nmah381.xml

nmah381.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-08-22

On September 11 2001 I was working as the black and white printer at the photo agency Magnum and as a freelance photographer. That morning I was late in leaving my apartment in East Williamsburg Brooklyn on arriving at the subway station I could not find my wallet with my metrocard so I walked back to my building retracing my steps in case I had dropped it. It was on returning to my apartment I looked up for a moment and noticed that one of the WTC towers was smoking, it looked like a candle that had just been extinguished with a plume of smoke trailing from the upper floors. I thought that maybe there was a fire in Windows of the World and that it would soon be extinguished. I was more preoccupied with finding my wallet and getting to work than yet another fire in Manhattan even if it was in the WTC. On reaching my apartment I looked again and realised that it was getting worse, I rang my neighbour's bell and told them through the intercom what was happening, they are videographers and I thought they might be interested, I told them that I would get my camera and meet them on the roof. When I joined them they were pale, they informed me that they had just witnessed a plane crash into the other tower. At first I thought that the smoke from the first tower had caused the crash. I shot a couple of frames and left for my apartment where I scrambled manically for my wallet and metrocard, I wanted to go directly to the trade center I needed to see what was going on, I had to document this as a photographer and as a New Yorker of thirteen years, I had to get inside the buildings. I after five minutes of desperate searching I gave up on my wallet and looked for enough change for the subway and grabbed my last four roles of B and W film shoved it in my bag along with my panoramic camera and ran out the door, at first unsure of whether I should drive or run across the williamsburg bridge I finally decided that the subway would be the fastest way to manhattan. Just before reaching the subway station I reached into my bag for the change and found my wallet, the train was at the station when I went through the turnstile and as the door closed behinde me I immediately felt the tension, there was an animated mumble when normally all you here is the metallic sound of the train on a workday morning. I asked the person beside me if she knew what had happened, she told me that TWO planes had crashed into the towers. I didn't know whether to believe her or not. I got to Union Sq and transfered to the 4,5,6 dowtown when it reached 8th St I felt that it was slowing down and that it was not going to get much further. Instead of risking being caught in-between stations I decided to leave and walk the rest of the way. I walked directly to Washington Sq. Park where I knew I could see the towers, suddenly I saw them, and I remembered what the woman on the train said... there was no doubt in my mind that she was right. It was terrible, I suddenly realised for the first time that there must be hundreds of people inside. I lifted my camera shooting a frame at a time, shielding myself emotionally from what was happening and walked toward West Broadway and then down towards the towers. People were in the middle of the street some with their hands over their mouths or on their heads others kept walking to wherever they were going staring as they walked at the towers. Parked cars had their doors open with the radio blaring with the sound of news reports. As I approached Grand St. and W. Bway everyone started to scream I was taking pictures of peoples reactions and quickly turned around to see oone of the towers crumbling. I kept shooting placing my free hand on my forehead and repeating oh my God oh my God. I crossed Canal and walked a few blocks closer knowing that the second tower might fall at any time and then I stopped. There were people all around me some in silently crying others trying to find out more about what was going on. We all new that the second tower was about to fall, the impossible had happenend and would happen again. At first we saw what seemed like debris falling from the remainig tower then people around me started to gasp as they realized that what they were watching was actually people jumping in desperation from the top floors. And then panic... a rumble that slowly increased in volume, screams, people running, others frozen in shock, a cloud of dust funneling rapidly towards us. I felt empty, nothing inside, tears of disbelief. I was still holding my camera to my face trying to shield myself.

All the time I had been pressing the redial button on my cellular trying to get through to Magnum, for some reason I needed to let them know why I was going to be late, I finally got through and then proceeded to make my way back. When I finally arrived the I was hit with a wave of emotions that up until that poin I had managed to deflect. I colapsed on the floor and was taken to the back, given a cup of tea and consolled by the editors. My film was taken to the lab and within an hour I was printing what I had just seen, late into the night I was printing the photographs of Magnum's photographers as they came in. Once again I managed to separate myself emotionally from what I was looking at.

One of my photographs is to be included in this show I am not sure which, It is hard for me to look at them now, every now and again I do, I think we all should.

I have sinced moved to Mexico city.