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CNN Live At Daybreak

Making the Moost of It: With Twin Towers Destroyed, Face of New York Changed Forever

Aired October 26, 2001 - 07:54   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: When the Twin Towers disappeared, the face of New York, of course, changed forever.

Some would say the city's heart went down with them, but as CNN's Jeanne Moos reports, there are some conflicting views of how to portray the city's skyline.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New York is still standing, but what defies understanding is how the Twin Towers could be here one day, gone the next.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So you just know it collapsed.

MOOS: Absence heightened by the presence of their after image on an adult movie theater marquee, on a movie critic's newspaper column, on the side of a sightseeing bus -- even on fire trucks; the site where so many firemen lost their lives, is part of the fire department's logo.

You can see the Trade Center flash by in the open to "The Sopranos." Better catch a glimpse of the Towers in reruns of "NYPD Blue." The shot will be gone when the new season starts.

The post office has likewise removed the World Trade Center from this stamp due out next year.

After the attack, the "Conan O'Brien" set featured curtains strategically bunched to obscure the Trade Center, but at the Queens Museum of Art, they are highlighting, rather than hiding the Twin Towers, literally the high point in this huge scale model of the five boroughs of New York.

JEAN-PAUL MATTINSKY, QUEENS MUSEUM OF ART: We've decided to leave the model the way it is, because it's a historical object.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Keep it there for a memory of it.

MOOS: And they're keeping it spotlighted, topped by a memorial ribbon. But you won't see this ribbon-wrapped rendition of the Trade Center ever again. World Yacht Cruises has scrapped its holiday mailing. The skyline logo on a Circle Line Cruises is scheduled to be changed, but guides now incorporate the ruins into the tour, recalling what used to be.

JOHN MASON, CIRCLE LINE CRUISES: Well, they soared in the sky. They were almost as twice as high as anything down in that area.

MOOS: Folks atop the Towers used to look down in wonder on the Brooklyn Bridge. Now, pedestrians on the bridge are left to wonder exactly where the Towers were, trying to judge from the preexisting skyline etched on plaques.

The Twin Towers didn't need a disaster to get on the map, Hagstrom's Five Borough Map.

STUART DOLGINS, HAGSTROM MAP COMPANY: We thought the best thing would be to show had happened there. I mean, you can't put a hole in the paper.

MOOS: They ended up changing this to this: "site of World Trade Center buildings destroyed in terrorist attack."

Newscasters, who used to use the World Trade Center as a backdrop, were forced by the storyline to switch skylines.

Savor this view from atop the North Tower. It's gone forever. Only at the Queens Museum does the sun still set on the Twin Towers.

Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: And defiantly so.

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