Description
Life-sized Polaroid photograph taken by Joe McNally depicting FDNY Engine 9 firefighters Michael Price (left) and Peter Blaich (right). Both men are wearing their full bunker gear and lugging fire hoses on their shoulders.

Historical Notes
On September 11, Firefighter Peter Blaich was on rotation at Engine Company 9 on Canal Street. With just two years of experience on the job, Blaich nonetheless represented the fourth generation of firefighters in his family. That Tuesday morning, he was outside the firehouse when he noticed a low-flying plane overhead, traveling south. Minutes later, Engine 9 arrived on the scene at the World Trade Center to assist with the emerging rescue and response operations.
  
Blaich and his coworkers ascended the stairs inside the North Tower and began aiding the civilian evacuation. They reached as high as the 25th floor when they were ordered to evacuate following the collapse of the South Tower. Advised to detour the dangerous lobby level, they headed below-ground to locate the loading dock leading out to Vesey Street. Blaich emerged outside just as the North Tower began to fall. With debris pummeling him, he was knocked to the ground. He readied himself to “curl up and die” when he felt someone tugging at him, then dragging him under a parked truck. The pull was the effort of Engine 9 firefighter Michael Price. The two men sheltered beneath the vehicle in darkness as the rubble roared over and past them.

In McNally’s double portrait, the sober-faced firefighters stand together, having come to his studio from a shift at Ground Zero. Their fateful bond is commemorated in the proximity of their abutting arms and bunker coats. 

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.     
 
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has enjoyed a long relationship with McNally's 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 remaining 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.
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