Iconic 9/11 image

[copake_ham]

Still not sure why you would think I disagree with you, George.

Simple:

You said: "Actually what remains is to see if 9/11 will be historically significant."

Do you really think that we who went through that day will allow it to be anything less than "historically significant"?

Each and every day, hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists visit GZ. When we have finished the rebuilding the site and the memorial, GZ will be as "iconic" a locale as any that yet exists in NY or the US.

More importantly, upon the ashes of the WTC we are building an entire new "city" downtown. Since 9/11/01 over 25,000 new housing units have been constructed. We are creating an entirely new community that will celebrate life while commemorating those who died that day.

We are using the tragedy of 9/11/01 to renew what was a moribund locale within our city. We are using an atrocity as a catalyst to renew what was the historical founding site of our City.

Whether folks elsewhere in the US like it or not - NYC is, and remains, the iconic image of America to much of the rest of the world. When we are done (well - we're never really "done" here) the world will see how we channelled tragedy and atrocity into serving as a catalyst to the renewing of our city as we prepare to commence its fourth century.

 

[JBrunner]

Okay, here's for Sparky, I'm not sayin anything, just here's some other info.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html

And George, I appreciate the sentiment, and the conviction, but none of us know future history, and who or what or how it will regard. I said may or may not. I hope it does go down as you wish. That and 2 bucks will get me a beer.

As to the topic, I believe modern media has blitzkrieged us with such an alarming amount of imagery, that "iconic" images of events are hard to come by. I think that the sheer volume and violence of imagery, video, endless repetition, airplay, internet, etc. dilutes the impact of any single image.

When it happened, I heard many people say it was like a movie, and they are right, we've seen it all before, in bits and pieces. And of course now the movie is out. I haven't seen it so I can't say if I think it is better than the CNN version. Sold allot of soap with that one though.

 

[Sparky]

Sold allot of soap with that one though.

I'll say!

 

[Sparky]

What's really sad - is that our most 'iconic' images take the form of advertising - or else Tom Cruise jumping up and down on Oprah's sofa, or a still from American Idol. Sick.

 

[Andy K]

They were people of many races, ethnicities and creeds - and they were all New Yorkers and Americans.

Not belittling anyone's loss here or anything, but an estimated 500 of those who died in the WTC attack were foreign nationals.

 

[Sparky]

Not belittling anyone's loss here or anything, but an estimated 500 of those who died in the WTC attack were foreign nationals.

Duck and cover, Andy... duck and cover...!

 

[firecracker]

I feel like I need to comment one more thing.

To me, the Iwo-jima photo seems to only represent that particular moment of the victory from the battle between the Americans and the Japanese. It was a real war battle with a group of soldiers on one side fighting against another group of soldiers on the other side, and one beat the other in the end.

That was a moment of conquer just like the Apolo 13 landed on the moon or Bush's infamous landing on the aircraft carrier in the current Iraq War. By the way I don't care how many PR agencies were/are involved in these supposedly historical iconic events, but they don't mean much to me.

But that's not quite like what happened in the U.S. soil in September 2001. What I think is more equivalent to the 911 tragedy is, back to the WWII era, the scene of the massacre that took place in Okinawa. It was the susequent event of the Iwo-jima battle, but how much it has been told by the mainstream media outside of Japan ever since, I don't know. Maybe not enough.

The mainstream meida's focus is always on Peal Harbor and Hiroshima-Nagasaki, but not much on Okinawa. But in Okinawa, many innocent Okinawans were targeted, caught, and murdered by both sides, both states. That is still a horrifying iconic moment from the past to many people over here.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Seriously? You were in the Pentagon?? No joke?

Yes. Completely serious. I was running late for work that morning, and so I was putting my farecard through the Metro turnstile at 9:38 AM, the moment the plane hit the building. I neither heard it nor felt it, as the Metro station was on the opposite side of the building, and underground. Many people had the same experience, as I continued on my way in to the building to head to my office. There is a little shopping concourse in the Pentagon with a post office, a bank, a CVS drugstore, etc. and I had to walk the length of the concourse to head up a ramp to get to my office. Other folks were walking around on the concourse like it was a normal day. I was halfway up the ramp to my office when a senior officer (Don't remember if he was an NCO or a Lt.Colonel) came running toward me in a panic, waving his arms and shouting "Get out of the building!". I figured that this was someone who was trained to remain calm in a hazardous situation, so if he was panicking, I'd best do what he said, and I followed him outside. When I got outside, I started following the crowd away from the building. I couldn't get anyone to stop long enough to tell me what had happened. Eventually, someone did say, "A plane hit the building", and kept on running. Because of my commute, I had turned off the tv at home before the first plane hit the WTC, and so I had no idea that anything was happening, so when the man told me "a plane hit the building", I figured some geezer took his piper cub up from general aviation at National Airport, had a heart attack, lost control, and crashed. I started heading across the parking lot to see if I could see what happened. The flames from the jet fuel were burning so hot that it was like a curtain of fire and smoke going up the side of the building, so you couldn't tell how big the impact point was at first. We got evacuated to the other side of the freeway from the Pentagon, and went into the mall, where a tv in the Ruby Tuesday's was still on, and I saw the WTC for the first time. That was the moment I realized that it wasn't an accident, and that the sickening reality of the day sank in.

I spent the rest of the day getting home as they had shut down the Metro system until about 2pm that afternoon. I shepherded one of my co-workers who needed a familiar face for comfort, and kept finding little pieces of the building in my hair. One of the hallmarks of that day for me was when I got home to Bethesda, noticing the absolute silence that had descended. The streets were deserted, there was no air traffic, all the shops were closed. I felt like I was walking through a sci-fi film set for a post-apocalyptic movie, kind of like "Day of the Triffids" but with no giant killer plants.

 

[severian]

spagnoli's daguerrotype

I think Jerry Spagnoli's daguerreotype will become the iconic image amongst photographers because of its uniqueness and the fact that the invention of the daguerreotype represented a turning point in representation and culture and heralded a new age, just as 911 represents another historical turning point.

The other that sticks in my mind that the general public may remember is the video sequence shot at a very low upward angle of the guy having a casual coffee/conversation at a table with the tower being hit by the plane above him.

Joe

can you post this daguerrotype? I can't find it. thanks.

Jack

 

[Gerald Koch]

I think we are still too close to the event to decide whether this photograph or that photograph will be remembered. Or for that matter whether 9/11 will remain a significant event in the American psyche.

 

[copake_ham]

.....I had turned off the tv at home before the first plane hit the WTC, and so I had no idea that anything was happening....

Here's a strange coincidence to your situation. After the first plane hit 1WTC - cell phone service was knocked out. After the second hit, I hightailed it to the #6 subway line - uptown local. It may have the last train that AM as shortly afterwards, service was shut down.

I got off at my stop on 33rd street and raced home to get to a landline phone. I first called my wife to tell her I was okay. I then called a colleague in our DC HQ (I was working with HUD at the time) to tell him I was okay but did not know about others because I never made it into the office.

He asked me what the hell I was talking about and I was the first to inform him that the Towers had been attacked and were burning. Then he looked out his window across the Potomac and m/l said: "OMG, the Pentagon is burning - I've got to go...."

 

[haris]

I think we are still too close to the event to decide whether this photograph or that photograph will be remembered. Or for that matter whether 9/11 will remain a significant event in the American psyche.

And if it stay remain in American rememberance, question is will it be significant to people out of USA after time pass... And that is difference between for example Iwo Jima, or that Vietnamese napalm burned running girl photographs. Those two photographs are remembered in whole world because WWII and Vietnam war striked several countires and extremely large number of people for several years. 9/11 is USA only tragedy, that is more or less local tragedy. It become world significant because of USA government acting after 9/11...

I mean tsunami in Asia killed almost 200.000 people, and leave millions without homes, and it looks like already forgoten. Why photographs of WTC and 3.000 dead will have more importance over the world (in USA I think they will) than of those 200.000?

 

[Sparky]

Why photographs of WTC and 3.000 dead will have more importance over the world (in USA I think they will) than of those 200.000?

Because apparently SOME americans feel that the life of ONE american is worth ONE HUNDRED foreigners. I can come up with no other explanation for the way people react to Iraq - even though there's no link between the two events, apart from the fact that we used it as an excuse to invade and, well...

 

[firecracker]

Because apparently SOME americans feel that the life of ONE american is worth ONE HUNDRED foreigners. I can come up with no other explanation for the way people react to Iraq - even though there's no link between the two events, apart from the fact that we used it as an excuse to invade and, well...

Sounds like Madeline Albright on her famous/infamous speech on the a half million deaths of Iraqi children from the last decade...

 

[Sparky]

Sounds like Madeline Albright on her famous/infamous speech on the a half million deaths of Iraqi children from the last decade...

Really? I haven't heard it. Can you tell me any more so I can find it?

 

[Sparky]

Yes. Completely serious.

Wow. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. That's quite a yarn! Gives one a pretty good sense of the details of being there - since all we got otherwise were some vague pictures from a single vantagepoint! Appreciated.

 

[firecracker]

Really? I haven't heard it. Can you tell me any more so I can find it?

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084

It's been quoted by a number of people, and you can find many articles that include her line.

 

[Sparky]

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084

It's been quoted by a number of people, and you can find many articles that include her line.

Holy crap! She needs to be lynched for that..! (okay - I wouldn't ever condone such a thing - but that's sickening!!)

 

[Andy K]

Holy crap! She needs to be lynched for that..! (okay - I wouldn't ever condone such a thing - but that's sickening!!)

Blair said something similar that 'Britain would have to pay a blood price'. No prizes for guessing it won't be any of Blair's blood though.

 

[Terence]

After much searching I have found the photograph I was referring to.

Even as someone who was standing a couple hundred feet away when they came down, I agree that this photo strikes me the most. I've dealt with many FDNY, and they're hardly the saints they sometimes get made out to be, but like Kipling's Tommy, they're heroes when the time comes for them to go to work.

A friend who got out of the 68th Floor of WTC 1 described how they made it down to about the 30th Floor when they ran into the firemen coming up. Here are guys carrying about 80-100 lbs of gear up 30 floors, sweating bullets, and they're still patting folks on the back saying, "Don't worry. We're here now." "Keep going down. You'll be all right." etc. Most likely none of those firemen he saw up that high got out.

The guy who took that shot had a few other fuzzy shots, but the shot of this guy's face breaks my heart everytime I see it.

For myself, I have a shot of the towers that I took in June of '01 and only developed on 9/14 after working at the WTC for the previous three days. It's a Konica IR shot (6x6) with brilliant white towers and a few puffy clouds and pitch black skies and water. I gave copies to every guy on my jobsite that day. I never liked them architecturally, but they were the North Star for New Yorkers. I'd pop out of a subway (or drunkenly out of a bar) and look for the towers to orient myself. The photo is my iconic photo as it's how I want to remember them. An icon in the original sense of the word.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Wow. Thanks so much for sharing that with us. That's quite a yarn! Gives one a pretty good sense of the details of being there - since all we got otherwise were some vague pictures from a single vantagepoint! Appreciated.

Glad you appreciated it. There's a lot more detail to the story, some of them funny, some of them dramatic. The co-worker of mine who needed the handholding was fixated on trying to get home, since we both lived on the other side of the Potomac River. She thought she would be able to get us a hotel room, since she had a frequent sleepers membership with Marriott. We started walking toward the hotels in Crystal City (between the Pentagon and National Airport). Traffic was at an absolute standstill. Of course, between the transmitter at the WTC being knocked out, and then every single person on the east coast with a cellphone trying to get through, no phones were working for quite a while. We found a phone that was working and queued up for it. It took an hour to get to the phone, and we watched a delivery truck go a half a block. On our way toward the hotels, we ran into a woman who was trying to go home, but got stuck when they shut down National Airport, and then couldn't get back to her hotel in DC. This Marine captain in his dress uniform who was walking with us offered to escort her across the freeway bridge and walk her back to her hotel, before heading home on foot to Andrews Air Force Base (a 13 mile walk, through the worst ghetto in DC). There are days when the Marines earn their nickname "jarheads", and then there are moments like that when you just have to say, "God bless the marines!". "It's only 13 miles.... I'll just walk home!"... In your dress khakis!

I basically went through the day on autopilot - survival instinct took over. The absolute beauty of the day was in such stark contrast to the events, the whole thing seemed all the more surreal. I didn't really have time to get stressed. When I got home, since it had been so hot out, I had the urge for something cool and soothing... I know, ice cream! There was this independent ice cream parlor less than two blocks from my house, and that would have hit the spot. I walk up to their door, only to see a sign, " Out of sympathy with those affected by todays' events, we are closed". I wanted to shout at that point, "If you're so sympathetic, open up and sell me an ice cream!".

Later, I found out that a friend of mine was one of the first responders to the Pentagon attack site. He spent the first 72 hours after the attack doing rescue and recovery work. He is now retired on full disability (at age 35), primarily limited to a wheelchair for mobility, and continues to suffer from PTSD attacks.

 

[copake_ham]

Even as someone who was standing a couple hundred feet away when they came down, I agree that this photo strikes me the most. I've dealt with many FDNY, and they're hardly the saints they sometimes get made out to be, but like Kipling's Tommy, they're heroes when the time comes for them to go to work....

Terence,

As you said the FDNY are our bravest rougues. I am right now thinking of the Department's chaplain who died of a heart attack in the rubble administering last rites. Cannot remember his name but he was a gay priest and they were threatening to defrock him, yet he died a hero....

There was an iconic pic of him covered in grey ashes standing in the rubble - anyone have access to that shot

Damn, I love this town!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Terence,

As you said the FDNY are our bravest rougues. I am right now thinking of the Department's chaplain who died of a heart attack in the rubble administering last rites. Cannot remember his name but he was a gay priest and they were threatening to defrock him, yet he died a hero....

There was an iconic pic of him covered in grey ashes standing in the rubble - anyone have access to that shot

Damn, I love this town!

Fr. Mychal Judge. Info at www.saintmychal.com.

 

[bill schwab]

Although far from iconic, James Nachtwey's series "Shattered" shot for TIME was a pretty powerful record of the site in the imediate aftermath.

Bill

 

[copake_ham]

Fr. Mychal Judge. Info at www.saintmychal.com.

Thanks, David.

This is one I was looking for....I think there was one taken just shortly before when he was still standing - but perhaps only in my mind's eye....