Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

Coverage of Terrorism
This picture was taken the next morning
at about seven o’clock. Many of you have
probably seen that look that is called the
thousand-mile stare. So many people had
that look. This guy really moved me.
What moved me was a sense of a life
being transformed by an experience in a
way that there was no going back. You
could never be the same person after that
night. And this man will certainly never
be the same person.
This picture was taken of three young
women who were doing an all-night vigil
on Canal Street, I think on the second
night. The scene was starting to change a
bit, for me as well, as I started to get less
interested in the Ground Zero situation. I
always loved photographs that depict
humanity, that depict people and people’s
lives and how their lives are touched by an
event or by a situation and, at that point,
I started to wander around the city a lot.
All photos and captions by Peter Turnley.©
I get to a place where ambulances and
fire trucks and rescue workers and
police cars are going. I start to walk that
way, and I don’t want to blow it because,
as I say to myself, “I’m getting
real close. This is not the time to get
thrown out of here.” At one corner
where there were a lot of policemen, I
hid underneath an awning and just
watched what was going on for about a
half an hour. I didn’t see a single cameraman
or photographer or journalist.
But I did see two people wearing fire
and police jackets with cameras so I
asked them whether there were any
photographers at the site. “Not a soul
at this point. Everyone’s been thrown
out. There’s not a single photographer
there.”
Turnley managed to get to Ground
Zero by about 6:30 and was surprised
to see very few other journalists or
photographers there. After looking
around for a while, he found his way
to an office on the second floor of
Brooks Brothers, just across from the
site. He described his surroundings as
“surreal:” Computers flashed, cash
register drawers were left open, and
two inches of dust encased the clothes.
“I had a view right on Ground Zero,”
he said.
I covered the Armenian earthquake
in 1988, then one in Iran and in Turkey.
In Armenia, there were 35,000
people killed. I was totally unprepared
for what I saw; I had never seen death
on that level. There were bodies everywhere,
coffins everywhere. The first
thing I expected in looking out over
this site was to see a lot of human
suffering, a lot of human destruction. I
Nieman Reports / Winter 2001 7