08/03/03: A Photograph of Ground Zero

09/10/02: Building Downtown.

04/10/02: Remembrance and Renewal.

01/12/02: Visiting Zero.

09/24/01: The gloom that is NYC.

09/14/01: Three days later.

I participated in a workshop last weekend to ideate the future of downtown Manhattan and the WTC site. Imagine NY, through the Municipal Art Society, is organizing hundreds of these workshops around the NY area to get community input about how we should move forward.

The broader themes our groups came up with are probably similar to what many around the area also have, but I can imagine that, living in NJ, we have different specific perspectives. This is such a gigantic undertaking and there are so many voices involved that I can only hope that an elegant, respectful solution can be found.

...

While at the MOMA a few weeks ago for the Gerhard Richter show (which I felt was too small, even on 2 floors) I wandered into an exhibition of photographs of NY chosen from the collection called Life of New York. Within this show, there was a smaller exhibit of snapshots and other photographs taken recently by both professional and amature photographers. It was done in conjunction with Here is New York, and it was quite moving.

I've had a difficult time revisiting the images of 9/11/01 but what was refreshing about this show was that it depicted the joy of the city and the lives in it. The international image of New York City is so beyond the reality of day-to-day life here that it's easy to lose perspective, especially considering the focus of the past 6 months.

The photos, haphazardly hung next to and around each other gave an personal view of individual lives and vision in the city. One image was a photo of a young couple standing at a rail on the East River, staring across to Brooklyn. The sun glanced across their shoulders and overexposed the image with a golden glow. They looked at peace and one with the city.