Since 9/11, anyways?
Used to be, if a TV show, movie, major company, salsa brand was trying to establish NC as a home base or whatever, shots or representations of ESB were used. Then, slowly, WTC seemed to take over as the outwoard symbol (avatar even?) of NYC.
Even after 9/11, WTC seemed to still be THE symbol for a while. Now it appears to be ESB again.
What do you NYCers view as the symbol of your home planet? The Statue? ESB? Brooklyn Bridge? Something else? Don’t care?
Just curious…
Actually, the ESB never gave up its symbolism with those of us who had to live with those giant, boxy, windy towers with their drab suburban mall sprawled around them.
I’m not a New Yorker, but I always thought the ECB and Statue of Liberty were more archetypal images of the city than the twin towers. They both have a very distinctive shape, unlike WTC, which just looked like two big boxes. Even before 9/11, I remember seeing more pictures of the ECB and the Statue than of the WTC. The WTC actually wasn’t all that beautiful of a building.
The skyline was probably the most famous feature, and I think that’s what most people used to establish NYC in movies. That skyline looks a lot different now, obviously, so I’m not sure if it’s still done that way. As far as individual buildings go, the Empire State Building was always number one.
The ESB, Chrysler, and Statue of Liberty have always been the symbols for me. I was never particularly fond of the WTC.
The Chrysler Building is much more photogenic.
Movies, TV, usually have a montage of that, Fifth Avenue (Tiffany’s, esp.), Park Avenue looking up from Grand Central, downtown from the river with the Statue of Liberty in the foreground . . . The usual.
A lot of business logos (on trucks, signs, etc.) still have the Twin Towers on them.
New Yorkers never warmed to the WTC and didn’t think of it as a symbol of the city. The Empire State Building (the one on Fifth Avenue, not the other*) was always considered more of a symbol.
*The original Empire State Building, which predates the better known one by 30 years or so, is at 640 Broadway (on the corner of Bleeker), home to a Swatch Watch shop last I saw it.
I grew up in New York City, and I don’t think most New Yorkers had any great emotional attachment to the WTC before it was destroyed. When people in and out of the City think of the skyline, they’ve always thought of the Empire State Building first.
Agreed with the above. The WTC was an arrogant crass monstrosity.
Since North Carolina was using the Empire State Building (for whatever reason, apparently), that left the WTC available for NYC to use. Now that it is gone, the wonderful and considerate folks of the Tarheel State have graciously given the ESB back to the Big Apple to be used in promotions for the city so nice they named it twice.
New York City has many symbols. It’s too big for just one.
And FTR I for one liked the WTC.
WTC was just another rectangular office building, however large it may have been.
Empire State Building never lost its status as a symbol.
Online picture of this? 
Just an observation, but I guess the mourning period is over?
Seems like these sentiments went unspoken post 9/11. This is the first time since then that I’ve heard something not so flattering said about them.
Shucks, leave off one Y… 
That skyline view from across the river, in Brooklyn Heights facing Manhattan, used to be used as a NYC establishing shot for movies and shows. Even before the WTC, the sway back look of the skyline was unmistakeably NYC, esp if the shot included one of the bridges (Brooklyn or ?). Once the WTC was built, there was no way in hell anyone could confuse that skyline with another city.
So, maybe it’s more of an outsider thing, seeing the WTC as a symbol? The skyline itself, the Chrysler building, Time Square, ESB, Statue, etc… are all good ways to establish a NYC setting in my book.
Anything outside of Mahattan? (Statue, of course) What is easily recognisable in The Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens, or S.I.?
Yep, the prominade view. I liked the WTC, but put my down for the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge for NYC symbols.
We got the Zoo and Yankee Stadium. Queens I see Flushing Meadow Park and the Unisphere or Shea Stadium. Brooklyn has the Prospect Park Arch and the Bridge. Staten Island just seems to get the Ferry. Usually on its way to the more photogenic Manhattan.
It was considered distasteful to say anything bad about the Towers for about a year or two, but now that plans have been made for building on Ground Zero, people are starting to speak up. I was a very little girl when they were built and before Battery Park City grew up on the western side (earth taken from beneath the Towers) it was very very bleak down there. If you see the movie ‘Godspell’, you can see what it was like before any of the surrouding buildings to the north and west were there. Even after it was built up, most people I know went there to show it off to tourists but didn’t use the malls, etc. unless they worked there. There were so many other stores that didn’t require you to trudge through a confusing, lifeless maze of traventine stone and 70’s angles. I always got lost.
However, seeing as how I and so many people I know lost their jobs as a direct result of 9/11, and the unspeakable human toll, I don’t know anybody who doesn’t wish we had the whole thing–and especially the lives within them–back.
I don’t know if there is one; I have several I’ve taken myself, if you want me to e-mail one to you.
My source is John Tauranac’s “The Empire State Building : the making of a landmark.” See this for details (go to the second paragraph of chapter 1).
The New Yorker magazine mentioned in several articles discussing the disaster that the building design was not well liked in NYC. There were articles the week after (the magazine’s cover that week was heartbreakingly brilliant), and a profile some time later about the building’s architect mentioning the bad reaction to the design. All stressed that New Yorkers never really warmed to the building, but gave it, at most, a grudging acceptance.
It took me far too long to realize that in this case, “ESB” did not stand for The Empire Strikes Back. :smack:
Ah well…I least I keep my geek cred.