Decades before 9/11, I was in New York City on a hot summer day. The line of tourists waiting to ride the elevator to the top of the World Trade Center snaked around the corner. The Yankees were on their way to a World Series title.

The navy blue uniformed ticket taker asked me for four dollars. My college roommate and I wanted to visit the top floor observation deck, to stand on top of the world, but we decided four dollars was too much, so we took the steps, all 3,000 of them. We climbed all 110 floors. It wasn't easy. The building was new back then and mostly empty. The staircases, dozens of them, kept ending, leaving us not only tired, but frustrated and short of our summit destination. There were no cell phones in those days. We worried if we got locked in a stairwell, no one would find us.

We staggered our climb, one waiting below, holding a bank vault-like door open, while the other climbed a flight, opening the next door before the lower one leapfrogged ahead. Often the staircase would end, we would exit onto a vast, barren floor, empty except for structural pillars. We’d walk its perimeter, admiring the spectacular view, trying doors until we found an unlocked one and a staircase beyond. We didn’t know where we going except up. We passed painters, plumbers, carpenters, and they smiled at us—a couple of crazy kids. No one worried about security back then. America was safe. It took us most of the morning, but we were young and fit and determined to reach the top, which we did. At that time the top floor of the World Trade Center at 1,368 feet, was the highest man-made point in the world. .

The building took seven years to build and it cost about a billion dollars. Every day about fifty thousand people went to work in the building and another two hundred thousand people visited. The restaurant on the top floor, Windows on the World, was booked for months in advance. For two years, the World Trade Center was the tallest building in the world and took the crown from the nearby Empire State Building, which had held the honor for forty years.

The building I climbed was a spectacular showcase of what man can accomplish. When we finally reached the top of the building, we took in the view and rejoiced in our accomplishment. We’d done it! The building’s architect, Minoru Yamasaki, incorporated narrow windows into the design. As I walked the empty floors of the building I remember having to stand very close to the edge to see New York spread out before me. I didn’t know it at the time, but Yamasaki suffered from fear of heights and he believed narrow windows would give people a sense of comfort and security.

I’ve often thought about the 2,568 people who died that day in the tower and many more who’ve died since with health problems brought on by the terrorist act. Ever since 9/11 it seems we’ve often been on a long climb.