#charles traub

[de-salva]

From the book:

HERE IS NEW YORK : A Democracy of Photographs

Gilles Peress | Michael Schulan | Charles Traub

Publisher: Scalo Verlag (2002) Language: English

To memorialize 9/11/2001

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Charles Traub Dolce Via, Italy, 1980's

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Charles Traub

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Charles Traub - Late 70′s

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Photo by Charles Traub, 1980s

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Charles Traub

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September 11

The city, for the first time in its long history, is destructible. A single flight of planes no bigger than a wedge of geese can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crumble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the millions. The intimation of morality is part of New York now: in the sound of jets overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.

-- E. B. White, Here is New York, 1949

This prescient quote from American author E. B. White’s 1949 homage to his beloved city, ending on a dark note about the forces that could destroy it, lends its title Here is New York to the relentless collection of over 800 photographs that we have chosen to commemorate the 20th anniversary of this solemn day. Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs, published in New York by the Swiss art publisher Scalo Verlag in 2002, was originally an exhibition and sale of photographs that opened in SoHo on September 25, 2001 to raise money for the children of victims. The photographs were selected and curated by Alice Rose George, Gilles Peress, Michael Shulan, and Charles Traub. By the end of the year they had sold more than 30,000 prints at $25 each, and the momentum continued though the next year. The book presents a small selection of the over 5,000 pictures submitted to the exhibition. Michael Shulan writes:

Photography was the perfect medium to express what happened on 9/11, since it is democratic by its very nature and infinitely reproducible. . . . In order to come to grips with all of the imagery that was haunting us, it was essential, we thought, to reclaim it from the media and stare at it without flinching. Terrorism was all too familiar in other parts of the world, but it had rarely happened in the United States, and never on such a scale. . . . we understand the problem of terrorism to be a global one that respects no geographic or cultural boundaries. After 9/11, New York is Everywhere.

The entire archive of more than 5,000 photographs can be viewed at www.hereisnewyork.org. As Shulan notes, “Seeing is not only believing. Seeing is seeing.”

View our other 9/11 commemorative posts.

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