In 1954, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world.

But by 1973, New York had two taller buildings: The twin towers of the World Trade Center.

They were kind of lackluster architecture. If they weren’t so tall, they wouldn’t have drawn much attention, looking like all the other straight, white or glass towers being built throughout the world.

It was their location that distinguished them. They stood slightly apart from the cluster of buildings in lower Manhattan, close to the Hudson River.

So when there was a picture that was supposed to say “New York” instantly, it was the picture of the towers against a backdrop of either New Jersey or the rest of Manhattan.

Unfortunately, those pictures of New York’s skyline inspired a Saudi madman who wasn’t even around in 1954.

Osama bin Laden, born three years after me, hated the United States for a number of reasons: its support of Israel, its perceived decadence that went counter to his warped conception of Islam, the fact that these evil Americans used Saudi Arabia as a base for countering Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein’s incursion into Kuwait.

bin Laden saw the pictures and saw a target. Through the planning of his henchman and 19 suckers who would carry out the act, four U.S. jetliners were sent careening toward prominent buildings. 

One hit the Pentagon, killing 184 people. One was taken down in a Pennsylvania field through the intervention of the plane’s passengers, some of the bravest people in American history.

And two hit the Trade Center, causing them to collapse to rubble and killing more than 2,700 people, all of whom were either just going about their business or were safety workers – policemen and firemen – trying heroically to save lives.

Like the Kennedy Assassination, we know where we were on September 11, 2001. We remember the horrible feeling about who were lost and the fact that some spoiled brat terrorist could find a weak spot – because how callous do you have to be to kill like that?

9/11 shook us all and changed this country. At first, the country came together to mourn and comfort our friends and family.

But the reaction to September 11 took a dark turn. We became security mad and turned airline travel into among the more unpleasant experiences. We didn’t trust anyone, and created a wave of anti-Islamic hatred that lingers.

President George W. Bush, at first an inspirational figure who promised to take down the people who took down the buildings, didn’t get bin Laden. But he did lead the U.S. to get rid of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who had nothing to do with 9/11, leaving 4,500 American soldiers dead.

Even the most prominent hero of the day, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, ended up with a tarnished legacy through his effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election on behalf of Donald Trump – who bragged on 9/11 that his building was now the tallest in lower Manhattan.

So yes, the attack was a shock, something unthinkable the day I was born. In fact, even after actually seeing it happen, we find it unthinkable that anyone could conceive of something so evil.

My Dad worked in the World Trade Center for a few years just after it opened. It was an awful location to commute to from Long Island, particularly after the collapse of a portion of the West Side Elevated Highway in 1973. His company, Firestone, moved the office after only a short time.

One of the things I found in my parents’ house after they died was the key to Dad’s office in the  WTC. It’s stamped “WORLD TRADE CENTER. DO NOT DUPLICATE.”

It’s now one of the most tangible pieces left of what were once the tallest buildings in the world.