9/11 and the passing of time

Life and Art from FT Weekend

Forhecz Topher

Tv & Film, Arts, Society & Culture

4.6 • 601 Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Twenty years after the Twin Towers were brought down, host Lilah Raptopoulos explores where 9/11 sits in our memories. The FT’s New York correspondent Joshua Chaffin introduces us to billionaire developer Larry Silverstein, who bought the World Trade Center in July of 2001 and had to rebuild on the site of a tragedy. How do spaces change in meaning over time? The FT’s former Kabul correspondent Jon Boone introduces us to the “New Afghanistan” generation, what they were promised, and what was lost. Plus: we hear from a woman who fled the Taliban and is now waiting in limbo in Albania, suddenly a refugee.

For a special offer on FT Weekend for all our print and digital content visit ft.com/weekendpodcast.

We’re on Twitter at @FTWeekendpod. Lilah is on Twitter and Instagram @lilahrap.

Links from the episode:

Joshua Chaffin on Larry Silverstein: https://www.ft.com/content/f38a5067-58d1-491f-902f-568abcdd8a84#comments-anchor

Jon Boone on The Last Days of the New Afghanistan: https://www.ft.com/content/4a276093-cf85-4da7-9093-6af6443bb53a

Sound design and mixing is by Breen Turner, with original music by Metaphor Music.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So many of us came of age with 9-11.
0:03.6	We tell our stories around this time, and I'll only tell mine to remind you that none of them are unique.
0:09.6	I was in seventh grade.
0:11.0	They told me at school.
0:12.9	My cousin Timmy worked there, and he almost died, and he didn't.
0:17.0	And we're grateful, and he doesn't like to talk about it.
0:20.9	My sister moved to New York a month later, and when we dropped her off, there were missing posters everywhere.
0:27.3	Her people, real people. And I thought, why are we leaving her here? How could this be a place
0:33.5	where someone could be happy? Ground Zero became the backdrop of my early 20s. I weaved in and out
0:39.8	of lower Manhattan for different jobs. I was a generation too young to have been there in 2001,
0:45.0	but I found 9-11 in the corners, in little ways. One day there was a small earthquake and
0:50.8	our building swayed slightly, and I watched my older colleagues bolt down the stairs
0:56.2	and not return. Their trauma was just beneath the skin. September 11th, 20 years ago today.
1:05.0	People my age hold our memories of this day in vivid snapshots, but they're the memories of
1:10.0	children. Those older feel no time has
1:13.1	passed, and young adults have no memory of it at all. This is F.T. Weekend, the podcast. I'm Lila
1:24.1	Raptopoulos. Today, we'll use a few F.T. Weekend stories to talk about the passing of time
1:30.3	and what events make generations start and end,
1:33.5	and how spaces can change, slowly, and then all at once.
1:37.6	We start in New York.
1:39.6	It's worth going back to the original Twin Towers,
1:44.0	and the sense that as grand as they were,
	...

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