Tuesday, May 24, 2005

The End of the World as We Knew It

Sept. 11, 2001 -- The end of the world as we knew it.But in the chaos and rubble where the World Trade Center no longer stood, Record photographer Thomas E. Franklin captured an unforgettable image of hope -- three firefighters raising the American flag.
Standing defiantly against the gray and white landscape of devastation, these dust-covered men and the vivid red, white, and blue of Old Glory instantly became a symbol of American patriotism. Franklin's photo of these three heroic rescuers -- Brooklyn-based firefighters George Johnson of Rockaway Beach, Dan McWilliams of Long Island, (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island (Rescue 2) -- also became a global message that life, and America, would go on.
The photo, which appeared Sept. 12 in The Record, has since graced the pages of many other newspapers as well as national newsmagazines. Network television has repeatedly displayed the photo during its round-the-clock disaster coverage, comparing it to the famous image of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima during World War II.
Franklin, an eight-year veteran of The Record, took the photo late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, after spending hours at the scene. He was walking toward the debris of the World Trade Center when he spotted the firefighters.
"The shot immediately felt important to me," Franklin said. "It said something to me about the strength of the American people and about the courage of all the firefighters who, in the face of this horrible disaster, had a job to do in battling the unimaginable."AWARDSThe photo has become an icon to the American public. Both the photographer and the newspaper are humbled and gratified that it has inspired the American public in the face of disaster. Because of its ability to touch so many so deeply, the photograph has received numerous awards. These include:
2001 NYC Headliners Club 1st Place Spot News
2001 Sigma Delta Chi Award (SDX), by Society of Professional Journalists Photo of the Year, Spot News
2002 Clarion Award 1st Place, Major News & Event Category
2002 International Association of Fire Fighters First Prize Media Awards Contest
September 2001 Newseum Photojournalist of the Monthhttp://www.newseum.org/photojournalist/archive/october01/index.htm
September 2001 AP Member Showcase Photo of the MonthAssociated Press Managing Editor's Association
September 2001 Knight-Ridder Photo of the Month
October 2001 Editor & Publisher Photo of the YearGrand Prize Winner of Annual Photography Contest
2001 AP Member Showcase Photo of the YearAssociated Press Managing Editor's Association
2001 National Headliners ClubBest in Show / co-winner with David Handschuh
POYi 2001 (Pictures of the Year International)Award of Excellence, Sept. 11th News Category
NPPA 2001 Photos of The Year ContestFirst Place, Attack on America Feature Category
NPPA 2001 Northern Short Course ContestFirst Place, 9/11 Feature Category
SND 2001 Contest (Society for News Design)Award of Excellence, Attack on the U.S. Photos

Saturday, May 21, 2005

Three Firefighter - 9/11 Sculpture Posted by Hello
Flag Wall Posted by Hello

WTC Photo Seen Around the World

WTC photo seen around the world
By Rick Hampson / USA TODAY

Associated PressBrooklyn firefighters George Johnson, left, Dan McWilliams and Billy Eisengrein raise the flag only hours after the twin towers fell.

Associated PressAn 18-foot sculpture cast in bronze will stand outside the NYFD headquarters NEW YORK --

The photograph has gone around the world, from Ground Zero to Afghanistan. It has been tattooed on a man's arm, carved on a pumpkin and painted on a barn near Middletown, N.Y. It has appeared on magazine covers and slipcovers, quilts and campaign buttons. A woman in Stilwell, Kan., hand-glued 10,000 colored beads to create a mosaic of it. People in Arlington, Texas, are making a stained-glass window of it. You've seen the picture: three weary, dusty firefighters raising the American flag in the ruins of the World Trade Center. It is a vision of defiance and courage at a moment of fear and retreat. "People were grasping for hope," says Monica Moses, who teaches visual design at the Poynter Institute for journalism in St. Petersburg, Fla., "and suddenly there it was." The photo echoes the classic scene of six American servicemen raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during a bloody battle with the Japanese in World War II. This time, however, a mountain is the background -- the wreckage of the twin towers. Great events, including terrible ones, produce great images. This is the story of such an image, captured at 5:09 p.m., Sept. 11, 2001. It may have been the blackest day's blackest hour. The twin towers were in pieces. After six hours of searching, it was apparent there were few survivors. Now, another tower -- 7 World Trade Center, which had been burning for hours -- was about to fall. An evacuation order went out to the firefighters sifting through the rubble for more than 300 missing comrades. Dan McWilliams, a 35-year-old firefighter, fell back west toward the Hudson River. There, he saw something on a yacht docked in a marina that made him stop: a 5-by-3-foot American flag attached to a broken wooden pole and covered in debris. McWilliams dusted off the flag, wrapped it around the pole and started walking back toward Ground Zero. He ran into George Johnson, a member of his Brooklyn ladder company, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Gimme a hand, will ya, George?" McWilliams asked. Johnson knew immediately what his buddy had in mind. On the way to the site, they met another fireman, Billy Eisengrein, who had known McWilliams since they were kids on Staten Island. "Need a hand?" he asked. It took about two minutes to reach Ground Zero, where the firefighters were surprised to find exactly what they needed: a large metal flagpole, possibly from the Marriott Hotel in the Trade Center. The pole was jutting at a 45-degree angle from a ledge about 20 feet above the ground. They climbed up and, squinting in the sun, began to rig the flag to the pole. They did not know a photographer was watching. Thomas Franklin, 35, was taking a last look around before heading back to New Jersey to transmit his pictures to his newspaper in Bergen County, The Record. He was under a pedestrian bridge between the towers of the World Financial Center, looking directly east, when he saw the three firefighters about 100 feet away. They were raising a flag -- a splash of red, white and blue in an ash-gray wasteland. He immediately thought of Iwo Jima. That photo, shot by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, was the most famous image to emerge from World War II. When Franklin talked to high school classes, he always showed the Iwo Jima picture. Now he was staring at its reprise. But the men and the flag were merely the foreground. About 100 yards behind them loomed the twisted skeleton of a skyscraper. He began shooting with his Canon D2000 and long lens. The firefighters finished their task and walked away. They didn't notice Franklin. He didn't think to talk to them or even get their names. The firefighters heard someone yell, "Way to go!" They assumed that was the end of it. 'Oh, my!' Franklin still had to get his photo to his paper. He talked his way onto a police boat back to New Jersey and hitchhiked three miles to his car, where he had left his laptop computer. But the laptop's battery was dead, so he could not transmit his photos. Driving back to his newspaper, he got stuck in a 5-mile traffic jam. He pulled off the highway, set up in the lobby of a motel and sent his photos to the newspaper. A staffer scanning the incoming photos said, "Oh, my!" A few hours later, the photo was sent to the Associated Press and transmitted around the world. The phones at The Record began ringing the next morning. Everyone wanted the photo. Sandy Montesano of Ringwood, N.J., sought a copy of the picture for a 6-month-old girl whose father died at the World Trade Center. "I would like her to know that while there is evil in the world, there is also so much good," she wrote. "Your portrait shows all that America truly is today." Willy Thompson, a firefighter in Teaneck, N.J., said he had never been so moved by a photograph. He proposed a monument like the Marine Corps War Memorial outside Washington based on the Iwo Jima photo. The photo began to turn up everywhere: on the locker of the Arizona Diamondbacks' Curt Schilling, on a button on the chest of the Yankees' Roger Clemens. The scene was restaged on the field before the first game of the World Series as a surprised Franklin watched from the photographers' box behind first base. In Afghanistan, U.S. commandos who raided positions behind Taliban lines left behind copies of the photo with the words "Freedom Endures" superimposed on them. Meanwhile, The Record decided to give a free print to anyone who asked but suggested a donation to a foundation it set up to aid victims' families. Hundreds of requests a day Before it stopped taking requests last month, the newspaper mailed out 30,000 photos. It has received about $400,000 in photo-related donations and still gets hundreds of requests a day for the picture. Franklin's photo is not the defining image of Sept. 11 -- far grimmer ones vie for that distinction -- but it is probably the most uplifting. The background, says cultural historian Mary Panzer, "is what gives the photo its drama. You get a sense of the firemen's accomplishment." The flag flew at Ground Zero for several days. In October, it was delivered to the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Middle East. The carrier's firefighters passed the flag in the Navy's "hand-over-hand" ceremony, a tradition honoring the dead, before it was raised up the highest mast. Almost the entire crew of 5,500 jammed the flight deck to watch. "We all consider this our battle flag," Petty Officer 1st Class Rodney Hightower says. When the crisis is over, the flag will go back to the New York Fire Department, which also plans to install an 18-foot-high bronze statue modeled on Franklin's photo outside its headquarters as a memorial. Franklin and the firefighters, meanwhile, still have not met. But they share a skepticism of their sudden celebrity. "I was in the right spot at the right time," Franklin says. "But every time something nice happens to me as a result of this, I have to stand back and remember what happened that day. I'm still chilled to the bone." Franklin's loath to discuss predictions that he's a shoo-in for the Pulitzer Prize in spot news photography. But Joe Urschel, executive director of the Newseum, a media museum in Arlington, Va., says, "If he doesn't win, I don't know who will." The firefighters' lawyer, Bill Kelly, says when merchandise related to the photo is licensed and sold, their share will go to victims' families. "My clients won't take a dime themselves," he says.

Friday, May 20, 2005

The Photo No One Will Forget

The photo no one will forget
By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY

For special pullout photo packages of the year in news and sports, check Thursday's print edition of USA TODAY
NEW YORK — The photograph has gone around the world, from Ground Zero to Afghanistan. It has been tattooed on a man's arm, carved on a pumpkin and painted on a barn near Middletown, N.Y.
It has appeared on magazine covers and slipcovers, quilts and campaign buttons. A woman in Stilwell, Kan., hand-glued 10,000 colored beads to create a mosaic of it. People in Arlington, Texas, are making a stained-glass window of it.
You've seen the picture: three weary, dusty firefighters raising the American flag in the ruins of the World Trade Center. It is a vision of defiance and courage at a moment of fear and retreat.
"People were grasping for hope," says Monica Moses, who teaches visual design at the Poynter Institute for journalism in St. Petersburg, Fla., "and suddenly there it was."
The photo echoes the classic scene of six American servicemen raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima during a bloody battle with the Japanese in World War II. This time, however, a mountain is the background — the wreckage of the twin towers.
Great events, including terrible ones, produce great images. This is the story of such an image, captured at 5:09 p.m., Sept. 11, 2001.
It may have been the blackest day's blackest hour. The twin towers were in pieces. After six hours of searching, it was apparent there were few survivors left to be found. Now, another tower — 7 World Trade Center, which had been burning for hours — was about to fall.
An evacuation order went out to the firefighters sifting through the rubble for more than 300 missing comrades.
Dan McWilliams, a 35-year-old firefighter, fell back west toward the Hudson River. There, he saw something on a yacht docked in a marina that made him stop: a 5-by-3-foot American flag attached to a broken wooden pole and covered in debris.
McWilliams dusted off the flag, wrapped it around the pole and started walking back toward Ground Zero. He ran into George Johnson, a member of his Brooklyn ladder company, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Gimme a hand, will ya, George?" McWilliams asked.
Johnson knew immediately what his buddy had in mind. On the way to the site, they met another fireman, Billy Eisengrein, who had known McWilliams since they were kids on Staten Island. "Need a hand?" he asked.
It took about two minutes to reach Ground Zero, where the firefighters were surprised to find exactly what they needed: a large metal flagpole, possibly from the Marriott Hotel in the Trade Center. The pole was jutting at a 45-degree angle from a ledge about 20 feet above the ground. They climbed up and, squinting in the sun, began to rig the flag to the pole.
They did not know a photographer was watching.
Thomas Franklin, 35, was taking a last look around before heading back to New Jersey to transmit his pictures to his newspaper in Bergen County, The Record.
He was under a pedestrian bridge between the towers of the World Financial Center, looking directly east, when he saw the three firefighters about 100 feet away. They were raising a flag — a splash of red, white and blue in an ash-gray wasteland.
He immediately thought of Iwo Jima. That photo, shot by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, was the most famous image to emerge from World War II. When Franklin talked to high school classes, he always showed the Iwo Jima picture. Now he was staring at its reprise.
But the men and the flag were merely the foreground. About 100 yards behind them loomed the twisted skeleton of a skyscraper. He began shooting with his Canon D2000 and long lens.
The firefighters finished their task and walked away. They didn't notice Franklin. He didn't think to talk to them or even get their names.
The firefighters heard someone yell, "Way to go!" They assumed that was the end of it.
'Oh, my!'
Franklin still had to get his photo to his paper. He talked his way onto a police boat back to New Jersey and hitchhiked 3 miles to his car, where he had left his laptop computer. But the laptop's battery was dead, so he could not transmit his photos.
Driving back to his newspaper, he got stuck in a 5-mile traffic jam. He pulled off the highway, set up in the lobby of a motel and sent his photos to the newspaper. A staffer scanning the incoming photos said, "Oh, my!"
A few hours later, the photo was sent to the Associated Press and transmitted around the world. The phones at The Record began ringing the next morning. Everyone wanted the photo.
Sandy Montesano of Ringwood, N.J., sought a copy of the picture for a 6-month-old girl whose father died at the World Trade Center. "I would like her to know that while there is evil in the world, there is also so much good," she wrote. "Your portrait shows all that America truly is today."
Willy Thompson, a firefighter in Teaneck, N.J., said he had never been so moved by a photograph. He proposed a monument like the Marine Corps War Memorial outside Washington based on the Iwo Jima photo.
The photo began to turn up everywhere: on the locker of the Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Curt Schilling, on a button on the chest of the Yankees' Roger Clemens. The scene was restaged on the field before the first game of the World Series as a surprised Franklin watched from the photographers' box behind first base.
James Bradley, who wrote a best seller about his father's experience as one of the Iwo Jima flag raisers, Flags of Our Fathers, got hundreds of e-mails with Franklin's photo. He hung a copy next to the Iwo Jima photo on the wall of his study. "The country put one and one together and said, 'It happened again!' " he concluded.
Left as a calling card in Afghanistan
In Afghanistan, U.S. commandos who raided positions behind Taliban lines left behind copies of the photo with the words "Freedom Endures" superimposed on them.
In Boca Raton, Fla., a 45-year-old artist checked into a Holiday Inn and began painting her version of Franklin's photo on a 5-by-4-foot canvas. She started at midnight and worked for 10 hours straight, not even stopping for a sip of water.
In Columbus, Ohio, women on the third shift at a Sears credit card processing center hung copies of the photo at their work stations to comfort a co-worker who lost two friends at the Trade Center.
The Record holds the copyright on the flag photo, but the image began appearing unauthorized on T-shirts, posters and other merchandise. Franklin found his photo on stickers at a souvenir shop outside Yankee Stadium. "What about the copyright?" he asked the shop's owner.
"No copyright," the man replied happily.
"I'm the photographer who took the picture!" Franklin said.
"For you, special price!" the man replied.
Meanwhile, The Record decided to give a free print to anyone who asked but suggested a donation to a foundation it set up to aid victims' families.
Hundreds of requests a day
Before it stopped taking requests last month, the newspaper mailed out 30,000 photos. It has received about $400,000 in photo-related donations and still gets hundreds of requests a day for the picture.
Franklin's photo is not the defining image of Sept. 11 — far grimmer ones vie for that distinction — but it is probably the most uplifting.
The background, says cultural historian Mary Panzer, "is what gives the photo its drama. You get a sense of the firemen's accomplishment."
The flag flew at Ground Zero for several days. In October, it was delivered to the USS Theodore Roosevelt in the Middle East. The carrier's firefighters passed the flag in the Navy's "hand-over-hand" ceremony, a tradition honoring the dead, before it was raised up the highest mast. Almost the entire crew of 5,500 jammed the flight deck to watch. "We all consider this our battle flag," Petty Officer 1st Class Rodney Hightower says.
When the crisis is over, the flag will go back to the New York Fire Department, which plans to install an 18-foot-high bronze statue modeled on Franklin's photo outside its headquarters as a memorial.
Franklin and the firefighters, meanwhile, still have not met. But they share a skepticism of their sudden celebrity.
"I was in the right spot at the right time," Franklin says. "But every time something nice happens to me as a result of this, I have to stand back and remember what happened that day. I'm still chilled to the bone."
Franklin's loath to discuss predictions that he's a shoo-in for the Pulitzer Prize in spot news photography. But Joe Urschel, executive director of the Newseum, a media museum in Arlington, Va., says, "If he doesn't win, I don't know who will."
The firefighters say they are not heroes and would prefer never to have been identified.
"They're almost embarrassed by it all," says Johnson's sister, Nancy Brock.
McWilliams and Johnson were interviewed Sept. 13 by The Record. Since then, they have refused requests to talk to the news media about Sept. 11. Friends say McWilliams, an 11-year veteran who lives on Long Island with his wife and two daughters, has taken the losses of that day particularly hard.
"The picture is enough," McWilliams said. "I couldn't name one of the guys in Iwo Jima, and we don't think our names are necessary. It was just three guys with an idea."
The three men are stationed in Brooklyn: McWilliams and Johnson at Ladder Co. 157, and Eisengrein at Rescue Co. 2. All three were off-duty the morning of Sept. 11 and raced to the scene to help. Eisengrein, 37, lost seven members of his company. McWilliams and Johnson's unit was spared any fatalities.
The men have spent the past three months working their regular shifts, searching at Ground Zero and attending fire department funerals. They also have helped the families of firefighters lost in the disaster — buying Christmas trees and completing unfinished house projects.
The firefighters' lawyer, Bill Kelly, says when merchandise related to the photo is licensed and sold, their share will go to victims' families. "My clients won't take a dime themselves," he says.
George Johnson, 36, is the most outgoing of the three, a rugby player, surfer and world traveler who followed his father into the fire department in 1991 after majoring in economics at the State University of New York-Cortland.
In 1996, Johnson donated bone marrow for an operation that saved 4-year-old Forrest Nichols of Munfordville, Ky., from leukemia. After the Sept. 11 attacks, nine Munfordville-area firefighters drove to Brooklyn to hand Johnson $30,000 they collected for victims' families. And on Dec. 8, he returned to Munfordville to march with young Forrest in the town's Christmas parade.
When American Airlines Flight 587 crashed Nov. 12, it landed a few blocks from Johnson's family home in the Rockaway section of Queens. He was stationed at a firehouse in Lower Manhattan that morning, covering for another firefighter who had to attend a funeral. But Johnson raced to the scene with a state trooper and worked to battle the fires and search the wreckage.
Ten days earlier, Johnson had flown to Charlotte to serve on an honor guard at an NBA game between the Hornets and the New York Knicks. But he insisted that he not be introduced by name, only as part of a group of six New York firefighters.
"Let us recover our guys first, and we can talk about the picture later," Johnson told The Charlotte Observer. "Nobody did it for any recognition. Nobody wants any recognition."
Here, too, there is an echo of Iwo Jima. "These firemen sound just like my dad," Bradley says. "He told me the real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."
Despite their reticence, it's clear why the firefighters did what they did Sept. 11.
"Everybody just needed a shot in the arm," McWilliams told The Record. "Every pair of eyes that saw that flag got a little brighter."

Icons: The Photo Seen Around the World

ICONS: THE PHOTO SEEN 'ROUND THE WORLD

Thomas E. Franklin's firefighters raising the flag photo
After an assignment in the Dominican Republic, news photographer Thomas E. Franklin was back to his usual territory, the New York-New Jersey area.
The US stamp version of Franklin's famous image (USPS image)
His day began at 8 a.m. 11 September 2001 at the offices of his employer, The Bergen Record of Passaic, New Jersey. An editor told him a plane hit the World Trade Center. Franklin, who had been on the paper's staff since 1993, headed down the New Jersey Turnpike to Jersey City. He heard about the crash of United Flight 175 into the WTC south tower on the radio.
Franklin stopped at Exchange Place in Jersey City and went to the riverfront. As a veteran of the news coverage area, he knew where the best views of the WTC would be. He put a memory card into his digital camera. He witnessed ferries carrying wounded persons and the establishment of a triage area and took shots of the action.
"The whole day was an emotional roller coaster. I was scanning the faces in Jersey City, hoping that I would see my brother. He works two blocks south of the World Trade Center. I didn't find out until 3 o'clock that afternoon that he was okay," Franklin recalled in The Record.
By noon the ferries began to taper off. Another photographer, John Wheeler, convinced the police to let himself and Franklin take a tugboat to New York. He first arrived at WTC 7, a 47-story structure that would collapse that night. As Franklin further penetrated Ground Zero, police threatened to arrest him about a half dozen times.
Franklin was traveling with James Nachtwey, a Pulitzer-prize winning photojournalist who told him he had just narrowly escaped death at Ground Zero.
Around 4 or 5 p.m., Franklin and Nachtwey were taking a break and drinking water and juice. A trio of firefighters caught his eye.
"I would I say was 150 yards away when I saw the firefighters raising the flag. They were standing on a structure about 20 feet above the ground. This was a long lens picture: there was about 100 yards between the foreground and background, and the long lens would capture the enormity of the rubble behind them," Franklin said.
The three firefighters, William Eisengrein, George Johnson and Daniel McWilliams, had discovered a US flag on the back of a yacht inside a boat slip at the World Financial Center. They took the banner and decided to raise it as a statement of loyalty and resilience.
Franklin recalled, "I made the picture standing underneath what may have been one of the elevated walkways, possibly the one that had connected the World Trade plaza and the World Financial Center. As soon as I shot it, I realized the similarity to the famous image of the Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
"This was an important shot. It told more than just death and destruction. It said something to me about the strength of the American people and of thse firemen having to battle the unimaginable."
Two generations ago, when the US was in World War II, Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal snapped a picture of six Marines raising Old Glory on Mount Suribachi on the Pacific island in February 1945. The photo became a WWII icon and the basis for a Marine Corps memorial sculpture in Washington, D.C. The Battle of Iwo Jima also is recognized as the beginning of the end of the campaign against the Japanese in the Pacific.
The firefighters of Engine 255 and Ladder 157 of Brooklyn had been digging in the rubble and searching for survivors at WTC 7, when they were told to evacuate. The weakened structure was close to collapse.
During the evacuation, McWilliams, 35, of Long Island, saw the yacht, Star of America, owned by Shirley Dreifus of the Majestic Star company in New York. He took the flag and its pole from the stern and rolled it up so it would not touch the ground. He took it to the evacuation area. The Old Glory itself was American made, originating from Eder Flag Manufacturing of Oakcreek, Wisconsin.
McWilliams, of Ladder 157, passed a coworker, Johnson, 36, of Rockaway Beach, Queens. He slapped Johnson on the shoulder and said, "Give me a hand, will ya, George?"
Eisengrein, of Rescue 2 from Brooklyn, saw them and said, "You need a hand?" Eisengren also was a childhood friend of McWilliams on Staten Island and still resided there.
The firefighters found a flagpole within rubble about 20 feet off the ground on West Street. They used a improvised ramp to climb to the pole to raise the flag. As they performed their act, Franklin aimed his long lens in their direction.
McWilliams remembered that other fire personnel yelled, "Good job!" and "Way to go!"
"Ever pair of eyes that saw that flag got a little brighter," McWilliams said.
The three firemen decided to raise the flag on the spur of the moment. McWilliams said that "a big part of this is maintaining the unity of the whole team." The men were stressed from the WTC collapse and the lack of survivors among the debris.
"Everybody just needed a shot in the arm," McWilliams told the Associated Press.
In all, 343 firefighters died in the Trade Center disaster, along with 23 New York City and 37 Port Authority police officers and six medical rescue workers.
Franklin's photograph appeared in the 12 September 2001 Record. Reaction was swift and emotional. The flag raising firemen were hit with numerous calls from friends and family. Their first reaction -- surprise, as they didn't know Franklin took their picture.
The Record itself received 30,000 requests to reprint the photograph, which the paper initially granted if they were not for profit. Among the requests from commercial concerns were to reprint it on shirts and three-dimensional music boxes.
The periodical stopped the gratis distribution and instead asked for donations to its disaster fund, which eventually swelled to $400,000. The money was distributed to charities selected by McWilliams, Johnson and Eisengrein. The photo eventually was made into an authorized poster sold through the paper's Web site and private companies.
Firefighters and photographer are reunited at the stamp unveiling on 11 March 2002, six months after the Trade Center attack. Standing (from left) are Postmaster General Jack Potter, Firefighters William "Billy" Eisengrein and George Johnson, President George W. Bush, US Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Firefighter Dan McWilliams, and Thomas E. Franklin. (White House photo)
Slight variations and outright replicas began to appear across the US in fall 2001: a New Orleans prison bore a mural of the image, and copies of it were left as "calling cards" by troops in Afghanistan. At Thanksgiving 2001, Franklin himself saw a two-story replica on the side of a building on FDR Drive in New York.
Firefighters with flags began to appear in paintings and drawings, and on pins, buttons, T-shirts, hats and Christmas ornaments. Taverns, hair salons and offices hung the picture. Phoenix, Arizona, firefighters reenacted the scene before the start of Game 1 of the World Series featuring the Diamondbacks and New York Yankees. Through Associated Press distribution, the Franklin photo was used by many magazines and papers.
"The photo is taped to the wall at Attitude, a hair salon in Austin, Texas. A bartender at Sparky's Sports Bar & Grill in Sparks, Nev., wears a T-shirt with the photo most nights. The Daily Ardmoreite in Ardmore, Okla., uses the photo every day on its front page as a graphic to accompany the top terrorism story," a December 2001 AP story relates.
"David Gittings, a sewer inspector in Louisville, Ky., cut the photo out of a newspaper and has it framed on a living room wall. 'That was a signal to bring everybody together,' he said. 'You can kick us, you can hit us, but we're not down.' "
At the end of 2001, the Associated Press Managing Editors Association and Editor & Publisher magazine named it the best picture of the year. The photo was on the short list of photographs considered for the Pulitzer Prize.
The use of the firefighter photo for profit became so rampant that by December 2001, the flag trio and The Record finally hired the New York law firm of McCarthy & Kelly to protect the paper's copyright and block unauthorized uses for commercial purposes.
"While most claim to be donating all or part of the proceeds to the World Trade Center disaster charity funds, we are not confident that the revenue generated by the sale of these illegal products is actually finding a way to the families that have suffered," partner Bill Kelly said in a statement.
One revenue generating venture was approved -- a "Heroes 2001" stamp issued by the US Postal Service with the Franklin image. President George W. Bush, as part of the six-month remembrance rituals of 11 March 2002, unveiled the stamp in the Oval Office. Franklin, Johnson, Eisengrein and McWilliams attended the ceremony.
The stamps had a plus sign instead of a price. They cost 45 cents rather than the usual 34-cent first class price. The extra revenue was to go the Federal Emergency Management Agency; a little paid for Postal Service operating costs.
One replica of the photo even generated controversy. In December 2001, the New York Fire Department unveiled a study of a memorial statue based on the picture, but with the firefighers as black, Latino and white. The three original men are all Caucasian. The sculpture was by StudioEis of Brooklyn.
"Given that those who died were of all races and all ethnicities and that the statue was to be symbolic of those sacrifices, ultimately a decision was made to honor no one in particular, but everyone who made the supreme sacrifice," said Frank Gribbon, an FDNY spokesman.
Many of the complaints about the statue came from New York firefighters themselves. They criticized their department for being politically correct and "rewriting history," as the father of fireman Thomas Casoria, a WTC victim, said.
The statue was supposed to be installed by spring 2002 at FDNY headquarters in Brooklyn. The $180,000 costs were to be covered by the property management company that owned the headquarters site. After the complaints the fire department went back to the drawing board for another attempt at a memorial.
Franklin remains modest about the picture, saying that it was only chance he witnessed the firefighters. The only reason the photo was printed in The Record was because Franklin got a police boat ride to Liberty State Park; a hitchhiked ride to his car in Jersey City; and the use of facilities at a hotel to transport it after he could not get around a roadblock.
"In the back of our minds, all photographers believe we're going to get 'the big one.' I've shot hurricanes (and) earthquakes. But I've never seen anything like this," Franklin aid. "There were times during the day that I cried. Nothing had ever touched me as emotionally as this. But I had a job to do ... Once I made deadline, all I wanted to do was see my wife and my son."
More information:

President Bush and the Three Firefighters and Photographer Thomas E. Franklin
Posted by Hello

September 11th Stamp
Posted by Hello

9/11's Flag-Raising Firefighter Heroes

9/11's Flag-Raising Firefighter Heroes
Carl Limbacher Jr.Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2002

Even a year later, the image of the three New York City firemen hoisting the American flag at Ground Zero just hours after the worst-ever attack on U.S. territory remains the most enduring image from that horrific day - and may be among the most inspirational tableaux in the country's history.
The historic photo, taken by Thomas Franklin of The Record of North Jersey, conjures up two of America's most moving battle icons, the victorious World War II flag raising at Iwo Jima and the National Anthem's defiant lyric celebrating the country's resiliency under attack: "… the bombs bursting in air, gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there."
But a year after those three firefighters rallied a stunned nation with their real-life proof that our flag was still there, few Americans even know their names.
In fact, the FDNY's Dan McWilliams and George Johnson, who raced to the burning Twin Towers that day from Brooklyn's Ladder Company No. 157, along with Billy Eisengrein, who headed to the same destination from Staten Island's Rescue Company No. 2, have shunned the spotlight ever since that week.
Their only public comments about the events that led up to the famous moment appeared in The Record three days after the attack.
McWilliams said he spotted the flag hanging from a yacht docked on the Hudson River after he and his crew were ordered to evacuate Ground Zero because of the imminent collapse of a third tower, the World Trade Center's Building Number Seven.
Ordinarily, the fall of the 47-story behemoth would have been a momentous event in and of itself. It's a measure of the magnitude of the events of that day that Number Seven's disintegration barely rated a footnote in the next day's news coverage.
Sitting in the kitchen of their Brooklyn firehouse two days later, McWilliams and Johnson recounted the sequence of events the led up to the legendary photo.
"Gimme a hand, will ya, George?" McWilliams recalled shouting to his buddy Johnson, in an interview with The Record.
"I knew exactly what he was doing," Johnson added.
Standing nearby was Billy Eisengrein, who, as luck would have it, just happened to be a childhood friend of McWilliams when the two lived on Staten Island. "You need a hand?" Eisengrein shouted.
The three firefighters quickly found a perfect spot -- a single flagpole anchored in the rubble about 20 feet off the ground on West Street.
As they were raising the flag, the trio of heroes were completely unaware they were being photographed, they told the paper -- let alone marching into history.
Though few of their fellow firemen remained in the evacuation area at that moment, Johnson remembered hearing a smattering of cheers after the flag went up. "A few guys yelled out 'good job' and 'way to go,' " he said.
Since that fateful Tuesday, it's been a busy year for the three firemen who helped a devastated nation recover its spirit.
They've seen their images adorn countless replicas of the flag raising, on everything from dime-store trinkets to a model for a racially altered statue that was to be displayed at New York City's FDNY headquarters.
A firestorm of protest erupted after NewsMax reported the plan to obscure the firefighters' true identities to make the trio racially diverse, including a black and a Hispanic. A surge of outrage forced the department to scrap the plan.
Through it all McWilliams, Johnson and Eisengrein have remained remarkably silent. An FDNY spokesman told NewsMax that the flag-raising trio had instructed his office to decline all interview requests.
But according to their lawyer, William Kelly, the months since 9/11 have been anything but uneventful for his three clients.
"They've been trying to keep as low profile as possible so they could get back to work," Kelly told NewsMax, explaining that Johnson and McWilliams have since been promoted to lieutenant.
As demand skyrocketed for the famous flag-raising image, Kelly helped the firemen set up a charity, The Bravest Fund, to which 100 percent of the revenues they receive from licensing agreements are donated.
The money goes to aid the families of firefighters, police officers and emergency service workers who were killed or injured on 9/11.
Despite stories about large payments to some victims, the truth is that many of the firefighters, police and others had families, and payments will not replace the real financial loss suffered by these families.
Though the flag-raising trio's public appearances have been few, they were honored by a ceremony aboard the USS Teddy Roosevelt after the ship sailed into the Afghan war zone carrying the Ground Zero flag .
"The guys were taken aboard, and the U.S. Navy presented the flag back to them in a ceremony that was shown on the Today show," Kelly said. "Then there was a ceremony at City Hall where the flag was presented by the guys back to the City of New York."
The office of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which currently has custody of the flag, will likely donate the 9/11 icon to the Smithsonian Institution, he said.
The three firemen have also been honored by the Seagraves Company, which has the contract to replace the fire trucks lost in the 9/11 attack. The first replacement truck off the assembly line featured the image of McWilliams looking up at the Ground Zero flag that he and his partners had just raised.
Kelly said that even Seagraves' management was initially unaware of the tribute, explaining, "They told me it was a spontaneous effort by the guys who built the truck."
The flag-raising truck now operates out of Ladder 10 in New York.
Since 9/11, the flag-raising image has become among the most popular in the world. However, over 500 companies have used it unaware that it's a copyrighted image co-owned by The Record and the three firemen.
Still, the image has appeared in unauthorized form on everything from motorcycles to music boxes to pocket knives to guns, Kelly said. All over Manhattan, renderings of McWilliams, Johnson and Eisengrein raising the flag appear among the cityscapes and celebrity portraits hawked by streetside artists.
The image might seem a natural for that icon of American pop culture, the Wheaties box, which parent company General Mills usually adorns with inspirational sports images. But, Kelly explained, "I've been told that a lot of corporations are steering clear of associating their corporate name with 9/11."
However, representatives from both Major League Baseball and the NFL have expressed an interest in the flag-raising image, he revealed.
But since the image of the three firefighters came to symbolize America's resiliency under attack, the highlight of the year was the trio's visit to the White House in March for the unveiling of a U.S. postage stamp bearing their likenesses.
It's the only time in the history of the Postal Service that the agency has issued a commemorative stamp featuring the images of still-living Americans.
Kelly gave NewsMax a behind-the-scenes account of the flag-raising trio's visit with the president of the United States.
"I went down with them to the Oval Office," he told NewsMax. "We spent about 20 or 30 minutes with President Bush," who had reportedly personally chosen the image from several submissions approved by the Postal Service.
Unnoted in most press accounts of the event, however, was the gift the three firefighters brought with them.
It was a wooden box originally carved for the famous flag, given to Johnson by the family of a cancer-stricken 8-year-old boy in Kentucky whose life the fireman saved in 1997 when he donated his bone marrow.
"The box had an American flag on it, this beautiful little wood box," Kelly said. "And when we were in the Oval Office, George gave that to the president."
After Bush learned the story behind the gift, Kelly recalled, "He put the box on his desk and said, 'The next time you see me on television in the Oval Office, you're going to see this box sitting here on my desk.'"

The Raising of the Flag from Dan McWilliams

The Raising of the Flag From Dan McWilliams - Ladder 157

World Trade Center Building Seven was about to collapse. Firefighters from Engine 255 and Ladder 157 in Brooklyn had been digging in the rubble for survivors for six grueling hours, when they got the call to immediately evacuate. Firefighter Dan McWilliams from Ladder 157 headed out with the rest of his crew. It was then that the 35-year-old firefighter spotted a flag flying from a yacht docked behind the World Financial Center. He made his way to the boat, rolled the flag up around its pole to be sure it didn't touch the ground, and carried the pole back to the evacuation area. As McWilliams passed his buddy and fellow 157 firefighter George Johnson, he slapped him on the shoulder. "Gimme a hand, will ya, George?" "I knew exactly what he was doing," Johnson, 36, said. Then Billy Eisengrein of Rescue 2, another Brooklyn fire company, and McWilliams' childhood friend from Staten Island, jumped in, "You need a hand?" The three firefighters quickly found a perfect spot -- a single flagpole anchored in the rubble about 20 feet off the ground on West Street. They climbed a makeshift ramp so they could easily raise the flag in its new home. It was at that moment that Record photographer Thomas E. Franklin spotted the three from a distance. Only two days had passed since that moment. The World Trade Center death and chaos were still fresh in the minds of McWilliams and Johnson as they sat in the noisy kitchen in the Flatbush firehouse recalling how the three firefighter friends -- Johnson from Rockaway Beach, McWilliams from Long Island, and Eisengrein from Staten Island -- acted as one. "A big part of this is maintaining the unity of the whole team," McWilliams said. His eyes filled with tears as he remembered the hellish day New York's firefighters experienced right after the Twin Towers' collapse, and their lack of progress in finding survivors. "Everybody just needed a shot in the arm," he said, pausing to regain his composure. The photo was the shot seen round the world. It has run on many American newspaper front pages, including the New York Post, the Baltimore Sun, and Providence Journal, and has been shown on network television. McWilliams and Johnson said they didn't raise the flag to solicit personal attention. They didn't expect to get any phone calls or comments from friends and family. They were unaware they were being photographed. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that started with McWilliams. Though few firefighters remained in the evacuation area at that moment, Johnson said he recalls hearing comments after the flag went up. "A few guys yelled out 'good job' and 'way to go.' " And although he hadn't given the hoisting much thought, McWilliams remembered, "Every pair of eyes that saw that flag got a little brighter."

One Man's Path to Historic Photo

One Man's Path to Historic Photo: Persistence and a Lift on a Tug
By Kenneth F. Irby

Firefighters Dan McWilliams of Long Island and George Johnson of Rockaway Beach (both from Ladder 157) and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island (Rescue 2) raise the flag amid the debris of the World Trade Center. Thomas E. Franklin / The RecordIt was late afternoon on Sept. 11, about nine hours after the first plane hit the first tower, that photographer Thomas E. Franklin decided to walk back toward the rubble.
In front of him, he saw three firefighters raising an American flag from the debris of the World Trade Center.
“I made the picture standing underneath what may have been one of the elevated walkways, possibly the one that had connected the World Trade Plaza and the World Financial Center,” said Franklin, a photographer for The Record of Bergen County, N.J. “As soon as I shot it, I realized the similarity to the famous image of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima.”
The Iwo Jima photo won the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for photographer Joe Rosenthal. Franklin’s photo has been touted as a likely finalist for the Pulitzer as well as World Press and Pictures of the Year.
“I don’t put a whole lot of merit in contests,” said Franklin, “but I do trust and respect the reaction of readers.”
And the reaction has been strong. The Record used Franklin’s photo on its front page in Sept. 12 editions, as did many other papers around the world that received the image via AP. The photograph generated so many requests for copies that The Record’s parent company, North Jersey Media Group, set up a special website to coordinate orders, distribution and donations.
The paper waived its usual $25 re-print charge as well as shipping and handling fees. Instead, the site recommends donations to its special North Jersey Media Group Disaster Relief Fund. More than 20,000 people have requested copies of the photo or have sent messages to Franklin, according to Rich Gigli, The Record’s director of photography.
In an editor’s note published with the photo, Record Editor Frank Scandale wrote: “Franklin’s photo of three heroic rescuers - Brooklyn-based firefighters Dan McWillians of Long Island, George Johnson of Roackaway Beach (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island (Rescue 2) - also became a global message that life, and America, would go on.”
Franklin says he has been deeply affected by what he saw on Sept. 11.
“The events of that day are what sticks in my mind,” he says. “I cried a half-dozen times that day. My pictures tell only a small part of what I really saw.”
He added: “I am constantly amazed by the outreach that people have extended to me. The hook with this picture is the symbolism, bravery, and valor. They (the three firefighters) are saying 'screw you' to whoever did this. On that day, as I watched from Exchange Place in Jersey City, I was on the other side of the river. I was concerned for my brother (who worked at Chase Center), I was certain in my thoughts that the world was ending."
The photographer says he has been surprised by e-mail and telephone calls from strangers, “people trying to tell me what this picture means to them.”
Franklin, who described the attention as “time-consuming and overwhelming,” has spoken to the Eddie Adams Workshop in upstate New York and the Associated Press Managing Editors meeting in Milwaukee, where he was awarded the Showcase Photo of the Year award.
On Sept. 11, with traffic blocked to all incoming traffic except emergency vehicles, it took a while for Franklin to make his way across the Hudson River. Finally, about noon, he caught a ride on a tugboat and made his way to Ground Zero, evading several arrest threats along the way.
As firefighters were preparing for the collapse of World Trade Center Building Seven, Franklin worked alongside famed photographer James Natchwey. The pair stopped to get something to drink before Franklin decided to head back toward the rubble. It was at that point that he spotted the scene that became his picture.

Thomas E. Franklin / The Record - (Bergen County NJ)
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About the Photo

About the photo:
September 11, 2001 -- the end of the world as we knew it. But in the chaos and rubble where the World Trade Center no longer stood, Record photographer Thomas E. Franklin captured an unforgettable image of hope -- three firefighters raising the American flag.
Standing defiantly against the gray and white landscape of devastation, these dust-covered men and the vivid red, white, and blue of Old Glory instantly became a symbol of American patriotism. Franklin's photo of these three heroic rescuers -- Brooklyn-based firefighters Dan McWilliams of Long Island, George Johnson of Rockaway Beach (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island (Rescue 2) -- also became a global message that life, and America, would go on.
The photo, which appeared September 12 in The Record, has since graced the pages of many other newspapers as well as national newsmagazines. Network television has repeatedly displayed the photo during its round-the-clock disaster coverage, comparing it to the famous image of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima during World War II.
Franklin, an eight-year veteran of The Record, took the photo late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, after spending hours at the scene. He was walking toward the debris of the World Trade Center when he spotted the firefighters.
"The shot immediately felt important to me," Franklin said. "It said something to me about the strength of the American people and about the courage of all the firefighters who, in the face of this horrible disaster, had a job to do in battling the unimaginable."
Getting the photo of a lifetime Thursday, September 13, 2001
Flag-raising was 'shot in the arm'
Editor's Note: Tom Franklin spent Tuesday capturing images of the destruction and the efforts of rescuers at the World Trade Center. Among those images is a dramatic shot of three New York City firefighters raising a flag amid the rubble. Here is his account of how he got that photograph, as told to Jeannine Clegg.
The day started at 8 o'clock in The Record photo office. I had just gotten back from an assignment in the Dominican Republic. I flew on American. An editor told me what happened. I started driving down to the World Trade Center on the turnpike and heard the second plane had crashed.
At Exchange Place in Jersey City, I got out and hiked to the riverfront. Having shot hundreds of pictures of the World Trade Center over the years, I knew the best vantage points.
I reloaded my digital camera with a new photo card (it's like film) and snuck back. I could see ferries carrying the wounded coming from the city. A triage center was set up. I was able to make some shots.
The whole day was an emotional roller coaster. I was scanning the faces in Jersey City, hoping that I would see my brother. He works two blocks south of the World Trade Center. I didn't find out until 3 o'clock that afternoon that he was OK.
By noon, the boatloads were less and less frequent, and I was running out of room on my card. I downloaded some photos into my laptop and then went back. That's when another photographer, John Wheeler, persuaded authorities to let us on a tugboat that was shuttling survivors back and forth.
When I arrived, I rushed to the scene. I was right underneath World Trade Center Building Seven. Police ushered everyone out, but I worked my way to ground zero. They threatened to arrest me at least a half-dozen times.
I was making pictures at the scene for about an hour. I was expecting to see death, but mostly I saw mangled metal, overturned cars and ambulances, and everything covered with dust. The heat from the smoking debris was incredible.
Firemen evacuated the area as they prepared for the collapse of Building Seven.
There was one other photographer with me -- James Nachtwey. He's won the Pulitzer Prize. He's covered wars. He told me how he narrowly escaped death earlier in the day. I didn't even realize until I was telling the story later that Nachtwey and I had been the only ones there.
We were catching our breath, drinking water and juice, when I decided to walk back toward the debris. It was between 4 and 5 p.m.
I would say I was 150 yards away when I saw the firefighters raising the flag. They were standing on a structure about 20 feet above the ground.
This was a long-lens picture: There was about 100 yards between the foreground and background, and the long lens would capture the enormity of the rubble behind them.
I made the picture standing underneath what may have been one of the elevated walkways, possibly the one that had connected the World Trade Plaza and the World Financial Center.
As soon as I shot it, I realized the similarity to the famous image of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
This was an important shot. It told of more than just death and destruction. It said something to me about the strength of the American people and of these firemen having to battle the unimaginable.
It had drama, spirit, and courage in the face of disaster.
I probably made about 10 frames.
Throughout the day, I was afraid that something was wrong with my camera and that these once-in-a-lifetime pictures were ruined.
I immediately took that photo card out of my camera, put it in my pocket, and put another card in, figuring I should be OK. That's when I realized I'd entered the dangerous area.
Spread out in front of me was 200 yards of burnt-out cars, ambulances, and firetrucks that were crushed and covered in soot. There was no color; everything was dusty white. I saw money, notebooks, financial reports, couch cushions, calculators, and shoes.
At that point, I didn't think about the danger. I knew I wouldn't have any assignment as important as this. Nothing was holding me back.
In the back of our minds, all photgraphers believe we're going to get "the big one." I've shot hurricanes, earthquakes. But I've never seen anything like this.
There were times during the day that I cried. Nothing had ever touched me as emotionally as this. But I had a job to do.
I'm not comfortable taking "credit" for something like this. None of it would have made it into the newspaper if I hadn't gotten a ride on a police boat back to Liberty State Park, a hitchhiked ride to my car in Jersey City, and then help transmitting photos from a hotel after getting stuck in a Route 3 roadblock.
Once I made deadline, all I wanted to do was see my wife and my son.
Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
Flag-raising was 'shot in the arm' Friday, September 14, 2001 By JEANNINE CLEGG, Staff Writer
World Trade Center Building Seven was about to collapse on Tuesday.
Firefighters from Engine 255 and Ladder 157 in Brooklyn had been digging in the rubble for survivors for six grueling hours, when they got the call to immediately evacuate.
Firefighter Dan McWilliams from Ladder 157 headed out with the rest of his crew. It was then that the 35-year-old firefighter spotted a flag flying from a yacht docked behind the World Financial Center. He made his way to the boat, rolled the flag up around its pole to be sure it didn't touch the ground, and carried the pole back to the evacuation area.
As McWilliams passed his buddy and fellow 157 firefighter George Johnson, he slapped him on the shoulder. "Gimme a hand, will ya, George?"
"I knew exactly what he was doing," Johnson, 36, said.
Then Billy Eisengrein of Rescue 2, another Brooklyn fire company, and McWilliams' childhood friend from Staten Island, jumped in, "You need a hand?"
The three firefighters quickly found a perfect spot -- a single flagpole anchored in the rubble about 20 feet off the ground on West Street.
They climbed a makeshift ramp so they could easily raise the flag in its new home. It was at that moment that Record photographer Thomas E. Franklin spotted the three from a distance.
Only two days had passed since that moment. The World Trade Center death and chaos were still fresh in the minds of McWilliams and Johnson as they sat in the noisy kitchen in the Flatbush firehouse recalling how the three firefighter friends -- Johnson from Rockaway Beach, McWilliams from Long Island, and Eisengrein from Staten Island -- acted as one.
"A big part of this is maintaining the unity of the whole team," McWilliams said.
His eyes filled with tears as he remembered the hellish day New York's firefighters experienced right after the Twin Towers' collapse, and their lack of progress in finding survivors.
"Everybody just needed a shot in the arm," he said, pausing to regain his composure.
The photo was the shot seen round the world. It has run on many American newspaper front pages, including the New York Post, the Baltimore Sun, and Providence Journal, and has been shown on network television.
McWilliams and Johnson said they didn't raise the flag to solicit personal attention. They didn't expect to get any phone calls or comments from friends and family. They were unaware they were being photographed. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that started with McWilliams.
Though few firefighters remained in the evacuation area at that moment, Johnson said he recalls hearing comments after the flag went up.
"A few guys yelled out 'good job' and 'way to go.' "
And although he hadn't given the hoisting much thought, McWilliams remembered, "Every pair of eyes that saw that flag got a little brighter."
Copyright © 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.
About the photo:
Among the many extraordinary efforts put forth by the media on the morning of September 11, 2001, The Record responded with its outstanding photos, a Tuesday Extra afternoon edition, expanded editorial coverage in regular editions, and the immediate establishment of a local disaster relief fund. These efforts have come to be symbolized by a photo of three firefighters raising the American flag amidst the rubble of the World Trade Center, taken by Thomas E. Franklin, a photographer at The Record.
The photo originally ran in The Record on Wednesday, September 12. It immediately drew national attention and re-ran on Thursday, September 13 with an explanation from Franklin of how he captured the extraordinary shot. Depicted in the photo are Brooklyn-based firefighters Dan McWilliams of Long Island and George Johnson of Rockaway Beach, both from Ladder 157, and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island from Rescue 2. This photo has now been seen around the world. It has been used on the front pages of newspapers including the New York Post, Baltimore Sun, and Providence Journal (Rhode Island), and has been shown on network television.
Neither the photographer nor the firefighters knew initially that their combined instincts would grow into a national symbol of patriotism.
How to order a copy:
To purchase a photo or other licensed products, please visit www.groundzerospirit.org. Proceeds benefit the two funds on that site.
Posted: 1 November 2001 Updated: 13 October 2002 © 2001 The Record (Bergen County, NJ), Used By Special Permission For Information About The Use Of This Photo, Please Click Here

Man sues over botched online sale of 9/11 flag

Man sues over botched online sale of 9/11 flagBy Dena PotterASSOCIATED PRESS
RICHMOND -- An Orange County man who auctioned a flag on EBay that purportedly flew over the Pentagon during the September 11 terrorist attack has filed a lawsuit claiming a construction company ruined the deal, which would have brought him $371,300. David Nicholson auctioned the flag in March to raise money for treatment for his kidney cancer. An initial EBay auction drew a final bid of $371,300, but the bidder would not honor the sale because of questions raised by Facchina Construction Company of Maryland about the flag's authenticity.

Thursday, May 19, 2005

9/11 Flag sale Triggers an Emotional Dilemma

9/11 flag sale triggers an emotional dilemma
The seller, a cancer patient, did it ‘for family’; 9/11 victims say sale will set precedent for trafficking in misery


Posted online: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 at 0151 hours IST
WASHINGTON, MARCH 15: Debra Burlingame, whose brother piloted the plane that crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, couldn’t believe it when she heard that someone was auctioning off a flag that allegedly survived the attack.
‘‘I figured it had to be an urban legend,’’ Burlingame said. Who, she wondered, would ‘‘traffic in human misery?’’
But the auction, posted on eBay by a Virginia cancer patient who said he needed to support his family, was genuine. Yesterday, despite questions about the US flag’s authenticity, it sold for $371,300 to an unidentified buyer in Minnesota.
The sale was an emotional blow to many 9/11 families, who have tried to keep such souvenirs off the market to preserve the dignity of the dead. They said the sale set a precedent for profiteers.
‘‘I understand that it’s human nature for people to pick up mementos,’’ Burlingame said. ‘‘They don’t mean any disrespect. But to put it on the market is another thing. And the huge price tag (on the flag) will only encourage others to put their little piece of American history’’ on the market.
Carol Baroudi, an Internet industry expert and author of The Internet for Dummies, said it was only a matter of time before people could distance themselves emotionally from the tragedy and purchase artifacts, something that three years ago would have been unthinkable.
‘‘It’s like trying to stop a tide,’’ Baroudi said. Today ‘‘no one would hesitate to auction World War II memorabilia. If it was something that was personal to your family and you felt strongly about it, you might be upset, but it’s a question of time and timing... We will be seeing more of it.’’
Last week, officials with the Internet bulletin board Craigslist yanked postings from a seller advertising a rubber toy bus allegedly found at the World Trade Center in New York, where terrorist crashed two other planes, causing thousands of casualties. The appraised value was listed as $44,000.
After the September 11 attacks, eBay banned all 9/11-related objects, then lifted it after three months.
Despite the protests of 9/11 families, eBay officials maintained David Nicholson’s flag auction complied with their policies. ‘‘Some people may find it painful or wonder why anyone would want to own it, but diversity of opinion in the community is a strength,’’ eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said. ‘‘We ask the community to respect other people’s opinions.’’ Marcus Flagg’s mother and father were on American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon. He criticised eBay for allowing a sale that exploits the victims, many of whose names are included in the flag’s frame.