Unity And Remembrance

As it turns out, there are actually four photos of mine in the Here Is New York exhibit at the New-York Historical Society museum, not three. I didn't notice this one the first time I went last week but this week I saw it, and got overwhelmed all over again. That's four photos. Four photos.

Here is the one that I missed on my first trip to the museum.



I have been trying for the past week to reconcile the idea of having photos in a musuem with the subject matter of the photos. It's impossible for me. The only thing I can think of is this:

I was looking today at the museum's other collections, at history beyond the September 11 materials. One thing that struck me was the pin-back buttons that say United We Stand and Remember Pearl Harbor which date back to 1941 after the Japanese attack in Hawaii.

I think that those two sentiments, Unity and Rememberance, are what my four pictures are about. When I think of all those firefighters standing at attention in the street, forming a vast network of support for the families of the lost, that's unity. And the other pictures: torn clothing and damaged signs and that haunting airplane window, that's remembering.

The truth is I would have given anything to stop September 11 from happening but there wasn't anything I could do to stop it. The only thing I could do, in the aftermath, is believe in those two words Unity and Remembrance, in moments when I saw those words come to life is take a picture and freeze that moment in time, so that the uniting in memory will never end.

For more pictures from the WTC Traveling Memorial click here: Broken July 2002