9/11

The day today seven years ago has changed New York, America and the world forever. For me that day started very peaceful with an Ashtanga Yoga class early in the morning, then the unimaginable happened.

I had lived on Fulton Street only one block away from the Towers for my first four years in the city and just had moved to the East Village a couple of months before. It was my neighborhood. When I close my eyes I can still visualize the towers and the surrounding area. Their height was so impressive. One day I went up to the observation deck to take pictures. One of the towers was throwing its shadow across Downtown Manhattan, the East River and deep into Brooklyn.

I will never forget when the first Tower collapsed. I knew what it meant. For four years I had seen thousands of people go to work there in the morning. It was one of the moments in my life when time seemed to just stop. What happened in front of my eyes was beyond what my mind was able to imagine. I started to question the reality of my experience. “Is this really happening? Can it be true? This must be an illusion!”

I made my way down to Ground Zero after kung fu class today to take some images of the “Twin Lights”.

To remember the 2,751 people that died that day and to give New York back its landmark even if it is just for one night, every year on 9-11 two towers are created by light in Downtown Manhattan.

Going down to Ground Zero on this anniversary made me relive what happened that day again and I realized how much I still wish what happened seven years ago would never have occurred.

(Here you can find a story I wrote a couple of months ago about the last image I shot of the towers.)

"9/11" Manhattan/New York City/Downtown close to Ground Zero 09-11-08 at 10:28 PM

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