Posted on 03/12/2006 10:46:13 AM PST by aculeus
At dawn on September 11, 2001 in Mount Vernon, New York, a man wakes, dresses, pulls black high-top trainers onto his feet, kisses his sleeping wife and heads to work in the north tower of the World Trade Center. Meanwhile in Queens another man — a pastry chef at Windows on the World, the twin towers’ top-floor restaurant — puts on jeans, a blue checked shirt and a Casio watch handed to him by his wife. She drives him to the station, where he waves goodbye, disappearing down the subway steps.
In New York City and its suburbs more than 2,600 others get ready for work. They choose suits, chefs’ trousers, firemen’s uniforms, baseball caps, summer dresses, overalls. All of them will be dead by morning’s end. As many as 200 will die jumping from floors 99 and above of the twin towers, the clothes they put on billowing, tearing, unravelling as they fall for 10 seconds on a journey from life to death.
As television stations turned their lenses from “the jumpers” in horror, Associated Press photographer Richard Drew caught an image of a man in freefall from the north tower. Fire rained, screams and soot filled the air and people on the ground began to flee, but Drew stayed to photograph the falling.
Later, back in AP’s offices, one of his shots intrigued him: a man, seemingly composed, his neat form set against an endless background of glass and steel. It has a stillness, suggesting an almost private moment that left those who saw it feeling uncomfortable and voyeuristic. How could such a quiet moment occur on such a violent day? American Airlines Flight 11 had hit the north tower at 8.45am.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
"If you need to ask, no explanation is possible."
My thoughts exactly.
A few weeks later my husband and I went on a short trip and we met a woman whose daughter also worked there. Her daughter was late to work and came up out of the subway and saw people jumping. She was so shaken that she went back into the subway and left the area.
NEVER FORGET- NEVER FORGIVE!
I've never viewed it as suicide either. I think that in an inferno like this that there would come a point when your brain would shut off and your body will do *anything* to escape the crushing heat and smoke.
People who jumped may not have even made a conscious decision to do so. Their bodies did this for them.
"I don't think any of those people committed suicide. It's not suicide when you jump to escape from a burning building that will kill you, as far as I'm concerned."
You are right.
I'll never forget! Nor will I allow others to.Bookmark on my FR Links t'will be shortly...
"9/11: The Falling Man, a documentary to be screened on Channel 4 on March 16, and Junod’s original article stop just short of saying Briley is definitely the Falling Man."
An odd way to go about hyping a TV show.
mark
New York Minute
I'll never hear that song again without thinking of that day.
Ditto.
Clinton legacy bump.
What's the burden? It's seems more like a morbid fascination to me. What is the point of this endeavor?
He has been improperly identified before.
I saw one picture taken by Bolivar Arello of a person after they had hit the ground
Many of the images of 9/11 are like that. I think in this case, the photographer wants and answer because not knowing is a true burden"
why is the photographer burdened?
.
aculeus Thanks for the article.Joe thanks for the link.God rest his soul.
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