to ask if there was any parking (underground) at the Towers, (like there use to be) and the cop yelled at us to "Move on, you can't stop here! (still worried that the attack would come from the ground,like last time, if there was to be one). You can park two blocks up on Murray Street". That parking location no longer exists. This new singular "Freedom Tower" will never replace the magnificant TWIN TOWERS!
I had lunch and drinks at Windows many times. I worked for many years on Wall St. I saw Davey Jones, Ronnie Spector and many others during the Summer concert series. This video brought back so many memories. Specially coming on Vesey St. I worked at 5 WTC for about three years and this was one of the entrances to that building. I remember the Eat and Drink, was a club/bar after work. So much fun. Unforgettable memories, friends, co-workers, love affairs. Loved it all. May they all RIP. This video is beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. Thank you for sharing.
No one is constantly on their phones or laptops and actually conversing to each other. Good relaxing music instead of the headache sounds people call music currently today... MIND BLOWN!
miss those days but i was only 10 when the towers went down seen it all on tv and remember it all thinking im sure the people are out and safe but that wasn't true :(
@@davidlackey6587 Labor Day weekend is an American holiday in September. Inaworldoflove is probably from the UK, holiday translates to vacation in American English.
My dad was an electric engineer for nyc authority and used to have lunch in the plaza all the time . He was devastated when the towers came down . Luckily he was in the train yard on Coney Island when the planes struck . This is my first time seeing how lively the plaza was 🕊️🙏🏽
The towers were a hub of so many things. I even voted there in the 2000 election. They had all kinds of events, from charitable runs up and down the tower stairs, to all kinds of music playing on the stage you see (Guy Davis is playing the blues in this video). There was a Woolworth drugstore and so many other shops, fast food places, and I think there was a post office. You took these enormously high escalators (like the ones you see in Russia) that took you down to the PATH trains to NJ and up to 23rd street. It was *freezing cold and windy* down there in the winter months, but spring, summer, and fall were lovely. Best wishes to your family, and I hope you are all well~
Damn, I just read an article yesterday about the General Manager of Windows of the World who realized that the people waving white table cloths at the top of of the building were all of his employees setting up for the day and and all he could do was watch as the building collapsed. He was driving to work when the first plane hit. 79 of his employees died that day. Seeing his employees in this video just going about their work day....I can't imagine the pain he's felt all these years.
Wow, the moment at 2:50 gives me a warm feeling. People eating while enjoying Richard Marx's song. A simple existence with each other and music and without a telephone. And unimaginable that this video was filmed a few weeks before the disaster.
Videos like these are a real treasure. Thanks for sharing this so those of us who never got to see it have a taste of what it was like. RIP all victims of 9/11
Thanks for the kind words. I never had any idea I'd be filming one of the last videos. It's sad. You almost have to think "What is precious to all of mankind? That's where the terrorists will try to strike next". I have some ideas but I won't speak of them publically. My wife Lina thanks you for your compliment.
Life was not simple at all by any means back then, was 24 and was working for alot less money, didn't have squat back then, barely any technology at that time, things were alot harder, people were still jerks and always will be and it was boring too, and not too mention computers and internet were very limited and not affordable back then either, not like today where everything is accessible online and the technology is much better than back then also, I thought back then sucked
Leave Smartphones alone they did not exist back then if they did people would be using them trust me Smartphones changed the world and are not going anywhere why do you think billions are on them they are so much fun
I was in the WTC concourse in late August of 2001. My aunt worked a few blocks away and we met her for lunch. I remember it was such a hot day that we decided to browse in the stores at the WTC instead of waiting for the bus for an hour in the heat. It was nice there. 💔
I was in the towers in June of 2000 with my family for a vacation trip from MA. 9/11 and the subsequent events that followed had a profound effect on me as a child and carried into my adulthood. We will never forget. RIP to all of the innocent lives that were lost that day.
They can't. Those towers were constructed while us humans were just walking on the moon for the first time. Rebuilding them exactly the same would never adhere to modern building standards.
Why not? Maybe interior wise there would definitely be some upgrades--but they should have rebuilt the TWINS. They were grand and very majestic looking. This new Freedom Tower is a boring monstrosity.
The "Windows of the World Restaurant" was on the 101st floor! The early morning workers were trapped and all perished trying to reach the roof, where they were met with a lock door (the guard on the 22nd floor who could relay the unlocking of the door had abandoned his post), heat, smoke, fire, suffocation, and then death. Through cell phone records they were heared begging for help, begging for their lives, begging for help of any kind, but none was able to arrive.
@@bombyboo6335 access to the roof was locked. The workers had swipe cards but the doors still wouldn't budge. Down in the 22nd floor an employee at the Security Command Center had to open the roof doors by pushing a button, but the crash of Flight 11 damaged the system that morning and it was impossible to open the roof doors
It was so amazing how a place of serious, white collar business, also had this really cool, festival-like vibe to it. The Trade Center was a one-of-a-kind place in New York.
To anybody like yourselves, who actually visited WTC, the sadness is magnified greatly. Unfortunately I didn't get to see these elegant structures and of course now, never will. As another commentator said, your video really captures the whole thing very well indeed. Thanks for sharing with us all.
A lot of people speculate that the falling man, from the infamous photo, worked at windows of the world. I think about that photo a lot and how he was someones world, someones baby, someones everything. He represented the 200 or so that jumped. It still rhaunts me that so many made the choice to jump instead of succumb to other option. Both unimaginable in their own right, just hard to fathom being faced with that.
@@christianriddler5063agreed. If people could only see the reality of both. Falling to your death or burning alive. If the cameras that day could have captured what was going on inside that tower, we'd have a lot less footage in the public domain. It would not be on youtube. Seeing the towers and smoke and people waving from windows is actually, dare I say it, tame in comparison to the reality experienced behind those walls. It's a little like that sub incident this year. Far better to be instantly wiped out (fall from a height or crushed) than to be slowly burned alive.
@@kevtb874 Worst part is that when you burn alive, your eyes melt out of their sockets. (I'm not joking). The ears and the nose melt as well whilst the person is still alive. It is absolutely horrific in every sense of the word. Better to just jump and close one's own eyes, get a brief dose of fresh air before the end.
I saw a video of a 911 call from somebody trap inside the tower (above the plane) and couldn’t stand the heat on the floor they say their shoes where starting to melt
Jim and Lina - thank you ever so much for taking this video, and for posting it. All my life I yearned to visit the Towers and stand on the top of the world. I was from Kansas City MO and had a poster of the towers in my bedroom. On September 5th 1984 I got my wish.....It was the most beautiful sunny day and the views were magnificent. They are seared in my mind and this video helped bring them back to life. I'm so glad you got a view of the other tower and the SOL and the ESB as those are the 3 things I remember most. The other tower showed put what you were standing on in perspective and it was incredibly awe inspiring. And Liberty was so small in the bay you had to hunt in the horizon to find her! Truly, for anyone that never had the chance to visit, this video is as close to the experience as you can get! Thanks again for sharing!
I never got to see them in person. The highest building I've ever been in was the Renaissance Center in Detroit. I believe it is 100 floors at the top. I recall having such vertigo looking out and down. It wasn't even outside deck it was through heavy glass windows. Also an incredible view but visiting the twin towers would have been really great.
I come back to this video almost every year and think about how wonderful it would have been to actually visit the towers. Thanks for giving us this peak into a much brighter yesteryear ♥️
Yes. Sadly, maybe perhaps they thought the roof of the pavilion which was a type of tarp might catch their fall. They went straight through. Sickening how the makers of the towers didn’t have ways of escape for the people all the way on the top.
YES, THE WHOLE THING HAS MADE US VERY SAD, AND DOES SO TODAY. AND YES THE GENERAOR NOISE INTERFERED A LITTLE WITH THE RECORDING. BUT CONSIDERING I WAS WASN'T EVEN PLANNING ON RECORDING.......................JIM AND LINA
Disturbing to realize while looking at that stage, that a short month later, a 9/11 jumper would rip through the roof and die right on the stage itself... If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Very sad and unsettling video of a jumper.
Yeah I know the one. Was filmed by a couple across the street from a hotel window. Terrible, those people were just going about their lives. Didn't deserve that.
Psychedelic Gaming Yes I know it has been brought to my attention before However I will die too and no matter if anybody comes up with somthing good or bad to say about it It wont change the fact the I will be dead So what is a beautiful way to die? if me or you or anybody else dies in the worst and most violent way and if even someone could come up with somthing ""nice "" to say about it Would it be able to change even if a tiny bit the grusomeness of such violent death?
Psychedelic Gaming Get it now? It does not matter what you or me or the whole world says about how these people died Pretty or nasty it DOESNT CHANGE ANYTHING
Sad, that a hundred people were probably eating bacon and eggs and reading the new york times when the tower was hit not knowing their lives would be over in a matter of minutes. Very sad.
@Jon Luci I don't think they were. It was the 107th floor. The impact zone only up to the 90-somethingth floor (?). Plus there were several calls to emergency services made from the people attending the conference after the plane hit.
@@thomasnew8606 oh don't be a baby. welcome to the internet. the key is to ignore people like that because they will always keep coming and the more you let them upset you, the more they get exactly what they set out to do. plus that's not even close to how repulsive people can be about 9/11. that's fairly mild.
DesertDwight I was only 2 & a half. I was born in '98 & I would love to see the towers if they hadn't collapsed. I mean if 9/11 never happened. It just looks iconic & majestic. Even though the towers weren't able to withstand what happened that day they've stood the test of time in our history & legacy
Amazing video. 08/13/2001 is last then a month to that day. at that moments you can't even imagine what can go bad. beautiful view. we can see the big antenna that makes some signal interferences. thank you. priceless footage.
I was 12 years old on 9/11, in my first or second week of middle school in Orange County, NY. My dad used to take me down to Shea or Yankee Stadium, and every time we’d go over the Tappan Zee Bridge, my dad would point downstream and have us look for the Twin Towers. I so vividly remember looking at them from the bridge. Will never forget the last time dad took me before 9/11, it was a foggy, dark, rainy day. But we could still see the towers. In the years since I’ve revisited the events of this day and as I’ve aged I’ve been able to feel and understand more every time. How awful. I can’t even imagine what people went through.
That's heartbreaking. I think it probably affects me now even more than it did at the time. You're exactly right. We'll never know what those people went through.
Thank you for sharing this memory. I'm from Germany. We were on holiday in NYC from Dec 99 to Jan 2000. We went to the top of the WTC to enjoy the view over Manhattan. When I heard that the towers had collapsed, I couldn't believe it.
This is so insane I'm literally looking for myself in these videos we were there also right around mid August as well 2001. On the roof and the weather looked identical to the overcast skies in this video. Kind of crazy to think we may have brushed shoulders 20+ years ago on the roof of arguably the most historically significant place in the nation.
I was on top of the WTC a few months before they fell. I remember a very long line waiting to go to the top because the tourists had their own line to not interfere with the businessmen. I remember the huge lobby and I was absorbed in reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air as I waited in line. I can't remember why I was in NYC.
I was married at the city clerk's office in October of 2000. My friends took home videos of the areas around lower Manhattan, including a beautiful shot of the Towers from City Hall Park. I thought that on my anniversary the following year I'd make another video from the same locations. Little did I know a year later everything would change and life in lower Manhattan would never be the same again. How bittersweet watching this feels.
Less than a month later, the world happened to see an American tragedy unfold on the grounds and streets of New York. The World Trade Center would've been one of those buildings I could've wanted to visit, but on my trips to New York (since my dad's from New Jersey), when they were there, we only visited the Empire State Building and nothing beyond- only since I was afraid of heights at a young age. It forever kills me to this day, that I never once stepped foot onto one of the original New York City buildings that once stood upon our American soil and around the streets of New York. I miss that original view, as well as all the people that have left the world, less than a month after this date.
I'm just constantly amazed by how much this event changed all of our lives. Things were so different, can't even explain it fully. What a mental rabbit hole. How much different would the future that we currently exist in be?
After watching a documentry about a 911 dispatcher talking to a person in that restraurant and them asking what should they do and how the black smoke was coming in fast. Then watching this being filmed a few weeks before the disaster even makes my hair stand up on the back on my neck. This video is a rare piece of history I hope it gets a lot of views in remembrance of 9/11
I remember eating in the restaurant and having company events there back in the late 80s. I recall one event I went to ...went to the ladies room and the building was swaying and it felt like being on a boat. (My company was next door in the WFC, but they had some temporary office space in Tower One where I spent a few months working.) So crazy to see footage like this. So sad.
I miss the towers. Visited them twice only in 93 and 95. The very first site I visited when I firat arrived in the US. I still cannot believe they are gone. Thank you for sharing this video. It brings me so many dear memories.
Happier times, could not imagine the thoughts of people standing in that exact spot watching a plane coming towards them beautiful souls now in peace xxx
Thanks for this video, man. I was five months old when the tragedy happened. When I was a kid, my mom used to talk about ground zero and what the twin towers were like and how beautiful they were. This always sparked a curiosity and I always longed to get to see them despite knowing I physically couldn’t. This really gives a great view of what they were like.
I was 11 at the time of the attacks. I remember that Tuesday like it was yesterday. I had just gotten home from school, and sat down by the TV in the apartment Mom and I lived in at the time. - I live in Norway, and being 6 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone. I turned it on, as I was going to watch cartoons or something like that, but then I saw in the news that there has been an accident at the World Trade Center. I didn't realize it at first, or remember where I have seen the towers before, but then I remembered Home Alone 2, with the panning shot of Kevin standing on the observation deck of the South Tower. Moments later, the live feed caught the second plane hitting the South Tower, and I knew that this was not an accident. This had to be deliberate. I never got the chance to visit the towers, but I knew some people who did, and they were awestruck by the amazing views from the top. They even brought some souvenirs. I guess those would be worth a lot today.
