[.ca] Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs (ISBN 3908247667)

Truly amazing:
I just got this book and it is the most comprehensive book out there on September 11th of what happened that day. I went through it all in one day and after I was finished the thoughts and emotions that went through me on that day all came back. There are some pretty disturbing photographs in there so I would not recommend it for children or even for family members who lost someone in the trade center. I am sure you have read already about the leg photo but there is another one that i was as disturbed by. It was the one of the north tower by the impact hole where the plane went in. There are actually people standing in the hole looking down not sure what to do. I had never seen that picture before and I started crying thinking what could be going through those people's desperate minds. As the two year anniversary of this horrid day is quickly approaching, this book will be a testament to what we went through that day here in New York and should be in your library to always remember what we went through as a nation and overcame as a nation.

The Next Best Thing to Visiting the Storefront:
Exhausted after wandering through lower Manhattan looking for friends lost, I came upon the Here Is New York storefront. No sign announced this storefront -- only a line of dazed people drifting inside, many clutching photos to be pinned to the clotheslines strung overhead. Nothing relates the stunning horror of that time, except these candid and brutal snapshots taken by regular people on that most irregular day. These photos convey the horrors for which there are no words. I can't look at this book without smelling the smoke all over again.

No textbook will ever be as valuable in recounting 9/11.:
I first heard about this book on CNN, a few months after 9/11. I would stop at the book in the bookstore, and flip through. I could never get through more than 10 pages because it was too emotional. I finally bought the book, over two years later, and after a personal tragedy of my own, made myself get through it. The book is composed of so many photographs that are only a split-second in time, I found myself wondering what happened of so many of the subjects -- the man who picked up and read a random piece of paper out of thousands that had been blown out of the building, the woman on page 281 who reminded me all too much of the little girl running away from her napalm-bombed village in Vietnam in the famous photograph. I was not in New York on September 11. I was bartending, in a bar in Atlanta, where every television was on the news, and the packed restaurant sat silent. Though I still can't imagine what it was like after viewing this book, I have realized that September 11 was so many different experiences to so many people. Snapshots of many of those, even one similar to mine, are portrayed, and reinforces the magnitude and impact the events had on so many. To get on my soapbox for a while, the "severed leg" picture -- not only was this picture justified in being included, as well as the pictures of persons jumping from the buildings, it was absolutely necessary in conveying the events to future generations. When we think of the holocaust, 6 million people is a difficult concept to grasp. But when we see pictures of mass graves, people in the ghettos, etc., we realize the value of each individual person, and how each of them didn't deserve their fate. Similar is my sentiment toward the more gruesome photographs. Their inclusion was absolutely necessary to convey the death of each individual person -- the pain they left behind, the family that will miss them, and how each person didn't simply disappear into a 8x11 flyer with their smiling picture in it. One of the most powerful things in the book is the quote from which the title "Here is New York" was taken -- a segment written 50 years ago by E.B. White, ironically the author of "Charlotte's Web," the story so many of us read as children. It expresses his fear of how New York, in all of its glory and modernization, was incredibly vulnerable. The passage is incredibly prophetic. When I have children, and they ask about these events, as I did when I became curious as to where my parents were when JFK was assassinated, I will show them this book. If you can handle the impact of this book, I highly reccommend it. It will make you appreciate your loved ones more, it will make you remember what so many went through.

Beautiful:
I first saw this book at a Barns & Noble in Manhattan. I picked it up and started flipping through the pages and remembered what it was like in Manhattan that day. I was scared. I didn't realize the real horror of what went on just a few miles south of me. Every time I stepped outside and looked south, I just saw a beautiful blue sky. I was just west of the huge plume of smoke blowing east. Aside from the eerie quite on the streets, it could have been any other day. This was a horrible day. These pictures reflect that perfectly. There are some graphic pictures you may not want to see, no one did. But they happened. And if you want to pretend they didn't, then perhaps this book isn't for you. If you want to grasp a little of what that day was really like for thousands of New Yorkers, then pick this book up.

9/11 as it happened:
What happened on 9/11 was horrific, stunning and chilling. This book shows you what the scene was on that day and the days afterwards. Many comments have been made about the 1 photo of the unbelievable horror that occured that day. Yes, there was no sticker to tell you it was coming, but do you really think a book about 9/11 wouldn't include some photos that make us all disgusted? I have found too many publications that whitewash the event so as not to offend, but we lose our desire not to let it happen again as it becomes a distant memory. Many in this country have already forgotten that day and what it felt like and how sickening it was and if this book, however small, makes us remember how we felt that day and how proud we were to be Americans, then it is worth it over 1 photo.