Non-American answer then. As of Septermber 10th 2001 I did not know that there was such a thing as the World Trade Centre in New York, nor that they were called the Twin Towers, nor what they looked like. And I could probably name a dozen or so US landmarks off the top of my head, but that definietly didn’t make the list.
If that helps 
FWIW, I think they were very well known before 9/11, but that the parody threads are really douchey. A lot of it probably comes down to age, some people mention being in elementary school on 9/11, I was in my 30s, so I don’t expect an 11 year old and a 33 year old to have the same body of knowledge.
The parody threads are idiotic and do nothing but celebrate ignorance. And I’m speaking as someone who was aware of the WTC for 28 years before the towers fell. Not only did they represent New York to me, but yes, I could even say they stood for America, much the same as the Statue of Liberty.
Good point. I *still *sometimes forget that the Center was more than the Towers.
Let’s see, I’m 36 now, so they were finished with the construction before I was born. Therefore, all you old farts, they weren’t anything terribly special for my generation until 2001. They were these big ugly buildings in New York. I think I knew them as “The Twin Towers”, probably from the establishing shots of Friends and other TV/movie shows, but I had no idea what went on there (offices? apartments? shopping? all of the above?).
In January of 1993, I had a baby, so I really wasn’t watching the news much by February. I don’t think I even heard about the terrorist bombing there until 9/11 happened. Baby brain.
And yes, the parody threads are fairly assholish.
Briton here. I had no idea what the World Trade Center was prior to the towers being hit, and did not have, and still don’t have, a clear idea as to what their function was, though I was only 16 at the time. Looking it up now, apparently World Trade Centers are:
So, now I know.
I’m a bit skeptical that the same number of people who are claiming they knew of the existence of the WTC also properly understood its function, aside from “office space” (despite this also being a requirement listed in the OP).
Well, apparently I’m in the tiny minority, but no, I had no freakin’ idea.
It was my first week of college. When my roommate (a New Yorker) told me a bomb had exploded at the World Trade Center, I sort of assumed this was somewhere in China or Japan.
Once I saw the building and realized it was in New York City, I had a vague recollection of a senior trip there in which I was driven past the building on a tour bus.
Not that it made the situation any less horrifying.
All I have to say in my defense is that I had no interest in the world around me, in politics, economics, business, or current events. That event changed my life, because I realized all that stuff actually affected actual people.
(If it’s relevant - I was born and raised in Michigan.)
Maybe I’m showing my ignorance again, but I always thought the buildings’ name (“World Trade Center”) was just an arbitrary grandiose appellation unrelated to any same-named Association. No?
That’s another story – besides that I would absolutely excuse any then-middle-schooler from having any awareness of it – in that IMO it would not be surprising if indeed there would have been a lot of Americans who would have had problems with the question “What is the official name of the two really big twin towers in lower Manhattan?” And they would go like… “oh, yeah… those two big square ones… that were tallest for some… there’s some big businesses there… WTH was the name”? (BTW how many people know that building in Chicago is no longer called “Sears Tower”?). But FWIW there would also be a lot of Americans who’d also have to think a bit if shown unlabeled pics of both the ESB and the Chrisler Building before matching the right name with the right Deco 'scraper.
And I believe septimus may be right and the New York Port Authority’s WTC’s name was **not **related to the WTCA
I’m not sure what sticking to your guns means here- this position isn’t a philosophical one. You asked how many Americans really knew what they were, many people said that they did know quite well, and you seem to want to refuse to believe it. Is it crazy that someone might not know? Of course not. But it’s also not crazy that perhaps it wasn’t as obscure as you may have thought. Isn’t that why you started this thread in the first place- to challenge your assumption?
I knew what they looked like, what they were called, and where they were, and that a lot of finance and commerce related stuff went on in there. But I still can’t claim to really understand what the people there did.
ETA: I knew enough to fear for our economy after I’d had a few hours to fear and pray for the individual humans affected.
Yes, I knew what they were. On the day of the 1993 attack, I was visiting my daughter who lives in NYC and we were all to meet my brother who worked in the building across Liberty St. from the plaza (which I think has never been rehabilitated) for lunch. I walked down there from my daughter’s apartment on 21st. and the east side, a 2-3 mile walk, to meet my brother at 12:30. I figure I must have been at Chambers St. and W. B’way at 12:18 when the bomb went off. When I walked down Fulton St., alongside St. Paul’s, there was a fire engine trying to get through to Church St. It did get to Church St. and turned left (southbound). A second fire engine was going north on Church St. (When I googled it just now, the map showed Church St. as one way, but it wasn’t in 1993). I thought this was bizarre, but I guess they had been called to different corners of WT Plaza. The only other sign of anything unusual was that smoke was coming out a window at maybe the 20th floor. My brother and I waited outside for close to a half hour before my wife and daughter, who had been shopping, showed up and we went for lunch, not giving it another thought. I found out what happened only later.
My brother didn’t survive till 9/11, but my daughter saw one tower fall from her office high up around 41st St on the east side. I was nowhere near on that occasion.
You’re wrong.
But you’re handling it reasonably well.
The gun sticking is more based on the extremity of some of the responses - e.g., the parodies and the implication that only a complete moron could not have been completely aware of such elemental and world-renowned icons. I’m happy to learn that more people - even many more people - knew the towers by name than I’d assumed, but when it gets to that level I will argue they’re wrong. (As is borne out, for one thing, by the number of other people who, like me, had only a vague or incomplete knowledge.)
Also because I think people are discounting to some degree how much more famous the towers have become since they fell.
Probably the same people who listen to Nickelback.
Thanks - I’ve had practice… 
New drinking game: take a shot every time someone in this thread types “of course.”
Actually, I’m not sure I automatically associated the twin towers with WTC until I stared up at them in '99. News reports from 1993 focused on the underground parking garage, not so much the towers (at least whatever I absorbed at the time as a teenager).
And I definitely didn’t know until 9/11 that the complex was comprised of more than just 2 buildings.
It tickles me how many people act shocked that anyone might not remember the 3 years they were the world’s tallest buildings, or the wire walker, or the King Kong remake. It’s like they think nobody was born after 1965.
I was born in '76, so I never saw any of the stuff people talk about being so iconic until well after the towers came down. Never been to NY, never gave a flying fuck about architecture. I was familiar with the sight of the towers, and the WTC parking garage where the '93 attack took place, but I can’t say that I ever really put the two together.
Also, we have to keep in mind the impact of trauma on collective memory. Memory is a very fluid and incomplete thing, and the brain likes to fill in the gaps. If something gets repeated over and over often enough within a social context, people genuinely begin to remember it happening whether or not it actually happened. So it’s perfectly possible - particularly for those who report they were aware but not all too familiar - that people are remembering incorrectly, or overestimating their awareness or familiarity with the WTC.
This is one reason debriefing in the aftermath of catastrophe has been found to increase the likelihood of PTSD. Someone may not experience something as all that traumatic, until they hear other people’s horrible stories and their memories become altered to include what is, to them, a genuinely (but inaccurately) traumatic experience. Those who were in the towers or around that day had a horrific enough experience - but on top of that we have added all the layers of media coverage - pictures of collapsing towers from every angle and sound bites and elements that most likely compound the trauma for those unfortunate individuals.
Or maybe I’m just grasping at straws because I feel dumb.
My 5-year-old child (in 2001) knew what the WTC was, and built approximations of it out of his Lego blocks.
We live in Denver, and he had not at that point been to NYC.
I will say that he had (and has) a particular interest in tall buildings and tall mountains. But still.
He knew they were office buildings with a restaurant and an observation deck, and a big tower of some sort on one of them.
I can’t remember exactly what I knew of the WTC before I worked there, but I know all of my extended family (in RI) knew what it was. It helps that I have an aunt who has lived a few blocks from the WTC since before it was built. My grandfather was especially impressed that I’d gotten a job there.