Photographer asks for help identifying people in haunting 9/11 image
A photographer who took a haunting image of a crowd watching in horror as the South Tower of the World Trade Center began to collapse is looking for help identifying the people in it.
"I took this photograph exactly 12 years ago today," Patrick Witty, Time magazine international picture editor, wrote on the magazine's Lightbox blog. "A cross-section of New Yorkers, united in terror, standing at Park Row and Beekman Street in lower Manhattan."
Witty was a freelance photographer living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, when the planes hit.
"I heard screaming on the roof of my building, and went up and saw the World Trade Center on fire," Witty told Yahoo News. "When the second plane hit, I grabbed my camera gear and went down there.
He spent the day shooting with black and white film until police kicked him out of the area and then returned to his apartment to develop the film in his kitchen. "There was dust everywhere," Witty said. "I processed them with a scanner, and started emailing."
Last year Witty posted the photo on Facebook in hopes of discovering the identities of the people in the photo. He was able to identify only two of them:
Edward Tabile contacted me, saying he recognized his father, Benjamin Tabile, as the man in the center wearing the glasses. Benjamin was supposed to be in the World Trade Center towers that day for a job interview but was running late. “As I walked out of the subway, I saw the building on fire and didn’t know why,” he said. “I was in complete shock. I would have been in that building while the planes hit.”
Witty reposted the photo Wednesday, looking for more.
"I want to know them all," he said.
[Editor's note: If you recognize anyone in Witty's picture, you can contact him via email here: patrick_witty@timemagazine.com.]
