George Richard

Since I've always worked in Chicago's financial district, my business trips to New York have been to the area of the World Trade Center, I was in the mall a few times (I still have a tie I bought there when I forgot to pack one). Most of my experience is with the North Tower though, and that's limited, just a visit to Window on the World. I don't recall anything memorable about the Twin Towers--they were just tall office buildings like the ones I'm used to in Chicago. And the mall was pretty much geared to meeting the day-to-day needs of the people who worked in the vicinity, not especially noteworthy either. I had a young relative who worked for a big financial firm in the area, and she eventually walked home through the dust to Brooklyn. Her immediate family was pretty concerned until they heard from her. The trading desks in the Twin Towers had open phone lines to some of the Chicago Exchange floors, so before communications stopped people in Chicago could talk to their co-workers in peril in New York. I saw the first news reports on a tv monitor in the train station. We spent the first part of the morning waiting to hear what was going to happen in the Chicago loop. Since our office was a block from Sears Tower, we were sent home before the morning was over out of concern of an attack against Chicago. Mark may already know why people in the story are in New York, since he's asking about the towers, rather than how to get them there. But there's a Hollywood connection to one of the firms in the Noth Tower. Cantor Fitgerald earlier in 2001 had bought the Hollywood Stock Exchange, which was not a real exchange, but more of a game that lets people bet fake money on the success or failure of movies, stars, etc. HSX was a startup from the 90's that could have been invested in by Stefan and Brad, and that would have given them a link to Cantor, which lost more employees than any other tenant. HSX still exists. They tried to launch movie futures, which were approved a couple of years ago, but then outlawed by congress.

Being able to choose more than one answer would have been good for me too. I grew up on a farm near a small town (less than 500 people at the time--the 50's and 60's). But there was a university less than 15 minutes away, and a larger city within easy commuting distance, so the lifestyle was as much suburban as rural even then. The area had been settled by Scandinavians, and I think the societal cohesion that makes Scandinavian countries so sucessful was evident in my hometown too. There was not much red-neckedness to be found. Still, just about everybody moved away for school and careers; the ones who didn't are either successful farmers, or commute to good jobs in the city. I moved away--to the Chicago area for school and then work. Now I've spent the last several decades in the older, close-in suburbs, which have as much in common with city neighborhoods as they do with the newer, farther out towns. I've always taken the train to work so I've spent many years of my life in the city.

A quote from Aaron Eckhart-- "I love being physical" ...not from the Millenium, but from a real life interview about his new movie "Battle: Los Angeles", which is getting good reviews.