Raising the Flag at Ground Zero is a photograph by Thomas E. Franklin of The Record newspaper of Bergen County, New Jersey, taken on September 11, 2001. The picture shows three New York City firefighters raising the U.S. flag at the World Trade Center, following the September 11 attacks. The official names for the photograph used by The Record are Firefighters Raising Flag and Firemen Raising the Flag at Ground Zero. [1] The photo appeared on The Record front page on September 12, 2001. The paper also put it on the Associated Press wire and it appeared on the covers of several newspapers around the world. It has often been compared to the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal during World War II. [2]
Franklin shot the photograph shortly after 5 p.m. with a telephoto lens. At this time, he was standing under a pedestrian walkway across the West Side Highway that connected the center to the World Financial Center, located at the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site. Franklin said the firefighters were about 150 yards (140 m) away from him and the debris was 100 yards (91 m) beyond that. They were about 20 feet (6.1 m) off the ground.
Franklin had hitched a ride on a tugboat across the Hudson River, arriving around noon after the towers had collapsed. He was with photographer James Nachtwey when he saw the firefighters.
The firefighters pictured were Brooklyn-based firefighters George Johnson of Rockaway Beach, Dan McWilliams of Long Island (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island (Rescue 2). [2]
The flag came from the yacht Star of America, owned by Shirley Dreifus and her late husband Spiros E. Kopelakis, which was docked in the yacht basin in the Hudson River at the World Financial Center. McWilliams cut the yardarm from the yacht with a K12 Saw and then took the flag and its pole from the yacht to an evacuation area on the northwest side of the site. They found a pole about 20 feet (6.1 m) off the ground jutting from a pile of debris thought to have been from the grounds of the Marriott World Trade Center hotel, situated adjacent to the towers. [2]
Soon after its raising above Ground Zero, the flag disappeared. The city thought it had possession of the flag after the attack; Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki signed it, and it flew at the New York City Hall, Yankee Stadium and on the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) during its service in the Mideast. [2]
However, when the flag's owner prepared to formally donate the flag, it was discovered that it was not the flag from Ground Zero. There was a size discrepancy: the yacht's flag measured 4 by 6 feet (1.2 m × 1.8 m), while the flag the city had measured 5 by 8 feet (1.5 m × 2.4 m). [3] Dreifus started a website in an effort to get the flag back. [4] A 2013 CNN documentary film, The Flag, directed by filmmakers Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, investigated the mystery of this missing 9/11 icon [5] and discovered video evidence that the flag went missing hours after it was first raised.
The original flag has now been recovered. The recovery came as a result of a lead gathered following the airing of the History Channel's Brad Meltzer's Lost History in 2014. A number of scientists have now verified that the flag is authentic, and it was unveiled on Sunday, September 11, 2016, the 15th anniversary of 9/11, on a History Channel special on the flag, America's 9/11 Flag: Rise From the Ashes. [6]
Michael Kessel, a Manhattan attorney, suggested to U.S. Representative Gary Ackerman that the photo be used for a stamp, and the "Heroes 2001" stamp, USA Scott #B2, was unveiled on March 11, 2002, by President George W. Bush, in a ceremony attended by Franklin, Johnson, Eisengrein, and McWilliams. These stamps were semipostals: they had a purchase price (45¢) higher than their postage value (34¢), with the balance given to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's relief efforts. A special exception was thus made to the normal requirement by the United States Postal Service that subjects of stamps be deceased.
In December 2001, the New York City Fire Department unveiled plans for a statue based on the photograph to be placed at the Brooklyn headquarters. In an effort to be inclusive of all those who had been affected by the tragedy, the statue was to include black, white, and Hispanic firefighters. The change in ethnicity from the actual firefighters, all of whom are white, proved controversial enough that the statue was never built.[ citation needed ]
On November 5, 2007, a 40-foot-tall (12 m) bronze monument based on the photograph called To Lift A Nation and depicting three New York firefighters raising the flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center was dedicated at the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Park in Emmitsburg, Maryland. [7]
The picture taken by Thomas E. Franklin is not to be confused with another picture of the same event but from a different angle by Lori Grinker, [2] a photographer from the photo agency Contact Press Images (who photographed the entire sequence), nor by Ricky Flores for The Journal News . Flores also was able to get near Ground Zero on the day of the attacks, and, at around the same time that Franklin took his shot, Flores was able to get into a second story of a nearby building and capture the same scene. [8] [4] [2]
The first memorials to the victims of the September 11 attacks in 2001 began to take shape online, as hundreds of webmasters posted their own thoughts, links to the Red Cross and other rescue agencies, photos, and eyewitness accounts. Numerous online September 11 memorials began appearing a few hours after the attacks, although many of these memorials were only temporary. Around the world, U.S. embassies and consulates became makeshift memorials as people came out to pay their respects.
The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center elicited a large response of local emergency and rescue personnel to assist in the evacuation of the two towers, resulting in a large loss of the same personnel when the towers collapsed. After the attacks, the media termed the World Trade Center site "Ground Zero", while rescue personnel referred to it as "the Pile".
The World Trade Center site, often referred to as "Ground Zero" or "the Pile" immediately after the September 11 attacks, is a 14.6-acre (5.9 ha) area in Lower Manhattan in New York City. The site is bounded by Vesey Street to the north, the West Side Highway to the west, Liberty Street to the south, and Church Street to the east. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ) owns the site's land. The original World Trade Center complex stood on the site until it was destroyed in the September 11 attacks.
Joseph John Rosenthal was an American photographer who received the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic World War II photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, taken during the 1945 Battle of Iwo Jima. His picture became one of the best-known photographs of the war, and was replicated as the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is a memorial and museum that are part of the World Trade Center complex, in New York City, created for remembering the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six. The memorial is located at the World Trade Center site, the former location of the Twin Towers that were destroyed during the September 11 attacks. It is operated by a non-profit institution whose mission is to raise funds to program and operate the memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site.
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is an iconic photograph of six United States Marines raising the U.S. flag atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in the final stages of the Pacific War. Taken by Joe Rosenthal of the Associated Press on February 23, 1945, the photograph was published in Sunday newspapers two days later and reprinted in thousands of publications. It won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography and has come to be regarded in the United States as one of the most recognizable images of World War II.
René Arthur Gagnon was a United States Marine Corps corporal who participated in the Battle of Iwo Jima during World War II.
The New York Marriott World Trade Center was a 22-story, 825-room hotel within the original World Trade Center complex in Manhattan, New York City. It opened in April 1981 as the Vista International Hotel and was the first major hotel to open in Lower Manhattan south of Canal Street since 1836. In November 1995, it was bought by Marriott Corporation and renamed to the Marriott World Trade Center. It was unofficially known as the 3 World Trade Center.
John Henry "Jack" "Doc" Bradley was a United States Navy Hospital corpsman who was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism while serving with the Marines during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II. During the battle, he was a member of the patrol that captured the top of Mount Suribachi and raised the first U.S. flag on Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945.
The Sphere is a monumental cast bronze sculpture by German artist Fritz Koenig (1924–2017).
The Record is a newspaper in New Jersey, United States. Serving Bergen, Essex, Hudson and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey, it has the second-largest circulation of the state's daily newspapers, behind The Star-Ledger.
Thomas E. Franklin is an American photographer for The Bergen Record, best known for his photograph Raising the Flag at Ground Zero, which depicts firefighters raising the American flag at the World Trade Center after the September 11 attacks.
Lunch atop a Skyscraper is a black-and-white photograph taken on September 20, 1932, of eleven ironworkers sitting on a steel beam of the RCA Building, 850 feet above the ground during the construction of Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City. It was a staged photograph arranged as a publicity stunt, part of a campaign promoting the skyscraper.
Raising a Flag over the Reichstag is a World War II photograph, taken during the Battle of Berlin on 2 May 1945. It depicts a Soviet soldier raising the flag of the Soviet Union over the Reichstag. The photograph was reprinted in thousands of publications and came to be regarded around the world as one of the most significant and recognizable images of World War II. Owing to the secrecy of Soviet media, the identities of the men in the picture were often disputed, as was that of the photographer, Yevgeny Khaldei. It became a symbol of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany.
Robert Beckwith was an American firefighter. As a member of the New York City Fire Department, he became well known to the American public after he stood next to President George W. Bush as Bush gave a speech at the ruins of the World Trade Center after the attacks of September 11, 2001.
As of 2011, The Great Picture holds the Guinness World Record for the largest print photograph, and the camera with which it was made holds a record for being the world's largest. The photograph was taken in 2006 as part of the Legacy Project, a photographic compilation and record of the history of Marine Corps Air Station El Toro as it is being transformed into the Orange County Great Park. The project used the abandoned F-18 hangar #115 at the closed fighter base in Irvine, California, United States, as the world's largest pinhole camera. The aim was to make a black-and-white negative print of the Marine Corps air station with its control tower and runways, with the San Joaquin Hills in the background. The photograph was unveiled on July 12, 2006, during a reception held in the hangar and was exhibited for the first time at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, on September 6, 2007.
Lori Grinker is an American documentary art photographer and filmmaker from New York City. She is best known for her self-directed, long-term documentary projects, and has conducted these projects through photography, video and multimedia. Grinker has had two books of her work published and been exhibited internationally.
Joe "Tiger" Patrick II is a Peace Dale, Rhode Island Army veteran. During his almost 10 years in uniform, Patrick served in Operation Desert Storm. After the 9/11 attacks, Patrick volunteered for three weeks at Ground Zero. During the time at Ground Zero, Patrick developed an affinity for firefighters. In 2011 Patrick completed a memorial walk. The purpose was to honor the families and loved ones of those lost, as well as the first responders in the 9/11 attacks. Patrick has walked across the United States to increase awareness of the U.S. service member casualties resulting from the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, the journey took approximately six months and began in April 2013.
Liberty Park is a one-acre (0.40 ha) elevated public park at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City, overlooking the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in Lower Manhattan. The park, which opened on June 29, 2016, is located above the World Trade Center's Vehicular Security Center. The St. Nicholas National Shrine is located within the park, as well as Fritz Koenig's The Sphere, the iconic sculpture salvaged from the World Trade Center site. Another statue, America's Response Monument, is also located in the park.
The World Trade Center (WTC) is a complex of buildings in the Lower Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, replacing the original seven buildings on the same site that were destroyed in the September 11 attacks of 2001. The site is being rebuilt with up to six new skyscrapers, four of which have been completed; a memorial and museum to those killed in the attacks; the elevated Liberty Park adjacent to the site, containing the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and the Vehicular Security Center; the Perelman Performing Arts Center; and a transportation hub. The 104-story One World Trade Center, the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, is the lead building for the new complex.