Thousands of people worked in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and someone had to feed them. That task fell to restauranteur Joe Baum, who opened the iconic Four Seasons restaurant in 1959. In the early 1970s, he had a grand vision for a series of eateries in the World Trade Center, capped by a spectacular complex of fine dining on the 107th floor. Baum had high hopes for the restaurant that would became known as Windows on the World.
In 1970, he told the New York Times he was planning 20 restaurants in the WTC, mostly housed in the concourse, which was beneath its open plaza, as well as private cafeterias for the Port Authority, the United States Customs House, and New York State employees. He also said that the restaurants included a “luncheon club” on top of the North Tower, with exclusive access for its one thousand members during the day. At night, the restaurant would be open to the public, which could use the World Trade Center’s 2,000-car underground garage for free.
“This will not be a tourist trap,” Baum said, perhaps a defensive impulse that the Times reporter ran with when he highlighted the irony that the creator of the Four Seasons was now setting up snack bars — which he very much was: about 60 of them and other small-food operations throughout the complex.
But Baum positioned his task as just as impressive as any of his previous grandiose projects. He emphasized the international flavor of the restaurant, which people would want to go to, he suggested, before heading uptown to the theater. As for feeding the masses, he was thinking big, conjuring carefully planned eating aeries that would form “vertical neighborhoods… little cities, each with a life of its own.”
From 1976 to 2001, Windows on the World was the ultimate place to see New York City from above. The new book The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World tells the story of the restaurant, particularly its last day on September 11, 2001. Read an excerpt that goes back to the restaurant’s beginnings at Eater. -via Nag on the Lake
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Source: neatorama