New York City - Sept. 11th

As a New Yorker for over 20 years, I am stunned at what has happened to my city, my country, and our world. My heart aches for all the people who have been lost. I'm sad because this is the end of the world as we have known it, an end to the security we felt as Americans. It certainly will make my profession more difficult, as I travel worldwide to perform. We are entering into a long period of healing, rebuilding, rethinking who we are in the world, and where we are going.

Being unable to work for nearly a week, I decided to walk around and see how the city is changed, and indeed it is. I took photos of the city in the aftermath of this unimaginable event. They are not the photos that we have all seen of the horror, but rather scenes of the city as reflected in its neighborhoods. I hope it gives you a flavor of what it has been and is like here these days.

If you'd like to send me your comments, click here. Sorry for the so-so quality of some of the shots - I am an amateur photograper and took these with my Fuji digital camera.


I live in Manhattan about 5-6 miles north of the World Trade Center (WTC). Both locations are on the west side, close to the Hudson River. On Sunday night 9/9/01, I was flying home from a music conference in Texas. It was a clear beautiful night and we flew up from the south, right over Manhattan. What a beautiful sight, looking down on all the buildings lit up. We were high above them. Who knew that 36 hours later that vista would be altered forever...

On Tues 9/11, I woke up at 8:30 a.m. and as is my habit, turned on the tv to channel surf while my eyes adjusted to waking. I saw it unfold on TV from the first shot of the first tower burning, before anyone knew it was a terrorist attack. I knew this plane was much too low and that there was no way a major jet could crash into Manhattan without FAA warnings. I was talking on the phone to my friend and I suggested that maybe some terrorists had gotten hold of a private plane. By the time the second plane hit, it was clear that this was no accident. Of course, as we now know, the terrorists turned off the transponders disabling their precise tracking.

My first concern was for my niece Emma who attends school at Stuyvesant H.S. which is close to the WTC. Stuyvesant, one of the premier public high schools in NYC, has been featured prominently in the news because it was turned into a triage / evac center (you'll see those photos...) immediately following the attacks and then became a staging area for 3 weeks. I realized too that her dad Tony also lives in that area, so I called him, but got no answer. [He is now out of his flat, which is in the cordoned off zone.] Tony heard the explosion, and went up to the roof to see what had happened. He described it as something out of a bad Japanese B-Movie Horror film. He called my sister, then headed toward the school to check on Emma.

At first the kids were kept in class, but after the second building was hit, everyone was evacuated. Tony and Emma left and walked towards the subway when they saw the 1st building come down. My sister, niece and nephew then came up to where I live on the Upper West Side since there was no subway service out of Manhattan at that point. They stayed here and saw for the first time the horrible TV footage I had been watching all day.

My sister told me we Upper West Siders were totally removed from what was really going on. She said one had to see it to believe it. So the next day I decided to see for myself firsthand what was going on downtown. I got on my bike and started riding. I first went to the Red Cross, which is up near me, to donate blood. They weren't taking any more donors so I wrote them a check instead. I then headed downtown and started clicking. I've kept on taking photos ever since. I guess it's my way of trying to make sense of what happened, to keep a record of a unique moment in history.

The photos start from the day after the attacks and follow in a vague chronological order. The pictures are divided into several "albums":

• The Day After
  
• Photos of Fire Houses and Other Shrines
  
• Midtown
  
• Driving downtown to Brooklyn
  
• Ground Zero 3 weeks later
  
• The New Patriotism
  
• Scenes Around Town
  
• Other Images of interest

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"All the words that I utter,
And all the words that I write,
Must spread out their wings untiring,
And never rest in their flight,
Till they come where your sad, sad heart is."

W.B. Yeats