Ten Years After

After a Chinese buffet I enjoyed some ice cream for dessert—butter pecan and chocolate.  I looked into the dish and saw my spoon with an equal mixture or both flavors and was immediately awash with emotion —I missed my parents who have been gone from this world 28 years.   My mother's favorite flavor was butter pecan and my father's chocolate; somehow my brain translated the spoon into a memory that brought tears of sadness to my eyes.

These last few days I've been crying a lot as I listened to so many heart-wrenching stories in the media on this 10th anniversary of 9/11.  I didn't know anyone personally who died in the event, yet I grieve and cry for every one of those innocents who lost their life that day.  I also cry for our collective loss of innocence and normalcy that ALL Americans had enjoyed on September 10th and many years prior.  Ten years after, life is different, life is harder; things are not the same —nor will they ever be the same again.

Besides the tragic loss of 2996 American lives, I very much miss the visual presence of the World Trade Center towers which were so important to me in my early career in NYC.  The WTC was a favorite photo subject since the mid-1970s.  With a phalanx of cameras from 35mm to an 8x10 Deardorff, I fearlessly climbed stairways of lower Manhattan tenement buildings seeking unique rooftop views, I canvassed the East and Hudson River waterfronts for the best vantage points and I enjoyed numerous photo flights around the towers and nearby Statue of Liberty creating many images of these iconic structures.

My photos of the WTC were widely published, including a sale to Kodak for a wall mural in their new (1978) Dayton, NJ plant—my payment was a case of 8x10 Ektachrome film.  I was also part of a large group show of WTC photographs exhibited in the lobby of the World Trade Center.   In the mid 70s I worked at a photo agency in NYC and I recall entertaining clients at Windows on the World.  Later, in the 1980s I was excited to visit the WTC offices of the Port Authority of NY & NJ; the audio visual department was a customer of mine.

For a few days after 9/11 the skies were eerily quiet with the ban on all flights.  The next  week, I had a photo assignment in Atlanta. I recall walking down the isle of the plane towards my seat and noticing many passengers reading the bible or praying aloud before that flight. I looked out my window I had my first distant view of the changed skyline.

It wasn't until November of 2001 when I finally returned to the Jersey City waterfront for a surreal assignment for Moon Travel Guides to photograph lower Manhattan skyline without the WTC for the back cover of their NYC edition.

Ten years after 9/11, I have NOT visited Ground Zero.  I pay my respects to the fallen from afar.  In the coming years I look forward to visiting the new Freedom Tower upon its completion.