Lucas Roman was not photographing for the ages. He was simply making a keepsake of his arrival in New York, where he was beginning a new life in film production. There was only one better spot from which to capture the city’s sweep than the observatory of the Empire State Building, where he stood on the night of Monday, Sept. 10, 2001. And that was from Windows on the World, atop the World Trade Center, where he was headed the next morning.

“I was excited to take shots of the sun rising up from the curvature of the earth,” he wrote in a message to Lens. “Monday night, I took this photo at about 9 p.m., on 9/10/01. For 12 more hours, they would stand as a tall beacon into the night sky of Manhattan. The next morning, I had overslept and missed the sunrise. Still on a mission to get to breakfast, I was on my way out the door when the first plane crashed.”

Ed Lam

Mr. Roman was one of about four dozen photographers who responded last year to our invitation to send in pictures taken of the twin towers before the attack. Because the invitation was issued so late, we decided to publish our selections closer to this year’s anniversary.

Our invitation was prompted by an exhibition of pre-9/11 photos at the SB D Gallery at 125 East Fourth Street in Manhattan. The gallery is again presenting views of the twin towers, by 53 artists, in “The World, as of 09/10/01,” which is to open Saturday and run through Sept. 25.

The events of 9/11 rendered the ordinary extraordinary. That goes for photographs, too, including the one below, taken 40 years ago by a freshman at Columbia University who loved to wander through the deserted precincts of Lower Manhattan on weekends.

David W. Dunlap

Several contributors — including Andrea Conti and Martin Prochnik — spoke of the importance of the twin towers as an emblem of New York, something to which they gravitated almost naturally as newcomers. For Debra Weinstein, they were a dependable backdrop of day-to-day life and of milestone occasions, like New York University’s commencement exercises. David Bream followed them with an obvious affection.

And Mr. Roman recalls how close he almost came to entering the trade center on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11. “I missed it by 15 minutes,” he said. “My heart goes out to those who were running on time.”

Debra Weinstein