Watching the World Change, page 46
“I’d seen that stance before, that posturing with pictures”: Interview with Larry Towell.
“We had no doubt”: Interview with Patty Lampert.
Bobby Baierwalter was a forty-four-year-old father: “Robert J. Baierwalter: A Man Who Took His Time,” in “Portraits of Grief,” The New York Times, June 16, 2002.
“For this was how the language of grief”: “Missing,” p. 50.
“Our insides are now outside”: Remarks at a memorial tribute to the artist Gretchen Bender, The Kitchen, New York, N.Y. January 15, 2005.
But on Friday, the skies opened: “Actual vs. Average Precipitation Listings, New York City,” The Weather Underground, September 2001 (www.weatherunderground.com).
Curator Louis Nevaer: Glenn Collins, “Cataloging the 9/11 Archive,” The New York Times, May 30, 2006, p. B6.
“In Union Square…park workers”: “Missing,” p. 51.
“offered some small degree of immortality”: Malcolm Daniel in endnotes for Maria Morris Hambourg, Pierre Apraxine, Malcolm Daniel, Jeff L. Rosenheim, and Virginia Heckert, The Waking Dream: Photography’s First Century (New York: Abrams, 1993), p. 281.
Hale Gurland…calls “the confusion of that first afternoon”: Interview with Gurland.
[Gurland’s] images, chiseled in deep blacks: Eleven: Witnessing the World Trade Center 1974–2001, Robert Pledge, ed. (New York: Universe, 2002), pp. 81–91.
“From a historical perspective, some of his pictures”: Interview with MaryAnne Golon.
“We went as welders”: Interview with Ira Sapir.
Sapir’s high-speed color-negative: Mary Stephens, R.N., United We Came: A Personal Account from Ground Zero (Orlando: Longwood, 2002).
2. Wednesday, September 12
On Wednesday morning, Detective David Fitzpatrick: Interviews with Fitzpatrick; The New York City Police Department, Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001 (Viking Studio, 2002).
The result…from a perch as high as 6,500 feet: David Friend, “Two Towers, One Year Later,” Vanity Fair, September 2002, p. 335.
“A documenter, by nature”: Above Hallowed Ground.
In his basement in Rockville Centre: Interviews with David Fitzpatrick and Christopher Sweet.
Orbiting Earth…some 250 miles: Henry S. F. Cooper, Jr., A House in Space (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1976), p. 2.
“I was flabbergasted, then horrified”: Frank Culbertson, Letter from Expedition Three Commander, NASA, September 12, 2001 (http://spaceflight.nasa.gov).
“We were about four hundred miles away from New York”: Interview with Frank Culbertson.
a NASA photo expert says: Interview with anonymous NASA source.
one of his Naval Academy classmates: Interview with Culbertson; Todd Halvorson, “Station Commander Knew Pilot of Hijacked Plane,” Space.com, October 17, 2001 (www.space.com); William Harwood, “240 Miles Up, Seeing Tragedy,” The Washington Post, October 11, 2001, p. A31.
“Tears…don’t flow the same in space”: Culbertson, Letter, September 12, 2001.
U.S. ATTACKED: The Arizona Republic Extra Edition, September 11, 2001, p. 1; The Flint Journal (Michigan), September 12, 2001, p. 1; The Free Lance-Star (Fredericksburg, Virginia), September 12, 2001, p. 1; The New York Times, September 12, 2001, p. A1.
DAY OF TERROR: News & Record (Greensboro, North Carolina) Extra Edition, September 11, 2001, p. 1; The Times (Munster, Indiana), September 12, 2001, p. 1.
IT’S WAR: New York Daily News, September 12, 2001, p. 1.
UNTHINKABLE: Arizona Daily Star, September 12, 2001, p. 1; Courier Times (Bucks County, Pennsylvania) Special Edition, September 11, 2001, p. 1; The Register-Guard (Eugene, Oregon), September 12, 2001, p. 1; The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), September 12, 2001, p. 1; The Salt Lake Tribune, September 12, 2001, p. 1.
HORROR!: Los Angeles Daily News, September 12, 2001, p. 1.
OUR WORLD IS CHANGED: The Gamecock (University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina), September 12, 2001, p. 1.
The Associated Press…transmitted 1,200 frames: Interviews with sources at the Associated Press.
In one especially curious photo-op: “After the Attacks: Reaction from Around the World,” The New York Times, September 13, 2001, p. A17.
“Came the photograph of Yasir Arafat”: Deanne Stillman, “Arafat’s Blood,” Rolling Stone, October 25, 2001.
Among the more widely remembered photos: The Poynter Institute, September 11, 2001: A Collection of Newspaper Front Pages Selected by the Poynter Institute (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2001).
“A second plane hit the second tower”: The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), p. 38.
The scene was shot by five photographers: Interview with source in White House photo office.
“A portrait…of a president”: David Shribman, “The Presidential Viewfinder, Scripted or Not: Memorable Photos Focus Attention on Image of Leadership,” The Boston Globe, November 7, 2001, p. C1.
After receiving Card’s warning, the president remained: Scot J. Paltrow, “Day of Crisis: Detailed Picture of U.S. Actions on Sept. 11 Remains Elusive,” The Wall Street Journal, March 22, 2004, p. A1; Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore, dir., Miramax Film Corp., Dog Eat Dog Films, Fellowship Adventure Group, Sony Pictures, 2004.
He would tell the 9/11 commission that his instinct: The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 38.
Video footage of the same scene: Fahrenheit 9/11.
Several days later…this one taken on board Air Force One: Interview with source in White House press office.
“While most pictures are worth a thousand words”: Maureen Dowd, “Bush’s Photo Op-Portunism,” The New York Times, May 15, 2002, p. A23.
The Bush team…contended that the Democrats: Elisabeth Bumiller and Don Van Natta, Jr., “On Day of Big Fund-Raiser, White House Is Attacked as 9/11 Marketer,” The New York Times, May 15, 2002, p. A18.
“We are part of that punditry in the White House”: Interview with Ari Fleischer.
“Two days in which Bush blinked”: Margaret Carlson, “A President Finds His Voice,” Time, September 24, 2001, p. 50.
“His performance was not reassuring”: Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p. 19.
The president…followed TV coverage: Interview with Mark KcKinnon: photos of Bush standing near TV set on 9/11.
Richard Clarke…chaired a crisis management meeting: Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), pp. 2–3.
On a series of wall monitors (one always tuned to CNN): Against All Enemies, p. 6.
The president was patched in: Paul Thompson and the Center for Cooperative Research, The Terror Timeline (New York: Regan Books/HarperCollins, 2004), p. 465.
As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld…informed Clarke that smoke: Against All Enemies, pp. 8–9.
The Pentagon chief decamped to an alternate location: In Clarke’s book Against All Enemies, he notes that as the president was flying, Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynne, among others, were ensconced in the East Wing’s “bunker.” There, according to Clarke, “monitors were simultaneously blaring the coverage from five networks.” Clarke recalled that at one point when he left his West Wing teleconference to confer with Cheney, an aide told him privately, “I can’t hear the crisis conference because Mrs. Cheney keeps turning down the volume on you so she can hear CNN.” (Against All Enemies, p. 18.)
At 8:30 p.m.: The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 326.
He insisted, without equivocation: George W. Bush, “Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation,” The White House, September 11, 2001 (www.whitehouse.gov).
When Bush’s top aides repaired to Camp David: Photograph by Brooks Craft/Gamma in an article by Evan Thomas and Mark Hosenball, “Bush: ‘We’re at War,’” Newsweek, September 24, 2001, p. 32.
“our George”: Howard Fineman, “A President Finds His True Voice,” Newsweek, September 24, 2001, p. 50.
“I can hear you”: Videotape of President Bush’s visit to Ground Zero, September 14, 2001, included on Bush-Cheney ’04’s “The Pitch,” shown at the Republican National Convention, New York City, August 29–September 2, 2004.
That photograph…“will be the most lasting”: Interview with Mark McKinnon.
“I think it was unscripted”: Interview with Ed Kosner.
“There were genuine reasons for the president”: Interview with Jonathan Adashek.
“People wanted to see him climbing”: Interviews with Luc Sante.
In March of 2004…his campaign would recycle: Richard W. Stevenson and Jim Rutenberg, “Bush Campaigns Amid a Furor Over Ads,” The New York Times, March 5, 2004, p. A16.
The International Association of Fire Fighters requested: Ibid.
“It’s as sick as people who stole things”: Maggie Haberman and Thomas M. DeFrank, “Furor Over Bush’s 9/11 Ad,” New York Daily News, March 4, 2004, p. 5.
“After three thousand people were murdered”: Ibid.
Breitweiser…would soon be making public appearances: Matthew Mosk, “Sept. 11 Widow Joins Campaign: Families of Victims Bring Their Passion and Grief to Partisan Fray,” The Washington Post, September 29, 2004, p. A20.
But six months later, at the Republican: Bush-Cheney ’04 convention video.
Message-marshal Hughes set up a media “war room”: Interviews with Mark McKinnon, Jim Wilkinson; Christopher Buckley, “War and Destiny: The White House in Wartime,” Vanity Fair, February 2002, p. 85; Martha Brant, “Bush’s New War Room,” Newsweek, November 12, 2001, p. 29.
the Vanity Fair story: “War and Destiny,” pp. 78–93.
An 1873 oil showing: Interview with spokesperson in White House curator’s office.
What should we convey?: Author present at photo shoot.
Throughout the day…the office…received bundles: Dan Barry, “At Morgue, Ceaselessly Sifting 9/11 Traces,” The New York Times, July 14, 2002, p. 25.
In all, 19,915 body parts: Interviews with Dr. Robert Shaler.
From this sample…many [no] larger than a quarter: Confirmation by Shaler; Joseph P. Fried, “The Grim Accounting of Sept. 11 Continues,” The New York Times, January 16, 2005, p. 29.
1,592 individuals: Eric Lipton, “At Limits of Science, 9/11 ID Effort Comes to End,” The New York Times, April 3, 2005, p. 29.
The identifications were determined: Correspondence with forensic science expert who requests anonymity.
“Traditionally…DNA fingerprints are made”: Interviews and correspondence with Ariel Ruiz i Altaba.
Without these murky but distinctive molecular glimpses: The double-helix DNA code, in fact, was cracked via photographic sleuth-work in 1952. To come up with the famous first image—which showed up as a hazy double-X pattern set inside a circle—molecular biologist Rosalind Franklin bombarded a genetic sample with one hundred hours of intense X-rays. The resulting frame came to be known as Photo 51. “The instant I saw the picture my mouth fell open and my pulse began to race,” pioneering geneticist James Watson would write in his memoir, The Double Helix, describing one of the key epiphanies in the history of medical science. Watson realized in an instant that “the black cross of reflections which dominated the picture could only arise from a helical structure.”
In a cruel irony, the photo may have actually killed the photographer; over-exposure to X-rays quite possibly triggered the ovarian cancer that in 1958 claimed Franklin, a genetic pioneer whom biographer Brenda Maddox called “The Dark Lady of DNA.” (James Watson quoted in Horace Freeland Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation: Makers of the Revolution in Biology [New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979], p. 159; Brenda Maddox, Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA [New York: HarperCollins, 2002]; Life: 100 Photographs That Changed the World, Robert Sullivan, ed. [New York: Life Books, 2003], p. 166.)
“We knew what we were facing”: Interviews with Shiya Ribowsky.
“If reinforced concrete was rendered into dust”: “At Morgue,” p. 25.
“I was never so happy to see somebody”: Interviews with Dr. Robert Shaler.
A camera was always on hand: Interview with police photographer who requests anonymity, and with Shiya Ribowsky.
In one dramatic instance, fire captain Brian Hickey: Confirmation by Shaler; Michele McPhee, “Sweat of His Heroism Helps ID Lost Captain,” New York Daily News, May 20, 2002, p. 21.
“You keep praying”: “Sweat of His Heroism,” p. 21.
On 9/12, MaryEllen Salamone was going: Interviews with MaryEllen Salamone.
She firmly believed…a preferred-stock broker: Portraits 9/11/01: The Collected “Portraits of Grief” from The New York Times (New York: Times Books, 2002) p. 443.
“You had to stand in line forever”: Interviews with MaryEllen Salamone.
“I’m wondering why [a sports program]”: Interviews and correspondence with Nikki Stern.
business analyst for…Marsh & McLennan: Portraits 9/11/01, p. 397.
To limit these sorts of episodes, Salamone: In some settings, even warning labels are superfluous. In 2006, there were howls of protest when movie theaters ran the teaser for the Paul Greengrass docudrama United 93, which recounts the on-board saga of the flight on which passengers rallied to foil the hijackers. Audiences, as they took their seats to see other films, were literally forced to watch a horrifying re-creation with a title card written in the disconcerting tone of a Hollywood thriller: “The Day We Faced Fear.” Unsettled viewers had no time to react, short of bolting out of the theater.
Such hype, to many, was cruel and unusual. “I see this trailer,” wrote Slate.com’s Michael Agger, “as an unwelcome and somewhat grotesque reminder of the great Onion headline published after 9/11: ‘American Life Turns Into Bad Jerry Bruckheimer Movie’…Take another look at that trailer: I don’t see catharsis, I see cash registers…The [in-theater promotion campaign] exists on a rotten foundation. We don’t know what happened on that airplane, but whatever happened, it’s not entertainment.”
The only appropriate and respectful way to market the film at the multiplex would have been to create a minimalist trailer, with very little imagery, or, as Agger’s colleague Dahlia Lithwick would suggest on Slate, to demand that theater owners place a placard at the door: “The previews will contain graphic images of 9/11.” (Michael Agger, Dahlia Lithwick, Megan O’Rourke, and June Thomas, “United 93: A Brief Slate Debate About the Controversial New Movie,” posted April 6, 2006 [www.slate.com]).
He fiddles…and says he wants to show me the photograph: Interview with Mike Rambousek.
In the daytime, Luke, twenty-seven: Portraits 9/11/01, p. 407.
Mike…had been a computer system engineer: Gregg Zoroya, “Strength Runs in the Family,” USA Today, September 10, 2002.
Ota, who took part in the Prague uprising: Letter from Otakar Rambousek to William Casey, Director of the CIA, February 3, 1981.
“for his outstanding patriotism”: Official commendation in possession of Mike Rambousek, 1983.
“I didn’t know I had that picture”: Interview with Jeff Christensen.
“He had a gold heart”: Interview with Jindra Rambousek.
She had lost two sons, Keith and Scott, both of whom worked: Portraits 9/11/01, pp. 94–95.
Keith…had moved back from London: Interviews with Jean Coleman and anonymous eSpeed source.
The blues…“is an impulse”: Ralph Ellison, “Richard Wright’s Blues,” Shadow and Act (New York: Vintage, 1995), p. 78.
On Wednesday, Michael Shulan: Interviews with Shulan.
The passage, based on Edith Hamilton’s translation: Christopher S. Morrissey, Department of Humanities, Simon Fraser University, “In Our Own Despair: Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Aeschylus’ Agamemnon,” presented at the Classical Association of Canada annual meeting, May 12, 2002.
“[Even] in our sleep, pain which cannot forget”: Correspondence with Michael Shulan on verbatim passage written on the newspaper.
“A momentary stay against confusion”: Robert Frost, “The Figure a Poem Makes,” Poetry and Prose, Edward Connery Lathem and Lawrance Thompson, eds., (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972), p. 394.
Within two weeks, the impromptu display: here is new york: a democracy of photographs, Alice Rose George, Gilles Peress, Michael Shulan, Charles Traub, eds. (New York/Zurich: Scalo, 2002), p. 7.
“The city, for the first time in its long history”: E. B. White, Here Is New York (New York: The Little Bookroom, 1999), p. 54.
“Part of it was participatory”: Interview with Carol Solomon Kiefer.
In 2004 at Amherst College’s Mead Art Museum: The Pain of War, an exhibition curated by Carol Solomon Kiefer, Mead Art Museum, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts, October–December 2004.
“They took it upon themselves to scan pictures”: Michael Shulan, in the introduction to here is new york: a democracy of photographs, p. 8.
“Photography…was the perfect medium”: Ibid., pp. 8–9.
“September 11 was, in the most elemental way”: Notes written for a presentation by emcee David Halberstam, at the International Center of Photography’s eighteenth annual Infinity Awards, at The Regent Wall Street, New York, N.Y., May 16, 2002.
Ever since employees first started working: The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 278.
107th-floor observation deck: Eric Darton, Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York’s World Trade Center (New York: Basic Books, 1999), p. 149.
fourteen TV stations: Running Toward Danger, p. 25.
in a basement bank vault at Five World Trade Center: Interview with Jacques Lowe’s representative, Woodfin Camp.
Lost as well were 30,000: “Broadway Digital Directly Affected by WTC Tragedy,” Broadway Theatre Archive, Broadway.com, September 19, 2001 (www.broadwayarchive.com).
“We were the house photographers up at Windows”: Interview with Sarah Merians.
At 110 stories each: The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 278.
ten million square feet: Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers (New York: Times Books, 2005), p. 104.
