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

by Eric Darton

When the World Trade Center was erected at the Hudson River’s edge, it forever changed the character of the American city. In Divided We Stand , cultural critic Eric Darton chronicles the life of this billion-dollar building, using it as a lens through which to view the broader twentieth-century trend toward urbanized, global culture. Drawing on political and social history, Darton pioneers a new hybrid genre of architectural biography, revealing the convergence of four volatile elements in contemporary urban super tall buildings, financial speculation, globalization, and terrorism. Now with a new introduction and afterword, Divided We Stand remains the definitive work on the birth and life of the World Trade Center.

Genres: New York, Nonfiction, History, Architecture

256 pages, Paperback

First published December 23, 1999

Reviews

[Mr.david · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great account of the building of the World Trade Center. I read this book in the fall of 2000. I was living on East 88th street doing an internship in the public school system. I took a number of trips down to the WTC to match locations mentioned in the book with their real counterparts. Yes, I went to Windows on the World and wandered around the underground shopping mall.

I remember reading Darton's account of the 1993 bombing in the parking garage. The cement walls of the parking garage which (I think) were integrated in with the 'bathtub' were overbuilt, he wrote, and were easily able to withstand the blast. Looking up at the building at twilight, I felt a confidence in the structure, drawn from that passage of the book. Little did I know that these visits and a further visit to the observation deck in January 2001 would be my last. The day that the towers came down, I felt the rip of those towers as they came down.

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating study of the rise in the Port Authority, the expansion of Lower Manhattan, and its Crown Jewel, the World Trade Centers. Captivating in its publication just two years before the collapse of the WTC. Seeing the push to revitalize Lower Manhattan, the decline in the Port Authority’s authority, the collapse of the outdated Twin Towers a few years later can be cynically called “timely”. Well researched. Highly recommended.

[Doug Cornelius · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story of the twisted economic, political and architectural battles waged to get the twin towers built. Sadly, the book was published just a year before the attacks that brought them down.

[Jerome · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dry, but to be expected for a history book. An eye opening read for me into the details of speculative real estate, developers, urban planning and the like.

[Guido Colacci · Rating 5 out of 5]

The beginning of the end of NYC...

[Katja · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard book to review because it wasn't what I was looking for. My goal was to read a basic book on the history of WTC and since this promised to be the biography of said building, I thought that it would satisfy my curiosity on the subject. Wrong! I'll give Mr Darton credit on his immense knowledge on the subject; he clearly has done his research. But as a story-teller, he has lots to learn. I was hoping for something resembling "The Devil and the White City" but instead, I got a non-linear timeline where the anecdotes are all jumbled up together. At times the book felt like a tour guide (which would have been great if you know the geography of the area in question - maybe the next issue should have a map?) There were so many names of different people that I would have liked to have a list of the key players in beginning or the end of the book. Judging by the number of fancy words in this book, the writer is definitely an academic. But the tough words and the long sentences resulted in a text with no flow. I would have liked to read about the building of WTC but that was skipped. Towards the end, the writer alluded that he has fallen in love with his subject but, judging by the way in which the book end, he has fallen in love with himself (and not in a good way). I give this book three stars but I think I'm being generous.

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fascinating and eerie read. Published in 1999, reading it in 2017 is like looking at the snapshot on the cover. It depicts a bygone world.

[Katie White · Rating 4 out of 5]

To me this was just another WTC book but stiil had great facts and i enjoyed reading it in my spare time.

[Matthew Flannery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. A living biography of a massive undertaking.

[Ken Ficara]

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