It's as if someone took a huge eraser to the skyline.
Besides housing dozens of businesses, the landmark World Trade Center towers have provided an instantly recognizable New York backdrop for countless movie and TV scenes, billboards, maps and corporate logos. Now that the skyline has irrevocably changed, everyone from map makers to movie producers to art museums is faced with a dilemma: Should they update their images of the city to avoid a painful reminder — or keep them out of loyalty and respect?
The television show "Mad About You," for example, opens with a montage of New York City scenes: A camera pans over the city skyline and takes in the steel and glass of the Twin Towers. The show, which stars Helen Hunt and Paul Reiser and has more than 160 episodes, is still in heavy syndication across the country.
Columbia Tristar, a division of Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Entertainment, is debating whether to doctor the opening scene. "It's something we flagged right away," said Andi Sporkin, a senior vice president at the company. "We're trying to figure out what is going to be sensitive from now on."
Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc., did some quick digital erasing last week of background images of the Twin Towers in the upcoming comedy "Zoolander," starring Ben Stiller and set for release Sept. 28. A Paramount spokeswoman said the towers appeared briefly in one scene. And companies that build painted or photographic background drops are also having to adjust. Lynn Coakley, vice president of JC Backings Corp., a Los Angeles supplier of background drops to the movie and TV industry, said that Columbia Pictures called them within hours of Tuesday's attack to cancel an order for a backdrop of the New York skyline for the "Men in Black" sequel due out next year.
Her company also recently completed a backdrop featuring the Twin Towers that was installed just two weeks ago on the set of "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." Coakley said the show's producers at NBC called and asked if her company could redo the backdrop, but she said they were too backed up to do it quickly. A spokeswoman for NBC said the Twin Towers in the set have now been obscured with the help of a translucent curtain, lighting and "adjusting" the skyline backdrop.
Executives at Columbia TriStar Television Distribution, meanwhile, have combed through episodes of television shows such as "Law & Order" and "Seinfeld" to check for any joke or hint of terrorist attacks in the storyline. They are also on the lookout for images of the World Trade Center, thinking that even a benign shot of the Twin Towers could elicit strong emotions from viewers.
With a mixture of defiance and nostalgia, some companies are determined to keep the towers where they were. Safeway Car Service's 50 green taxicabs are stenciled with the image of the New York City skyline — the image of the World Trade Center looms at the left of the logo. "This has been our logo for 25 years," said Barbara Pero, president of the Brooklyn-based company. "We're just going to leave it as sort of a memorial. I think it should be in there to tell the world that those buildings are always here whether they are there physically or not."
The Queens Museum of Art has yet to decide what to do with a World Trade Center miniature in a 9,700-square-foot model of New York that is the museum's centerpiece. "If we leave it up, we'll receive criticism, and we'll receive criticism if we take it down," said Steve Malmberg, director of marketing and public relations.
Last Thursday, Rand McNally & Co., the map company, changed references to the World Trade Center on maps available on its Web site to say World Trade Center site. The company, based in Skokie, Ill., said its printed maps will get the new name as they are updated. "We came to the conclusion that it is still the World Trade Center site," said Mike Hehir, the company's president and chief executive officer.
Hehir noted that after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Rand McNally changed the name of the site to the Oklahoma City National Memorial. AOL Time Warner's Mapquest, which produces a Web site that offers driving directions and maps, is leaving the Twin Towers where they are — for now. "It is a hard thing to have to make the ultimate decisions to take them off that map," said spokeswoman Kathie Brockman.
Many consumers, meanwhile, have decided simply to collect it. Since the tragedy, postcards, plates and keychains that feature the World Trade Center have been selling briskly. Nostalgic New Yorkers, as well as tourists stranded in the city, descended upon the two outlets of quirky local dishware store Fishs Eddy to buy up its signature Manhattan Skyline plateware. The plates, mugs and bowls are rimmed by a skyline that prominently features the Twin Towers. The store said that it has been selling about 1,700 pieces of the dishware a day, compared with 300 to 400 pieces before Tuesday's attack.