Recalling September 11th

by Anthony Correia
Staff Photographer
Queens Chronicle

www.anthonycorreia.com
 
This is my memory of September 11th…
 
I was on my way to work that day… September 11, 2001, as were many other people. The difference was that I worked close to lower Manhattan and I was a working news photographer. I managed the Reuters News Picture Collection at Archive Photos (known as ‘the Archive’ to Reuters photographers) that was slowly becoming a part of Hulton Archive under the auspices of Getty Images. (The Reuters News Picture Collection eventually moved to another agency in New York City named Landov, but that is another story…) I also worked for a local community newspaper called The Queens Chronicle at the time too.
 
The local 1/9 train I was on overshot my local Canal Street station stop, as usual, that morning. Sometimes the train stayed local, as it was supposed to, but most times I was forced to go express to Chambers and then transfer back uptown, one stop, to Canal. This was a small part of my normal daily morning commute.
 
In the subway tunnel, between Canal and Chambers, my train stopped abruptly. A few minutes after the sudden stop, the conductor came online and announced that a ‘small plane had hit one of the Twin Towers.’ There was no communication at all after that for close to 45 minutes. Everyone on the train was pretty calm and kind of speculated as to what was happening above us, less than half a mile away. Personally, it was hard to believe that a plane had actually hit the World Trade Center and that I was stuck underground, so close by without being able to document it… yet.
 
Without warning, the train started to move very quickly and went express straight to 14th Street Union Square. As we arrived at the station, we were advised to go to the surface and head home. Once I made it to street level I saw a lot of smoke coming from the World Trade Center area and knew that what the conductor had announced was really true. The amount of smoke, however, had me thinking that it was more than just a ‘small plane’ and I began walking quickly towards the West Side and then south heading straight to the area now known as ‘Ground Zero.’ I was not heading home.

As I made my way downtown, I had no idea that one of the Towers had already collapsed and the other was close to coming down too. A lot of people were walking and just standing around, not knowing what to do. I kept walking straight down Hudson St, past my office on Canal. I encountered my first police barricade that day, a few blocks south of Canal. I didn’t stop walking as I approached the barricade. My credentials were out and I just loudly said, ‘press’ to get past. The female cop looked like a rookie and scared to be where she was.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: New York City firefighters and journalists stand near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by REUTERS/Anthony Correia

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: A New York City Fire Department (FDNY) vehicle lies covered with dust and ash near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by Anthony Correia

I began shooting after crossing that first barricade. It looked like it had snowed on that blue sky day. ‘White stuff’ was all over the place and the air was full of it too. People were getting scarcer and scarcer. I began noticing that the people I did see were wearing face masks and walking quicker than usual, away from the World Trade Center area.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: Pedestrians walk along a dust and debris covered West Side Highway (Joe DiMaggio Highway) near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by Anthony Correia

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: A New York City firefighter leaves the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by Anthony Correia

As I walked closer to where the Towers should be, in what was absolutely choking air, I kept encountering tighter and stronger police barricades. I kept bypassing these barricades by simply walking around the block where there was no police presence and eventually made it to the West Side Highway (Joe DiMaggio Highway), near Stuyvesant High School and the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC). I was having difficulty breathing at that point and it was a literal ‘no man’s land’ too. The only people I saw at that point were emergency personnel and people who were slowly walking away from the area, seemingly, in shock.

I was having trouble breathing when I noticed an unmanned bagel cart across the street from the school and I reached in to get a handful of napkins. Those napkins helped me breath as I kept them over my mouth and nose from that point on. I only removed them, holding my breath at times, to take a picture or swap out a roll of film.

Yes, I was still shooting film back then. I always carried my gear with me, wherever I went: a Canon EOS 1V HS with 28-70 f/2.8L lens & a 550EX flash. That was my ‘carry around’ gear at the time. I always carried plenty of film with me (or so I thought), but that day I was stuck with a few 12 exposure rolls of cheap film that I used for test shots or small assignments and one 24 exposure roll (not a lot of film at all, really). The biggest assignment of my life (I thought) and I only had a few rolls of film on me. I went digital soon after, buying my first Canon EOS 1D with plenty of CF cards.   Realizing how low a supply of film I actually had on me, I shot as selectively as I could. Whenever I swapped out a roll of film, it was very hard, if not impossible, to keep dust out of the camera, so I would do it as quickly as I could with my back to the wind/dust. Small particles of dust lingered in the air, on the ground and all over me too.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: A New York City Fire Department vehicle lies covered with dust and ash near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by REUTERS/Anthony Correia

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: New York City firefighters walk towards the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by REUTERS/Anthony Correia

As I kept getting closer to Ground Zero, smoke, debris and dust covered the area. I had never experienced anything like this and thought to myself, as I brought my camera down from my face, “this is a f**king war zone.” I could not believe what I was seeing and capturing on film. I kept looking up, trying to see the Towers, thinking they were just on fire (I could not fathom that they could come down). As I kept getting closer, now along Greenwich Street, walking around the next corner, I thought to myself that I should be able to see them, despite all the smoke. As a native New Yorker those Towers have always been around, helping me orient myself in the big city and now I realized that they were ‘gone.’

I walked as close to Ground Zero as I could (Building #7) before running out of film. I looked around a little bit more, facing the reality that I had no more film, and began walking away from the area. I wanted to get my film processed as quickly as possible and had to find a lab.   As I walked uptown, every shop where I tried to get my film processed was either closed, backed up with other people’s film or charging jacked up prices to process… I am talking about 400% in some instances!

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: An unidentified civilian waters down the area with a firehose near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by Anthony Correia

I found a small shop just north of Houston that was able to process my film at a normal rate. When I saw what I had, I tried to figure out what to do next. Since I was working for Archive Photos (Getty Images), I first tried to contact their editorial desk, but I could not get through. I tried to get into the main office on Varick, but building personnel would not let me in as the building was officially ‘ evacuated.’ Police were starting to get riled up, barking orders at anyone who would listen. I could not get to my home in Queens and I was getting tired. Fed up, I started walking straight up Sixth Avenue towards Times Square…
 
After touching base with some family members, letting them know I was safe, I tried calling the NY Reuters office. I could not get through there at all. I called and got through to a friend/colleague in the Reuters’ Washington, DC office, Molly Riley. She was happy to hear my voice, and know that I was ok. When I explained to her that I was downstairs at her NY office, she told me to wait there until someone could come down for me. Jeff Christensen came down and cleared me through security.
 
As one could imagine, the phones were ringing off the hook and the televisions were all focused on what was happening downtown. I sat down and helped cover some phones while scanning some of my negs. After I was through scanning and captioning, Jeff edited my take and decided to run a few over the wire. Being able to contribute to the collection that I had taken care of for almost three years, up to that point, was a good feeling.
 
A young couple had come by and asked building security if they could speak with a Reuters editor, to show their work for possible use. Jeff asked me to go downstairs, see what they had and ‘help them out.’ When I met the couple downstairs, they were pretty worked up, telling me about their day and just pouring out their feelings to me. As we spoke, I began to review their material. I forget the exact count, but they had developed a lot of film that day. When I say a lot, I was at a loss for words at what they wanted me to look at (maybe 25-30 rolls of prints/film). I started to look at their prints and, at the same time, tried to verify where the negs were too because some of the prints were not matching up with the negs. After quickly editing their take, I asked them if I might bring a few prints upstairs for consideration. After showing my edit to Jeff, he asked me to bring the young couple and their material upstairs in order to have a contract signed. I left the office shortly after their pictures were transmitted over the wire that evening. Much later, I learned that one of those pictures that I helped edit ended up being used in the book “September 11: A Testimony.” I don’t recall the photographer’s name, but the Reuters image shows a person pointing towards smoke as one of the towers collapses.
 
As I began to try to get home that night, everything was starting to go into lockdown mode in regards to public transportation in NYC.
 
On September 12th, I found out that I had an involuntary ‘vacation’ from work when I tried to get to my office again. My office, at the time, was located just below Canal and police/military were not allowing anyone past checkpoints at Canal…. especially not members of the press (which is another topic altogether). No one knew how long it would take at the time, but my ‘time off’ ended up to be about two weeks.
 
After not being able to get to my regular job, I made my way back uptown to the Reuters office. I had to be useful, somewhere. That day, after speaking/working with him for a few years, I finally met Gary Hershorn in person. He put me to work quickly. I helped coordinate a pool with the AP that day. After that assignment, I recall hearing editors and photographers start to talk about a picture taken by Shannon Stapleton. His image showed an injured person being helped out of the rubble area of Ground Zero, but no one had a positive ID on that victim. Rumor had it that the person was a member of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY). I offered to go around to local firehouses in the area to try to get an ID. On the fourth try, I was able to get one. The injured person turned out to be Father Mychal Judge, a FDNY chaplain who died on September 11th. The caption was eventually revised after another confirmation and the image was sent out again, over the wire.
 
About six months after September 11th, checkpoints started to relax and people were able to start walking around the area, somewhat normally (but not, really, as people could not take pictures of the area… still another story in the making). As soon as I could, I decided to try and retrace my initial route to Ground Zero. It was initially hard for me to do, but I had to do it and I did.

NEW YORK - SEPTEMBER 11: New York City firefighters and other emergency personnel stand near the area known as Ground Zero after the collapse of the Twin Towers September 11, 2001 in New York City. © Photo by Anthony Correia

As the anniversary of September 11th approaches, let us pray & be vigilant that a tragedy like what occurred that day does not ever happen again.