Still have the ten-foot dish, but have not used it in several years.
That idea may not have been widely reported, but it was there. I remember some expert commentator on TV in 1993 saying “They were trying to topple the Towers. They’ll be back to finish the job.”
Excellent article on him in wikipedia. He was also a war hero. Many more lives could have been saved if the Port Authority had listened to his recommendations after the first bombing.
My partner and I had relocated from NYC just a few years prior to 9/11. We both still had many friends and acquaintances there, and no way to contact anyone. As it turned out, I had two former coworkers/friends die in the towers.
I remember feeling an intense need to go to NY and be there. Sort of like if a loved one were injured, you’d want to be there by his side. It was almost like an irrational need to suffer along with all the New Yorkers, rather than experiencing it at a distance. We did go back for the week before Christmas, and it was very surreal, seeing all the festive holiday lights, and hearing people talk about nothing but 9/11, wherever we went. We were very moved by the huge Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, which had only red, white and blue lights that year.
I figured even then that there was probably more going on than turning them into quarter-mile-high smokestacks.