"I started at three dollars an hour, which was
still a lot of money for a summer job. I think that whoever had
the idea must have been someone with an incredible amount of insight
and understanding of human nature. Because to think that you could
find young girls like this, and instill us with that sense that
we were almost as invincible as the building. We were the building,
we were the World Trade Center."
— Elizabeth English,
who worked as a guide at the observation deck
The Stewardesses
“Oh, the uniform was fantastic. I loved
that uniform. They took us to Evan Piccone. And for a young girl in
college this was great, to have something custom-made. The uniform
was a straight navy blue, and they had them short, and it was piped
in red and had a chain-link belt, a white belt with a silver buckle
in the front. It had a cape that was also navy blue and piped in red,
and in the front it had a red frog to close it. I used to feel so
proud wearing that uniform. In the beginning when I used to get on
the PATH in the morning, no one recognized me. But after being in
the information booth for about two weeks, the minute I got on the
PATH train in the morning, everyone recognized that uniform, and they
would stop and talk to me.
– Olivia Virazzi Zdanowiz
 |
| Port Authority Publicity
Photo |
"We had walking lessons from the charm
school lady. You were supposed to lean back, and you were supposed
to walk with one foot in front of the other, like this. Instead of
just going up steps as you normally would, you had to finesse the
step, as she would say."
— Elizabeth English
 |
| The stewardesses pose
on a viewing platform |
“ They constructed a platform over the
construction site and every half hour or hour one of the guides would
go onto the platform with a microphone, and we would give a talk.
There were two information booths so we rotated. We did our time on
the platform, then you went to one information booth and then you
walked down a few blocks and we went to the other information booth,
where we handed out brochures…gave a lot of directions too.
I don’t know if we gave the right directions because we weren’t
from the city. So I’m sure we sent a few people on wild goose
chases.”
— Olivia Virrazzi Zdanowiz
Construction
 |
| The cranes rose up with
the towers |
"The cranes would lift themselves up…
One was in each interior corner of each tower. As the tower shell
outside grew and the steel structure inside grew taller, the crane
jacked itself up so it was still operating above each corner of
the tower. Once the tower got all the way completed to the top,
one of the cranes was used to disassemble and lower the other three
cranes down the side and then the fourth crane was disassembled
into smaller pieces."
— Olivia Virrazzi Zdanowiz
|
|
| Guy Tozzoli was the
man with the plan |
" Well, Guy had a unique role, in that not only was he responsible
for the '64-'65 World's Fair, but at the same time the World Trade
department was starting and they were starting to get various concepts
for what the Trade Center would look like, and he would be involved
in that as well. He was a dynamic individual, there was no question
about it. I mean, people who first encountered him had to be extremely
impressed and as they got to know him more had to be even more impressed.
He was a fellow who could come in with a new idea every day."
— Al Pettenati, the guides'
manager
Kookiness
|
|
| July 22, 1976 –
The day that King Kong died |
"When King Kong was going to be filmed,
I came up the escalator to the concourse level of the lobby, and I
looked out, and there was a giant ape’s head on one corner,
a huge hand in another area, his feet were somewhere else. And I remember
thinking that this would be a heck of a day for somebody who had decided
to quit drinking.…They did advertising on the radio, and more
than 50,000 people came to the plaza to be extras. It was a mob scene!
It got so out of hand the Port Authority finally pulled the plug at
3:30 in the morning."
— Judith Broverman, Guy Tozzoli's
assistant
|
|
| The young Frenchman
autographed a photo for one of the stewardess |
"…1974, this very nice young man called Philippe Petit
showed up in my office. And he identified himself as a French journalist.
He said to me, you know, ‘I want to do a story about the World
Trade Center.’ And well of course I was happy to have stories
about the World Trade Center. I needed to rent millions of square
feet, and anything that people would do in France, that was good,
too, because I wanted it to be international people also, to be cognizant
of the World Trade Center and what it stood for. So, he came back
to see me day after day, and later on I realized that somehow or other,
whenever he talked, the subject always got back to how did the building
move in the wind. I tell him they move like a snake. I didn’t
know, but Philippe Petit was making a plan."
— Guy Tozzoli
Additional Material
Jane Selewach and Alexandra "Sandy" Austin Ashbury saved
some of their original correspondences, notes, and newspaper articles
from those summers in the late '60s.
» Letter
to Sandy from Judith Boverman
» Jane's notes
» Guides' shift
schedule
» Girl
Guides Add Charm newspaper article
» Foreign
visitors
» Beauty
pageant
Radio Broadcast
|
|
| Patch for guides' uniform
|
Produced by The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson
& Nikki Silva) with Laura Folger
Mixed by Jim McKee / Earwax Productions, SF
Special thanks to
Jad Abumrad, Jim Anderson, Elinoar Astrinsky, Judith Broverman, Daren
Commons
Professor Angus Kress Gillespie, author, "Twin Towers: The Life
of New York City's World Trade Center", Ruxandra Guidi, Grace
Kee Heifetz, Jersey City Library, Andy Lanset, Marc Lustgarten, Carla
Neufeld, Martha Noel, Joanna Silber, Al Pettenatti, Wieslaw Pogorzelski,
Ian Pogorzelski. Josh Pryor, Leslie Robertson, LERAS/Consulting Structural
Engineer, Ben Shapiro, Art Silverman, Michael Weber Investigations,
Jamie York, KQED SF, KPLU Tacoma, WNYC NY, WCQS Asheville, and The
WTC Construction Guides, 1968-1971
If you were a guide at the site during these
years and want to share
your story with us please call the Sonic Memorial Line, 877-894-8500,
or email us at info@sonicmemorial.org.
|
