Saw the Manhattan skyline just about daily as a kid growing up in Clifton, NJ. My church sat on a hilltop. The view was astonishing. My middle school was up Van Houtan Ave and the car ride home had a magical view of NYC. So did driving along Route 3 East. I always thought it was harder/more emotional for those of us that lived with the towers in our backyards. (I took the elevators many times to the top of the towers with relatives and friends that visited our family and wanted to see NYC. I used to take rides to the city to buy Broadway tickets from TKTS in the tower’s lobby when I wanted to impress a date without them knowing I was getting discounted show tickets.) The towers just went from being there to not being there in a matter of a few hours on that horrible day. I wished and prayed the morning of 9/11 that the building would survive. That they could take the blow and stand up to it. Unfortunately that’s not how it played out. My body crumbled to the ground as the South and North Towers collapsed. The view of the skyline still haunts me till this day every time I see it. Most times, I don’t see the Freedom Tower at all. I actually see what I saw on 9/11 when I raced up to my church to see what happened with my own eyes. Just smoke covering all of lower Manhattan. Or I still see the Twin Towers in all their majestical glory, raising into the clouds. Weird but true.