Reply #4: Definitely not water towers

[HamdenRice]

OK, I looked at the video. My speakers aren't working so I'm not sure what points the video is supposed to support, but the captions suggest it's an OCT video.

The visual pov is confusing, but it seems to be from the south west of the WTC site, from a far distance (like New Jersey) using a very long telephoto lens. Such a lens tends to compress the depth of field so that things that are far apart looked pressed together in the same plane. This is important because it explains some of your questions.

What you are looking at is WTC 7, and beyond it, not Manhattan, but Queens. If you look closely, you will see at around 4:30, 5:30 and 6:30 not only the silos, but a sliver of blue water in the upper left corner. That's the East River. You can even see a glimpse of a bridge, which is I think the 59th Street Bridge. If you follow the line of that water, you will see that the silos are behind the water -- ie across the East River from Manhattan.

From that perspective, you are looking past WTC 7 to Hunter's Point, Queens. What looks like a white blob floating near the silos is the gigantic tennis tent complex in Hunter's Point, whose name I forget (tennisport or something like that).

The silos look like they are next to the power plant. They are definitely familiar, but I hadn't realized they were torn down a few years ago. They are the old Norval Cement silos:

http://www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com/bigmap/queens/lic/hunterspt/norval/index.htm

In the photos at the above link, you are looking at those same silos from Queens, with the East River behind them, and the Lower East Side and Williamsburg Bridge beyond the river -- ie almost the opposite view from the video.

So, in the video you are looking past the WTC to the Keyspan or Con Ed power plant, the Norval cement silos and the tennis complex.

The reason the landscape in the distance near the silos looks like a small midwestern town is because the view is not Manhattan; it's Queens.