THE "HOLY GROUND".(tracing the history of the land occupied by the World Trade Center twin towers)

At the northeast corner of Vesey and Church Streets, across from the graveyard of St. Paul's Chapel, there is a tiny, crowded deli called the Stage Door. I went there recently to meet Joyce Gold, a guide who used to lead a World Trade Center tour called "From Landfill to Landscape." She had agreed to show me some of the historical remains of the area, and after we picked up our coffee and squeezed past workers in orange mesh vests and tourists in F.D.N.Y. caps to get to the street outside, she led me up a flight of stairs to a large, hot room above the deli, full of empty cafeteria tables and chairs. An entire windowed wall of the room looked out on the sixteen-acre hole ...