The colossal cast-iron rings embedded in the eastern slurry wall at ground zero were — if such a thing can be imagined — the birthmark of the World Trade Center. They were the last visible remnant of the Hudson & Manhattan Railroad, a commuter line that New Jersey officials insisted in 1962 that the Port Authority take over, before they approved the trade center project in New York. The rings marked the railroad’s route into the old Hudson Terminal, whose location determined where the twin towers would be built, since the trade center was designed to incorporate a new terminal.
Read how these rings, together with the last vestiges of the World Trade Centre, have been dismantled here.
