Twin Towers Tall 2.26.1993

On February 26, 1993, while an undergraduate at Rutgers, I was driving in lower Manhattan on my way to the World Trade Center to conduct research for an internship in which I partook. A few minutes before I was to arrive, with the Twin Towers in full site, I learned on the radio that there had been an explosion within one of the buildings. I pulled my car to the side of the road, grabbed my vintage F-series Nikon (loaded with a roll of B&W film) and ran a few blocks to the site not knowing what to expect. As I arrived, an orderly mass of people has just begun to made a grand exodus from the buildings. First responders had just started arriving at the scene.

I just found six long-lost images I took that day (many more are still missing). Though I don't hold myself out as being much of a photographer, the drama of the subject matter here made up for my shortcomings.

In this image, taken in the midst of the chaos, the light post frames the enormous tower, distorting the scale of both.
- Eric Ascalon