On this overcast day in Southern California I wasn’t going to post anything in reference to 9/11 — more eloquent voices than mine have noted the passage of 16 years. I will just say this, a friend of mine was piloting one of the American Airlines flights up in the air that September 11th. I was awake before six in the morning when another friend called, panic stricken, and said, “Turn on your TV, something’s wrong.” I watched as the second plane flew into the World Trade Center. I went cold. I just remember the sensation of ice in my core. Even now, after all this time, it’s difficult, as in painful — to recall what happened. My friend was fine. His flight set down somewhere in Texas. Only recently have I been able to remember without crying the towers collapse and the clouds of smoke and debris (if that’s what you call atomized skyscrapers and human bodies) billow over Manhattan.
Okay, on a more emotionally neutral note, let’s get back to Hollywood history.
Here we have Los Angeles’ main air terminal during the golden era of film, Grand Central Air Terminal, it was located in Glendale, California, and was the backdrop for several scenes in Casablanca:
Casablanca, directed by Michael Curtiz, screenplay by Julius J. Epstein, Howard E. Koch, Casey Robinson, Philip G. Epstein