Two evil planes
broke in little pieces
and fire came.
Two evil planes
broke in little pieces
and fire came.
Two evil planes
broke in little pieces
and fire came.
Two evil
planes
broke
in little pieces
and fi...
...came.
Here we are at the Twin Towers.
My name is Jon Walczak.
I'm an investigative journalist.
And that kid you hear is me,
11 years old,
in the plaza
of the World Trade Center.
In one year,
one month, and 17 days...
...these towers will rain down
in a violent cascade of glass...
...and steel and concrete,
k*lling a mystery photographer
on West Street,
just on the other side
of that tower...
...the North Tower,
300 feet from where I'm standing
right now.
- His camera will survive.
- His final photos too.
Hidden for decades,
until one day, I get an email.
This is my grandma.
But don't look at her.
Look at the tables
and the chairs
as we transition to 9/11
and back.
I was born on 9/8/88.
I'll turn 13 on 9/8/01.
On 9/11,
I'll drag
a typewriter downstairs
and crank out a...
...news bulletin.
I'll come of age
in the shadow of these towers.
Life will drag me down
a jagged path
until it spits me out
at this spot,
again and again.
Here we are
at the Twin Towers.
Twin Towers...
And there's
the World Trade Center.
Child Jon is a bit confused.
The World Trade Center
is the name of the complex
made up of seven buildings.
The Twin Towers, the towers.
This is the Marriott.
Remember it.
You'll see it again,
cut in half.
In 2021,
I'll do a podcast
calledMissing on 9/11.
I'll put out a call
for unpublished footage:
photos, video, audio.
I'll get an email
from a firefighter
who says his dad,
a retired FDNY chief,
has new photos of 9/11
from a previously unknown camera
- found in the rubble of...
- The World Trade Center.
Hard to believe.
At first,
I'll think it's a scam.
This can't be real, right?
But it is.
And now it's on me.
I didn't seek out these photos.
They came to me.
A man in the dust,
whose face I can't see,
speaking to me
through these photos.
In my hands,
the final moments of his life.
- Who is he? I need to know.
- Grandma, what
do you have to say, Grandma?
So I'll dig.
Into the photos.
Into history.
Into a list of suspects.
I'll use clues in each frame
to ID the photographer.
What a story.
Thirty-two new photos of 9/11,
then 32
of the photographer's life.
Hug the family, close the loop.
Thirty-two frames.
If only it were that easy.
Okay.
Can I have some water, please?
Thank you.
That was an expl*si*n.
That was an expl*si*n.
- You got that message?
- No, what is that?
A plane
into the World Trade Center.
Lori, what are
you talking about?
This is Port Authority
Police dispatch.
- Okay.
- We have a confirmed,
uh, expl*si*n
at the World Trade Center.
I have never seen
so much smoke
coming from a building as I see
from the World Trade Center.
- What the hell is going on out there?
- -A plane
- into the World Trade Center.
- I know. I'm looking
at it right now on the screen.
I walked down the hallway.
I kinda ran down the hallway.
I walked over the window,
pulled up the Venetian blind.
I said, "Chief, look,
a plane just hit
the World Trade Center."
Just get into my uniform,
and that's when
the alarms went off.
The radio just started
to go insane.
I called into the desk
and they were, like,
"Go, go, go, go, go!"
And I'm hearing it
on police radio.
"We're under attack."
I just jumped on the highway.
I just started hauling
to the location,
lights and sirens.
I was probably going,
like, pretty fast.
You know?
- How fast were you going?
- I don't know.
The speed limit?
I had a medical bag in my car,
and I headed down to--
West and Vesey,
at the command post.
Zoom in. Here.
Stop.
-West and...
-VESS-ey.
-VESS-ey.
-VEE-sey Street.
West and VEE-sey?
- VESS-ey and West Street.
- VESS-ey?
- VESS-ey.
- VESS-ey Street.
-Do you say VESS-ey or VEE-sey?
-It depends.
- I know. Everybody--
- It's 50-50.
-VEE-sey Street.
-Okay, VEE-sey. Okay.
I feel like I--
I'm not gonna win on that.
- It's like Houston and Houston.
- Yeah.
Anyway, the heart of our story.
West and VESS-ey.
The ground zero of Ground Zero.
Now, let's look
at a few landmarks
to guide us as we move forward.
We have the Verizon Building.
World Trade Center 6, or WTC 6.
The north pedestrian bridge,
aka the Vesey bridge.
Notice the banner on the bridge,
quebecnewyork.com.
And, of course, the Marriott.
Here's our key block
on Labor Day 2001...
...and eight days later.
Our photographer
hasn't arrived yet,
but he will, soon.
He has 86 minutes to live.
In that 86 minutes,
he'll take 32 photos,
30 of them here.
That's why it's important
to orient--
What the hell's going on?
This is not
a grand story of 9/11.
It's not Bush or the Pentagon.
It's not even New York,
Manhattan, or the Trade Center.
It's one intersection,
and the people
who converged on it
at a fateful moment.
I heard the throttle
going down, like,
where the guy was really gonna
give it all it's got,
so you heard...
...and then in.
You just see it for a second.
It's just a shadow.
And, bang, into the building,
and fire comes out the side.
I couldn't get a picture
'cause I'm driving, you know?
If you're driving NASCAR,
you're not taking pictures
at the same time, are you?
But, you know,
that's the way I drove.
I didn't know
it was a plane, actually.
I just saw a ball of fire.
You can actually feel
the heat at street level...
...from 80, 85 stories up.
We always say,
when we run into guys at a fire,
second alarm, third alarm,
he goes, "Ah,
see you at the big one."
This was the big one.
This is where
our story really starts.
After the second plane
strike...
...at the intersection
of West Broadway and Worth,
ten blocks north
of the Trade Center.
Frame one...
...and two.
What do you notice?
Do you see the clues?
That's Building 7, and,
and then One World Trade is
where 6 World Trade used to be,
so the towers would have been
just to the left.
And this would have been
one of the first clear shots
- he had looking
towards the tower.
- Yeah. Yeah.
Clue one.
Both towers are on fire.
Both are still standing.
So, this was taken between 9:03,
when the second plane hit,
and 9:59,
when the first tower fell.
Meaning our photographer got
to the Trade Center after 9:03.
By car.
Which rules out
everyone who walked
or took public transit.
The photos seem to be taken
out of a passenger window.
So, he's with someone.
Ruling out
anyone who drove alone.
He's going the wrong way,
toward disaster.
Who does that?
-You see the antenna?
-I do, yeah.
-You see the edge of the window?
-Mm-hmm.
Clue five:
the antenna.
It's less consistent
with a consumer car
and more consistent
with an emergency response
vehicle.
These are actually
the least dramatic
of our 32 frames,
but in many ways,
they're the most important.
So many clues.
Our photographer drives
to the Trade Center,
toward disaster, with someone
between 9:03 and 9:59.
Anything else?
The shadows.
So, this is frame number one.
What can we tell
from the lighting,
from the sun,
and from the shadows?
So, actually,
you can tell quite a bit.
This particular building
is located at 60 Hudson Street
in Lower Manhattan.
We had a taller building
at 33 Thomas Street,
casting a shadow
on the eastern face
of this building.
Just based upon that,
using some very simple geometry
and trigonometry,
we were able to figure out
what the sun angle was
at the time
this photograph was taken.
Plugging
all this information in,
a sun angle of 33.37 degrees
on September 11th, 2001,
occurred at 9:38 a.m.
So, we know that this photograph
was taken at 9:38 a.m.
Clue seven:
the route they take.
Down West Broadway to Vesey.
After snapping frame one,
it takes our photographer
maybe five to ten minutes
to reach the Trade Center.
He arrives around 9:45,
only 14 minutes before
the first tower falls.
Frame three,
taken on West Street.
Look at the top left.
That's the north bridge,
the Vesey bridge.
Our photographer
stands under it,
leaning out, taking pictures
as debris rains down.
It was chaos.
Lots of ambulances...
...lots of fire trucks,
lots of cop cars.
People running out
and people injured,
and there's plane parts
all over the ground.
And I'm getting
a lot of pictures.
The amount of smoke,
the amount of fire,
the amount of debris
falling down was incredible.
Each tower
was a quarter of a mile high.
All of a sudden, there's
a piece of debris falling,
comes through the cloud
like it's gonna hit you
in a couple of seconds.
It was hitting like b*ll*ts.
Uh, there was a piece of metal
that hit a car, and it,
and it went
right through the hood.
It was a piece of the plane.
My helmet flies off,
and I turn around and I look,
and there's
my helmet on the ground
with an arm laying next to it.
And I'm like,
"Okay, this is not
gonna be a good day."
As we were getting
closer to West Street,
we were coming across
more and more body parts
just laying in the street.
And it got to the point,
when you got really close
to West Street,
it almost looked like
an anatomy class.
Let's go back
for a minute to clue five.
Who speeds toward disaster?
Journalists. But very few
made it to the Trade Center
before the towers fell.
Also, obviously,
first responders.
Which is why
timing is important.
Because we have records
of when many of them arrived.
For example,
these FDNY company reports.
And we know that anyone
who got to the Trade Center
before, say, 9:45,
can't be our photographer.
What compels you
to run toward disaster
when so many
other people run away?
Stupidity.
What do you think?
We were trained
to run toward the danger,
not away from the danger,
to help people.
And that's
what it was all about.
You go to where the fire is,
you go to where the m*rder is,
you go to where the action is,
and you make sure
that you're the witness.
Look at that.
Oh, wow.
Do you see it? The dot?
Him or her.
Poor b*stards.
A-- as gory
as this is gonna sound,
people were coming
down like rain.
I, I, I mean, uh,
you can cut it out if you want,
but I saw at least
125 people jump.
Numerous people jumping.
Numerous people jumping.
These poor people,
who were g-- guilty of nothing
but going to work that day,
that's all they did,
was go to work.
They're standing
at smashed glass.
What kind of hell
had to be behind them
that jumping from the 98th floor
was a better option?
I could not wrap
my head around that.
The part we were in
had a roof overhang,
uh, and they were hitting it.
It was noise
of the, of the worst kind.
You just knew every one
was a human life.
I know some people
will be angry at us
for publishing these photos,
and that's okay.
I get it.
Should we publish them?
There's no correct answer.
I don't believe in censorship.
But I've also sat
with survivors.
I've watched their faces
contort in pain,
remembering people
who jumped or fell.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, those were,
uh, those were rough
because you had to watch
and then you had
to hear the noise.
You know, and it's just a long,
long drop.
- sh*t.
- -Channel 6 has been designated a command channel.
Right now...
From our perspective, as people
that run to help people,
it was totally horrific for us
because we wanna help them,
and we can't.
That's the hardest part.
Sometimes I get
really, uh, upset.
My wife says I yell, yell
at night when I'm sleepin'.
I scream once in a while.
And it's about people falling.
The people falling...
...always gets to me.
Or should I say "jumping"?
It's brutal.
In the end, our photographer
chose to take these images.
They literally died taking them.
Who am I to censor them?
One of my most famous pictures
is a picture of a hand,
uh, from, from the plane.
The hand's on the ground,
a cigarette butt's around it...
...a Hershey bar,
and some other debris,
just gravel.
But the hand is pointing.
And it's severed
right about here at the wrist,
and you see the bone.
And it almost doesn't look real,
but it, it,
it's astonishing for people.
And it, and it jars them
to the reality
of the horror of that day.
A lot of people like to talk.
A lot of people
like to make comments.
Um, and,
and you can actually say,
"No, this is what happened."
There are certain things
that you see that...
...you'll never forget.
Unfortunately,
sh**ting some poor guy or girl
jumping out of a building
because they're on fire,
or they're gonna be on fire,
or it's too hot,
that's real life.
You know, and, and,
and people who don't wanna
accept that.
There's a term
for that in Italian.
"Go f*ck yourself."
We also don't know
the value of photos
until they run.
Some families spent years
trying to find
images of loved ones
in windows or the sky,
seeking closure.
Painful closure, but closure.
9/11 has been so sanitized.
Clean colors and lines.
A fireball, a blue sky,
a dust cloud.
Roll credits.
No.
See it as it was,
as they saw it.
-I'll warn you, there are
pictures of people falling--
-Yeah, no, I've--
Hey, listen, I've seen it live,
so...
These are flagpoles
on top of WTC 6.
You can also see them
in thisDaily News photo.
Both images are taken here,
the nexus of WTC 6
and the North Tower.
In this previously
unpublished image,
you see the North Tower,
WTC 6, the Verizon Building,
and someone falling
onto West Street.
No street is as dangerous
as West Street.
As civilians rush out
of the Trade Center,
they shield themselves
with briefcases, backpacks,
even office chairs.
Frame seven.
Clue eight.
Our photographer is using
a zoom lens, an SLR camera,
not a pocket disposable,
meaning he's likely
either a professional
or a capable hobbyist.
Before we continue,
I need to clarify something.
These photos came to me
not in order.
I had to guess.
An educated guess, sure,
but still a guess.
The first two,
in the car, were easy.
Past that, I did my best.
What would really help
are the negatives.
West and Vesey was
the predetermined staging area.
Every truck was
where it was supposed to be.
Every ambulance was
where it was supposed to be.
And, uh... the world just,
the world just fell out
from underneath us.
I always had a camera with me,
and I figured, "If I don't
make it out of this thing,
at least somebody
could find this."
The last picture I took was
at 59 minutes after the hour.
I took the photo,
I heard the rumble,
I looked up.
Now, you're gonna want me
to describe it. Okay.
A fully loaded locomotive
coming down the tracks
doing about 100.
A jet aircraft taking off.
Car crash,
a building collapse...
...and metal ripping.
All at the same time.
Like that, almost.
We hear this churning
and, and screeching,
and we hear metal.
It's just echoing
through Lower Manhattan,
and that's
the South Tower collapsing.
- One of the towers just collapsed.
- -Because the building
- just collapsed on them.
- Are you sh1tting me?
- There's gotta be
thousands of people--
- That Tower 2?
One of the towers just came down
on top of everybody.
The next 29 minutes
are critical.
That's when the North Tower
will collapse.
We're running out of time.
Frame nine.
This is the first frame
we know, for sure,
was taken
after the South Tower fell.
Our photographer runs
north on West Street,
then hooks left on Vesey.
He turns around
and snaps this photo.
Look here: Engine 15
and a fire hydrant.
You can also see them
in this image,
taken later on 9/11.
It's hard to make out,
but if you manipulate our photo
and zoom in,
there's the Verizon Building.
And now, we start
to see shadowy figures.
Who's this guy?
We don't know.
Dust Man Number One.
Frame nine is less important
for what it shows
and more for what it tells us.
Our photographer is alive.
- Back, back, back, back.
- -He survived the collapse of the South Tower,
so he can't be anyone
who died at or before 9:59.
Frame ten.
Taken at West and Vesey,
facing south.
There's the north bridge.
In frame ten, we also have
our first identification:
Rabbi Edgar Gluck,
a co-founder of Hatzalah,
a Jewish EMS organization.
He's now 89 years old.
Tati, Tati, roll the chair left
a little bit.
- Right.
- -Your whole body needs to move over two inches.
Perfect. The position you're in
right now is perfect.
- Got it.
- -So, Rabbi Gluck, can you tell me
where you were
when the building fell?
Uh, how were you protected?
I wasn't.
I wasn't.
I had no protection gear on.
I had nothing on.
It's just that I went in
to save lives.
You literally couldn't see.
The dust and everything
was so thick.
And the building
was coming down.
I ended up on Vesey Street
and police started
washing out my eyes.
Do you remember
seeing a photographer
taking that picture?
- Do I remember what?
- Do you remember a photographer taking that picture?
No. No.
In the middle
of running and everything else,
I had absolutely no time.
I didn't even
have time to smile.
I would interject
and just say
the mere fact that I have
seen a photo of my dad,
that we know a timeline
and where he physically was,
like he was
in between the Twin Towers
when one building was down,
the second one wasn't.
He...
And is around
to talk about that,
I mean, that, to me,
is just amazing and fascinating,
and I thank God
for that every day.
- Frame 11.
- -And there we were, we were outside,
and there's, like, four inches
of this type of paper dust.
You wanna pull that out
and give that to me?
And then you could feel
the World Trade Center.
You could smell it.
Pedro. Paige?
Get the bag out,
out of the refrigerator.
So, this is a piece
of the World Trade Center.
And, to me, I could smell it,
and it smells like the day
of the World Trade Center.
Pedro, give me the bag.
I haven't shared this
with too many people.
But this was the dust
that was inside my clothes,
inside my car.
So, you wanna know
what the World Trade Center
was like?
This is what it was like,
and this is what it looked like.
And this is what
it smelled like.
That's what
the World Trade Centers
were reduced to.
And this is what the people...
...were reduced to.
And if you smell that...
And sometimes I smell
and go through it.
Smell it. You wanna smell it?
That's what it smelled like
at Ground Zero.
It has that smell.
- It's like a musty--
- Yeah.
And it's not
because of moisture.
And, you know,
so, we, we keep it real.
You know? Oops.
Sorry, God.
And if you look in the bag...
...you could almost see here.
Look at this right here.
I don't wanna
touch it because...
But if you look
inside deep enough,
you could almost think
you see hair follicles.
Here's-- It's a piece
of glass or something.
You don't know what.
I think. So, that's,
that's the World Trade Center.
Here, Pedro.
Thanks. Let me wash my hands.
Excuse me.
Yeah, you should
rinse your hands.
Frame 12. Great.
A cop bending down, facing away,
covered in dust. And a dog.
No way we'll ID them, right?
Wrong.
Bob Schnelle was a member
of the NYPD's elite
Emergency Service Unit,
or ESU.
The only reason we found Bob
is because of his dog, Atlas,
who's kind of 9/11 famous.
When I contacted you,
you were able to tell right away
that this was you,
because of Atlas,
-right?
-Yeah, and I,
I kinda know what I look like.
- Even, even from the back.
- -Fair.
There are people
that remember the dog's name
and then they won't
remember my name.
- It's like the Atlas guy.
- Yeah.
Atlas's handler.
That's what I'm referred to.
I'm trying to figure out,
like, what I was doing,
'cause it looks like I'm looking
at something on the ground.
Am I looking at... a body part?
Could be.
Is it part of the plane?
'Cause there were
pieces of the plane
spread out throughout the area.
Once that first tower came down,
it just turned into total chaos.
It was like something
chasing you.
Like, I could feel, like,
this debris coming.
It was like
being chased by a tornado.
Okay. So, this is...
Here's Atlas.
He actually got promoted
to detective too.
He made detective before I did.
He got promoted before me.
You don't recall
seeing any still photographer?
No.
Nah. No.
See, this, this sergeant
now is Tommy Sullivan.
- And this guy here...
- Mm-hmm.
...I think he's an ESU cop.
His name was Frank.
He's got an Italian last name.
He's very Italian.
Frank...
I think it's Massi, M-A-S-S-I.
Frank DeMasi.
D-E, capital M-A-S-I.
On September 11th,
I was assigned
to the NYPD Emergency
Service Unit.
There's an old saying
in emergency service,
"When someone needs help,
they call a cop.
And when a cop needs help,
he calls emergency service."
Frame 13 gives us five IDs.
Tommy Sullivan,
Richie Donnangelo,
Franco Barberio,
Curtis Garvey,
seen here in 9/11 news footage.
Look at his left wrist.
Here, and here. Same guy.
And, finally, Frank DeMasi.
This is after
the South Tower came down.
Before the North Tower
came down.
About ten of us dove underneath
the big emergency
service truck for cover.
Everything went pitch black...
...and there was
a deafening silence.
You couldn't hear,
you couldn't see,
and I was at the point
where I couldn't breathe.
Your mouth was just
being filled with glass
and debris and soot.
That was the biggest
point of the day
that I thought I was gonna die.
And after about nine minutes,
I remember you can
start seeing daylight
coming through the cloud.
And we climbed out
from, from under the truck,
and we survived
the South Tower collapse.
So, you said that
you were under this truck
- for about nine minutes, right?
- Yes.
The South Tower fell at 9:59.
That puts it at
between 10:08 and 10:28
that this picture was taken.
Because this--
the other tower fell at 10:28.
Yes, this is
definitely in between
the two towers falling.
I was nowhere to be found
on this intersection
as the North Tower
was coming down.
I was running down
West Street, running,
running toward the Hudson River.
So, when you say, uh,
you running towards the Hudson,
-you were down Vesey
towards the Hudson?
-On, uh--
-West would have been going--
-On Vesey.
Yeah. I know this can be
because West and--
I was running west on Vesey.
-West on Vesey.
-Yes.
-Not north on West. Okay.
-That's correct.
That's correct.
Moving on. Frame 14.
When I first saw this,
I recognized the firefighter.
Not by name. But I knew
I'd seen him before, somewhere.
It took me a minute.
Then it clicked.
He was caught on camera
before the South Tower fell
byNew York Daily News
photographer David Handschuh.
Look at his helmet.
Engine 55. Number 8934.
Once again,
you see the North Tower,
the Vesey Bridge, WTC 6,
and the Verizon Building.
But who's the firefighter?
Oh, this is Paul Quinn,
55 Engine.
He was the chauffeur.
He was right under the building.
I don't know how he survived.
You know, like the guy that
walks between the raindrops?
This guy was right there,
and he survived.
He was, he was a mess, though.
One more thing
about Paul Quinn, maybe.
On December 23rd, 2001,
I visited Ground Zero.
That's me.
Is this Quinn?
You can see
a "5" on his helmet.
It kinda looks like him.
I tried to find him today,
but I failed.
He's kind of a ghost.
So I still don't know
if I ran into him 25 years ago.
Now, what about the other guy,
White Helmet Man?
Wait, you misspelled it.
What does it mean to you
25 years later
to see this picture?
It means what I say
to everybody that asks me.
People that meet me
and find out that I was there
ask me what it feels
like to be a hero.
I said, "I don't know."
And they said, "Why?"
I said,
"Because I'm not a hero."
I don't think
that I really deserve
any extra recognition
for being there.
The recognition I have
is that I'm sitting here
25 years later, talking to you,
and I have a beautiful wife
and two children.
Michele was getting ready
to plan my funeral
when I got home
and knocked on the door.
- Do you remember somebody taking your picture?
- I don't.
I don't.
Frame 15.
We haven't ID'd this guy.
Mm. You can kinda read
the last name.
- O--
- O-R-E.
- O-R-E, yeah.
- Uh, maybe a T?
Yeah, it looks like a T.
Interesting.
Only one firefighter who died
had a last name
that ended with those letters.
John August Santore,
of Ladder 5.
They certainly look alike.
But many of these guys do.
I reached out
to Santore's family.
They said, unfortunately,
it isn't him.
So who is it?
Frame 16.
Is that the same guy?
It's hard to tell.
Which highlights
something important
about our 32 frames.
We haven't ID'd everyone.
There's no way to ID everyone
unless we publish them.
Frame 17.
Taken on Vesey Street
in front of
the American Express building.
My name is Rob Siragusa,
and I was a member
of Engine Company 55
on September 11th.
After the first collapse,
there were guys
walking around like zombies.
That's when I saw John.
He came walking
out of the rubble,
covered in that white ash
and dust from the Trade Center.
He was kind of in shock.
He was the chauffeur
of 24 Engine that day,
so he was out in the street
when the building came down.
So, I kind of just grabbed him.
I put him
in the first ambulance,
and that was the last
I saw of him for that day.
Do you remember
the photo being taken?
No. No, I don't remember
anybody taking this picture.
- Do you remember somebody taking this picture?
- No, not at all.
Somebody had actually
sent me this photo.
I think it was left
on my coat rack
in an envelope
where we keep our gear.
No name was ever put
on it or anything.
It was just addressed to me.
And that was it.
The first time
I saw this photo was
I was in front of the firehouse,
a car pulls up,
a person,
the driver calls my name,
never saw the person
before in my life.
He says, "I have this picture."
He hands it to me.
"Okay, thank you."
And he took off.
The weirdest thing.
Never saw the guy again.
I have no idea how he knew me.
Crazy.
Do you remember
how long after the attacks?
Uh, couldn't be that long.
Had to be maybe
a, a-- two weeks tops.
The origin story of our camera,
of our photos, is murky.
Our source, John Calderone,
got them roughly
a year after 9/11.
But who found the camera?
Who developed the photos?
Why did they anonymously
send one to Siragusa?
Why did they toss it
to Ottrando,
say, more or less,
"Hey, it's you," and speed off?
We'll get back to that later.
For now, our photographer is,
once again,
moving closer to the towers.
Wait, sorry. Tower. Singular.
Only one still stands.
The North Tower.
But not for long.
Frame 18.
Taken under the Vesey bridge,
looking north,
which is why you see
blue sky and sunlight.
A momentary pause.
And then our photographer turns
and keeps walking into danger.
A decision that'll end his life.
Frame 19.
A man in a suit
passes by our photographer,
staring right at him.
Suit Man. Likely a civilian,
one of thousands who evacuated.
He's a key witness.
If anyone can describe
our photographer, it's him.
But a quarter century later,
how are we supposed to find him?
Dark suit, tie,
black bag, blue pen.
That's it. No real clues.
Which is frustrating.
I actually found
another photo of him,
taken a short time later.
Look at the details.
Same tie, bag, pen,
suit, face. Same guy.
What's different is
that his glasses are gone,
we can see that he's holding
a yellow flashlight,
and most importantly,
he's covered in dust.
The flashlight is interesting.
Why is he carrying it
in broad daylight?
Where did it come from?
And look at the dust.
In frame 19,
taken earlier, he's clean.
It seems that Suit Man
was inside the North Tower
when the South Tower fell.
He's likely one
of the final civilians
to escape the North Tower.
I search for anyone
matching his description
and find none.
What about Silver Suit Man?
A first responder
in some kind of protective gear.
But there were hundreds,
if not thousands,
of first responders at or near
the Trade Center on 9/11.
And we can't see his face.
I need some help.
- Hello.
-Hey, Glen. It's Jon Walczak.
How are you?
-Good. How are you doing?
-Good.
So, there's a guy
in a silver suit
with a Scott tank,
and I'm curious
if you can tell whether or not,
um, he's NYPD or FDNY.
That looks like
a two-piece suit.
Ours was one piece.
His hands are exposed.
And also, that air pack,
ours went inside the suit.
So, this is
a little bit different.
So, Silver Suit Man
is not a cop.
Maybe he's a firefighter.
I decide to visit
the New York City Fire Museum.
Thankfully, so far, everybody
we've identified survived.
But I don't know who this is.
Somebody with a Scott pack.
-So, that looks like
Port Authority Fire, right?
-That--
that-- I might know who that is.
-I know who that is.
-That's--
That's my old roommate.
That's Patso Versage.
He was Port Authority ESU.
He died of 9/11 illness in 2014.
He was my college roommate.
We were fraternity brothers.
I can show you a picture of him.
Patrick Versage.
Right before he died,
our homecoming.
- Wow.
- And this, I'll show you.
- That's him.
- Wow.
He talked down two jumpers
on the Bayonne Bridge
in one day. But that's him.
Here's Silver Suit Man,
and here's Patrick
in news video.
Amazingly, despite
being photographed
walking toward the North Tower
minutes before it fell,
he survived at first.
Thirteen years later, he died
from 9/11-related illnesses.
I reach out to his family.
His wife, Carolyn,
agrees that Silver Suit Man
is likely Patrick.
Now, one final thing.
Look at the truck.
Ladder 3.
There were hundreds
of vehicles at the site
on September 11th.
Out of all the vehicles
that survived,
what immediately caught your eye
about Ladder 3?
It was enigmatic.
I couldn't figure it out,
actually.
I needed to walk around it
to take it in.
And then I saw it
as what you're seeing now.
The front cab is decapitated.
The ladder is distorted.
It's almost weeping.
And it seemed like
a powerful surrogate
for everyone associated
with Emergency Rescue that day.
I had asked the museum,
uh, Stephanie,
and she said that unfortunately
there are no images of Ladder 3
between the fall of the South
and the North Tower.
What would something
like that mean?
Since all of the 11 firefighters
associated
with this truck perished,
having a photograph
of the rig parked nearby
would be
a very poignant prelude.
Nobody going
into that tower that morning
probably thought on their way up
that it was going
to collapse on them.
Ah.
Oh, wow.
This is a previously
unpublished photo
from an unknown camera
that was found in the pile
that the images have surfaced
-24 years later.
-Wow.
That's amazing. Look at it.
And the ladder
is absolutely pristine.
- Ah.
- -So this is after the fall of the S-- the South Tower.
South Tower,
because of the debris
that's on the street.
Absolutely.
That's just remarkable.
Moving on, our photographer
crosses under the Vesey bridge.
As the North Tower burns above,
he stands here.
Frame 20.
I don't know
who any of these people are.
Like Suit Man, they appear to be
some of the final civilians
to escape the North Tower,
or maybe the Marriott.
A minute or two later,
these three people
are photographed
further north on West Street
by Bill Biggart,
the only journalist k*lled
while covering 9/11.
As of production,
his estate hasn't allowed us
to use the photo.
But since he took it
with a digital camera,
we have an important clue,
metadata.
Biggart snaps his photo
at exactly 10:21:27,
six minutes and 58 seconds
before the North Tower falls.
Incredibly, the same trio
is photographed again,
this time by Mike Coppola,
a volunteer firefighter
and EMT with a camera.
Seen here in this footage
taken by CBS News cameraman
Mark LaGanga.
Why is this trio
photographed three times
by three people
in a matter of minutes?
Likely because, at this point,
there's so few
other civilians in this area,
they stand out.
And then, even they leave.
Frame 21.
A lone man in a white shirt
stands in the rubble,
in extreme danger,
with what appears to be
a news camera,
filming the chaos.
How am I supposed
to ID this guy?
The key, it turns out,
is his footage.
I pore over
hundreds of hours of video.
My eyes are bleary,
my brain is fried.
I need Dramamine.
And then I see him,
his reflection in a window.
First question.
Can you tell us your name,
and can you spell it?
Mark LaGanga. Uh, L-A-G-A-N-G-A.
The same guy
who filmed Mike Coppola.
There's nothing
going in there, bro. Get out!
The most stunning thing to me
is how calm you were.
How do you stand
under a, a burning tower
in the rubble of a collapsed
110-story building
and just kinda keep your cool
and keep sh**ting?
I, I don't know.
Is he generally a calm guy?
When you're sh**ting,
you kind of have a filter
between you
and what's happening.
Everything you see
is through one,
one little, tiny,
tiny black-and-white screen.
So, when we see your video,
we're seeing it in color,
but, in real time,
- you were seeing it in black and white?
- -Yeah,
and it's two-dimensional.
And so
it's a little bit of a shield.
You have a scar on your head.
Bo, the sound partner
I was with, took a photo of me.
There was some debris
when the building came down.
Frame 22,
which is almost
identical to frame 21.
It appears our photographer
is adjusting camera settings,
taking duplicate photos,
trying to get a clear image
through haze and smoke.
We also see Mark
in frame 23 and 24.
These were taken
less than ten minutes
before the North Tower fell.
What made you leave on time?
Um, I didn't know if--
to sh**t anything else.
It was that straightforward.
There was a moment
in your footage
where you pan over,
and it's right
when our mystery photographer
-is taking your picture.
-Oh, really?
I think in a minute,
you'll turn a little bit.
But I would imagine
it was around this moment.
Yeah, there you go. See?
Pause it right there.
So, roughly this moment,
just out of frame,
maybe 100 feet away,
our photographer was,
was taking your picture.
Every time I watch this,
I try to see
if I can spot somebody.
So, this is--
You're right at West and Vesey.
So, like, even this gentleman,
like every person that I see--
- What's he carrying?
- Well, that's what I was-- I saw that earlier too.
That's like a strap.
I thought the same thing.
And then I was, like,
"Is it a strap?
Is it a, a tool?"
That looks to me
like a camera strap.
And that's the way
you would hold a still.
You were in the exact right spot
at the right moment,
so the odds, like,
in a few minutes,
a minute or two later
when you're closer,
he's photographing you.
- So, the chance-- That could be him.
- -That looks like--
I'm glad that you said
something 'cause I saw it
earlier and I was--
but, I mean, you know,
when I'm looking for somebody
with a camera,
everything looks like a camera.
In our final frames,
as tens of millions
of people around the world
watch on live TV,
below the fire, the smoke,
the quarter-mile-high
skyscraper,
at the bottom, on the street,
near West and Vesey...
...it's just our photographer
and his camera.
Two more photos...
...and the North Tower falls.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
The whole building came down.
Oh, my gosh.
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Oh, you gotta be kidding!
- What happened?
- -Second World Trade building went down.
The second building went down.
I never saw anything
like this in my entire life.
- Who is it?
- Carol.
Why are you crying, Carol?
The World Trade Center
collapsed.
Everything is collapsed, baby.
All those people.
What about what's in there?
EMTs and paramedics and, and,
and, and firefighters in there
- helping people to get out?
- I don't know,
sweetie. I really don't know.
I just look around
and I hear crackling sounds.
And there's fire
coming out of the ground
and gas mains are blowing.
I saw the firemen
buried in this ash.
I heard people screaming still.
And then, afterwards,
it was like just a quiet canyon.
I could taste
the chalk in the air.
In the eerie dead silence,
honestly,
we really didn't know
what to think at that point.
The Twin Towers are gone,
reduced to nearly
two million tons of debris.
In there, somewhere,
lies our photographer.
His camera too.
Between 9:59 and 10:28,
when the towers fall,
very few cameramen are nearby.
Mark LaGanga,
of CBS News, is one.
Jules Naudet,
seen here, is another.
When I start this project,
one of my goals
is to find as many of them
as possible,
in part to see
if they have unpublished images
that show
our mystery photographer,
in part to hear their stories.
During this key
29-minute period,
maybe five to ten
people with cameras
cross into the Danger Block:
West Street,
between Liberty and Vesey.
Some are first responders,
including Rich Rattazzi,
a firefighter with Ladder 16.
I always carried
a disposable camera
in my pocket,
and I would just hold it out
in front of me
and I took pictures
as I was walking.
Rich is with firefighter
Rob Curatolo
and Lieutenant Ray Murphy.
We get under
the north crosswalk,
and we're hearing,
like, like a gush of air.
What it was, was due
to the height of Marriott,
we couldn't see the South Tower,
and it was actually
the South Tower collapsing.
And the only way
we knew it was that
was the whole center
of the Marriott exploded
out at us.
Rattazzi circles
the World Financial Center,
then crosses back
to the Danger Block.
All you could hear
was PASS alarms going off,
and it was,
it was guys in the rubble.
I couldn't find
Rob and Ray there.
And when I got
to the corner of West and Vesey
is when the North Tower
started to collapse.
So, I couldn't see,
and I was having
a real hard time breathin'.
I started throwing up
cranberry sauce.
It was all blood.
Rattazzi snaps
a few more photos,
including this, showing WTC 6.
And this, taken directly
in front of it.
You can also see the collapsed
Vesey bridge, here.
Banged up and vomiting blood,
Rich is taken
to a nearby hospital
where he searches
for Rob and Ray.
He can't find them.
Rob and Ray
were still unaccounted for.
So, your photo actually
became an important clue?
Yeah.
When we got it developed,
Ray was in front
of the steel in the street.
So, when we went
back down to dig,
that's where we started.
Both of them
were found in that area.
Rob was under
a high-rise rig on West Street,
and then Ray was
underneath the crosswalk.
I ask Rich,
a firefighter and photographer
who was in the right spot
at the right time,
to look at our 32 frames.
What's incredible about these
to me is how close...
-Yeah.
-...he was.
And even, I mean, no--
you don't see any people.
It's not because
he wasn't even trying
- to photograph people,
it's because--
- There aren't none.
There are none.
I think these are two firemen.
Well, that's
what I'm curious to see.
- He's a fireman.
- -He, you can tell him, but...
He doesn't look like a fireman.
Looks like he's wearing
a baseball cap.
It's so close
to capturing our person.
Our photographer is,
like, right over here.
We're right in the same area.
-Mm.
-Yeah, you're very close.
At this point, let's review
our clues. What do we know?
Our photographer arrives
at the World Trade Center...
...between 9:03
and 9:59. By car.
- Driven by someone else.
- Toward disaster.
The antenna in frame one
is consistent
with an emergency
response vehicle.
Shadows tell us
that he takes it around 9:38,
at West Broadway and Worth.
Putting him at the Trade Center
maybe five minutes later.
Roughly 9:43.
He follows a north-south route.
Uses an SLR film camera
with a zoom lens.
Takes photos
near West and Vesey.
Survives the collapse
of the South Tower.
And likely dies
when the North Tower falls.
Now, let's condense
and reorder our clues
and start looking at suspects.
First, no FDNY or NYPD
photographers die.
Though, the NYPD does lose
a videographer, Glen Pettit,
seen here entering
the Trade Center.
There are only
three serious suspects.
Suspect number one:
Bill Biggart.
One of four confirmed
rubble camera photographers.
By rubble camera,
I mean a camera
found in the wreckage
of the Trade Center
with photos of the attacks.
I first hear
about him in late 2001
when I buy this magazine.
He's the only journalist
who dies covering 9/11.
His body
and three of his cameras,
two film, one digital,
are found a few days later,
on West Street.
He approaches
the Trade Center from the north,
survives the collapse
of the South Tower,
and dies
when the North Tower falls.
He certainly fits our profile.
I reach out to his family.
At first, they're skeptical.
But when they figure out
I'm not a scam artist,
they're shocked.
Is our camera Bill's?
I speak to his son and quickly
determine that it can't be.
None of his cameras are missing,
and he was never
in a car on 9/11.
He walked. So, he's not our guy.
Still, his family
offers to help.
They review
more than 300 photos,
many never published,
looking for our photographer,
who was very close to Bill.
So close, in fact,
they photographed
some of the same people
and scenes
within minutes of each other.
But no luck.
No sign of our guy.
There are three more
rubble camera photographers.
Number two is, of course,
our mystery cameraman.
Number three
is an unknown civilian
who took photos
high in one of the towers.
His images are singular.
The only view of 9/11
from above a point of impact.
The FBI developed them
from a disposable camera
found in his pocket.
I first learned
about this in 2003
when I stumbled upon
an article by Laura Sullivan,
then withThe Baltimore Sun.
For 15 years, I've tried
to get the photos from the FBI,
which seemingly can't find them.
As of production, I'm suing
the FBI in federal court.
Now, I've thought for years
that our mystery cameraman died.
What if I'm wrong?
What if he's alive?
Our fourth rubble photographer
is also our second suspect:
Richard Smiouskas.
He's never spoken
publicly until now.
On 9/11, I grabbed a duffel bag,
grabbed some cameras,
a couple of bricks of film.
And I responded
to Lower Manhattan.
Had my camera
on my neck, the lens,
and I start snapping away.
Like, just click, click, click,
click, click, click, click.
Couldn't focus on one thing.
There was so many
things happening.
And as I was going
across the plaza,
I photographed body parts.
It sounds-- As terrible
as it sounds, it was a, it was
a hand with a ring on it.
That was it, just a hand,
and it was gray.
And what turned out to be--
it was a ribcage.
Just-- Somebody had--
Just this part.
Inside, you could see the ribs.
And then I s-- uh,
and then a-- Strangely, a face.
Not the head or anything,
just a face. Like somebody
just carved the face off
and laid it on the ground.
Somebody with a little mustache.
That's what I remember.
Hand with the ring on it,
a ribcage, and a face.
People were jumping
out of the buildings.
They were hitting the atrium.
I, I heard crashing glass.
So I worked my way
across the street,
and I went
into the Winter Garden,
they called it?
I was able to commandeer
a, a security guy
to take me up to the roof.
I got up there,
and I started photographing
people that were in the windows.
As the smoke cleared,
there had to be 30, 40 faces.
And then they would
get covered in smoke.
And then the smoke
would blow away
and you'd see the faces again.
And I said, "That's enough."
I went back downstairs,
went across the street,
and I wound up
in World Trade Center 6.
And I heard an expl*si*n.
And somebody had jumped,
and they fell between the,
the North Tower
and World Trade Center 6.
So, I had the glass window,
and I put my camera to the glass
and I photographed
the, uh, the person.
And then...
...what I know now is
the building started collapsing.
The ground was shaking,
and I fell to the floor,
my camera bag dropped.
I remember seeing some lenses
and film rolling across.
And I rolled against the wall
to protect myself.
Up until
the, the first collapse,
I had photographed maybe
ten or 12 r-- rolls of film,
about a dozen rolls.
As I was taking them
out of the camera,
I was putting them
in my duffel bag.
In retrospect, I should
have put them in my pocket.
I would have had them.
There's only one roll
of film that survived,
was in the camera
that they found in the rubble.
When you heard
that they found your camera,
what went through your head?
I said, "Oh, oh, good. I--
They saved some of my images."
'Cause that's the first thing
I asked, "Was it intact?
Was the film destroyed?"
And I was, like,
"Oh, they saved it."
I go, "Oh, great."
At least I have something
to prove I was there.
'Cause I had nothing else
to prove I was there.
Rich's camera is now
in the New York City
Fire Museum.
They said
it's in a little glass case,
and I said,
"Let's, let's go check it out."
And then I mentioned it
to my wife. I says,
I says, "You know,
everybody in here
is, uh...
They're not,
they're not alive."
You know, old chiefs
and famous firefighters,
famous Dalmatians,
you know?
But, as I'm looking around,
I says, "I'm the only one that--
in this museum
that's still alive."
Do you find it painful
that the rest of your film
wasn't recovered?
Oh, yes. Yes.
I wish everything was found.
It would've shown
a lot more than the--
that last roll I took.
Three of Rich's photos
are particularly striking.
He took this on top
of the north bridge,
facing south.
This is the Danger Block:
West Street,
between Liberty and Vesey.
There's the Marriott.
Rich also took this
on top of the Vesey bridge.
It introduces
a new key landmark:
the North Tower portico.
And finally, picture three,
taken on the roof
of the World Financial Center,
across West Street.
You were the only person
who got up on the roof
across the street with a camera,
and you had a view,
not only into history,
but into what people
were going through
that nobody else saw.
That's only in your memory now,
because we don't
have those photos.
Are you an artist?
An artist?
We brought a sketch pad,
and I was wondering
if you would be willing
to try to put to paper
one or two of the photos
that were lost.
Oh, I don't know how good
I could be with that.
I'm mostly like
a stick figure guy.
There was one fellow
standing in the building.
His arms were outstretched
to the sides,
and, uh...
...he was, he was like this.
Obviously,
it's not in perspective.
And there were just
fa-- faces around him,
between his legs here.
Just, you-- just faces and...
I don't know if--
This is kind of bizarre
for me, doing this.
Th-- there just had to be
30 people, just faces.
Some of them were grip--
They were--
Like, the hands were like this.
They were holding on.
I remember that.
Should I put eyeballs in here?
I don't know if I should,
I should do.
To make them look like people,
you know?
Like...
That's basically
what I photographed.
It's, uh... There was
a fellow through my lens.
I saw him in the window,
and he was holding on across,
like this,
and there's
all these faces around him.
He was spread out, and then he,
he was probably nudged out.
I'm sure there were a lot
of people behind these people.
You know, they were probably
back there somewhere,
maybe suffocating and, and...
But I would imagine there was
more trying to get air.
- But you could see their faces?
- Yeah, you could
definitely see--
you see the faces,
definitely. You know?
Yes.
Still, that's one of,
that's one of the major things
that I still remember,
that image.
Rich's story and drawing
are haunting.
But they also tell us
that he can't be
our mystery photographer.
Now, I have
a confession to make.
I've known the name
of our photographer
from the beginning,
the entire time.
Suspect number three:
Bobby Crawford.
This is what my source,
John Calderone,
tells me in 2021.
So I tracked down Stephen King,
Crawford's boss.
-Did he have
a camera with him on 9/11?
-Yes.
Crawford was known
to carry an SLR film camera...
...survived the collapse
of the South Tower
and died
when the North Tower fell.
An immediate yes
to half our criteria.
But do we even need
the clue matrix?
The camera was found
near Crawford's body,
which more or less
solves this, right?
Still, I need to be sure.
I saw the expl*si*n
from my office window.
I turned right away
to Bobby Crawford
and I said, "Bobby, get the car.
We're going in."
Did Bobby take any photos
that day while in the car?
No. He was driving.
And it was just the two of you?
Yes.
We first pulled in there
eight minutes
from when I saw it in my window.
That was before the second plane
hit that you arrived?
Oh, yeah. I was in there
well before
the second plane hit.
That's a definite.
At one point, I'm going up
to the third or fourth floor,
and I lost my balance.
I'm falling backwards,
and I put out my left foot
and something snaps.
I was in excruciating pain.
And I said,
"Bobby, I gotta go downstairs.
I, I can't climb."
And he said, "Okay, Chief.
I'm just gonna
check out this floor quick,
and I'll be down
in a couple of minutes."
So I kinda thought he might
go up another flight
or something.
I never envisioned him
going much higher.
Did he get to the 10th floor?
The 30th floor?
I mean, we knew
nothing after that.
Nobody was able
to ever contact him.
I email his son, Mark.
This is what he tells me.
That his dad's body
is found in the North Tower,
in a stairwell,
between floors ten and 15.
Remember, our final photos
are taken in front
of the North Tower
less than ten minutes
before it falls.
Is it possible
that Crawford takes them,
bolts back into the tower,
and runs up ten to 15
flights of stairs?
In less than ten minutes?
It's extremely unlikely.
I was asking you
about Bobby's camera
'cause I was trying to figure
if he could be the photographer.
No, no. He's not
the photographer.
I know he's not
the photographer.
Oh, there's no way on Earth.
Trust me.
At this point,
I'm extremely confused.
So few people had
an SLR film camera.
And survived the collapse
of the South Tower.
And died
when the North Tower fell.
And our camera
was found near his body?
How is Crawford not our guy?
I've exhausted all suspects.
Every rubble camera
photographer,
every journalist. Everyone.
But someone had a camera on 9/11
and took our 32 frames.
So, back to zero.
At this point,
there's only one thing to do.
- Something exhilarating.
- Something glamorous.
Something cinematic.
Make a spreadsheet.
If our mystery cameraman
is not a journalist,
he's likely a first responder.
So, we list everyone
who died on 9/11.
Then we comb
through public records
and news accounts,
ruling out suspects, one by one.
At one point, I get excited.
I read about a man
named Joe Lovero,
a fire dispatcher
from Jersey City
who responded on 9/11
as a volunteer.
One of his hobbies? Photography.
But according to news reports,
he died
when the South Tower fell.
So it can't be him.
I return to the photos,
the people in them.
The most important is Suit Man,
the best witness.
We need to find him.
And we do. Amazingly, we do.
I write him a letter.
I email him.
I call him. He never responds.
So we're on the way
to the home of Suit Man.
We ID'd him. He was a civilian
in the North Tower
who got out
right before it fell.
I hate door knocking,
but he hasn't responded,
so I'm gonna try
to talk to him in person
and ask him
if we can do an interview,
or if he'll at least
look at the photo and see.
What do you think
our chances are?
I say, given how we haven't
heard back from him at all,
it seems like signs point to no.
It seems like Jon
is talking to somebody about it
because it's been a few minutes,
and he hasn't come back out yet.
I don't know.
There he is.
All right.
Let me think.
He called the police.
We gotta go.
Go.
I'm just kidding.
He didn't call the police.
- Are you still filming?
- Oh, come on.
Sure, I am.
I-- No. Yeah, totally kidding.
Uh, super friendly guy.
Uh...
Uh, very, very nice man.
Um, I met him. I, I recognize
him from the photo.
Obviously, he's older.
But, um, he was very friendly,
and we have an interview
on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m.
Wow.
My name is Jitendra Mavadia.
Jitendra was a contractor
for the Port Authority.
He oversaw World Trade Center
security systems.
At 8:30 a.m. on 9/11,
he's at the top of
the South Tower, floor 107.
He leaves just in time
and makes his way
to the North Tower,
which is immediately
hit by a plane.
I was trapped in my office
because outside in the corridor,
everything was
totally dark, total dusty,
too much gasoline smell,
and debris were
blocking the doors.
At that time, I left a message
on my home phone
that... "Looks like
I'm not gonna make it.
And let me take care
of the people who are here
and see what I can do."
Finally, firefighters reach him.
They clear debris
and open the door.
Jitendra is free.
Somewhere above him
in the North Tower...
...is firefighter
Lawrence Virgilio.
Larry has two college degrees.
He's a winemaker,
a scuba diver, a rock climber.
He trained in classical ballet
and performed
in community theater.
With 38 minutes to live,
he calls his partner
of six years,
Abigail Francis,
and leaves a voicemail.
Shared here, publicly,
for the first time.
It's an intimate ear
in the North Tower.
What people like Jitendra
and Larry hear
as they choose to stay,
to save people.
On Valentine's Day 1997,
Larry gave this to Abigail.
An EKG.
Dear Abigail,
I didn't get you a card
for Valentine's Day.
Here's my heart instead.
Love, Larry.
All of a sudden,
the whole entire system
went down.
So there's no electric power,
there's nothing there,
so nothing works.
Jitendra descends
a darkened stairwell
and enters a desolate lobby.
There was nothing there.
The dust, all over the place.
The window glasses were broken.
The revolving doors
were not functioning properly,
or some of them are out.
- Was anybody in the lobby?
- Maybe a couple of ladies
and a couple of men.
That's it.
And when I started walking out.
At that time, the tower fell.
And then a huge cloud of dust
roaring towards me.
You see, up in the sky,
there's no sun.
All dark, all black.
But then I see
a firetruck parked right there,
and I went under the firetruck
just to shelter myself,
that if something fall on me.
But that didn't help
because there was
no oxygen in there.
For some reason...
...one firefighter came in
under the truck
and shared his mask with me.
For a couple of seconds
or maybe few times,
maybe one or two times.
But then, by the time
the cloud settled down,
I look around,
he's not there anymore.
Looks like
he just came to save me.
Then I came out of there.
I see two young guys like you.
They had a skateboard with them.
They say, "How can I help you,
sir? Can, can we do
anything for you?"
So they put me on a skateboard.
I say, "I don't know
how to skate."
Both of them on each side,
they hold my hand, and they...
...take me far away,
to their home.
What did their kindness
mean to you in that moment?
Unbelievable.
Unbelievable.
That people don't know people,
but the time of crisis...
...we all are one.
We all are human being.
We are there to help each other.
That means a lot to me.
Jitendra makes his way home.
By ferry or bus,
he doesn't remember.
My wife was there before me,
and she was so happy to see me.
I don't want to get debris
or anything inside the house.
So, with the suit,
I took a shower.
And then take the suit out,
put in a laundry machine,
then came up.
And I turned on the TV,
and then I broke down.
I lost all my courage.
That, what is happening,
and why did it happen?
This must be
after the South Tower fell,
while I'm walking out,
because my clothes
are not that dirty. It is clean.
So, this photo of you,
they found the camera
in the rubble.
We think it was
a first responder
who didn't survive.
Unbelievable.
Do you remember
this photo being taken?
No. No idea.
So, my work continues.
I'm running out
of ideas and time.
It could take years
to manually rule out
every first responder.
And, regardless,
no one seems to fit the profile.
Which is where this guy
comes in: Mike Coppola.
The volunteer firefighter
and EMT who made it
to West and Vesey
before the North Tower
fell with a camera.
Oh, sh*t.
That's a new problem.
f*ck.
I might have the key in the car.
If not, my house is, like--
that's, like,
like, ten blocks away.
You can take a ride with me
if you want. It'd be easier.
You'd think
I'd be more organized,
given my background.
Where the f*ck? Yeah. f*ck.
We gotta run to the house.
sh*t. You guys can hop in.
- No, actually--
- All right. Stand by.
- Next thing you know--
- I don't, I don't know. You know.
I don't f*cking--
Yeah, I don't know.
First try!
Oh, f*ck. I had bins in here?
sh*t. I just went
and bought them too.
I'm gonna go back this way.
I think I kept all
the Trade Center stuff in here.
Here, here you go.
Let's see what we got here.
Anytime I see a photo like this,
at this moment,
I'm always looking
for a photographer.
- These are the day-of photos, by the way.
- -Mm.
Even though 9/11 was
the most documented event
in human history,
there were very few people
where you were.
Oh, yeah.
News, or buffs like us.
And anybody else was
getting kicked out
or running the other way.
The first time
I speak to Mike, by phone,
and I did not record it,
when I tell him the gist
of this film, our 32 frames,
my hunt for the photographer,
he stops me.
"I know who it is," he says.
But we already ruled out Lovero.
He died
when the South Tower fell.
He's literally the last person
on our new list of suspects.
But, okay, I'll double check.
Confirmation he was k*lled
by the South Tower
here, from the Associated Press,
and here, fromThe Star-Ledger.
- Wait, bring that back.
- Lovero...
So, Lovero did go
to the Trade Center
to sh**t photos,
and was fatally injured
when one of the towers fell.
But which tower?
Not a single source
says the North Tower.
And if the South Tower
k*lled him,
he's not our guy.
I keep digging and find this.
An interview with FDNY
Battalion Chief Ed Henry,
from 2001.
So I proceeded to an area
where there was a portico,
part of the Trade Center.
I got under that so I wouldn't
be hit by anything.
The only two people
under that were myself
and a dispatcher
from the Jersey City
Fire Department.
Within one second,
this whole portico
collapsed to the floor,
pinned me to the floor.
My face was
six inches off the floor
as rocks and rubble
and everything
were rolling past me.
Shortly thereafter, it stopped.
And this big cloud of dust,
where you couldn't see anything,
it was like a fog,
permeated the area.
My legs were pinned
a little bit, but not too bad.
I was able to get them loose,
and I crawled
to where I felt cold air
on the side of my face.
And I crawled
and I crawled and I crawled.
Finally, I got out
into the open air.
I saw the clear blue sky.
I found the dispatcher
from Jersey City.
...and I waved to him.
They put us on two backboards,
and they put us in an ambulance.
And shortly after that, we left.
So, Lovero was k*lled
by the North Tower.
Chief Henry doesn't name him,
but his description,
a Jersey City dispatcher,
on site,
taking photos,
k*lled when a tower fell,
fits one person: Joe Lovero.
This is a strong lead,
but I still have
a bunch of questions.
-Say your name,
and then spell your name.
-And spell it.
- Uh, Rob--
- I'll go, I'll go first.
- Yeah.
- You ready?
-Go ahead.
-I'm retired Battalion Chief
John Austin.
J-O-H-N A-U-S-T-I-N.
I'm Robert Cobb,
retired deputy chief,
Jersey City Fire Department.
C-O-B-B.
As the attacks begin,
Joe Lovero gets off work.
Meanwhile, the Port Authority
issues an urgent call
for mutual aid.
They wanted our MSU,
our Mask Service Unit,
because of the amount
of Scott bottles that they,
they could carry with them.
We had close to 400 bottles
full of air on this one truck.
When we saw how high up
that fire was, we said,
"These guys are gonna
need a ton of air."
That day, when did you
first see Joe Lovero?
When I arranged
to rendezvous with the MSU.
I came from the southwest
corner of Jersey City, uh,
by the Hackensack River,
and I was going
through downtown,
heading for the Holland Tunnel,
so I picked this intersection:
Newark and Jersey Avenues,
in downtown Jersey City.
MSU knew I was gonna
meet up with them.
I stopped next to them,
and Joe was already there.
He was waiting. And as soon as
I stopped the car by the MSU,
he asked me for a ride.
"Get in the back. Let's go."
And what did he have with him?
Two bags. Camera bags.
When Joe would show up to fires,
did he always have
his camera with him?
Yeah. I never saw him
without it.
I don't know.
What kind of cameras
did Joe typically have on him?
-He always seemed to have
a single-lens reflex.
-SLRs.
Do you remember
Joe taking any photos
when you were driving
to the site?
I was driving
and I was driving.
I was in excess
of the speed limit,
and I wasn't looking back
at what was going on.
How fast did you go
through the Holland Tunnel?
-When it's empty.
-Oh, yeah. How...
- When it's empty.
- ...how fast were you going?
About 80,
85 miles an hour.
- Who was in front?
The MSU truck or you?
-Me.
- So, you were leading the charge.
- I was leading the charge.
How many people
were in your car,
and who was in each vehicle?
Buck Weaver was driving the MSU
with Captain Charlie Smith.
In my vehicle, I was driving.
I had Jerry Drennan
and I had Joe Lovero
in the back seat.
So we flew through the tunnel,
headed down,
got to West and Vesey.
And how long were you there
before the South Tower fell?
Not long. Uh...
Probably less than ten minutes.
It was probably like
about 9:50
I was there.
We all got out.
Joe Lovero grabbed
his camera and took off
before I could give my guys
their safety briefing
and tell them
where we were gonna rendezvous
if something went wrong.
And I didn't see Joe again.
Can you describe him to me?
Yeah, it was real, real easy.
He was balding slightly on top.
- Yeah. Like I was.
- And he was built just like you,
but shorter.
- So, I'm 5'8". So...
- He, he was--
- Yeah. He was shorter than you.
- He looked--
Exactly. He was 5'6".
A couple of pounds overweight,
just like me.
He, he had a little...
-a little...
-A little paunch.
...paunch going.
When you stopped
and you got out of the car,
how quickly did Joe run?
I couldn't have stopped him.
I'm shutting the car off,
he's getting out the door.
You know?
And then I get out the door.
He's already 25, 35 yards away
- and going.
- Towards?
- Towards--
- Towards the North Tower.
Did Joe say anything to you
when he bolted from the car?
Not a word.
Do you remember
what he was wearing?
No.
He had a blue t-shirt
and blue pants on,
and that, and that was,
that was it.
- Did he have a helmet or anything?
- No.
- Did he have any protective gear?
- No.
John starts to make his way
to the FDNY command post.
Never got that far.
I was walking
around the North Tower,
towards the South Tower when...
...a body hit.
And I was, like,
"What was that?"
And so there's a body.
And it was just
a, a red splotch.
I said, "Where's the bones?
Where's the clothes?
Where's the--"
No. Just a red mist
when they hit.
I looked up to make sure
I wasn't gonna get hit
with another body,
and the top of the South Tower
was already doing
that mushroom act,
you know, where...
We hadn't heard it yet.
The sound hadn't reached us
when I said,
"That's it. Run away."
Toward the MSU truck.
This is where it parked.
You can see it here,
as the South Tower collapses,
and here.
Butch, your radio call sign
-that day was 6 Alpha?
-6 Alpha, yeah.
-What was yours?
-Battalion 3.
When did you realize
that Joe was missing?
-As soon as we got
to the rendezvous point.
-Yeah.
As soon as we got to
the rendezvous point,
I'm counting heads, saying,
"Okay, I got
the two from the MSU.
I got myself and Jerry.
Where is Joe Lovero?"
When I finally
got back to my car, there was,
on the windshield,
and I thought it was a ticket.
I said, "Who would write me
a ticket at this thing?"
But in actuality,
it was a bill
from Windows on the World.
It was dated
that morning for breakfast.
The corner of it was burned off.
And I picked it up,
and I looked at it...
...and I said,
"No, I, I don't want
- a souvenir from this place."
- Yeah.
And I just put it
under the car in the dust
and I drove away.
When did Jersey City
first get the call
that Joe had been taken
to St. Vincent's?
It was probably
close to midnight.
I had heard he was alive
when they got him
to St. Vincent's,
and he died before
they could get him into surgery.
He died in the emergency room.
Do you have the pictures
from that, from that camera?
Yeah. Would you like
to see them?
-Yeah, I would.
-Yeah, absolutely.
These are some great pictures.
I can just picture him
running up to the building
- and taking these pictures
-Exactly.
Because if you'd seen
Joe's pictures before these,
he always wanted to run up
right to the front
of the building,
the alpha side of the building,
and take a picture of it.
-Yeah.
-So...
This is West Broadway and Worth.
So it's pretty close.
That's where
your car would have been.
Uh, I was probably coming down
West Broadway to Vesey.
It's incredible,
as a photographer,
if these are Joe's photos,
and we, we think they are,
nobody was that close.
The closest person
was Bill Biggart,
who was k*lled.
-Yes.
-And he was still further back.
-Yeah.
-And so these
are the closest photos
of that moment in time,
when nobody else was there.
These are-- this is it.
And so people talk about, well,
9/11 was
the most documented moment,
-moment in human history...
-Oh, yeah.
-...ever. But--
-Not like that.
- Not like this.
- People were looking...
-...from the outside looking in.
-Yes.
Nobody was standing 20 feet
from the half-collapsed hotel
with the other tower
burning above them.
Everything that I know
about Joe Lovero and his camera
-is consistent
with these photos.
-Absolutely, yeah. I think.
The South Tower
falls at 9:59.
Lovero gets to the Trade Center
ten to 15 minutes earlier,
roughly 9:44-9:49...
...within one minute
of our estimate
of when
the photographer arrives.
He rides over
in a Jersey City Fire vehicle,
driven by John Austin,
through the Holland Tunnel,
then south.
Lovero uses an SLR film camera
with a zoom lens.
Survives the collapse
of the South Tower
and is k*lled
by the North Tower.
So, when you look
at those first two photos,
there's an antenna visible.
An, an antenna on what?
- Down here? In the corner?
- Let's see, real quick.
It's right here.
You see the antenna?
Okay.
Okay.
That's an antenna?
An automobile antenna.
-Ah, it's too big. Huh?
-Well, it looks like
it has a little ball
on the end of it, but--
-It wouldn't be your car though.
-No, it wouldn't,
because my car
didn't have that antenna.
My car had
one of those little,
little ones on the center
-of the roof in the back.
-I don't know
what the hell that is.
It looks like it's
down the block, but, you know...
Wait. Can I--
I'm sorry. Can I go back
to the antenna picture?
- Yeah.
- So, you're saying that
that's not consistent
with your car?
-No, because...
-No. No.
...it did have
a, a, a mast antenna on it,
but it was on the right fender,
on the right side.
I apologize. Uh, so,
describe the antenna,
and tell me where it was.
Just forward of the windshield,
on the right front fender.
Well, I think
that's consistent with this.
The antenna is just
outside the windshield,
on the right side
of the vehicle, on the fender.
Okay? So, if the passenger
was sitting there,
the antenna would be right here.
So, if somebody
in the back seat
got out the window
-and took a picture
in that direction...
-Yeah.
Yeah, they could have
that antenna in there.
Mm.
-Oh. Yeah, yeah.
-Thank you. Sorry.
No, no. No, no.
John, you were with Joe on 9/11.
He was in your car.
What is it like
for the two of you
to see these photos
for the first time?
-I got goosebumps when you took
them out. I just, I just--
-Yeah.
They said to me, "Joe Lovero."
As soon you,
you took them out and I saw
the first shot, just...
The first shot,
with the antenna on it,
I didn't, I didn't grasp that.
But when it got
to the second time,
we're looking directly
up at the building,
I remember
Joe taking those pictures.
I, I... not 100%, but...
-...you know-- Yeah.
-Ninety-plus percent.
There's no doubt in my mind
that that,
that could be him. Absolutely.
He leaves behind--
There's kind of like a legacy
he leaves behind,
what he was all about.
-That, if they're his--
-That's a little bit
of history of Joe.
-That's him
sitting in the... Yeah.
-That's what it is.
One last thing.
Remember, Joe had two camera bags on 9/11.
He took one with him
as he ran toward the towers.
The other,
he left in John's car.
John returned it
to Joe's brother, Mike.
I was, like, "He had
a camera bag on his shoulder
when he left me.
And this one
was left in the car."
-Well, here's a--
-You know,
get it back to whoever.
Were there any pictures
on the other camera that,
that, that,
that you gave to his brother?
- I, I don't know.
- Hmm.
Joe Lovero is our guy. I think.
But I thought, for years,
it was someone else:
Bobby Crawford.
I made a mistake.
I don't wanna do that again.
I need physical evidence,
the camera.
In 2002, Jack Calderone,
my source,
put out a call
for images of 9/11
to display in a small memorial
on Staten Island.
A firefighter
brought him the camera,
the negatives, and the photos.
He doesn't remember who.
Someone from Rescue 5.
Probably the person
who found it at Ground Zero.
They seem to have
a strong connection
to Staten Island.
Rescue 5 is on the island.
They or someone they knew
recognized Robert Siragusa
and John Ottrando,
who live on the island.
The memorial is on the island.
Jack remembers
getting the photos
in a distinct
green-and-white envelope...
...likely from the now-closed
Wallich's Photo Lab,
on the island.
Staten Island is sometimes
called the forgotten borough.
Two hundred and seventy-four
islanders died on 9/11,
but all anyone thinks about
is the long-closed dump.
The island is
the heart of our story,
and it's where, now,
we hunt for the camera.
This is the National
9/11 Memorial & Museum,
in Manhattan.
This is the Staten Island
9/11 Memorial.
And this is
the World Trade Center
Educational Tribute,
part of the Snug Harbor
Cultural Center,
on Staten Island.
It's tucked away,
hidden in trees,
maintained by a dedicated group
of FDNY volunteers.
Well, this was a mortuary,
right? When they built it,
they built it crooked
so the soul
could leave the building.
Yes, this building
used to be a morgue
for retired sailors,
including, strangely enough,
my great-grandfather, Charlie,
a merchant marine
who served in World w*r II.
He retired on these grounds,
died in 1964,
and was embalmed in this room,
the same room
in which some of our 32 frames
have been displayed
for 23 years.
This is where the camera
should be, in this case.
But it's not.
It's gone.
Jack Calderone last remembers
seeing it here in 2016,
when he retired.
The memorial
shut down during Covid
and reopened in 2022.
Sometime between 2016 and '22,
the camera disappeared.
It's unclear
if it was misplaced or stolen.
Everything else
is accounted for,
including artifacts
like this helmet
and this piece
of one of the planes.
- These are all from that camera?
- These are all from that camera.
Obviously, he was right
under... the North Tower.
Sorry. Put that there.
You guys looked,
to search storage here, to see
if you could find the camera?
Yeah, we did a thorough search.
Went through it
twice this morning,
dug everything out. Nothing.
Finding the camera
is our only hope
to prove that Joe Lovero
is our photographer.
We could check
the serial number.
We might even be
able to pull DNA.
Vital clues.
Back in Jersey,
Butch makes a surprise call.
Hey, Mike.
Yeah, it's Bobby Cobb.
Bobby Cobb. C-O-B-B.
Retired deputy chief
from Jersey City.
No, no, I'm actually
here in New Jersey
with Johnny Austin,
doing a, uh,
documentary on 9/11.
Yeah, so I'm actually
here with them right now
because they, they were--
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay, no, yeah, that's fine.
That's fine. Fine.
I just wanted to check
with you just to see. All right.
He just shut it down right away.
- Yeah.
- He said no. I said,
"You know what?
Leave it alone.
I don't wanna talk about it."
I try to reach the Loveros.
I write and call and email
and text. No response.
A family friend agrees
to contact them for us.
Today. 10:13 p.m.
"Mr. Walczak,
I have been in contact
with member
of Joe Lovero's family.
They have made it
extremely clear
that they are not interested
in any contact regarding Joe.
The FDJC will honor
the Lovero family wish
to be undisturbed.
Please accept this text
as our position in this matter."
So...
Uh, I mean, the family,
the family hasn't said
anything to me, so...
I mean,
I guess by not responding,
they were clear.
But not really, because...
Imagine if we came out with this
and we had these photos
and we didn't
contact the family.
Since 2001,
the story of Joe Lovero
has shifted from photographer
to emergency rescue hero,
including an unverified account
that he died while dismantling
turnstiles in the North Tower
to help people escape.
The truth is,
we know he took photos.
Everything else is speculation.
I think that we're honoring
the wishes of the photographer
by publishing the photos,
because it was important enough
that this was
the final act of their life.
That they were
a first responder,
and we don't know
exactly what they did,
but they very likely
were helping people,
which makes them a hero,
but they also
were a photographer,
and I don't think that makes
them any less of a hero.
I think, as far as, like,
what we do with the...
...with this project,
I mean, it's not,
it's not what I wanted.
I don't know.
I just had this image of...
...32 photos of life and,
like, a happy ending, but...
...it is not a happy ending.
When I first learn about Joe,
I'm startled
to see his birthday.
September 8th. My birthday.
Seventy-two hours
before the attacks, I turned 13.
He turned 60.
I wanna see him alive
at that party,
but it's not up to me.
We say "never forget."
But who chooses
what we remember?
Did Joe save lives,
or did he take photos?
Why not both?
For one fateful moment,
at one intersection,
West and Vesey,
everyone and everything
fused together.
A swirling mass of glass
and steel and dust and debris.
People who lived and died.
The before and after.
The first responder,
the photographer, one.
A body fell from the sky
onto firefighter Danny Suhr.
Todd Maisel helped evacuate him
and took pictures.
The South Tower fell
onto firefighter Kevin Shea.
Todd helped save him
and took pictures.
If you have a choice
of taking a photo
or helping someone,
which are you doing?
I'm helping someone.
But photography is important,
to tell the story,
tell their story.
They couldn't tell their story.
They're dead.
Three hundred and forty-three
firefighters, dead.
Seventy-eight fi-- cops,
they're dead.
They couldn't tell their story.
I could tell their story.
In the end, I know more
about how Joe Lovero died
than how he lived.
I can show you photos
and maps and landmarks.
I can take you
to West and Vesey.
But I'll never know him.
I hear he was a good cook.
He always made
great Italian food.
- Yeah.
- -Do you remember one particular dish?
Yeah.
It had veal, and it had pasta,
and it was like
a white cream sauce on it,
and I can't remember
the name of it, but...
Oh, it was to die for.
There's a meme I can't license,
but you can look up.
A girl stands in a field,
the wind in her hair,
the sky blue,
the Twin Towers behind her.
That's true of me,
but not of people born
in the last 25 years.
For them, it never existed.
My niece is 13,
the same age I was on 9/11.
I show her my video
from the towers.
I tell her
of the world that was.
I pray for the world that is,
and the world I hope to come.
9/11 never ended.
We live it every day.
No one more so
than the people who were there.
We've now lost
more than 343 firemen
that died that day.
To the cancers.
We're close to 400 now.
We just buried
a Staten Islander this weekend.
Eight firemen from Jersey City
in every rank have died.
I have six illnesses
from 9/11, by the way.
Migraine headaches,
hearing loss, gastric reflux.
-Cancer.
-Thyroid cancer.
-Cancer.
-Lung scars, uh, nodules.
Coronary hypertension.
They told us the air was safe,
by the way.
"The air is safe, guys.
You can go in there
and do your job."
I have my oxygen in the car
if I need it, you know. So...
It's okay.
That's-- I have that at night.
You know, I, I can't complain
about having a cough.
You know, when s--
when so many other people
have so much worse,
it's like, you know...
To be fair,
you also have thyroid cancer.
You know what?
You know what the doctor said?
"You got the best cancer."
If anybody--
If you're gonna get cancer,
get thyroid cancer.
It's slow-growing,
and you could
live a long time with it.
When the kids were young,
I remember...
I remember sitting out
in the back, on the,
on the mound,
and the kids asking me
to play with them,
and I used to tell them that,
"Daddy can't run around with you
'cause he's fat
and out of shape."
The fact of the matter was
I couldn't run around
with them
'cause I couldn't breathe
because I have three-quarters
of an inch of salt
in the base of both of my lungs.
But they didn't need
to know that at the time.
It was easy to say,
"Daddy's fat and out of shape.
I can't play with you."
You strike me like
you have a good sense of humor.
You have to.
That's a coping mechanism,
because, honestly,
after all the years
that I've spent in the field,
and all the things I've seen,
and the World Trade Center,
if you don't laugh
and you make--
you don't make jokes,
you go crazy.
There have been countless,
countless people
that I've worked
with over the years
that have taken their own lives,
because they can't deal
with the stress.
9/11, I don't turn the TV on.
I've never gone
to Manhattan since.
I have nightmares.
I've-- Just weird nightmares.
I had nightmares of,
of the, of the rebar.
People stuck on the rebar.
Just weird stuff, like de--
decaying bodies on rebar
at the World Trade Center.
I was suffering from ha--
from hallucinations
where I would see
a black bag on the floor,
and it looked like a body,
or if I was looking
at my own feet,
it looked like the feet
of people I recovered,
a person I recovered.
I couldn't take a shower
and close the shower curtain
because I felt like
I was trapped.
A few of my friends
and colleagues,
I heard that
they lost their mind
and they ended up
in a mental institution.
That kind of wake me up
that I don't want
to end up like them.
I have to rebuild my life again.
But then I started
analyzing my mind,
that why my mental status
is like this?
And I realized
it was a survivor guilt.
I lost this many people
on one day.
As a security consultant,
you're not supposed
to lose a single life.
But on the same day
I lost like 2600 people.
Other side of my mind
started thinking,
"What's the major cause
of death in the United States?"
Driving.
Then I started thinking,
"Let me teach driving
from the root level,
from 16 year old and up."
Teach them
safe driving technique,
make them defensive drivers,
so that they save their life
and they save others' life also.
So, each one of my 16-year-old
will be one tribute
to one lost life
in World Trade Center.
That's the reason
I started this,
and when I get my license,
I insist that my license
should be stamped on 9/11.
So, this driving school,
Vision Driving Schools,
first license was
issued on 9/11/2006.
Have you been back
to the site since?
Never.
I don't have that
kind of courage to do that.
But when I see you,
when you step in my office...
...and I thought to myself,
"Why this guy is chasing me?
How did he get my number?"
I would keep asking my wife also
that,
"How did he get my number?
Why? After 24 years,
who search... like that?"
And you had a dedication.
I...
I make up my mind.
After looking at you...
...I don't know
what's driving me,
but maybe your face,
maybe your eyes,
give me confidence.
"Let's get it over with, man.
Move on with your life."
After you left, I told my wife,
"We'll book a hotel there.
We'll go there.
I want to stay overnight there.
Let's see what I feel."
I will go there.
- How are you doing today?
- Fine, fine.
Jitendra,
I just wanna say
whatever you need today,
we're here for you.
So, if you guys
just want some space,
if you want us
to kind of step away,
if-- just please let us know.
No, no, no, no. I will--
We want you to be with us.
You are my mentor.
I appreciate it.
- You are the reason, after 24 years, I'm going there.
- -He's going on.
My son called me and says,
"Dad, are you okay?
Are you okay to go over there?"
I said, "Yeah,
I'm trying to find myself."
Okay.
...destination
on the left-hand side.
Do you remember
some of this from before?
-This is totally new.
-Yeah.
I didn't know that this...
The Twin Tower had a charm.
- Yeah.
- Both towers together.
- It was special.
- It was special.
The s-- the skyline
is not the same.
So, when we get in front,
I'm gonna show you
- where that photo was taken and...
- -Oh.
...I'll kind of orient you.
Yeah, this is
the intersection of West
- and Vesey.
- -So, this is where I walked.
Yeah,
this is where you walked.
- So, I was there.
- Yes. This is what was
- uh, World Trade Center 6.
- Right. Right.
And so you would've
been, uh, in the street,
like, right over here.
I'll take you to,
if you're okay with it,
to the pool.
Right.
- How do you feel?
- -I felt a little uneasy,
but now, I'm okay.
This is the fire truck.
That's where that picture is?
How does it feel to you
to see this in person?
Incredible.
Incredible.
I didn't know
that after 24 years,
I'll be able to see it.
And I was there.
Unbelievable.
But I'm so glad
I took this decision to come...
...to see all these things.
I don't know how to feel, but...
...I think once
we get out of here,
I'll feel much better
than all this last 24 years
I was suffering.
I see a lot of...
...anxiety is evaporating
from my body.
And I think that...
...if I wouldn't have seen this,
I would've been...
Next 25 years,
I would be same person.
But now that I see it,
I think I can get it over with.
I can even bring my friends,
somebody come visit,
I'll bring them here myself.
How does it feel that one day,
you might be--
your picture might be
here in the museum?
Wonderful. I'd be honored.
I will be really,
really honored to see that.
-Yeah.
-I feel very honored that
you invited us to come today.
It means a lot.
It was emotional.
Like I said, without you,
I wouldn't have done this.
You are the best of the best.
I feel like my own children.
You know what I mean? Come on.
Give camera to somebody else.
You come on too.
Come on, Purnima.
We're glad to be here with you.
There's one last thing to do.
I've never met
Jack Calderone, my source.
For years,
I ask for an interview.
He declines.
Finally, right before
we leave New York,
he invites me to stop by.
- I just finished that.
- Wow.
Are you publishing this?
It's gone.
It's sold out already.
- Wow.
- Did 500 copies.
Jack joined the FDNY in 1973.
He's a retired firefighter
and talented photographer.
In fact, some of the photos
in our intro are his.
You remember your first camera?
I think I still have it.
Huh. This is a still camera?
- Yeah.
- Wow.
I know it's not
the Zapruder camera,
but it kind of gives me
the vibes of, like, that era...
...the Zapruder camera.
I ask Jack again
about our camera,
the mystery camera.
When did he last see it?
Where are the negatives?
He can't find them.
Who gave it to him?
I could tell you
it was a guy from Rescue 5.
I cannot remember who it was.
You know? Um...
And I don't think
anyone's gonna come forward,
'cause I think
they were kinda guilty
that they had the camera.
For 25 years,
Jack thought he knew
who took our 32 frames:
Bobby Crawford.
And now, I tell him,
"No, it was Joe."
Lovero is the only one--
- How, how did you come up with him?
- -So...
- That's interesting.
- Yeah.
-Yeah.
-Did you ever consider,
possibly, that it was Lovero?
No, I never did.
It never dawned on me.
Jack and Joe were
both members of the Gong Club,
a volunteer group that supports
Jersey City firefighters.
-You knew him personally?
-Yeah.
I mean, I wasn't
a friend with him,
but I knew him
as an acquaintance.
I think, for him,
I mean, as a photographer,
it's, it's, it's a legacy.
You know, I'm sure he'd rather
- be here, but it's still--
- Yeah.
It's a piece of history.
How do you feel
that you captured history?
That's a good question.
I don't know.
I never really thought
about it that way.
How do I feel
about capturing history?
Glad that I was there.
For all I know, people
are going to hear this history
and see this history,
and just file it under, "Okay,"
and then move on
with their lives.
Um...
But I hope that's not the case.
And, uh, you know,
I know I'm not a hero.
'Cause they're all dead.
We're talking
about generational change
from, uh, the witness,
lived experience generation
to the history generation.
You know, 40, 50%
of our visitors were born after.
I'm about it. Maybe
a few years younger than me,
people with direct
memories, you know?
It's really kind of thirties
now and above. Right?
And so, in 40 years, you know,
I'll be telling people
that we met you guys,
and I think that's--
it's something.
You have any other
questions for me?
Want another beer?
And with that,
we returned to New Orleans,
where, one day,
I get a call from Mark Desire,
with the New York City Office
of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Mark has been fighting
for 25 years
to identify 9/11 victims
via DNA.
If we find this camera,
do you think you would be able
to run DNA tests on it
to possibly identify
- who the photographer is?
- Yes.
So, if the camera
was found at Ground Zero,
film still in it,
film taken out and developed,
-and those pictures
were fine, correct?
-Yep.
Yeah, so the fact
that the film survived
leads me to believe
there's DNA in there.
So, this thing wasn't
completely melted
or soaked in jet fuel,
so there's a good chance
that somewhere on that camera,
there's DNA.
This is the only way
we can answer, definitively,
who took our 32 frames.
Someone has the camera.
Please return it.
As I script this film,
I get a package in the mail
from retired NYPD
Detective Frank DeMasi.
A piece of glass
from the World Trade Center,
found at Ground Zero.
I wanna know more
so I call Dan Sassa,
who wrote a book
on the Trade Center.
His uncle, Michael E. Roberts,
a firefighter, died on 9/11.
I have a piece of window glass
from the World Trade Center,
some limestone,
a piece of steel,
a piece of granite,
and some piece
of liquefied concrete,
molten or something.
The piece of glass that I have,
and along with the piece
that you shared with me,
is actually a piece
from the lobbies
of one of the towers.
It has a green tint to it,
and that's due
to the iron oxide impurities
that they used
for that thick glass.
And if you hold it
at a specific angle,
you can see that, that, that,
you know, green kind of hue.
It's almost like a portal for me
to, to be able to look at it
and, you, you know,
like I said, reflect.
When you look online,
I think there is a hunger
for actual pieces
of the Trade Center.
And, you know, some of that
maybe is morbid curiosity,
but I, I think, personally,
a lot of it is that people,
even people who weren't alive,
they feel a sense of loss.
That even
if they don't remember 9/11,
even if they never went
to the Trade Center,
that we're living
through such tumultuous times
that when we look back,
you know,
you and I can look back
on the '90s and say,
"Oh, man, that was
kinda like the '50s."
It was this,
for lack of a better phrase,
not that it was perfect,
but kind of a golden period
compared to what
the last 25 years have been.
- Um--
- Absolutely. It's hard.
It's hard to,
to drive by New York City
and not see the skyline
the way it was and, and,
and think back to the way
the world was prior to 9/11.
Dan agrees to meet us.
One winter night.
At Liberty State Park.
In Jersey City.
Home of Joe Lovero.
Birthplace of my father.
I used to stand here as a child,
marveling at the towers.
Now, just empty sky.
I lost you on the subway car
Got caught
Without my MetroCard
I waited and I waited
For the express train
Wanna catch up with you
Wherever you are
I waited and I waited
I waited and I waited
I waited and I waited
I waited and I waited
And it was hot
And when it stopped
It was metal on the mental
It was somethin' in my heart
It was metal on the mental
It was somethin' in my heart
My heart
Got on the train
And I took a seat
Thought why all these people
are watching me
Caught my reflection
In the subway car
Thought look at you
Whoever you are
I waited and I waited
I waited and I waited
I waited and I waited
I waited and I waited
And it was cool
And when it stopped
It was metal on the mental
It was somethin' in my heart
Metal on the mental
It was somethin' in my heart
Well, I got, I got
I got, I got
Got off, got off, on you
Well, I got, I got, I got
Got off, got off
Got off, on you
Well, I got, got off, I got
Got off, got off
Got off, on you
I got, I got, I got
Got off, got off
Got off, on you
It was metal on the mental
It was somethin' in my heart
It was metal on the mental
Some somethin' in my heart
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32 Frames: A 9/11 Mystery (2026)
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