The Other Twin Towers in the Spider-Man Trailer

You might already know about the original trailer for the first Spider-Man movie, but just in case, let me recap. The teaser trailer was released almost a year before the movie came out, and it begins with an exciting bank robbery. The robbers escape in a helicopter, flying through Manhattan. Spider-Man catches the helicopter and strings it up in a web that turns out to be suspended between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. So in a prominent moment in the trailer, the camera pulls back to reveal this heroic shot of the towers with the helicopter between them.

The trailer came out in July, 2001, and two months later, the World Trade Center was destroyed in a terrorist attack. The teaser trailer was pulled from theaters pretty quickly in the aftermath.

But even if you know about the trailer, what you probably don’t know is that there’s another set of twin towers in the trailer with a weird coincidence so obscure that I’m not sure anyone else has even noticed it.

It’s something I thought about at the time but have never talked to anyone about because it’s so stupid and trivial and unimportant compared to the tragedy of 9/11 that it just hasn’t seemed worth saying. But I think 25 years later is long enough that I can mention it as a really insignificant footnote.

The Maspeth Holders

On Maspeth Avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, about four miles from the World Trade Center, there were two giant structures called gas holders. These were cylindrical tanks about 400 feet tall whose function was to make sure there’s enough gas pressure in the neighborhood. One was built in 1927 and the other in 1948, but they were both decommissioned in the ’90s.

From ground level, with buildings in the foreground, it’s hard to get a proper sense of scale, but when viewed as part of the Brooklyn skyline, they loomed over the neighborhood.

I found some high resolution pictures of New York City where they’re clearly visible in the background, and zoomed in on them so you can understand why for many people, they were Brooklyn landmarks.

I have one more archival picture with some additional context. In this picture of the World Trade Center under construction, you can see the gas holders in the background:

In fact, you might also notice that the World Trade Center was positioned in such a way that if you were on this side of them, looking between the towers, you would see the gas holders perfectly in between them.

And now you think you know where I’m going with this. And you’re partially right. But here’s the weird part.

The Gas Holders Implosion

On July 15, 2001, the Maspeth Gas Holders were demolished in a controlled explosion. They had outlived their usefulness. People came out to watch the demolition which was also shown on local news, which is where I saw it.

Three days later, on July 18, the Spider-Man trailer was released on-line and in theaters with the release of Jurassic Park III.

I was excited to see the trailer, but I wasn’t about to go watch Jurassic Park III. So I downloaded it as a QuickTime video from the Spider-Man website. And just before the camera pulls back revealing the twin towers, there’s a close-up shot of the helicopter. It’s filmed with a long lens, which has the effect of compressing apparent distances and making things that are far away look much closer:

And there they are, the gas holders, looming large in the background.

I remember clearly when I first saw it, thinking how unfortunate it was that they were just demolished three days ago and now they’re featured prominently in the trailer! That meant that the very first trailer for the very first Spider-Man movie was already outdated as soon as it was released!

And then of course two months later, the World Trade Center towers were destroyed. And then the trailer was really outdated.

My brain just couldn’t help but make the connection between the two sets of destroyed towers, despite being the most trivial thing. What are the odds that one movie trailer would have two sets of twin structures that were both destroyed right around the trailer’s release?

Look, I know. I said this wasn’t important. I was in New York on 9/11 and I still have trauma from it. But after 25 years, I wanted to finally write out this little trivial thing that’s been in my head.

After all that, you might want to watch the original trailer in its entirety:

And here’s a pirate-cam showing how audiences reacted to the Spider-Man reveal when the trailer came out.

I still feel a bit odd talking about something so trivial regarding 9/11. There’s a whole generation now that was born after 9/11 that I imagine has no problem talking about it as something historical and not part of their reality, but for me it still feels like yesterday.

So, okay. Let’s make this a safe space. Do you have anything trivial to say about something important or momentous that you’re afraid to say? Some little thing you noticed about a tragedy that’s interesting but not the kind of thing you’re going to just bring up unprompted? Now’s your chance to say it. But maybe for sensitivity reasons, let’s keep it to things that happened more than, say, ten years ago.

Thanks as always for reading. Until next time...

Excelsior!

David