About a month before Sept. 11, 2001, when terrorists used hijacked commercial airliners as missiles, Carol M. Highsmith captured self-titled “Aerial View of New York City, in which the World Trade Center Twin Towers is Prominent“. According to the Library of Congress, to which she donated this photo and others from across America, Carol produced a digital image “to represent her original film transparency; some details may differ between the film and the digital images”.
The link from her name goes to the LoC page; that in the credit to Rawpixel Ltd., which posted the public domain cityscape on Dec. 9, 2018. Carol is the photographer but not the Flickr account holder from where she joins the series. Camera and other information is unknown.
The 19th 9-11 commemoration is somber this year, with an event exclusively for family members of the fallen. The Tribute in Light, which previously had been cancelled due to the SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2)—better known as COVID-19—pandemic, will ascend into Heavens. The 9/11 Memorial & Museum President and CEO Alice M. Greenwald explains:
We reversed our decision. The sheer volume of calls to shine the Tribute in Light on the 19th anniversary was humbling…On the night of September 11, from dusk until dawn, these two beloved beams of light will again shine as beacons of our city’s resilience. And this year, they will be powered by the will of the community.
Today should be a reminder: We live in the United States of America. Those people disparaging and dividing us, particularly for political ambitions or greed and power plays masked as social justice, seek to topple our country in cowardly fashion like the terrorists who brought down the Twin Towers. We came together as a nation, in 2001. Let not the legacy of 2020 be a nasty presidential election and racial riots that tore us apart.
Photo Credit: Carol M. Highsmith