Photography exhibit looks at the World Trade Center before and after 9/11

 

Via The Albuquerque Journal

By Kathaleen Roberts

September 5, 2021

Iconic symbols of the New York skyline, the World Trade Center gleamed like golden towers in the sunset, then smoked and fell with the devastation of 9/11.

Such was the cycle of life for what had been once the tallest buildings in the world.

“Greek Orthodox Church and Towers,” by Eric O’Connell, September 11, 2001

Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography is commemorating the 20th anniversary of that fateful day with “9/11 In Remembrance,” an exhibit of more than 20 images. The photographs document the design and building of the World Trade Center, its reign over the city skyline and its fall on that crisp September day.

World War II and lifestyle photographer Tony Vaccaro captured the towers during a 1979 sunset, as well as their architect, Minoru Yamasaki, in 1969.

Yamasaki’s preference for “aesthetic thinness” surfaced in the narrow spacing of the buildings’ windows and the vertical patterning created by aluminum alloy sheathing. When construction ended in 1976, it garnered scant praise, but the skyscrapers became symbolic of the Manhattan skyline.

When terrorists struck 25 years later, freelance photographer Eric O’Connell had just moved to New York from San Francisco. He saw the burning towers, heard a rumble and grabbed his cameras and ran toward the flames. He got to the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church as everything exploded around him. When the pounding stopped, he didn’t know if he was dead or alive.

O’Connell’s print shows both the towers and the church being swallowed by smoke and flames.

“He heard people yelling, ‘It’s coming down!’ and he dove into a lobby,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said. “He couldn’t tell what was inside and what was outside. It looks like a horror movie.”

O’Connell also captured the chaos and confusion of people engulfed in ash and dust in “The group in dust, West Street, September 11, 2001.”

“The group in dust, Wall Street,” by Eric O’Connell, September 11.

“Firemen on the scene of the terrorist attack on World Trade Center,” by Shepard Sherbell, September 11, 2001.

Shepard Sherbell photographed a horrified trio of firemen watching the collapse.

“There were 8 million faces that looked like that for weeks afterward,” Sidney said.

Twin Towers in sunset, New York,” by Tony Vaccaro, 1979.

“They shut down all the traffic in Manhattan,” Michelle Monroe added. “They designated streets as one-way for emergency responders. New Yorkers would line the streets as the shifts changed.”

The crowd applauded, waved signs of support and gave out water bottles and flowers, echoing the pandemic’s spontaneous salutes to first responders. Black bunting draped every firehouse, honoring the firefighters who died.

“Every firehouse was a shrine,” Sidney Monroe said.

New Mexico’s Eric Draper photographed President George W. Bush on the phone in a Florida classroom when he learned of the attack. Draper was the president’s personal photographer.

As Deputy Assistant Dan Bartlett points to news footage of the World Trade Center, President George W. Bush gathers information about the attack Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, from a classroom at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. Eric Draper  (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

“He was reading books to a kindergarten class,” Sidney Monroe said. “They set up an office in one of the school rooms, then they whisked him out on Air Force One and flew around until they figured out what was going on.”

In their own words

As former New Yorkers, 20 years later Sidney and Michelle Monroe still struggle with the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001.

Their gallery stood nine blocks north of what became Ground Zero. The National Guard cut off the neighborhood, closing their business. Their daughter was 9 years old.

“Our daughter was in school,” Sidney Monroe said. “They had a recess period before the school started. They saw the plane flying over their playground.”

The school staff rushed the children into some old fallout shelters. Afterward, Japanese school children sent them 1,000 teddy bears.

“Our daughter will never, never be the same,” Michelle Monroe said.

The fires were still burning when the gallery reopened.

“You’d look out the window and there would be ash falling,” Sidney Monroe said. “It was surreal.”

The couple decided to move to Santa Fe because of its status as either the second or third most active art market in the country, depending on the source.

“It’s a dreadful, dreadful anniversary, but there were so many people who ran into the mouth of hell,” Michelle Monroe said. “We don’t do anything that day. We just say, ‘Let’s get it over with.’ I don’t think anyone stopped crying for a couple of weeks.”

“Minoru Yamasaki, World Trade Center Architect,” by Tony Vaccaro, 1969

If you go

WHAT: “9/11 In Remembrance”

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

WHEN: Through Sept. 26

CONTACT: monroegallery.com, 505-992-0800

Eric O'Connell Discusses his 9/11 Photograph of the Greek Orthodox Church

 

Via Instagram

Photographer Eric O'Connell discusses his 9/11 photograph of the Greek Orthodox Church near the World Trade Center and its relationship to Tony Vaccaro's photograph of the World Trade Towers in Sunset, 1979

Tony Vaccaro

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Eric O'Connell (@ericoconnellphotographer)

View the exhibition 9/11: In Remembrance here

 

New local exhibition highlights the work of photojournalists on September 11

 

New York Firemen on scene of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, September 11, 2001

Shepard Sherbell

Via The Santa Fe Reporter

September 1, 2021

By Riley Gardner

“This is the role they play”

New local exhibition highlights the work of photojournalists on September 11

Michelle and Sidney Monroe of Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography were a mere nine blocks north of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Back then, well before the Monroes moved to Santa Fe, their New York space was already highlighting the work of photojournalists around the world. Captivating images of joy, terror or all points in between is just part of the job, and you never know when they might flare into existence. Still, the aftermath of 9/11 stuck with the Monroes, and the gallery opens a new show this week about the history of the buildings themselves, as well as that most harrowing day in American history.

“I’m a New Yorker, and I remember [the towers] being built,” Sid tells SFR. “The exhibit traces that planning, construction, landscape and the aftermath of that day. It’s like a memory, a history of those buildings.”

The gallery is an extension of the Monroes’ long career in documenting photojournalism and the photographers who often risk their own lives to record history. 9/11: In Remembrance takes a look at that role but, beyond the national trauma, also attempts to capture how the World Trade Center represented American ingenuity in the 20th century.

“It’s definitive photojournalism,” Michelle explains. “We’ve been inspired to illustrate the calling of this career to understand history—and that’s our gallery mission.”

Photographers in the show include Tony Vaccaro, who catalogues a friendship with World Trade Center architect Minoru Yamasaki, and Eric O’Connell, who grabbed his cameras as the towers burned and caught crisp black and white images of the destruction.

“There are times when people become witnesses to history, and that changes you,” Sid explains. “We knew so many people that were lost, and people who lost others.”

As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, the images of that fateful day may be seared into our collective consciousness forever. But what about the photographers themselves?

“This is the role they play,” Michelle says. “This is history.” 

9/11 In Remembrance: All day Friday, Sept. 3. Free. Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, (505) 992-0800. Exhibition continues through September 26, 2021

The Champ, The Beatles and a Tearful Girl: The Photography of Bob Gomel

The Beatles: John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, Miami, February 1964 

© Bob Gomel

On August 14, Bob Gomel celebrated his 88th birthday. A few days later, Life.com published the wonderful feature below.

 Via Life.com

The photographs of Bob Gomel put you in a diner with Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, poolside with the Beatles, and high above the U.S. Capitol rotunda as John F. Kennedy lay in state.

Gomel plied his craft in the middle of history—not that he knew it at the time. “I had no idea the 60s would be so iconic,” Gomel, 88, said recently in a phone interview. “It seemed quite ordinary at the time, but looking back on it now, I realize how fortunate I was.”  -- continue with full article and image gallery

"On Aug. 20, 2018, one child staged a lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament, expecting to stay for three weeks...."

 

Adam Karls Johansson

Greta Thunberg's first school strike for Climate, outside the Swedish Parliament, August 20, 2018

Via The New York Times

August 19, 2021

"On Aug. 20, 2018, one child staged a lone protest outside the Swedish Parliament, expecting to stay for three weeks. Tomorrow we will mark three years since Greta Thunberg’s strike. Even earlier, brave young people from around the world spoke out about the climate crisis in their communities. And today, millions of children and young people have united in a movement with one voice, demanding that decision makers do the work necessary to save our planet from the unprecedented heat waves, massive floods and vast wildfires we are increasingly witnessing. Our protest will not end until the inaction does."

The Timeless Appeal of Tommie Smith, Who Knew a Podium Could Be a Site of Protest

 

1968 Olympics Black Power salute: Tommie Smith (center) and John Carlos (right) raising gloved fists during the medal ceremony for the 200-meters at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City, on October 16, 1968. Silver medalist Peter Norman of Australia (left) John Dominis/©The LIFE Picture Collection

Via The New York Times

August 6, 2021

"What happens when a person becomes a symbol? Smith and Carlos would both see their careers as athletes overshadowed by the moment. The years, decades really, after their defiant act brought struggle and sometimes suffering: hate mail and death threats, broken marriages and psychic pain. Two days after the medal ceremony, longtime Los Angeles Times sports columnist John Hall wrote that “Tommie Smith and John Carlos do a disservice to their race — the human race.” Even many of those that celebrated Smith and Carlos’s act did so under the mistaken belief that they had given the Black Panther salute — something that, for his part, Smith never intended.

What happens when a symbol becomes a person again? The last decade, a time of expanding awareness of racist violence and trauma in the United States, has prompted a dramatic reassessment of Smith. Once pilloried, he’s now lionized. People build statues of him. In 2019, the United States Olympic Committee, the same body that had suspended him from the Olympic team in 1968, inducted him into its Hall of Fame. The Smithsonian collected the clothes he wore on the medal stand: his singlet and his shorts, his track suit and his suede Puma cleats. And, in this new era of protest, a generation of athletes, many of whom claim Smith as a direct inspiration, are channeling the outsized attention that the public directs to sports toward urgent social and political concerns — police brutality, mental health, voting rights and more."

Knight Science Journalism Program Names 2021-22 Project Fellows, including Nina Berman

 

Via Knight Science Journalism

July 26, 2021

Twenty-one distinguished journalists will pursue a diverse range of projects related to science, health, technology, and the environment.

The Knight Science Journalism Program (KSJ) is pleased to announce that it has selected a group of 21 distinguished science journalists for its 2021-22 project fellowship class — a cohort that ranges from award-winning freelance writers to staff reporters for outlets such as The Dallas Morning News, The New York Times, and MIT Technology Review.

It marks the second year that KSJ will offer the remote project fellowships, which were established in response to the unique challenges and public health concerns presented by the Covid-19 pandemic. The fellowships are designed to support journalists pursuing a diverse range of projects related to science, health, technology, and the environment. Each fellow will receive a stipend and a budget for project related expenses, as well as access to seminars, workshops, mentoring, and a large offering of online resources at MIT. (KSJ’s traditional in-person fellowships are expected to resume in the 2022-23 academic year.)

The newly selected fellows will pursue in-depth reporting projects probing issues such as globalization in the artificial intelligence industry, inequities in maternal health, animal lab testing, and environmental justice in the Deep South. “It’s an impressive array of projects that really embodies the multitude of ways our lives are touched by science.” said KSJ associate director Ashley Smart. “We’re proud to be able to support so much important work — and the talented journalists who are undertaking it.”

“The Knight Science Journalism Program is honored to contribute to the work being done by this talented group of science journalists,” said KSJ director Deborah Blum. “It’s a pleasure to see such innovative and insightful work across so many platforms – books, documentary films, podcasts, long-form investigative stories – all with such a promise of making a difference.”

Selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants, the 2021-22 fellowship class includes authors, reporters, documentary photographers, and multimedia journalists representing every time zone in the contiguous United States. Seven journalists will receive full-year fellowships supported by $40,000 stipends; fourteen will receive single semester fellowships supported by $20,000 stipends, with nine in the fall semester and five in the spring semester fellowships.

The Knight Science Journalism program, supported by a generous endowment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, is recognized around the world as the premier mid-career fellowship program for science writers, editors, and multimedia journalists. The program’s goal is to foster professional growth among the world’s small but essential community of journalists covering science and technology, and encourage them to pursue that mission, first and foremost, in the public interest.

Since its founding in 1983, the program has hosted more than 350 fellows representing media outlets from The New York Times to Le Monde, from CNN to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and more. In addition to the fellowship program, KSJ publishes the award-winning digital magazine Undark and administers a national journalism prize, the Victor K. McElheny Award, honoring local and regional science reporting. KSJ’s academic home at MIT is the Department of Science, Technology and Society, which is part of the School of Humanities Arts and Social Sciences.

Nina Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Her books include “Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq,” (Trolley, 2004), “Homeland,” (Trolley, 2008) and “An autobiography of Miss Wish” (2017). Berman’s project, When the Jets Fly, is a multi-channel documentary film, photography and audio report investigating the environmental impact of USA military training focusing on Whidbey Island, WA, and the greater Puget Sound area.

Spyware reform critical as at least 180 journalists revealed as potential Pegasus targets

 

Via The Committee To Protect Journalists

New York, July 19, 2021 – In response to reports that at least 180 journalists were identified by investigative reporters as possible targets of Pegasus spyware, produced by the Israeli company NSO Group, the Committee to Protect Journalists reaffirmed its call for immediate action by governments and companies around the world to stem abuse of powerful technology that can be used to spy on the press.

“This report shows how governments and companies must act now to stop the abuse of this spyware which is evidently being used to undermine civil liberties, not just counter terrorism and crime,” said Robert Mahoney, CPJ’s deputy executive director. “No one should have unfettered power to spy on the press, least of all governments known to target journalists with physical abuse and legal reprisals.”

The reporting, known as the Pegasus Project, was conducted by a consortium including investigative journalism nonprofit Forbidden Stories and global media outlets such as The Washington Post. Amnesty International, which performed technical analysis, reported that more than 180 journalists had been identified by the consortium on a list of 50,000 phone numbers allegedly linked to clients of NSO Group technology. In a statement emailed to CPJ, an NSO spokesperson said there was nothing to link the 50,000 numbers to NSO Group or Pegasus. In a rebuttal published online, the company said the consortium’s allegations were false.

NSO has repeatedly told CPJ in the past that it licenses Pegasus to fight crime and terrorism. The July 19 statement said its products were “sold to vetted foreign governments.”

“NSO Group will continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action based on the results of these investigations,” it said. “This includes shutting down of a customers’ system, something NSO has proven its ability and willingness to do, due to confirmed misuse, has done multiple times in the past, and will not hesitate to do again if a situation warrants.”

CPJ has issued recommendations to policymakers and companies to combat spyware abuse against the media.

July 16: Uranium Remembrance Day

Nina Berman: Trinity Site #1, White Sands Missile Range, NM , 2016

 

On July 16, 1979, the worst accidental release of radioactive waste in US history happened at the Church Rock uranium mine and mill site.

While the Three Mile Island accident (that same year) is well known, the enormous radioactive spill in New Mexico has been largely unknown - it is the US nuclear accident that almost no one knows about. Just 14 weeks after the Three Mile Island reactor accident, and 34 years to the day of the Trinity atomic test, the small community of Church Rock, New Mexico became the scene of another nuclear tragedy. 

Nina Berman: Residents from Navajo communities gather on Uranium Remembrance Day, Church Rock, NM July 16, 2016. 

More than 1,100 tons of uranium mining tailings and 100 million gallons of radioactive material emptied through a collapsed dam and into the Puerco River, running directly through numerous communities. The" in a remote area inhabited by possibly the most poverty-stricken and disenfranchised community of people in the country - Native Americans. Rarely is the Church Rock anniversary either known or noted.

Nina Berman: Uranium Remembrance Day, Church Rock, NM 2016

Nina Berman received the 2016 Aftermath Project Grant for “Acknowledgment of Danger,” a look at the “toxic legacy of war on the American landscape.” She photographed the Church Rock community and the Trinity site as part of the project. Berman is a documentary photographer, filmmaker, author and educator. Her wide-ranging work looks at  American politics, militarism, environmental contamination and post violence trauma.  Her photographs and videos have been exhibited at more than 100 venues from the security walls of the Za’atari refugee camp to the Whitney Museum of American Art.  She is the author of Purple Hearts – Back from Iraq (2004), portraits and interviews with wounded American veterans, Homeland (2008), a look at the militarization in post-September 11 America, and most recently, An autobiography of Miss Wish (2017), a story told with a survivor of sexual violence which was shortlisted for both the Aperture and Arles book prizes.  Additional fellowships, awards, and grants include the New York Foundation for the Arts, the World Press Photo Foundation, Pictures of the Year International, the Open Society Foundation, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the Aftermath Project. She is a member of the photography and film collective NOOR images and is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism where she directs the photography program. She lives in her hometown of New York City.

Amalie R. Rothschild, photographer at Fillmore East, recalls brief but legendary run

 Via Fox 5 New York

June 24, 2021

Photographer at Fillmore East recalls brief but legendary run

NEW YORK - Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the last shows performed at the legendary Fillmore East music hall where the likes of The Grateful Dead and the Beach Boys once played. 

The Fillmore is now a bank but its heyday- as a prime music venue- is remembered by resident photographer Amalie Rothschild.

I was a fly on the wall," said Rothschild. "I really didn’t want to be hit on. I wasn’t looking to hook up and my cameras were shields. I was serious. I was an artist. A photographer. I didn’t have the kind of confidence as a young woman yet, but I had the right mentality."

During its’ brief but legendary three-year run from 1968 – 1971, the roughly 2,600 seat Fillmore East in the East Village played host to a who’s who of legendary performers. Elton John, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Who, and the Allman Brothers just to name a few. 

Rothschild was, in essence, the venue’s house photographer.

"When the Fillmore opened. The tickets were $3, $4 and $5. And when they closed it was $3.50, $4.50 and $5.50, said Rothschild.

Tickets to similar see bands with similar star power today would cost $500.

"And the first tickets to sell out were the last four rows in the balcony, in the top of the balcony," added Rothschild.

Rothschild, who has enjoyed a long successful career as a photographer and filmmaker, captured some of her most famous photos during a Thanksgiving Day Rolling Stones Show in 1969 at Madison Square Garden. Ike and Tina Turner opened and Janis Joplin made an unexpected cameo onstage.

Amalie R. Rothschild

Janis and Tina, Madison Square Garden, November 27, 1969

"Before they went on, Janis was just standing at the side of the stage with a few friends and right as I pulled the shutter I saw someone walk into the frame and when I developed the film and developed the contact sheet, I went ‘oh" because the person who walked in was Jimi Hendrix," said Rothschild.

Historical in more ways than one. Once bands like the Rolling Stones made their leap to arenas, making more money playing fewer shows to bigger audiences, the days of smaller theaters like the Fillmore were numbered.

In April of 1971, promoter Bill Graham announced he was shutting the venue.

"No one had any clue. It was a terrible shock for the staff to take in. He could’ve kept it going for a few more years but it wouldn’t be the same," said Rothschild.

The final show was a sendoff for the ages. A June 27 1971 all-night show headlined by the house favorites, the Allman Brothers.

"As you know no one wanted it to end.. and one of my favorite pictures of the Beach Boys is that I was able to catch all of them onstage with Bill Graham behind a speaker column watching them onstage.... it went until dawn and we walked out and the sun was out and everybody was crying and we went to Ratner’s for breakfast and it was a real tear-jerker and real difficult.'