Assignment – 9/11 Hero Imagery

The assignment for week 2 was to take digital photos of hero imagery throughout the city that related to the anniversary of 9/11 this week.   Surely, I thought, this would be easy to find.  I remember such images being ubiquitous in the city around the first few anniversaries of the tragedy and was certain that if I simply walked around for a few hours with open eyes and an awareness of what I was looking for, that they would appear.  I was wrong.  I dedicated 2 hours on Sunday to simply walking around in Brooklyn where I live, and planned on coming back with a cam-ful of heroic pics.  I searched in subways, billboards, outdoor malls, sides-of-buses…. and came up totally empty-handed.  I did snap one pic of a subway ad for City Tech college which vaguely reminded me of the “bio-hero” we discussed in the first class, and decided to use this as my backup since it was indicated that “general” hero imagery would be accepted as well:

So now that I had one picture under my belt I felt let off the hook a bit, but was still bothered by the fact that my image in no way related to 9/11 and that I was somehow missing something that surely all my other classmates had found.  I kept my camera on my person for the next few days, and as I bounced around the city I continued to keep my eyes open.

I work in Times Square, and today found myself with a rare opportunity to take a long lunch, so I grabbed my camera during a break in the rain and took a walk.  Again, scanning the billboards, buses, and phone booths, most of the images I encountered were either ads for a new fall TV series or trying to sell me something I didn’t want.   As I walked towards 8th Avenue, I remembered the 9/11 memorial downtown by St. Vincent’s hospital with all the tiles painted by children hung up on a chain link fence.  If all else failed, I would hop a subway and head down there.

Just at that moment, I passed a fire station with a big red fire-truck garage door and on it was painted this:

THANK YOU Battallion 9!!  Although I was sure this wasn’t specifically painted for the anniversary, nonetheless it WAS hero imagery related to 9/11. Phew.   Ok, I had my shot.  But I still had about an hour left, and kind of wanted to go downtown anyway, so I headed for the subway.  Before I got there, I passed one of those typical Times Sq. gift shops, and right in their front-door display, I spotted this:

Whoa.  9/11 heroes exploited as sex objects!  Even better!!  I went inside and found a veritable smorgasbord of t-shirts, calendars, keychains, magnets and geegaws, all 9/11 related.  One of the most interesting things I found was a toy NYPD and FDNY walkie-talkie set.

It reminded me of the heroes that we used to play at as kids: GI Joe, Batman, etc.   Was it because of 9/11 that these toys now exist?  Certainly, at least, it’s the reason they wound up in a Times Square gift shop.

I got on the subway and went to the tile-fence, a sad memorial that’s been around since just after the tragedy occured.  I scoured the tiles for references to heroes and found:

and my favorite:

Tagged as: 9/11, Hero(ine)s, Pictures