Since September 11, it's been especially surreal and sad to see our skyline. Though I was never particularly enamored of the Twin Towers - I prefer the Flat Iron and Chrysler Buildings - it's devastating to see that they're gone. Several times this summer, I hung out by Battery Park City, where they would loom over the landscape. My girlfriend, Michele, took a picture of me during a picnic in Battery Park. Above my head, slightly out of focus are the two towers. Occassionally I would look up in wonder at how tall they were. How they truly were Manhattan's anchor. From the corner of 13th Street and University Place, across the street from my apartment, I had an amazing view of the Twin Towers. Whenever I would walk down the street from the Union Square subway stop, there they would stand, in the near distance, like two guards overlooking our city. So many times when I ventured out to take photographs around Manhattan, I always meant to shoot some pictures of the Twin Towers ! from my street. For some reason, I always passed, preferring to save some extra shots for more aesthetically pleasing subjects like the Flat Iron Building or the Brooklyn Bridge or a cobblestone street in SoHo. Who knew that our remaining time with those buildings would be so short. Thankfully, I did manage to get some nice shots of the Twin Towers as recently as September 1 when Michele and I walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn Heights. It was a beautiful day with vast skies of blue, much like the tragic day that would come 10 days later. But I'll always regret not taking that one picture from my street, if only to show all my out-of-town friends just how amazing my view of downtown Manhattan was. Now that view is eerily vacant. I never thought I would miss them so much. I don't regret not taking any pictures of the Towers as they stood helplessly burning. I prefer to remember them as they were on Sept. 1.»