Profiles Redrawn

August 11, 2011 7:40 AM

"Three days after the September 11 attacks, reporters at The New York Times, armed with stacks of homemade missing-persons fliers, began interviewing friends and relatives of the missing and writing brief portraits of their lives to create “Portraits of Grief.” Not meant to be obituaries in any traditional sense, they were informal and impressionistic, often centered on a single story or idiosyncratic detail." As we near the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the Times has revisited some of the people they interviewed back then, for Profiles Redrawn.

Single page version of the article.

posted by zarq (8 comments total)

I am not at all belittling the importance of this tragedy, but I read this first line as "with stacks of homemade missing-persons fliers paper airoplanes"

I spit coffee all over the keyboard at the absurd and horrible irony of that mis-read. My brain does funny things.
posted by Fizz at 7:49 AM on August 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Thanks for this, zarq. Read this coincidentally right as I was finishing Rhett Miller's (Old 97s) 9/11 piece in the Atlantic.
posted by critzer at 8:42 AM on August 11, 2011 [5 favorites]

You're welcome. That Rhett Miller piece echoes experiences of a number of my friends who lived and worked downtown had that day. Thanks for linking to it.
posted by zarq at 11:00 AM on August 11, 2011

This reminds me of that morning, being at work (across the country) and so numb. I remember going into the bathroom and locking the door and just sitting on the floor and weeping and thinking that this isn't how humanity should be.
posted by BigHeartedGuy at 11:11 AM on August 11, 2011

"with stacks of homemade paper airplanes"

Not such a bad idea, really. A thousand paper planes, handmade by individuals and launched in memory of the event, would be worth more than a thousand speeches by politicians angling for a few votes.
posted by SPrintF at 12:08 PM on August 11, 2011

Death at the twin towers? This, the Aquilino clan decided, was F. T.’s joyful retort: Mrs. Chiari was expecting twins.

So along with the birth of the girls, now 6, was born the Legend of Zio (Italian for “uncle”) F. T. — Frank Thomas Aquilino, 26, a vice president at Cantor Fitzgerald. Zio F. T., the patron saint of giggling, naughty children who toboggan down staircases, throw bread balls at restaurants and even put toddler cousins in large salad bowls and spin them across floors.

This one actually made me choke up. There is something so lovely about one of the dead being memorialized as his niece's official Guardian Angel Of Mischief.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:35 PM on August 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

*sigh* :*(
posted by perilous at 12:39 PM on August 11, 2011

I could only make it through two. After the Bravest Woman in Seattle and the Sierra Leone adoption threads in the last few days, I'm not emotionally prepared to get through these right now.

Thanks, zarq. I look forward to reading the rest *soon.*
posted by guster4lovers at 3:45 PM on August 11, 2011