The original World Trade Center was a large complex of seven buildings in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.  It opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks.  At the time of their completion, the Twin Towers—the original 1 World Trade Center (the North Tower) at 1,368 feet (417 m); and 2 World Trade Center (the South Tower) at 1,362 feet (415.1 m)—were the tallest buildings in the world.  Other buildings in the complex included the Marriott World Trade Center (3 WTC), 4 WTC, 5 WTC, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC.  The complex contained 13,400,000 square feet (1,240,000 m²) of office space.  The core complex was built between 1966 and 1975, at a cost of $400 million (equivalent to $2.27 billion in 2021.  On the morning of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda-affiliated hijackers flew two Boeing 767 jets into the Twin Towers within minutes of each other; less than two hours later, both towers collapsed.  The attacks killed 2,606 people in and within the vicinity of the towers, as well as all 157 on board the two aircraft.  Falling debris from the towers, combined with fires that the debris initiated in several surrounding buildings, led to the partial or complete collapse of all the WTC complex buildings and caused catastrophic damage to 10 other large structures in the surrounding area.  The cleanup and recovery process at the World Trade Center site took eight months, during which the remains of the other buildings were demolished.  A new World Trade Center complex is being built with six new skyscrapers and several other buildings, many of which are complete.  A memorial and museum to those killed in the attacks, a new rapid transit hub, and an elevated park have been opened.  One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere at 1,776 feet (541 m) and the lead building for the new complex, was completed in May 2013 and opened in November 2014.  During its existence, the World Trade Center was an icon of New York City.  It had a major role in popular culture, and according to one estimate was depicted in 472 films.  Following the World Trade Center's destruction, mentions of the complex in various media were altered or deleted, and several dozen "memorial films" were created.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_(1973%E2%80%932001)

urb  noun  an urban area.  [1965–70; back formation from suburb]

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.  https://www.thefreedictionary.com/urb 

Raymond Leon Roker is the Global Head of Editorial at Amazon Music.   He co-founded Urb (magazine) magazine in December 1990.  Examples of his design work can be found in the collection of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Roker 

Tara Westover (born 1986) is an American memoirist, essayist and historian.  Her memoir Educated (2018) debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list and was a finalist for a number of national awards, including the LA Times Book Prize, PEN America's Jean Stein Book Award, and two awards from the National Book Critics Circle Award.  The New York Times ranked Educated as one of the 10 Best Books of 2018.  Westover was chosen by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of 2019.  Westover was the youngest of seven children born in Clifton, Idaho (population 259) to Mormon survivalist parents.  She has five older brothers and an older sister.  Her parents were suspicious of doctors, hospitals, public schools, and the federal government.  Westover was born at home, delivered by a midwife, and was never taken to a doctor or nurse.  She was not registered for a birth certificate until she was nine years old.  Their father resisted getting formal medical treatment for any of the family.  Even when seriously injured, the children were treated only by their mother, who had studied herbalism and other methods of alternative healing.  All the siblings were loosely homeschooled by their mother.  Westover has said an older brother taught her to read, and she studied the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  But she never attended a lecture, wrote an essay, or took an exam.  There were few textbooks in their house.  As a teenager, Westover began to want to enter the larger world and attend college.  She purchased textbooks and studied independently in order to score well on the ACT Exam.  She gained admission to Brigham Young University and was awarded a scholarship, although she had no high school diploma.  After a difficult first year, in which Westover struggled to adjust to academia and the wider society there, she became more successful and graduated with honors in 2008.  In 2018, Penguin Random House published Westover's Educated: A Memoir, which tells the story of her struggle to reconcile her desire for education and autonomy with her family's rigid ideology and isolated life.  The coming-of-age story was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, and was positively reviewed by the New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, USA Today, Vogue, and The Economist, among others.  As of February 2020, Educated has spent two years in hardcover on the New York Times bestseller list and is being translated into 45 languages.  The book was voted the No. 1 Library Reads pick by American librarians, and in August 2019, it had been checked out more frequently than any other book through all New York Public Library's 88 branches.  As of December 2020, Educated has sold more than 8 million copies.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Westover 

A demonym or gentilic is a word that identifies a group of people (inhabitants, residents, natives) in relation to a particular place.  Demonyms are usually derived from the name of the place (hamlet, village, town, city, region, province, state, country, continent, planet, and beyond).  Demonyms are used to designate all people (the general population) of a particular place, regardless of ethnic, linguistic, religious or other cultural differences that may exist within the population of that place.  Example:  Afghanistan → Afghans  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym 

An afghan is a covering, a quilt or shawl, made of knitted or crocheted squares.  Find explanation of what is an eponym and what isn’t an eponym at https://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/eponyms/ 

Tourists and residents in Venice experienced a musical treat on September 19, 2021 when a giant wooden violin floated down the city’s Grand Canal.  Musicians on the hand-carved instrument performed pieces by Vivaldi, Venice’s most famous musical son, as they floated along Il Canalazzo.  Performers from the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory stood barefoot on the 12-metre-long floating instrument, which was designed by Venetian sculptor Livio De Marchi.  Dressed in tuxedos and evening gowns, the musicians read from sheet music on stands placed on either side of the violin, which somehow managed to stay in place throughout the journey.  The long neck of the violin extended into the waterway, complete with pegs and a scroll.  Called the Violin of Noah, the vessel was designed to represent those affected by Covid-19, the city’s emergence from the pandemic and its intrinsic connection to art, culture and music.  Hayley Skirka  See pictures at https://www.thenationalnews.com/travel/news/2021/09/20/watch-a-giant-wooden-violin-ferries-musicians-down-venices-grand-canal/ 

http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com  Issue 2424  September 20, 2021