about tomorrow- here is new york

[mopinko]

so, i went to nyc that october. as a working artist at the time, i felt it was almost a duty to see it. it was the only time i did what w told me to do.
the smoke and smell of death were still belching out of the manholes. i smelled it when i stepped out of the airport in newark.
they were just starting to hose down the ash.

i was walking around soho, and saw a huge line, wrapped around the block, to get into a gallery.
what it was was- here is new york.
it was a collection of photos of every day new yorkers, hung from wires, filling the gallery.
it was the most incredible sight. part of why the line was so long was that you looked at it all, and you just froze. or cried.

they were still taking submissions, so when i got home i submitted a few of mine. they dont come up in the search, tho.
they later published a big book of them.
they put it all online, and it's still there.

https://911digitalarchive.org/collections/show/260

[Sanity Claws]

1. I started looking at the photos and almost started to cry

I had to stop before the crying started.

All of us remember exactly where we were when we heard.
Thank you, mopinko, for participating in this painful history.

[mopinko]

2. oh yeah.

my ex was in canada. but his company had an office in the tower. one of his co-workers wasnt sure where he was, so he called me. thisclose.

[brush]

3. I worked on Park Avenue and 25th then and for weeks...

Last edited Fri Sep 10, 2021, 12:03 PM - Edit history (2)

we got the smells of ground zero wafting up from there, about 20-some blocks away. For weeks we saw battered fire trucks and other vehicles being hauled up from the wreckage. On many corners or buildings and in the transit centers makeshift bulletin boards cropped up with printed pages stapled and taped to them. They had a photo of a missing person and pleas for information about the person. They also had tear-off tabs at the bottom with a phone number to call. Those were all over town and stayed up for months.

On the morning of the attack I was on a commuter train from Westchester County into the city and we got reports that a plane had crashed into one of the World Trade Center towers. We all assume it was a tragic accident until we got the report that a second plane had crashed into the other tower. Then we knew it was an attack.

Once we got into Grand Central and made our way to catch the shuttle to go downtown to the office, streams of people crying were coming the other way.

I'll never forget it. I worked as a newspaper art director then and we had to of course completely abandon our previous plans for the next day's paper and send out reporters and photographers down to ground zero to cover the biggest story of our lives.

[mopinko]

5. battery park was covered in those flyers, but

by the time i got there they were fading and tattered. all around them were flowers, wilting and brown by then, and soaked teddy bears. that whole low wall in battery park was covered.

that's what the pics i submitted were, mostly.
that and a shot form the empire state of ground zero. looked like one of those movie scenes where hell opens up and emits and unholy glow.

[Hortensis]

4. Oh...my. Thank you, Mopinko.

(Wish we could look yours up.)

[FakeNoose]

6. My son worked at the Village Voice during that time

Luckily they were a few miles away from the WTC, but close enough to hear the terrible noise and feel the vibrations when the towers came down. I tried calling him as soon as I heard the news, but of course all the phones were down. My son emailed me and told me they were all OK.

The Village Voice was the first publication to post photos of the towers coming down that day. (They even scooped the NYT.) One of the staff photographers was standing only a few blocks from the towers and caught amazing photos, then he ran back to the Voice and they posted everything online immediately.