Since Sept. 11, 2001, the condition of the World Trade Center site has become, in itself, a powerful symbol of the nation’s recovery from the terrorist attacks. Almost from the moment of the buildings’ collapse, the site — where almost 3,000 people were killed — was declared sacred ground.
Franker assessments of the place emerged as we took the full measure of our grief, and of our anger, and of the hard work that lay ahead. Weary rescue workers first called it “the heap” and later “the pit.” In due course it became a ceremonial stage, broom-swept and ready. Today the area bound by Barclay, Church, Liberty, and West streets is a mixture of construction site, ad-hoc museum, and commuter rail station.
At the beginning of 2002, Project Rebirth, a nonprofit organization based in New York, set out to document this progress. The group has set up a series of six cameras around the site to take time-lapse photographs day after day and night after night. The goal is to create a 20-minute film about the multiyear process of rebuilding.
The photographs on this page were taken by one of those cameras, nicknamed “Amex” because it is located in a specially designed closet in a 47th-floor corner conference room of the American Express Building. From this vantage, on the northwest corner of the site, Project Rebirth will document the building of the Freedom Tower as it rises to a symbolic 1,776 feet.
From top to bottom, the photos were taken in spring 2002, summer 2002, spring 2003, and fall 2003.
When Project Rebirth’s film is completed, the footage of the buildings rising will be intercut with the shots of construction workers, according to the project’s Web site, “allowing audiences to experience our rebuilding and rebirth, through the sheer effort and determination of those whose hands, muscles, and minds represent the country’s effort.”
(These images provided courtesy of
