世贸中心双塔大楼(1972～2001)，本文主要内容关键词为：世贸论文,大楼论文,中心论文，此文献不代表本站观点，内容供学术参考，文章仅供参考阅读下载。
In a city where it's easy to lose your bearings（注：方位；航向。）,the Twin Towers were a compass point.You could alwaysfind your way by searching for the two 110-story edificeslooming above the skyline.They told us where we were.Now that the World Trade Center has been reduced to rubble（注：瓦砾。）,New York City feels smaller.So do we.That' s why no matterhow many times we see the television footage（注：（影片的）连续镜头。）of the towers crumbling,we still can't believethey could really be gone.When we picture the skyline in ourminds,there they are.
[2] We didn't always identify so strongly with the WorldTrade Center.In fact,when the Port Authority of New York andNew Jersey completed the towers in the early 1970,they werealmost universally reviled（注：revile谩骂；痛斥。）.Environmentalists charged that it would cost a fortune tolight the 9.5-million-square-foot complex（注：建筑群综合体。）.Television stations complained that the buildingsinterfered with their broadcast signals.Steel manufacturerscalled the project anti-American because the builders hadimported 50,000 tons of steel--a quarter of what was needed--from Japan.Aesthetes thought the towers appallingly banal（注：陈腐的；平庸的；乏味的。）."There is a fascination with the towers'ugliness," a Washington Post architecture criticwrote in 1973."Man's tallest buildings to date defy theirsurroundings,man's most wondrous,skyscraping community.The110-story Brobdingnagian（注：18世纪英国作家斯威夫特所著的《格列佛游记》中的大人国。）shafts stand with blunt,graceless arrogance at the western edge of Manhattan island,seeming to tilt that wonder with overbearing（注：傲慢的；盛气凌人的。） size and hubris（注：
〔希〕过分的自傲；目中无人。）."
[3]The most serious indictment of the World Trade Centerwas simply that it was a spectacular waste of government money.The five-building complex,completed in 1977,was erected atthe urging of Financial District boosters like ChaseManhattan's David Rockefeller,who,seeing big companies likeMobil decamp（注：逃亡；撤营。）uptown,feared lowerManhattan would lose its status as the financial heart of the nation.The Port Authority envisioned the World Trade Centerto be exactly what the name suggested:a haven for shippingfirms,importer-exporters,and foreign government officials who did business in the region.Those kinds of businesses,itturned out,couldn't afford the rents,so the Port Authoritywent after financial firms,emptying more offices in WallStreef's canyons（注：canyon（两边大厦耸立的）都市街道。）.
[4]To most New Yorkers,though,it didn't matter who paid the rents in the World Trade Center.What mattered was itspresence.The towers'vertical arrogance had become part of the way we perceived our world.We no longer cared if theyweren't as stylish as the Chrysler Building or the WoolworthBuilding,they defined the New York skyline.Seeing the twintowers made us feel secure.They reminded us that we weren'tjust anywhere:We inhabited America's richest city,the engineof its economic growth,a city that would not just build theworld's tallest building (which the trade center was,briefly),but build two of them.It's not surprising,then,that Mikhail Gorbachev made the World Trade Center's observation deck one of the first stops after a summit meeting with PresidentReagan in 1988.
[5]So is it any wonder we can't fathom（注：现解；弄清。）the towers'sudden disappearance?Even after a terroristexploded a car bomb in a garage beneath the World TradeCenter in 1993 and hundreds were injured,we went right backinside.The towers stood,even prospered.New York City'seconomy improved,and the World Trade Center,once considered a white elephant,became one of the most sought-after addresses in Manhattan.The Port Authority decided it didn't belong inthe real estate business and this year leased it to a groupof investors led by Larry Silverstein,a likable developerwith a reputation as a* straight-shooter（注：〔口〕正派人。）.He controlled the city's tallest buildings,and evenhis fiercest competitors wished him well.That's how right itall seemed.
[6]Then two jetliners appeared in the sky on Sept.11,andeverything turned horribly wrong.There's no way to escapethe tragedy of that morning.Most of us who live in and around the city are not many degrees removed from people buriedunder the ruins of the World Trade Center.And as we await the final death toll,we're not sure where we are any longer.When we look up into the sky of lower Manhattan,there are nosignposts.
在纽约这个很容易迷失方向的城市，世贸双塔大楼就像是罗盘上的指针。你只要在茫茫的天际搜寻到这两座110层高的摩天大厦，你就一定不会迷路。它们会告诉我们自身处于何方。如今，世贸中心已化为一片废墟，纽约城看起来已失去了往日的雄伟。我们自身又何尝不是如此。这也正是为什么不管多少次面对两座塔楼轰然倒塌的电视镜头，我们仍然无法相信它们真的已不复存在了。当我们在心中想象着纽约城的天际线时，世贸双塔仍然屹立在那里。
[2]人们并非从一开始就对世贸大楼有如此强烈的认同感。事实上，当纽约州和新泽西州港口当局在20世纪70年代初建成世贸双塔大楼时，几乎遭到了普遍的反对和指责。环保主义者指责总面积达950万平方英尺的庞大建筑群的照明用电将消耗巨大的财富。各电视台纷纷抱怨建筑物干扰了播发的信号。钢铁厂家认为这一工程是反美行动，因为建筑商从日本进口了5万吨钢材，为全部所需钢材的1/4。唯美主义者认为这两座楼简直平庸之极。1973年《华盛顿邮报》的一篇建筑评论文章这样写道：“这两座塔楼虽然其貌不扬，却也自有迷人之处。它是人类有史以来最高的建筑，使得它周围那些令人惊叹的摩天大楼建筑群亦相形失色。这两座好似来自大人国的110层大楼旁若无人地巍然屹立，以傲慢的目光藐视着曼哈顿岛的西部边缘，似乎要以其不可一世的规模和气势压倒周围的建筑群。”
[3]对世贸大楼最严厉的指责可以一言以蔽之，那就是大肆挥霍了政府的钱财。1977年竣工的这5座楼组成的建筑群，是在金融区一些积极支持者的推波助澜下拔地而起的。支持者中包括像蔡斯·曼哈顿公司的戴维·洛克菲勒这样的人，由于看到像美孚这样的大公司纷纷撤往非商业区，他非常担心曼哈顿南区会失去其国家金融中心的地位。世贸中心，顾名思义，如港口当局所构想的，是那些航运公司、进出口公司及在当地经商的一些外国政府官员们开展业务的理想场所。后来发现，这类商家都很难支付高昂的租金，因此港口当局就将目光转向那些金融公司，这让华尔街两旁大厦的许多办公场所人去楼空。
[4]然而，对大多数纽约人来说，谁来支付世贸大楼的租金无关紧要。人们所在意的只是世贸大楼的实际存在。双塔大楼那傲然耸立的雄姿已成为美国人认识世界的方式之一。人们不再在乎它们是否不如克莱斯勒大楼和伍尔沃思大楼那样时髦；双塔的雄姿给纽约城勾勒出了高接云天的轮廓，这就足矣。目睹双塔矗立便给人一种安全感。它们提醒我们，我们置身于一个不同凡响的地方：我们栖身在美国最富裕的城市，它是美国经济成长的发动机；在这个城市里，我们不仅建造了世界上最高的建筑物（简而言之，就是世贸中心），而且一造就造了两幢。因此，当戈尔巴乔夫1988年与里根总统举行峰会后，将世贸中心的观景平台作为参观游览的首站之一，也就不足为奇了。
[5]如此看来，双塔的突然消失让人难以接受，又有什么奇怪的呢？即使是在1993年，恐怖份子在世贸大楼底层车库引爆了一枚汽车炸弹，伤及数百人，我们还是很快恢复了平静，回到各自的岗位。双塔屹立如常，甚至更加兴盛。纽约的经济在发展，曾被看作大而无当的世贸大楼成为曼哈顿最受人们欢迎的场所之一。港口当局决定世贸大楼不属供销售的房产，并于2001年将其租赁给以拉里·西尔弗思坦恩为首的一群投资者。拉里是一位以正直著称的讨人喜欢的开发商，他控制着这座城市最高的建筑，即使他最激烈的竞争者也希望他顺利。一切看起来都那么美好。
[6]9月11日那天，两架喷气式客机出现在天空，一切都变得如此可怕。那天早晨的悲剧无法逃避。住在这个城市里面和周围的多数人与那些被埋在世贸中心废墟下的人们的命运也许只有一步之遥。我们等待着死亡人数的最后统计结果的时刻，脑中一片空白，无法再确定我们究竟身处何方。我们抬头仰望曼哈顿南区的那片天空，纽约城的标志已不复存在了。
标签：世界贸易中心论文;