Mellon Forum // Escape from Liberty Island: Lower Manhattan Against the World, 1973-2001
Dara Orenstein, George Washington University; Aaron Shkuda, Princeton-Mellon Initiative
Mon, 3/18 · 12:00 pm—1:30 pm · Betts Auditorium and Zoom
Humanities Council, Princeton-Mellon Initiative
What was the World Trade Center?
Should it be referred to in the lowercase, as a serialized spatial form that was invented to facilitate the decolonization of the dollar at the urban scale, starting in New Orleans right after World War II? Or should it be understood according to the vernacular definition of the term, “the” World Trade Center, uppercase, which in the United States, at least, has denoted the Twin Towers that officially opened in New York City in the pivotal year of 1973, and that over the next generation would come to stand as an archetype of a new world order, and even a new period of the history of capitalism?
