For a story set prior to 9/11, I want to describe a character as standing on (some street) looking right up at one of the Towers. What street(s) were the addresses of the towers?
Jeez, I work across the street, you’d think I’d know off the top of my head…
Trinity Place is on one side, West Street on the other (these run north-south). Vesey Street and Liberty Street run east-west; Vesey is north of Liberty.
(Trying to do this off the top of my head, I only got West Street correct. I guess I should pay more attention to the street signs!)
The World Trade Center was built across sixteen square blocks of Manhattan. The border blocks were Barclay Street, Washington Street, Vesey Street, West Street , Liberty Street, Church Street, back to Vesey, then up West Broadway to Barclay again.
The WTC complex was plonked down on a mess of very old streets. It was its own address (It wasn’t, like, 50 Vesey Street or something, just One WTC, Seven WTC, etc.) and had its own zip codes.
Good views from Broadway, over the roof of old St. Paul’s Church.
From Church Street.
From Barclay Street.
Up West Street, from the Battery Park area, was a very clear and wide view. In fact, this is the route one of the planes took.
Now I feel 
To be staring directly up at the big towers (Nos 1 and 2), he’d have to be on Liberty Street or West Street.
Liberty street… I didn’t realize that. It’s a pretty poigninat addres now, isn’t it.
They were freakin’ BIG, DXL. And like I said, they were mostly in a mess of relatively narrow, tangled streets. It was hard to see them both at one time from just across the street.
One excellent view was through the arch of Washington Square Park at the end of Fifth Avenue. I remember when the neighborhood below Houston St. was still closed off, a lot of people left flowers and tributes and copies of a picture showing the scene when it was snowy at the Arch. Here’ssome pix.
When does the story take place? If Battery Park City is there, there’s an excellent view through the two larger World Financial Center Buildings, and lots from the waterfront promenade.
Depends on how “directly” you want it. Certainly the towers were visible from all of the surrounding streets, but the lower stories might be blocked by one or another of the low buildings, such as WTC 4 or the Mariott.
It would also be believable for a character to be walking across the central plaza, which was fully open to Church Street through the space between buildings 4 and 5.
Thanks, this has been helpful. The story takes place just a few days before 9/11. I just want something simple yet accurate to tell you it’s NY:
Gary stood on the corner of Liberty and West Streets looking up at the twin towers of The World Trade Center.Amend that: I should say that from most vantage points, at least one tower was visible from the surrounding streets.