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  Proceeds from this book will go to the Fr. Mychal Judge Fund.

FOREWORD

As most of you know my dad was one of many photographers at the World Trade Center on 9-11. I wasn't there myself but after working on many of his and other NY photographer’s photos I feel like I was there. I permanently have these images etched in my head. I frequently have flashbacks of how my father looked when he came home. His vacant shocked bloodshot eyes with soot still clinging in his eyebrows, infamous mustache, hair ears etc. His pants ripped on the right side exposing a semi bloody bandaged knee, and him walking with crutches. My mom handed me his bag of clothes he wore courtesy of Bellevue Hospital. I took some of his belongings out and took pictures of them, took pictures of him. Amazingly enough nobody knows where those pictures are. They just disappeared. I remember it took weeks to get rid of the soot that had fallen on our floor. We felt the remnants of the building and God knows what else against our feet every time we walked into the living room. No matter how much we swept or mopped, it was ingrained into our tiles; it refused to simply be swept away.

Five years later I think I feel it's hitting me a little harder though. Maybe it's because I am hearing my dad talk about it again for interviews.... he normally doesn't talk about anything related to 9-11 except on THE anniversary. I don't think he can even watch the commercial for the movie or talk about the conspiracy theories out there. It seems that as time passes he is remembering new things; so new images are popping into my head. For instance his ride to the Post after the towers fell. He said people were looking at him and his car covered in soot, how people looked in and told him to pass the red lights and go to the hospital. I never thought about that... how did he drive all that way after what he went through? All I knew was by the time he got to us he was dazed, in shock and quiet.... dreadfully quiet like a stone statue covered in soot.

Maybe I am sadder now because I have had 5 years to see the changes in my dad. Although he survived 9-11 a part of him died or better yet was stolen by the memories. He is often zoning out. "daydreaming" but I know all too well the events of that day are playing over and over in his mind. When I see him like this I interrupt him or tell my son to go to him trying to bring him back to the present. But you can see the sadness in his eyes no matter how big of a smile my son puts on his face.

He actually confirmed my zoning out theory this week during his interviews. He said, "It's like a movie that plays over and over in my head… when it finishes it starts all the way from the beginning again. It happens everyday, every time I get even a second to think. That movie is playing in my head. It's like it was yesterday, it doesn't feel like 5 years. I remember I was treated like a king when I got to Bellevue. They had a crew of doctors and nurses waiting for injured people to arrive... just waiting so they all ran to stitch my leg up." That struck something in me, I just envisioned a huge medical staff waiting for more survivors that never came.

I remember visiting Ground Zero a few months after 9-11 and the streets still had this dusty white film ingrained in it. I was told there were crews spraying down the streets every night. Eventually they were able to wash the streets of the persistent soot but the memory will always live within us. At least my dad has the gallery. Its a place where my dad, photographers, firefighters, cops and others go to revisit last pictures of people lost that day, and pay tribute to them. But it's a place where people can unite to mourn the pieces of them that were forever stolen.

- Linda Arellano

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THE EDITORS

After the tragedy it took a while for us to leave our homes. Although we were scared, we were also faced with the overwhelming desire to do something, anything, to make a difference – but we were just 2 artists with a start-up design business – there was nothing we could offer to help in any way.

Serendipitously, during one of those few trips into the city I came across Bolivar’s Gallery right next door to what my destination was that day. It was amazingly crowded and as I gazed into the front window, it was solemn, peaceful and familiar. There was a sign on the window asking for volunteers – so we walked in and offered to design the Ground Zero website to a skeptical Bolivar Arellano at no cost. We seriously believed this was our chance to make some kind of contribution. We had no idea that the ones truly benefiting from meeting Bolivar and becoming involved with this project would be us.

With over 40 years of photojournalism beneath his belt, he has witnessed inhumanity, war and has been victim to cruelty and injustices first hand having been captured more than once while covering atrocities throughout Latin America. Bolivar, however states that the most tragically impactful moments he ever experienced, by far, began on the most bright and sunny of all days - September 11, 2001 and since then he has done nothing short of dedicating his time, money, resources and spirit to preserving the history and the memory of that fateful day.

After witnessing and documenting the tragedy, few realize that surviving a disaster can be quite devastating as well. Bolivar created a safe space where people could find answers, express pain, see their heroes and come together to close wounds that may never fully heal – all while finding strength in his humble gallery on East 9th Street. He filled the walls from ceiling to floor with images and invited other photographers who were there that day to come on board. In all there were 23 selfless and heroic photographers who in joining the exhibit helped to raise over $50,000 for three deserving charities. The Library of Congress acquired nearly 100 of the exhibit’s images call the “exhibition on the World Trade Towers outstanding, if not the best in the city.” Bolivar’s leadership in putting together and hosting the Ground Zero Exhibit that has been showing at his gallery annually since 2001 reminds us that tragedies both tear us apart but also bring us together.

As a photographer, I am always humbled by Bolivar’s presence. Although he may not be as recognized as others in his field, his lens has captured such a diversity of images throughout history he has also become part of the history he has worked so hard to honestly document. He is a testament to the strength and love that can be found in the human spirit despite pain, fear and adversity.

- Shirley & Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, Somos Arte

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TESTIMONIAL

I went to a place where nobody else was, across the street from the Number Two tower. The cops were pushing us away, so I went behind a fence and was hiding there taking pictures of the building. I was taking pictures of people jumping. The whole thing was very traumatic for me because, oh my God, there's nothing I can do. The only thing I can do is to keep taking pictures because that's my job.

I am a Catholic, and in the church they teach you, that you don't have to pray out loud, That God can hear the thoughts in your mind. I was praying inside my mind. "God give them wings so they cannot touch the ground. I know you are going to take them, but take their full bodies, not in pieces." It was the most traumatic moment of my life.

I saw (photographer) Bill Biggart. I was across the street (from the towers). I saw this guy taking pictures in the middle of the street. I said to myself, "This guy is too close. It's too dangerous. He's risking his life. He has a telephoto lens, why is he so close to the bodies? A few minutes after that I said to myself, "I'm stupid. When I came to cover this I was as bad as he was, but when I saw the firemen running I realized it was dangerous so I moved away.

A Latino cop saw me hiding behind the fence and threw me out. He pushed me three times on my back and told me to get out because the building was coming down. I said, "No, it won’t, Remember (the) 1993 (attack), It's going to be fine." He took me one block away from the building. Then he had to come back to push others out of the way, so I came back again. The building was in front of me but I turned my back. Then I hear the explosion. I saw the top of the building coming down. I took one frame and thought, "That's it, I hope somebody finds my camera because I'm going to be dead."

In front of me was a man kneeling, looking at the building coming down. I said to myself, "I'm going to die anyway, so let me see if I can save his life," I jumped on his back, embraced his stomach and held tight to a piece of rail near me, so when the building comes down we don't fly. The building came down with debris falling on us. Thank God nothing happened to us. The man was covered with dust just like me, and his eyes were opened with surprise. Later I learned he was Thomas Manley, sergeant-at-arms for the Uniformed Firefighters Association.

We heard the same sound as before, and everyone ran into the financial center. The explosion came down quickly and elevated us, I was elevated four feet into the air. I said to myself "Bolivar, you screwed up, " You survived the first one but the second one is going to kill you." I crashed into the wall and then into the ground. I passed out for a few minutes. When I woke up, everything was dark. Two inches from my head was a piece from a steel beam from the tower that had penetrated the building.

I went outside and heard voices saying, "Do you see the photographer? I'm sure his dead." At that moment I crossed the doorway and they were happy, I saw a lady on the ground that was bleeding, and I took a picture of her. Somebody brought a stretcher, and I took a picture of him carrying the lady out. My own leg was bloody and they tried to take me to the hospital, but I said "No I can still work."

I went back to the paper, and everyone was surprised to see me. I said I didn't want to loose my film. I wanted to develop it. My son, who is a photo editor at the New York Post-he's my boss- said, "What are you doing here, Papi? No, no, Papi. I will develop your film." I left five films on the table. Because so many people were coming to the paper with pictures-free lance and professional-I lost one roll left on the table. I lost (another) roll and my cell phone when I went flying in (the collapsed of) Tower One. My son threw me out of the paper and sent me to the hospital. They put five stitches in my right knee.

I survived massacres and covered civil wars in Ecuador and Colombia and (El Salvador). I've seen everything a human being can do to another human being; I thought I had seen everything, until this happened. I was crying day and night remembering those lives that were lost for no reason. It was the first time my kids saw me crying.

- Bolivar Arellano

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