“The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World” recounts the saga of Windows on the World, at the top of the World Trade Center. Tom Roston’s book begins and ends with the restaurant’s destruction on Sept. 11. Many of those who worked at the restaurant, Mr. Roston said, thought of themselves as family, and as in most, there was backbiting, squabbling and celebration. Somewhat overstuffed with minutiae, the book provides the life stories of the principal figures who created, ran, revised and finally made Windows on the World, on the 107th floor of the North Tower, “the highest-grossing restaurant in the world.” Mr. Roston also digs deeply into the history of New York restaurants, and how Windows on the World was shaped by the politics and social conditions of its era.
“The Most Spectacular Restaurant in the World: The Twin Towers, Windows on the World and the Rebirth of New York” by Tom Roston (Abrams Press, $28).
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