If you are just looking for information on 9/11, the Library of Congress has pulled together a nice collection of 2,313 sites in their browse collection and an additional 30,000 URLs to sites. As I was going through some of these links, I found myself getting very annoyed. I kept reading one conspiracy theory, political rant, or self promotion spiel after another. Just as I was about to call it quits, I found out that the folks over at Google are helping launch Make History, a website created by the National September 11th Memorial & Museum in partnership with design firm Local Projects. The site provides the personal side of 9/11 by helping people share photos, videos, and their stories. “They say that 9/11 was the most digitally documented event of all time,” said Alice Greenwald, director of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. “We’re asking people everywhere to help us tell the story.”
What happened eight years ago is not just a news story. It is personal. My childhood home was within fifteen miles of the World Trade Center. I could see the skyline from my bedroom window. My family attended St. Joseph’s church where Father Mychal Judge, affectionately known as Father Mike, was our friar. Father Mike was also the Fire Department chaplain killed eight years ago following the World Trade Center attacks. He died after being struck by falling debris as he anointed a firefighter and a fallen office worker.
While this partnership is just starting out, the site is powerful and will become more moving as additional content is added. The images, videos and personal stories contributed to the Make History initiative will be time stamped and layered over the Street View imagery of Google Maps so they can be placed into a chronological timeline of the events of 9/11.
Filmmakers Steve Rosenbaum and Pamela Yoder donated rights to preserve and display 500 hours of video footage collected in The CameraPlanet Archive. In the wake of 9/11, Rosenbaum and Yoder collected, organized, catalogued and dubbed hundreds of hours of first-person video tape of the events and their aftermath.
David W. Dunlap, from the New York Times, has posted the blog entry “From the Archive: Moving Images.” Mr. Dunlap quotes Michael Shulan, the creative director of the museum, who worked with Mr. Rosenbaum and Ms. Yoder to acquire the archive, “In many of the videos, the shaking of the camera, the breathing of the cameraman, the dust getting on the lens — which would normally be edited out of network footage — are very powerful.” Mr. Shulan explains that the archive fits the museum’s mission to be “as broad-reaching as possible in the representation of the event” and to “allow everyone to have a place in the narrative.” Below are a few of the first-person videos:
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Robert Leiblein observational footage of the World Trade Center provides a simple and yet riveting view of the buildings and the busy pedestrian traffic years before the attacks. In particular, the video shows some of the most memorable sculptures, plazas, and at at time code 6:00 you can see people walking down the now the now historic Vesey Staircase.
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For most folks, the view from the observation deck at the World Trade Center was as close to walking in the clouds as they might ever be. But for the team that rode the scaffold and washed windows at the Trade Center – life in the clouds was part of the job.
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Jen S., a newly arrived New Yorker, finds that from her street in Brooklyn the papers from the World Trade Center are filling the sky.
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Suzanne Kaufman and her husband watch and record what they see out their window. In their words, and their silence, you can hear all of New York holding its breath.
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Mike C, a computer programmer and amateur videographer took his fish eye lens, his folding bike, and a long camera pole – and found himself in the middle of the stormcloud of smoke and dust.
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“I have a fisheye lense, a camera pole, and a scooter” In a city full of observers, this nighttime journey through the dust covered streets of New York is a rare look at a city just after a stunning blow. Mike C’s fisheye lense and scooter journey takes from the streets to the rooftops. And once there – the camera provides a unblinking look at what remains of the World Trade Center.
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David Goldberg, who returns to the haunted streets of Lower Manhattan. On September 11th, 2001 walk through the ashes, the smoke, the dazed rescue workers -and see what they saw through their own eyes.
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On September 11th, 2001 two young filmmakers walked downtown and found themselves staring up at a smoldering wreckage of what had been The World Trade Center. Their footage, and the slow and careful view of the scene bring people inside what it might have looked like to the rescue workers who stood silently at the site.
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I just wandered toward the West Side Highway… and the crowds…” So much of what we forget about 9/11 is the spontaneous outpouring of concern, appreciation, and community. In the days while smoke still billowed from the site of The World Trade Center, the West Side Highway became a improvised parade route for rescue workers and volunteers.
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College Student Jenny Tolan had her camera in hand when she discovered this candlelight vigil at Lincoln Center. The sounds, the images, and the emotion were very raw.
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StoryCorps, the national oral history initiative, is also working with the museum to collect oral histories of friends, families, rescue and recovery workers and neighbors. The plan is to collect at least one recording about each of the nearly 3,000 lives lost in the attacks along with stories from survivors, rescue workers, and those most personally affected by the events of 9/11.
NPR’s Morning Edition, has been running a series on StoryCorps personal histories. The latest post “Firefighter Father Recalls Losing Sons On 9/11,” tells the story of John Vigiano Jr., a New York City firefighter and his younger brother, Joe, a NYC police detective. Both were killed in the attacks.
Additional StoryCorps stories can be found on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX), an online marketplace for distribution, review, and licensing of public radio programming. These stories include that of Monique Ferrer’s ex-husband, Michael Trinidad, who worked on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower. He called after the building had been struck to tell Monique that he still loved her — and to ask her current husband to be a good father to his kids. Jessica DeRubbio, talks about losing her father, New York City firefighter David DeRubbi, when she was just twelve. Arlene Sullivan remembers her son, Tommy Sullivan, in an interview with her daughter Norene Schneider. Tommy Sullivan was a stockbroker at Harvey Young and Yurman and was having his weekly breakfast at Windows on the World. The editorial staff of PRX has also created a playlist with selected programs like “We Were on Duty,” a first-person oral history of the September 11th attack on the Pentagon.
Washington Irving, an American author, wrote, “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief…and unspeakable love.” Today is a day to remember those we have lost, shed tears for the sadness that came into our lives, and most importantly always remember the love we shared.
