Photograph, Print
Photo credit: © Joe McNally
Accession Number: C.2019.63.1
Dimensions: 109 in X 44 in X 0.08 in
Dimensions (Metric): 276.86 cm X 111.76 cm X 0.2032 cm
Dimensions (Metric): 276.86 cm X 111.76 cm X 0.2032 cm
Source: Joseph McNally
Credit Line: Collection 9/11 Memorial Museum. © Joe McNally.
Bryan Brady II, Charlie Lyons, Daniel Doyle, Ironworkers, Local 40
Description
Life-sized Polaroid photograph taken by Joe McNally depicting Local 40 Ironworkers Bryan Brady II, Charlie Lyons, and Daniel Doyle. All three men are wearing work clothes, work boots, and hard hats. Brady and Lyons wear their site credentials on a lanyard around their necks.
Life-sized Polaroid photograph taken by Joe McNally depicting Local 40 Ironworkers Bryan Brady II, Charlie Lyons, and Daniel Doyle. All three men are wearing work clothes, work boots, and hard hats. Brady and Lyons wear their site credentials on a lanyard around their necks.
Historical Notes
At Ground Zero, multi-ton steel beams making up the mountainous debris pile had to be measured and stabilized to avoid collapse and further injury on site. Each giant obstacle was then cut in large sections by skilled ironworkers. Every piece was then carefully removed, enabling rescue and recovery personnel to search for survivors and bodies in the vicinity. Charlie Lyons, who centers the McNally portrait, remarked to the photographer: “We’re on the front lines. We have to do our jobs before the firefighters can get there with their picks and shovels; it’s heart-wrenching, sorrowful. But we’re glad that we can help in some way.”
In an interview with the New York Times published in November 2002, Brooklynite Danny Doyle, depicted on the right, was one of the veteran ironworkers interviewed about those long shifts at the site. He attributed his ability to perform the necessary job to teamwork: “banding together and talking each other through the horror.” Bryan Brady II (left), an ironworker since 1984, worked at the World Trade Center site in both the aftermath of the 1993 bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He was a general foreman at Ground Zero, responsible for overseeing ironworkers from midnight to noon, working in that role until the end of November 2001. He continued to work at the site until February, and in summer 2002, Brady returned for a 14-month project to build a new PATH train center.
Bryan Brady has contributed his story to the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s oral history collection.
At Ground Zero, multi-ton steel beams making up the mountainous debris pile had to be measured and stabilized to avoid collapse and further injury on site. Each giant obstacle was then cut in large sections by skilled ironworkers. Every piece was then carefully removed, enabling rescue and recovery personnel to search for survivors and bodies in the vicinity. Charlie Lyons, who centers the McNally portrait, remarked to the photographer: “We’re on the front lines. We have to do our jobs before the firefighters can get there with their picks and shovels; it’s heart-wrenching, sorrowful. But we’re glad that we can help in some way.”
In an interview with the New York Times published in November 2002, Brooklynite Danny Doyle, depicted on the right, was one of the veteran ironworkers interviewed about those long shifts at the site. He attributed his ability to perform the necessary job to teamwork: “banding together and talking each other through the horror.” Bryan Brady II (left), an ironworker since 1984, worked at the World Trade Center site in both the aftermath of the 1993 bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He was a general foreman at Ground Zero, responsible for overseeing ironworkers from midnight to noon, working in that role until the end of November 2001. He continued to work at the site until February, and in summer 2002, Brady returned for a 14-month project to build a new PATH train center.
Bryan Brady has contributed his story to the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s oral history collection.
Curator's Comment
In the weeks after September 11, LIFE Magazine photographer Joe McNally (b. 1952) invited rescuers, recovery workers, survivors, and bereaved family members to a studio in Manhattan’s Bowery district, not far from Ground Zero. Here, the participants were memorialized by a unique Polaroid camera—dubbed the Moby C—equipped with a lens from a U-2 spy plane. This room-sized instrument could capture an exposure of singular clarity on an eight-foot tall piece of film in the blackened studio. Each 90-second session required meticulous staging and absolute stillness. Whereas most photographers were concentrating on documenting the devastation of the attacks downtown, McNally was interested in recording the heroism and sorrow etched into the human faces at the center of this national tragedy. Those who faced the camera were mostly everyday people who sought no special recognition. “They came only with the intention of participating in a project, telling their story, and sharing in the telling of others,” McNally reflected.
In less than a month, McNally produced several hundred giant Polaroids. Early in 2002, a survey of 150 from the series was installed at Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall. Visitors could walk among them, confronting the figures at life-scale. A companion book published to commemorate the project gave the collection its enduring title: Faces of Ground Zero: Portraits of the Heroes of September 11, 2001. The exhibition toured widely thereafter. On the first anniversary of 9/11, a smaller assembly of the Polaroids appeared at Rockefeller Center. For the 10th anniversary, a larger exhibition was organized for the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has enjoyed a long relationship with these arresting images. In 2006, McNally donated his portrait of FDNY Ladder 20 firefighter Adrienne Walsh to support the Museum’s nascent permanent collection. When the outdoor Memorial opened to the public in 2011, a selection from the series was borrowed from the photographer and rotated onto view in the temporary Visitor Center at 90 West Street. Annual acquisitions from the Faces of Ground Zero archive have continued, often as gifts arranged by McNally. In 2017, the Museum assumed custody of the balance of the Polaroids in an agreement that will result in the collection’s completed donation by 2027.
The image in this record is the product of a color transparency from a Mamiya RZ 6x7 Pro II 120 format camera that McNally positioned to record a shot simultaneous with the Polaroid Moby C’s flash of light. The unique, original Polaroid exhibits a more subtle and creamier tonality.
HIDE
In the weeks after September 11, LIFE Magazine photographer Joe McNally (b. 1952) invited rescuers, recovery workers, survivors, and bereaved family members to a studio in Manhattan’s Bowery district, not far from Ground Zero. Here, the participants were memorialized by a unique Polaroid camera—dubbed the Moby C—equipped with a lens from a U-2 spy plane. This room-sized instrument could capture an exposure of singular clarity on an eight-foot tall piece of film in the blackened studio. Each 90-second session required meticulous staging and absolute stillness. Whereas most photographers were concentrating on documenting the devastation of the attacks downtown, McNally was interested in recording the heroism and sorrow etched into the human faces at the center of this national tragedy. Those who faced the camera were mostly everyday people who sought no special recognition. “They came only with the intention of participating in a project, telling their story, and sharing in the telling of others,” McNally reflected.
In less than a month, McNally produced several hundred giant Polaroids. Early in 2002, a survey of 150 from the series was installed at Grand Central Terminal’s Vanderbilt Hall. Visitors could walk among them, confronting the figures at life-scale. A companion book published to commemorate the project gave the collection its enduring title: Faces of Ground Zero: Portraits of the Heroes of September 11, 2001. The exhibition toured widely thereafter. On the first anniversary of 9/11, a smaller assembly of the Polaroids appeared at Rockefeller Center. For the 10th anniversary, a larger exhibition was organized for the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has enjoyed a long relationship with these arresting images. In 2006, McNally donated his portrait of FDNY Ladder 20 firefighter Adrienne Walsh to support the Museum’s nascent permanent collection. When the outdoor Memorial opened to the public in 2011, a selection from the series was borrowed from the photographer and rotated onto view in the temporary Visitor Center at 90 West Street. Annual acquisitions from the Faces of Ground Zero archive have continued, often as gifts arranged by McNally. In 2017, the Museum assumed custody of the balance of the Polaroids in an agreement that will result in the collection’s completed donation by 2027.
The image in this record is the product of a color transparency from a Mamiya RZ 6x7 Pro II 120 format camera that McNally positioned to record a shot simultaneous with the Polaroid Moby C’s flash of light. The unique, original Polaroid exhibits a more subtle and creamier tonality.
HIDE
