Similar to the days immediately after the disasters, the New York Times Magazine has done a fantastic job in these days leading up to the first anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Centers. First, there’s James Glanz and Eric Lipton’s “The Height of Ambition”, a seven-part story which details the decisions — architectural, design, safety — that went into the building of the skyscrapers. Then, there’s Herbert Muschamp’s “Don’t Rebuild. Reimagine.”, making public a “study project” organized by the Times in which a group of both well-known and unknown architects designed an entire framework of options for rebuilding lower Manhattan. There are also two excellent interactive features, one linked to the study project called “Reimagining Ground Zero”, and another, “How the Towers Stood and Fell”, describing the ways in which the design of the Towers led to various parts of the events of September 11th.

As we get nearer to the one-year mark of one of the worst U.S. tragedies in this generation, the press surrounding 9/11 is spiralling a bit out of control. These Times Magazine features seem to be a bit above that, and I’ve already found myself returning to them, learning more each time about what happened and what New York can do to continue healing the wounds.