We miss the Twin Towers so much, just bringing them up pushes stabbing pains through our hearts.

Of course, what we miss more are the 2,977 people who were tragically taken from us on September 11th, 2001. We miss them much more than we could ever miss two inanimate buildings.

When we're talking about missing the buildings, though, let it echo with the memories of all those we lost. 

The people who lived in New York City and worked in the Towers, those who loved to gaze over the iconic skyline as the Towers stretched into the sky over the river, we miss them so much more than we miss the buildings.

We miss our mothers, our fathers, our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and friends. We miss them an unspeakable amount, every single day. 

Losing them is a wide open wound stretching under NYC, and we suspect the city will never really recover.

We miss the breathing, living people we lost on September 11th much more than we could ever miss two buildings, but still. Without those two huge Towers jutting into the sky, our skyline just isn't the same. Neither is the flavor of this city. 

Should we have rebuilt the Twin Towers as they used to look? We're not sure. What we really wish is that September 11th never happened. 

The bottom line is this: NYC just isn't the same without the Twin Towers. Keep reading to find out why. 

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1. NYC's skyline

In 1970 (when the north tower was opened) and 1972 (when the south tower was opened), there was a drastic alteration in NYC's skyline. They were the tallest towers in the world at the time.

Suddenly, at the beginning of every movie, when the shot panned over the NYC skyline, we could tell in an instant that we were looking at our city. It was easy, because there were those two huge beautiful Towers jutting up.

Between the years of 1972 and 2001, this city's skyline was ours. It was always obvious to spot the iconic NYC buildings; there was the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in midtown, and then one glance downtown would bring the gleaming Twin Towers into focus.

Now, in our post-9/11 society, when we see a picture or a movie shot pans across the city, we need a second to get our bearings. First, the city flashes in the echo of the Towers' absence. Now, it takes us a second to figure out that we're actually in New York.

It doesn't help that luxury high-rise after luxury high-rise after luxury high-rise keeps getting erected, completely maiming the skyline to an unrecognizable degree.

The Twin Towers were ours, and they were something of which we could all be proud, something of which we could all take ownership. 

These privately-owned high rises; they're not the public's to feel proud of. They're the emotional property of an infinitesimal elite. 

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2. NYC's innocence

When the Towers first went up, they were not well-received. Lewis Mumford said they looked like a gigantic pair of filing cabinets, while others said they looked like the boxes the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building came in.

Today, though, seeing a picture of those two Towers brings a shock of cultural innocence. Seeing those Towers fills us with nostalgia for a much simpler time.

Some will argue that the destruction of national innocence happened when Richard Nixon lied to our populace during Watergate, others will say it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor, others still will say it was Lincoln or Kennedy's assassinations. 

For this, the millennial generation, and New Yorkers alike, however, that our more innocent time is unquestionably the years that reverberate in our memories before 9/11.

Every American knows where they were that day. Many of us were in classrooms being instructed by teachers wearing fake smiles, or we spent the day with our eyes glued to TV screens watching the horrible news.

So many New Yorkers, however, spent that day sprinting down shrapnel-covered streets in a cloud of dust. 

It's inescapable that for so many millennials (and most Americans, really) the figure of the two Twin Towers soaring into the sky represents American innocence, a time when we all lived with much less fear.

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3. The towers' culture

We're sure by now that you've heard of The Walk, the feature film starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Philippe Petit, the daredevil who danced on a wire between the Twin Towers in 1974. 

During his walk, Petit didn't just stroll across the wire 1,350 above ground across the 130-foot gap between the Towers using just a balancing pole. He was actually bouncing up and down.

"They called me," Petit said about the Towers. "I didn't choose them. Anything that is giant and manmade strikes me in an awesome way and calls me... It was something that had to be done, and I couldn't explain it... It was a calling of the romantic type."

We're sure others felt the same romantic calling. The Twin Towers appeared in literally hundreds of films between the years of 1970 and 2001.

Was it that same romantic calling that prompted King Kong to climb the Towers in the 1976 version of King Kong? We're going to go ahead and say probably.

The point is, when we watch Superman fly past the Towers in the 1978 rendition of Superman, or we see Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy drinking on the ground level of the Twin Towers in 1983's Trading Places, we're met with an automatic hammer against our heads about how much we miss those two buildings.

At the risk of sounding trite, we also miss the Windows on the World, Wild Blue, and The Greatest Bar on Earth; those beloved venues at the top of the North Tower.

When eating at Windows on the World, you had to be dressed up, you were served with class, and you dined with the most stunning view in all of NYC. They didn't call it Windows on the World for nothing, either. 

You really did feel like you could see the entire world from up there. You can still see the entire city from atop One World Trade. 

The thing is, the view just isn't the same. Never will be. 

Check out 7 Memorials Every Real New Yorker Should Visit in NYC. 

[Feature Image Courtesy HD Wallpaper]