This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/09/11/photographer-thomas-franklin-iconic-flag-raising-911-photo-ground-zero/91511418007/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
The picture of firefighters elevating the American flag at Ground Zero grew to become a logo of resilience after 9/11. Twenty-five years later, photographer Tom Franklin displays on its enduring legacy.
The story behind Tom Franklin’s iconic 9/11 flag picture
Photojournalist Thomas E. Franklin recounts making his well-known picture of firefighters elevating a flag on 9/11 and displays on its which means 25 years later.
Three firefighters stand atop a pile of twisted metal and particles, elevating an American flag above the ruins of the World Trade Center. Smoke drifts by the background.
The towers are in rubble behind them. The panorama is grey, scarred and unrecognizable. Bathed within the glow of the late-afternoon gentle, the firefighters look skyward, squinting into the solar. Their faces are solemn.
I made that {photograph} on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, about six hours after the collapse of the Twin Towers.
The publicity lasted simply 1/640th of a second.
Yet for 25 years, the picture has lived on within the hearts and minds of thousands and thousands and has turn into a part of the visible historical past of one of many darkest days in American historical past.
At the time, I wasn’t excited about historical past. I used to be doing my job as a photographer for The Record, documenting the unimaginable tragedy. The Record is now a part of the USA TODAY Network.
1 / 4-century later, the {photograph} has traveled farther than I ever imagined. It appeared on a U.S. postage stamp that raised greater than $10 million for victims of the assaults. It hangs in museums, resides within the Library of Congress, and may be present in firehouses, lecture rooms, authorities buildings and houses throughout the nation.
The {photograph} hasn’t modified, however Lower Manhattan most actually has.
The World Trade Center website of 2026 bears little resemblance to the panorama photographed that afternoon. The southwest nook of Ground Zero – the title that took maintain instantly after the terrorist assaults – the place three firefighters raised an American flag atop a mountain of twisted metal and rubble, options bushes and a row of Citi Bike leases. Workers on lunch break stroll previous, oblivious to its historic significance.
The outdated PATH station has been changed by the Oculus, an enormous, white, steel-and-glass construction that opened in 2016 and has turn into one of many architectural centerpieces of the rebuilt World Trade Center website. Located beside One World Trade Center, it serves tens of 1000’s of commuters, consumers and guests every day.
The smoke, twisted metal and thick grey mud are gone. In their place, a memorial plaza, reflecting swimming pools and new workplace towers have turned the location from a spot of destruction into one in every of remembrance and therapeutic. Thousands of individuals stroll by it every single day. But beneath the bustle, the site visitors and the brand new skyline, the reminiscence of what occurred there by no means fades.
The West Side Highway, or West Street, as soon as a scene of utter destruction so far as the attention might see – crushed hearth vehicles, damaged metal beams, chunks of concrete and the ruins of workplace buildings – is now a large roadway break up down the center by a tree-lined path.
Cars, cyclists and pedestrians go by as if it had been simply one other New York City avenue.
At Liberty Street and South End Avenue, I had photographed a person in scrubs sitting alone, head in his fingers, as a messenger carried his bike by ankle-deep particles. Gray mud coated the whole lot, and unfastened papers drifted within the wind. Today, it’s a quiet nook main into Battery Park City, the place an ice cream truck was parked.
For many years, the Twin Towers served as a beacon seen from miles away. They helped outline New York City’s skyline and orient these of us who lived and labored within the area. In their place stands One World Trade Center, a gleaming glass tower that rises defiantly above a skyline that has been without end modified.
From Jersey City, the place I watched the towers collapse into an enormous cloud of smoke and mud, the view at present is dramatically totally different. It is a lovely skyline, however for these of us who keep in mind what as soon as stood there, it should by no means look fairly the identical.
Sept. 11 is now not a reminiscence. It’s historical past
Every fall semester, I stand in entrance of faculty college students who had been born years after the assaults. For them, Sept. 11 occupies the identical place that Pearl Harbor or President John F. Kennedy’s assassination occupied for earlier generations. It is one thing they realized about at school, watched in documentaries or visited on a category journey.
Many know the {photograph} earlier than they know me. “What was it like?” some ask.
The fact is that no {photograph} can totally reply that query.
Per week earlier than the assaults, whereas I used to be ready at Newark Airport for a flight to the Dominican Republic, the solar rose behind the Twin Towers. Boarding time was approaching; I hesitated earlier than I made a decision to drag the digicam out of my bag and make {a photograph}.
I’m grateful I did. It grew to become the final {photograph} I might ever make of the World Trade Center as I knew it. It’s a superb colour {photograph}; the sky is a fire-colored, glowing amber, and the towers are in silhouette.
Per week later, they had been gone.
Sept. 11 morning, simply one other day within the newsroom, till …
On the morning of Sept. 11, I arrived at The Record newsroom in Hackensack, making ready for a gathering. Sue DeSantis, the morning information editor, rushed into the picture division and stated a airplane had struck the World Trade Center. I ran to the newsroom window and noticed an enormous gaping gap within the north tower.
Within minutes, gear in hand, I used to be driving towards New York City.
The story of that day has been informed numerous instances, together with by me. The drive towards Manhattan because the second airplane hit. The impossibly blue September sky. The view from Exchange Place in Jersey City. The towers collapsing. Photographing the injured and shocked faces of these evacuated and being handled at a triage middle there. Crossing the Hudson River aboard a police boat. Walking by a panorama that regarded extra like a battle zone than the monetary capital of the United States.
What I keep in mind most is not a single picture.
It’s the surreal scene earlier than me and the overwhelming realization that 1000’s of individuals had been buried beneath the rubble. There was additionally the load of not realizing whether or not buddies, relations and colleagues who labored in Lower Manhattan had survived.
The particles discipline of the fallen towers was extensive and huge. It was unrecognizable.
I photographed rescue staff desperately looking for indicators of life amid the smoldering wreckage.
Around 4:45 p.m., the location was evacuated as a result of officers feared that 7 World Trade Center was in peril of collapsing. I observed three firefighters making an attempt to boost an American flag. I moved into place, framed the scene, and made a sequence of pictures from roughly 30 yards away.
Twenty-three frames. Less than 4 minutes. Then it was over. The firefighters climbed down, and I continued working.
There was no cause to assume the picture would turn into something multiple {photograph} among the many tons of made at Ground Zero that day. I by no means spoke with the firefighters that day, and did not know their names, nor what their meant objective was in doing what they did.
The {photograph} appeared in The Record the following morning, on the duvet of Newsweek later that week, and in numerous newspapers and magazines around the globe. The picture went viral earlier than social media existed, and the demand for the {photograph} – and my time – grew to become overwhelming. The weeks and months that adopted are principally a blur.
There had been requests to do interviews, morning information reveals, the “Today” present and Oprah. This was consideration I used to be not ready for. Like everybody else, I used to be attempting to make sense of what had occurred to our nation and our metropolis. We had been additionally coming to grips with the truth that 1000’s of our buddies and neighbors had been by no means coming dwelling. There was additionally the problem of constant as a photojournalist whereas managing the surprising consideration surrounding the {photograph}.
For years, letters arrived virtually every day. Many included tales about the place individuals had been on Sept. 11. Some wrote about dropping relations. Others described seeing the picture and feeling patriotism, or hope for the primary time that the nation may by some means get well.
I did not return to the Ground Zero space fairly often. But one afternoon, on the best way to an project in Lower Manhattan, I wandered previous the location and observed avenue distributors promoting pictures of the Twin Towers and Ground Zero, and, to my shock, my flag-raising picture.
One vendor noticed me learning the {photograph} and requested if I’d like to purchase a duplicate.
“No, thanks,” I replied. “I already have one.”
The first anniversary in ‘The Pit’
One of probably the most emotional assignments I ever coated was the first-anniversary remembrance at Ground Zero in 2002 and photographing relations gathered across the large excavation website generally known as “The Pit.”
In some ways, it was more durable than protecting Sept. 11 itself. The shock had worn off. The actuality had set in. The Ground Zero website was an unlimited, barren filth gap within the floor.
Family members leaned on each other. Some cried overtly. Others stared silently into the void the place the towers as soon as stood. The ache and grief had been palpable. It was probably the most troublesome project I ever had.
One household wore matching shirts that learn, “We Love You, Jim.” I made pictures of them from a distance. Only later did I study that they had been honoring James Brian Reilly, a bond dealer who was killed on Sept. 11. Reilly had attended my highschool in Huntington Station, New York. Out of the 1000’s of people that died that day, it was a reminder that the tragedy touched individuals and communities in every single place, together with my very own.
That discovery has stayed with me.
Ground Zero, 25 years later
The World Trade Center website, which took greater than a decade to rebuild, has been reworked into one thing few might have imagined within the days after the assaults.
It is now a memorial, a museum, a bustling enterprise district, a futuristic transportation hub generally known as the Oculus, and an enormous tower that has turn into the visible centerpiece of the rebuilt skyline – all at a price of greater than $20 billion, making it one of the crucial costly building tasks in historical past.
The National September 11 Memorial opened on the tenth anniversary of the assaults, in 2011. The two huge reflecting swimming pools sit throughout the footprints of the Twin Towers; their edges are lined in bronze with the names of the practically 3,000 victims of the assaults.
The 9/11 museum opened three years later, beneath the plaza. It is stuffed with 1000’s of artifacts, pictures, oral histories, and private gadgets recovered from the location.
Rising above all of it is One World Trade Center. At 1,776 toes, a peak chosen to mirror the yr of American independence, it’s the tallest constructing within the United States. It was constructed to face up to what the unique towers couldn’t. Its metal body is wrapped round an enormous strengthened concrete core and base, designed to face up to blast impacts ought to it ever come beneath assault.
Yet regardless of the crowds, the first mission stays remembrance: honoring those that had been killed, preserving the historical past of Sept. 11, and educating future generations in a spot for reflection and therapeutic.
Recently, I retraced my steps from 25 years in the past for this project by the USA TODAY Network and returned to the location. It is each respectful and exquisite.
The reflecting swimming pools echo with the sound of water cascading into the voids beneath, which suggests a peaceable substitute for the phobia of women and men leaping from the towers. The etched names remind guests that each sufferer had a narrative and a life lower brief. On their birthdays, a single white rose is positioned beside every title.
I regarded for James Reilly’s title, and there it was. I photographed it juxtaposed with One World Trade Center rising above it. It gave me pause.
Before the 9/11 Museum opened, I used to be launched to Jan Seidler Ramirez, one of many museum’s curators, who selected to show my {photograph} of the flag-raising alongside two very comparable however equally highly effective pictures – one taken by Ricky Flores, then a photographer with The Journal News in Westchester, and the opposite by Lori Grinker, a contract photographer for Contact Press Images. We have all turn into buddies by our mutual connection to those pictures.
The museum is a solemn place. The second I enter, I’m transported again to that day. I hardly ever spend a lot time contained in the reveals. The recollections and feelings are nonetheless uncooked, and it may be overwhelming. But I’ve nice respect for the house they’ve created and for the care taken to protect the tales and remnants of those that had been misplaced.
The inscription close to the museum entrance speaks volumes.
“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.”
Those phrases really feel simply as significant at present as they did after I first learn them. The historical Roman poet Virgil is saying that due to their sacrifice, those that had been misplaced won’t ever be forgotten.
When I take into consideration Sept. 11, I take into consideration the firefighters who courageously and selflessly climbed into these burning towers attempting to avoid wasting others. I keep in mind the rescue staff who looked for survivors, the volunteers who confirmed as much as assist, and the numerous who later grew to become sick from publicity to poisonous mud on the website. I take into consideration the households who endured unimaginable loss and the communities that got here collectively within the days and months that adopted.
I additionally keep in mind a time of exceptional nationwide unity, when Americans put aside their variations and got here collectively in methods which might be troublesome to think about at present.
The {photograph} captured one small second in that a lot bigger story.
Thomas E. Franklin is a contract multimedia journalist and affiliate professor at Montclair State University with greater than 30 years within the newspaper enterprise. He is maybe greatest recognized for his iconic flag-raising {photograph} taken at Ground Zero, which appeared on a U.S. postage stamp and helped increase greater than $10 million for 9/11 victims. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2002 for his protection of 9/11. He may be reached at [email protected] or on Instagram @thomasefranklin.
This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its unique location you possibly can go to the hyperlink bellow:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/09/11/photographer-thomas-franklin-iconic-flag-raising-911-photo-ground-zero/91511418007/
and if you wish to take away this text from our website please contact us
