Photoblog

The World Trade Center

I still remember watching the Twin Towers being attacked on the news before school, and the sheer insanity and extravagance of the entire thing has always interested me. I found this place (Twin Towers) on Second Life when looking to see if anyone had created a New York City space yet. The description for this place actually specifies, somewhat disturbingly, that this is space actually takes place on September the 11th 2001. It's a shame that Second Life sometimes only loads assets once you get close to them because it would have been cool to see all of this in one go, but instead I had to fly to the top to get the full picture of everything. The amount of detail the creator put in to this is pretty impressive though, I took particular note of the things on top of each tower. 

As I floated down from the top I made sure to do it slowly enough to appreciate the assets popping in from surrounding buildings. Here you can see the lengths this creator has gone to to keep it realistic, going so far as to accurately render the top spaces of the OTHER buildings. 

Here is a really well designed McDonalds, complete with ads in the windows etc. I actually checked on the internet, and these shops, specifically McDonalds were in fact situated here before the attacks. The golden arches and signage, as something instantly recognisable, is pretty faithful to the original.

Also at ground level, was this functioning 'square' that had people interacting and walking around it. The road stretches is in all 4 ways like an intersection and appears to have been fully recreated no matter which way you go - with real distances etc. from the Twin Towers. 

Last but not least, this space also had a subway station! Walking around the square pictured above, I assumed it was just there to look good/realistic but was pleasantly surprised to find it had been fully rendered inside as well. It is a shame that so much hard work such as this will be largely forgotten and/or redundant as technology only improves.