Here Is New York: Remembering 9/11

"Here Is New York" was a communal photographic reaction to the September 11th attacks. The photographs that make up the project are being shown once again at the New York Historical Society. Edward Rothstein's review in the NY Times compares this collection of professional and amateur photos with our underlying inability to create a suitable memorial recognizing that day's events.

In describing 9/11 the word tragedy has been used again and again. But tragedy implies a drama in which flawed beings are slowly drawn into their awful fate, the consequence of their all-too-human failings. Many apparently still see 9/11 in that light.

But an attack is something else, as later events and accumulated evidence have shown. And a reluctance to see it this way, along with the continuing problems of how Islamist terror is to be countered, is one reason why six years later we are left with many memories but no real commemoration.

Here Is New York: Remembering 9/11
Through Dec 31 at the New York Historical Society
170 Central Park West, at 77th St
(212) 873-3400