The Twin Towers Completed: 50 Years Since the Dedication of the World Trade Center
The World Trade Center was dedicated 50 years ago on April 4, 1973 in New York. At the time of their completion, the Twin Towers were the tallest buildings in the world, with the North Tower rising 1,368 feet and the South Tower measuring 1,362 feet. They were also the largest, covering 9 million square feet of space, with each floor measuring almost an acre. In 1973, the World Trade Center was home to 50,000 workers and 80,000 visitors a day. The complex was so large that it had its own power plant and its very own zip code.
Identified with progress and prosperity by some and lamented as an eye sore by others, the Twin Towers, nonetheless, became one of the most recognizable features of the New York skyline. Today the World Trade Center conjures memories of the September 11th terrorist attacks which obliterated the Twin Towers and claimed nearly 3,000 lives. Before that tragic day, the Twin Towers were a major tourist attraction, a bustling commercial property and the site of numerous official visits, press conferences and thrilling ascents.
General view of World Trade Center under construction in New York City April 16, 1968. Tall white building seen along is the New York Telephone Building (not slated for demolition). Where seen the buildings on right are all going down up to the white building forward which is the Federal Building. (AP Photo)
Construction at World Trade Center in New York City on April 16, 1968. (AP Photo/Robert Kradin)
File card indexing AP coverage of planning for the World Trade Center. (AP Photo/AP Corporate Archives)
Construction at World Trade Center in New York City on April 16, 1968. (AP Photo/Robert Kradin)
Steelworkers guide a 34 ton steel grillage into place 70 feet below street level at the site of the World Trade Center in New York, August 6, 1968. The grillage is a complex of steel constructed in three tiers and is the first of 28 that will support the core columns of the 1350 foot high north tower. The grillage is 11 feet wide, 15 feet long, and 7 feet high. (AP Photo/Anthony Camerano)
Architect Minoru Yamasaki of Birmingham, Mich., stands in front of the Michigan Consolidated Gas Co., building in Detroit, Mich., on March 23, 1964. Yamasaki would later design the World Trade Center in New York, dedicated on April 4, 1973. (AP Photo)
World Trade Center under construction at Varick St. and Hudson River in New York City on Jan. 27, 1970. (AP Photo)
The new World Trade Center is shown under construction in New York City, Aug. 1969. It is located in lower Manhattan at Varick Street by the Hudson River. (AP Photo)
The twin towers of the World Trade Center, under construction in lower Manhattan of New York City, will house the New World Trade Mart, foreign trade offices, and the New York Stock Exchange when completed. The 1350-foot North Tower Building, now the world's tallest building, overlooks the historic St. Paul's Church in the foreground. This photo is dated Feb.11, 1971. (AP Photo).
A view of a construction worker as he works of World Trade Center building in 1970 in New York City. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams)
A view of a construction worker as he works on the World Trade Center building in 1970 in New York City. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams)
The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center are pictured in this Lower Manhattan harbor view, 1974. (AP Photo/Suzanne Vlamis)
General view of the ground floor of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, May 24, 1977. (AP Photo)
The two towering structures of The World Trade Center jut into the sky in lower Manhattan, New York, Tuesday, April 3. 1973. Officials Wednesday will formally dedicate the 110-story, 1,350-feet buildings. The tall building at left in the background is the Woolworth Building and at right is the Transportation Building. (AP Photo/David Pickoff)
Philippe Petit, a French high wire artist, walks across a tightrope suspended between the World Trade Center's Twin Towers. New York, Aug. 7, 1974. (AP Photo/Alan Welner)
French tightrope walker Philippe Petit, 24, looks back at the photographer as he rests between walks across a cable stretched between New York’s World Trade Center towers high above the city on Wednesday, August 7, 1974. Petit crossed the cable twice and at one point, hung by his heels. The Frenchman and two assistants apparently hid in one of the towers and set the cable up before dawn, police said. (AP Photo/Alan Welner)
French aerialist Philippe Petit balances as he crosses a cable stretched between the World Trade Center towers high above New York City on Wednesday, Aug. 7, 1974. (AP Photo/Alan Welner)
French tightrope walker Philippe Petit talks to a newsman as police accompany him from Beekman Hospital following his arrest in New York, Aug 7, 1974. The stuntman was arrested after he walked a high wire cable stretched between the twin towers of the World Trade Center, New York's highest structures. Police reported Petit and two photographers hid overnight in one of the towers and before dawn, set up the high wire. (AP Photo/Dave Pickoff)
Lightning bolts strike two New York City landmark buildings, the Empire State Building, left, and the World Trade Center, right, during a storm Monday night, Aug. 28, 1979. This photo is taken from New Jersey, looking east at the Manhattan skyline. (AP Photo/Sandy Colton)
Most of the crowd near the World Trade Center, as seen in the four images above, looks straight up to follow the progress of George Willig during his climb up building in New York, May 26, 1977. (AP Photo/Carlos Rene Perez)
George Willig scales the World Trade Center tower as police follow him on a window washer's platform in New York, May 25, 1977. (AP Photo/Bob Eberle)
George Willig scales the World Trade Center tower as police follow him on a window washer's platform in New York, May 25, 1977. (AP Photo/Bob Eberle)
Excerpt from an AP story on George Willig’s climb up the World Trade Center as published in the Des Moines Tribune on May 25, 1977.
George Willig displays blistered hands after climbing to the top of the south tower of the World Trade Center in New York, May 26, 1977. Willig used a modified climbing rig to pull himself up the sheer side of the building hand over hand. (AP Photo/Dan Grossi)
George Willig, left, and Philippe Petit trade toasts during, dinner at Windows On The World restaurant on 107th floor of New York’s World Trade Center on Friday, May 27, 1977. Willing scaled the center’s South Tower the day before an exploit that earned him the nickname of the “human fly” in news accounts. Petit also became a sensation in 1974 when he walked a tightrope stretched between the building’s twin towers. (AP Photo/Ron Frehm)
The twin towers of the World Trade Center burn behind the Empire State Building in New York, Sept. 11, 2001. In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists crashed two planes into the World Trade Center causing the twin 110-story towers to collapse. (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)
In this April 17, 2012 file photo, One World Trade Center, rises above the lower New York City skyline as the National September 11 Memorial can be seen at lower right. More than a decade after 9/11, no one's quite sure what to call the spot that was once a smoldering graveyard but is now the site of the fast-rising, 1,776-foot skyscraper that will replace the twin towers. Some are calling the new skyscraper "One World Trade Center," but it's still "ground zero" to others. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
Photo editing and text by Francesca Pitaro.