not so nice shot
November 4, 2005 9:54 AM   Subscribe

NewYorksmall.jpg [this is big] [mi]
posted by 31d1 (39 comments total)
 
This is a "tiny" version of a 14 meg jpg (zip file cause it will kill your browser).

Found via http://www.unc.edu/~sinko/NY/ and I got a friend with spare bandwidth to host this so we don't kill this poor uni students server, whoever he is (I hope that's okay).
posted by 31d1 at 9:58 AM on November 4, 2005


I was about to say - his poor bandwidth...

I hope he has a bandwidth cap if he gets charged for this sort of thing. o.O

And for the image... thanks!
posted by cavalier at 10:00 AM on November 4, 2005


What's the date on this photo?
posted by geoff. at 10:11 AM on November 4, 2005


Wow, that's pretty amazing. So is this hundreds of photos from a helicopter stiched together?

Be warned though, initially opening the [big] picture maxed out my RAM and Excel and Word crashed.
posted by panoptican at 10:13 AM on November 4, 2005


I think I've seen this picture, and IIRC it was taken just several days after 9/11, as the mass of rubble and debris covering cars and nearby buildings would suggest.
posted by ori at 10:14 AM on November 4, 2005


When was this shot? Is the (assumed, gaping hole) WTC space still like that?
posted by Peter H at 10:15 AM on November 4, 2005


When was this shot? Is the (assumed, gaping hole) WTC space still like that?

I remember seeing the full-size version not too long (~months) after 9/11, so it's from around them.

As for what it's like today (well, six months ago, anyway, the last time I was there). it's still a gaping hole, but it's been cleared out and isn't full of rubble anymore. There's a temporary station for PATH trains (located right on/near the location of the old station) and some construction equipment.

Sort-of-related: NYTimes reports that construction started on a permanent station for PATH trains.
posted by Godbert at 10:18 AM on November 4, 2005


Peter, rest assured that the space is no longer like that.
The hole is still there, but a new 7 WTC is under construction, and most of the neighboring buildings have been cleaned.
Of course, they're still finding body pieces on roofs...

This pic looks within the week. The first couple of days had excessive smoke, which didn't stop for months, eventually.
posted by Busithoth at 10:22 AM on November 4, 2005


For 3 years, I worked in building with the round green top. 25th floor.

*sigh* I actually remember that time with fondness, although the 45 minute train ride and 20 minute subway every morning and evening could have been left out of that memory.
posted by thanotopsis at 10:26 AM on November 4, 2005


I chewed on the smoke every day at work for about 3 months. Thanks for reminding me. I'll never get over it.
posted by MotherTucker at 10:28 AM on November 4, 2005


That nasty smoke had a burning-metal smell to it... that's one of those things you don't really forget.
posted by clevershark at 10:33 AM on November 4, 2005


Strangely appropriate as today they poured the very first concrete for the building of the new WTC, or as we cal it here in New York "Fort Awesome".
posted by The Bellman at 10:35 AM on November 4, 2005


Clevershark: That was pretty much the most haunting part of the whole experience. Everything, everywhere smelled like death. All the time.

Hacking up grey phlegm in the middle of the night, not really knowing if part of it was a friend of yours, or the guy that killed him.
posted by Freen at 10:40 AM on November 4, 2005


That nasty smoke had a burning-metal smell to it... that's one of those things you don't really forget.
posted by clevershark at 1:33 PM EST on November 4 [!]


That smell pervaded farther and longer than the smoke, and defied all description. Being a recovering pyro, it reminded me of many scents, none overwhelmingly. It was a unique and dreadful reminder, and you never knew where you'd smell it again (if you were fortunate enough not to live/work in the area)
posted by Busithoth at 10:41 AM on November 4, 2005


And yet, Busithoth, it was all totally non-toxic! I mean the guvmint came to my house (I live about 5 blocks away) and told me so! (Funny, though, the EPA did buy me a new mattress).
posted by The Bellman at 10:50 AM on November 4, 2005


Bellman, a friend of mine in the East Village got an air conditioner out of it. Riding around Manhattan through Sept, Oct was like a game of "Am I gonna smell it here?" I was forced to play. I started believing the smell was all in my head, as it was far from Ground Zero. (34st Street, 1st Ave)

I printed out that EPA study, and the follow-up which said that there was overt pressure on the EPA to suppress fears of health. That was so many outrages ago.
posted by Busithoth at 10:54 AM on November 4, 2005


The photo was "taken from an airplane flying at an altitude of 3,300 feet on September 23, 2001".

The original is from the NOAA's website. [link to photo]
posted by mikhail at 10:56 AM on November 4, 2005


Sorry, item.
posted by 31d1 at 11:01 AM on November 4, 2005


Yeah, I remember downloading that back in 2001, IIRC. I'll look for it at home and try to figure out the file creation date.
posted by delmoi at 11:06 AM on November 4, 2005


Worked with a guy who did two tours in 'Nam. He had to go to Manhattan later that September (biz completely unrelated to the event). The smell to him was a trip down memory lane -- burned stuff and dead bodies were the main ingredients. I've read elsewhere that the strongest memory associations we make are olfactory, and he said the smells he smelled caused him to remember stuff he'd forgotten about, or rather, supressed, for decades.
posted by alumshubby at 11:14 AM on November 4, 2005


oh my goodness. I downloaded the full-rez version and am looking at it at 100% on my monitor.

overlooking the debris, there a sign hung on the facade of a nearby building 'We Will Never Forget'

Never forget indeed. Images such as this remind me of the shock, horror, disbelief and intense grief I felt that day.

My heart goes out to all who lost loved ones and known ones on that horrible day.
posted by seawallrunner at 11:23 AM on November 4, 2005


I can see my windows.
posted by StickyCarpet at 11:32 AM on November 4, 2005


In the upper right hand corner of the pic, are they filling in the river to make new land?
posted by stbalbach at 11:33 AM on November 4, 2005


stbalbach: My guess is that area is out of the main river current so the water has a slightly different tinge to it.
posted by heydanno at 11:50 AM on November 4, 2005


They do that all the time along the river so it wouldn't surprise me...
posted by wakko at 11:51 AM on November 4, 2005


Previously.

I agree there should have been more context given. I was expecting this to be a double of the panorama.

For comparison, one year later.

Various Ground Zero galleries.
posted by dhartung at 12:09 PM on November 4, 2005


Oh, and a Coralized link to the jpg.
posted by dhartung at 12:11 PM on November 4, 2005


are they filling in the river to make new land?

That shallow cove north of Stuyvesent High School was dredged out to allow deep water vessels to dock, and that's how all the debris was transported out.

That was the first thing that was done in the overall staging of the cleanup. In the process that cove was lost to small recreational craft.
posted by StickyCarpet at 1:56 PM on November 4, 2005


I just bought and watched 9/11 the other day. It's such a strange experience, for someone who's not an American, to watch that film now, with a few years' distance, seeing the interior of Tower 1 - which I'll never see for real...

And then looking at that photo and seeing roughly the exact spot where they were standing in the lobby and roughly where they ran for cover when Tower 2 came down... *shudder*

Out of sheer interest in the city, would anyone happen to know of a similar aerial view which has buildings labelled? I thought about Google Maps but that's not exactly what I'm looking for. Staging areas, companies, municipal buildings, fire houses etc. I'd do it myself except I'm obviously not a New Yorker and I don't have the knowledge.

And - body parts ON THE ROOVES?! TO THIS DAY?? Seriously?
posted by paperpete at 2:20 PM on November 4, 2005


paperpete: People were throwing themselves out of the windows 90 stories up.
posted by Freen at 2:39 PM on November 4, 2005


And - body parts ON THE ROOVES?! TO THIS DAY?? Seriously?
posted by paperpete at 5:20 PM EST on November 4 [!]


That's what I thought.
posted by Busithoth at 3:05 PM on November 4, 2005


Freen, I know - I just hadn't really thought that they'd still be up there now. But thank god, Busithoth, that little pieces of bone were all that were found. I was morbidly imagining skeletal feet and things. + birds. Ugh.
posted by paperpete at 3:46 PM on November 4, 2005


Strangely appropriate as today they poured the very first concrete for the building of the new WTC, or as we cal it here in New York "Fort Awesome".

Nitpick... it's actually the beginning of the new PATH station / "transportation hub". But same idea.
posted by smackfu at 4:43 PM on November 4, 2005


My 14 meg copy is dated 10/7/2001
posted by delmoi at 5:57 PM on November 4, 2005


Let us not forget that the two parents of that attack -- Bin Laden, the dominant partner, and Bush, the receptive partner -- each profited immensely from it and have used it to the great advantage of their small, evil bands and to the tremendous cost to the rest of the world.

Simon Wiesenthal hunted Nazis for over *fifty years*. Now, I'm on record as opposing the excessive obsession with the Holocaust but I completely agree with him: it is important for evil people to understand that if they commit crimes against humanity, they will never be able to rest easy again no matter where they hide.

It has always been utterly, utterly incomprehensible to me how Americans accepted Bush giving up on finding Bin Laden only a few months after 9/11.

That Bush then could compare himself to Winston Churchill -- Winston Churchill! -- and that the Prime Minister of England would tacitly endorse that by lending Bush Churchill's bust completely boggles my mind.

Churchill was a man with many serious flaws, but cowardice and accepting defeat were foreign to his makeup. As a young man, he took ridiculous risks in the Boer War. Even as Prime Minister of England, he would insist on being driven out to where the Germans were bombing where he would howl threats and profanity at the planes.

If Churchill were in power, there is no question in mind he'd have gotten Bin Laden. I am quite sure that he would if everything else had failed have taken a train to Afghanistan and tried to hunt him down himself.

Americans should be ashamed that the killer walks free to kill again and still taunt them in the eyes of the world. These pictures should remind everyone of that shame.
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 7:22 PM on November 4, 2005


Amen, lupus.
posted by 40 Watt at 8:26 PM on November 4, 2005


Here's the original NOAA News story.
posted by omarr at 11:43 PM on November 4, 2005


Lupus: Right on.
posted by Freen at 10:48 AM on November 5, 2005


Lupus, my favorite quote from Churchill about America still rings true:

"America always does the right thing, after exhausting every possible alternative."
posted by Busithoth at 6:24 PM on November 5, 2005


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