Pictures from the World Trade Center site

Taken on December 13th, 2001

I was in New Jersey for a meeting (which ended abruptly after we found out the company I was working for was shutting down). As part of that trip, I went into New York City to disassemble the production systems at the midtown data center to prepare for the shutdown. After that task was complete, I had some time before my flight, so I went downtown to see for myself the aftermath of September 11th.

I walked around for about an hour and a half. From the street level, it's difficult to see much, as there is a screened chain-link fence up for about a block in each direction from the site. Streets in are closed. There were window washing crews and street cleaners just about everywhere, but the coat of white dust on everything was persistent.

I got a few photos from street level before I overheard someone passing on a secret viewing spot: an open stairwell on the 39th floor of the Transportation Building at 225 Broadway, adjacent to the site. The Trans Bldg. looks almost straight west over what was World Trade Center. In the aerial photo, it's the building toward the right edge with the gothic-looking spires. The tall building at the lower middle is One Liberty Plaza (which was in some danger of falling in the days after the attack, but is now reoccupied).

I took the photos to be developed, and the developing machine snagged a small piece of tape at the end of the roll and ripped the negatives in two. The brown lines you see in the photos are results of the scratches that came from being eaten by the machine. I was dismayed to say the least, but I have to be thankful that I got anything at all. Below are the best four pictures from the lot, taken with a disposable camera.

This photo is from ground level, looking straight down Fulton Street. This view probably didn't exist before the attacks. In the background is on of the World Financial Center buildings draped in a black sheer, with what's left standing of Building 6 in the foreground.
In the photo below, at the top left is one excavated side of the "bathtub", the retaining wall that surrounded the seven subfloors. At the top right, you can almost make out a mostly collapsed building, which is what is left of World Trade Building 6. In real life, it looks melted and charred. Immediately to it's left was the last bit of the shell of the North Tower. This last section was taken down only days after I left NY.

The next photo is the same area, but panned a little higher. Between the two tallest buildings in the photo (2 World Financial center on the left and 3 World Financial on the right) is an atrium, minus most of the windows. On the left of the rightmost building, you see where falling debris took off a corner of the building. Most of the windows on the lower ten floors of these buildings were covered with plywood. You can see that some are missing much higher up than that. In the V formed by the scratches, you can see Bldg. 6, and the North Tower skeleton to it's left (look closely for the vertical gray stripes).

One more picture, same area.

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