photo essays

I just got this book and it is the most comprehensive book out there on September 11th of what happened that day. I went through it all in one day and after I was finished the thoughts and emotions that went through me on that day all came back.

There are some pretty disturbing photographs in there so I would not recommend it for children or even for family members who lost someone in the trade center. I am sure you have read already about the leg photo but there is another one that i was as disturbed by. It was the one of the north tower by the impact hole where the plane went in. There are actually people standing in the hole looking down not sure what to do. I had never seen that picture before and I started crying thinking what could be going through those people's desperate minds.

As the two year anniversary of this horrid day is quickly approaching, this book will be a testament to what we went through that day here in New York and should be in your library to always remember what we went through as a nation and overcame as a nation.

I understand that some people below were shocked at finding the photo of a severed leg in this collection. They all promptly seem to have demoted the book's worth to a single star. That doesn't seem an appropriate response to me. The book is almost 1000 pages long and there's a single photo showing what was unfortunately a very common site that day. I'm not suggesting that the publishers should have added more gory photos to the book. I'm saying that an honest portrayal of September 11th shouldn't shy away from accurately depicting the real horror of the event. What happened that day was horrendous, the acts, despicable, so let's not try to whitewash what happened by requesting a G-rated depiction.

This book is stunning in the literal not the sensationalistic sense of the word. I read it cover to cover the day I got it and was provoked to remember the day (as we sometimes need to) all over again. As others have pointed out, this is not a sensationalist tome at all. No captions accompany the photo, neither are the names of photographers provided with each photo. No, the focus is entirely on the subject matter.

If you don't want to remember, don't pick this book up. I'd argue, however, that for the sake of our children and our society, we all need to remember this event and remember it well.

I first heard about this book on CNN, a few months after 9/11. I would stop at the book in the bookstore, and flip through. I could never get through more than 10 pages because it was too emotional. I finally bought the book, over two years later, and after a personal tragedy of my own, made myself get through it. The book is composed of so many photographs that are only a split-second in time, I found myself wondering what happened of so many of the subjects -- the man who picked up and read a random piece of paper out of thousands that had been blown out of the building, the woman on page 281 who reminded me all too much of the little girl running away from her napalm-bombed village in Vietnam in the famous photograph. I was not in New York on September 11. I was bartending, in a bar in Atlanta, where every television was on the news, and the packed restaurant sat silent. Though I still can't imagine what it was like after viewing this book, I have realized that September 11 was so many different experiences to so many people. Snapshots of many of those, even one similar to mine, are portrayed, and reinforces the magnitude and impact the events had on so many.
To get on my soapbox for a while, the "severed leg" picture -- not only was this picture justified in being included, as well as the pictures of persons jumping from the buildings, it was absolutely necessary in conveying the events to future generations. When we think of the holocaust, 6 million people is a difficult concept to grasp. But when we see pictures of mass graves, people in the ghettos, etc., we realize the value of each individual person, and how each of them didn't deserve their fate. Similar is my sentiment toward the more gruesome photographs. Their inclusion was absolutely necessary to convey the death of each individual person -- the pain they left behind, the family that will miss them, and how each person didn't simply disappear into a 8x11 flyer with their smiling picture in it.
One of the most powerful things in the book is the quote from which the title "Here is New York" was taken -- a segment written 50 years ago by E.B. White, ironically the author of "Charlotte's Web," the story so many of us read as children. It expresses his fear of how New York, in all of its glory and modernization, was incredibly vulnerable. The passage is incredibly prophetic.
When I have children, and they ask about these events, as I did when I became curious as to where my parents were when JFK was assassinated, I will show them this book.
If you can handle the impact of this book, I highly reccommend it. It will make you appreciate your loved ones more, it will make you remember what so many went through.