New York City, 25 years after 9/11
New York has never forgotten September 11. The tragedy remains deeply embedded in the fabric of the city’s culture.
But this year, the 25th anniversary, is special.
“This one just feels a lot different,” said Spencer Platt, a Getty Images photographer who has lived in New York for close to 30 years. “Just the city, the people in the city, the workers at ground zero. It feels like it has a lot more weight and significance to it. I can’t tell you exactly why that is, but it’s just a feeling that I’m getting as I walk around.”
Platt and his Getty Images colleague, Mario Tama, have spent the past few weeks photographing various areas of the city as it prepared for this year’s anniversary.
“I take the Staten Island Ferry a lot, where you get this incredible view of the Lower Manhattan skyline, and it’s being recognized and discussed and talked about a little bit more,” Platt said.
Platt was in New York on 9/11, and he remembers watching from the Brooklyn Bridge as the second plane collided into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
“These taxi drivers were all around me, and they were kind of out of the car,” he said. “Everyone was just staring, mouths agape, at the North Tower. I put my camera down for a second and then put it back up to my eye, and then within three or four seconds, the second plane came smashing into the South Tower, and then — you know — the world changed.”
He continued to take photos that day and the police kept him from getting closer to the towers.
“It was one of the worst days of my life and the country’s life, but it was also probably the most important day of my life,” he said.
A Getty Images office is right across the street from the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Platt said that at least once a month, he’s either photographing the memorial or just crossing through.
This year, he spent a couple hours with the workers tasked with cleaning the reflecting pool. Five times a week, late into the overnight hours, the workers wade through the pools, clearing out leaves and other debris.
“It was really amazing, especially the seriousness which they take that job. It’s very solemn and, even when the water’s falling, it’s very quiet,” Platt said.
“The workers who do the cleaning, it’s almost like they’re custodians at Notre Dame or something. It’s just a very serious kind of atmosphere — a kind of holy atmosphere, if I can say that. They’re definitely aware of the magnitude of the place and how many people hold this place as sacred.”