rebuilding the twin towers, for the iphone generation

As the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 draws near, we're going to be seeing a shit ton of memorial tributes, television specials, and city-wide events to honor those lost on that horrible day. But one thing you probably won't see: a tribute to the towers themselves. 

Well, if Brian August has his way, you will. The native New Yorker is developing an iPhone app that puts the view of the World Trade Center Towers right in the palm of your hand. The 110 Stories App creates an augmented reality, where you can point your phones towards ground zero and see silhouetted pencil-like renderings of what the towers looked like where they once stood. You can then "snap a picture, fine tune the image, add a personal story," and submit it to the 110 Stories website. Once on the website, you can stroll through other users' submissions and stories, and share them via the usual crop of social networking outlets. 

The overarching goal is to honor the buildings themselves, August explains:

"This is less about 9/11 and more about life before 9/11. 9/11 was an horrible awful quick jolt. But the other 30 years were like part of your DNA. On 9/11, New Yokers were left with a void. Even if you didn't know someone who died on 9/11, the buildings died. Iconic views disappeared. For those of us who lived in New York prior to 9/11, we used the towers as a compass, or point of reference, or something so hugely taking over the sky. I have a nephew who is 21, and who is 11 at the time, and who will never get how giant they were. And you can try to say to someone 'they were really big, dude' but you have to see it to appreciate it. This is my way of letting people see it."

As someone who grew up in New York, I have to say, this project is really cool. I can't look at the view of the city from the Brooklyn promenade -- one I used to see at least once a week growing up -- and not think about how those towers aren't there anymore. This sounds like a great way to not only relive the memory in all it's glory, but show many of my friends who never saw the towers in person what they were like.

I'm even more excited about part 2 of the project, which will gather local artists to construct 110 art instillations, in a 50 mile range from the city, to supplement the app for those of you without smartphones. As August explains, each instillation will "create a structure that, when viewed from a bench, visually places the outline of the Towers, where they once stood, in the right apparent size." August constructed a very basic installation on the rooftop of his Greenpoint apartment, seen here:

Image via I00Stories

Cool, right?

But here's the catch: in order to get this proejct going, Brian August needs your help. He's started a Kickstarter to raise the money to complete the app by September. All money raised goes to the app development itself (August says the app will be free of charge). Watch the video below, where he does a way better job at describing this thing than I do:

What do you say, FIPS-sters? Worth donating a few bucks to?