Divided We Stand : A Biography of New York City's World Trade Center

Rating:
Summary: ASTONISHING & WONDERFUL
Review: This book has truly blown my mind, it is so prophetic and daring, and was weitten while the trade towers were still standing. And before any but a handful of people cared enough about them to ask serious questions about how they came to be there and what they meant to and for us all.
This is an incredible book to have because it brings us as close to knowing these buildings as we will ever get.
The author saw the towers as troubled and vulnerable and dangerous. He saw through through their facades to see the humanity within. Angry as he at the powerful people who subverted a public agency to build a real estate development, above all his love of New York City shines through.

Rating:
Summary: Lessons in Wealth and Politics
Review: This is an excellent read for anyone interested in learning about the politics and the money that helped build WTC and develop Lower Manhattan. One would be amazed how influential and determined the Rockefeller brothers were at making sure these towers were built. After reading this book I would be curious to know how the critics and opponents(Radio Row shop keepers) now feel about the destruction of this so called symbol of International Trade?

Rating:
Summary: Not a Biography of the Towers...
Review: When I bought and read this book, I did so to gain information on the history, design, and construction of the World Trade Towers. Although they were built while I was growing up, I never thought much about them. And I still do not know much more about them than I did prior to reading this book.

This book covers a number of issues, including a detailed history of the Port Authority, the social and economic history of New York City from about 1900 to the current, and information on the impact of the towers on the p[opulation who lived and worked where they are located. What this book does not cover, in any detail, is a history of the Towers. There are maybe a total of 5 pages on the design and construction of the project....hardly what I call a biography.

While reading this, I had the disticnt feeling the author may have grown up in the area that was redeveloped by the Port Authority into the Twin Towers and was bitter about the dislocation. He certainly had some kind of axe to grind as this hardly seemed to be an unbiased look at the subject.

Finally, the writing was out of the doctoral thesis school of writing. While it did get better as the book went along, I had to dictionary my way through the early parts of the book. It almost felt like it was written by someone who had swallowed a thesaurus.

If you want a true biography and history of the World Trade Centers, find another book.

Rating:
Summary: Lessons in Wealth and Politics
Review: Yeah, so, it's no longer cool to be so aloof, but i always hated the twin towers, and this book helped me to think about why. I know, I know, USA, USA, symbol of democracy, but not really -- the WTC was a blight on downtown, ugly, suburban Curbousian in a city of tightly-defined blocks, and they were worse inside than out. I worked in building 7 for 3 years and, even as the newest of the bunch, it was a (...), unkempt, lifeless and boring space. Plus, there was an effing Sbarro in the mall, an affront to everything that is great about our city.

That said, Eric Darton hates the WTC even more than i do. Did. Whatever. His book is a tightly written, often lyrical discourse on the unique confluence of political and economic factors that made the two towers and their ugly squat bretheren a possibility. He's harsh, as one critic mentions, but to call this a left-wing critique is to miss the point -- it's a critique by a new yorker who saw 1960s real-estate-speculation disguised as "urban renewal" fall flat on its face. It's a colorful recounting of the battle to get the thing built, an interesting discussion of what was destroyed to build it, and as much as the author hates the buildings, there's even a sense of romanticism, hard to avoid given the sheer scale of the project.

This is not a book about engineering or architecture, except inasmuch as these topics relate to thigns like urban planning. Don't expect to hear much about I-beams. But if you like to know how things come to be on a less microscopic scale, and if you'd like to read a book that i think captures that particularly New-York paradox of being a city with a gigantic history and the city of progress, this is a great book, well written, and full of great historical info.

Rating:
Summary: Oh Well.
Review: Yeah, so, it's no longer cool to be so aloof, but i always hated the twin towers, and this book helped me to think about why. I know, I know, USA, USA, symbol of democracy, but not really -- the WTC was a blight on downtown, ugly, suburban Curbousian in a city of tightly-defined blocks, and they were worse inside than out. I worked in building 7 for 3 years and, even as the newest of the bunch, it was a (...), unkempt, lifeless and boring space. Plus, there was an effing Sbarro in the mall, an affront to everything that is great about our city.

That said, Eric Darton hates the WTC even more than i do. Did. Whatever. His book is a tightly written, often lyrical discourse on the unique confluence of political and economic factors that made the two towers and their ugly squat bretheren a possibility. He's harsh, as one critic mentions, but to call this a left-wing critique is to miss the point -- it's a critique by a new yorker who saw 1960s real-estate-speculation disguised as "urban renewal" fall flat on its face. It's a colorful recounting of the battle to get the thing built, an interesting discussion of what was destroyed to build it, and as much as the author hates the buildings, there's even a sense of romanticism, hard to avoid given the sheer scale of the project.

This is not a book about engineering or architecture, except inasmuch as these topics relate to thigns like urban planning. Don't expect to hear much about I-beams. But if you like to know how things come to be on a less microscopic scale, and if you'd like to read a book that i think captures that particularly New-York paradox of being a city with a gigantic history and the city of progress, this is a great book, well written, and full of great historical info.