Description
Life-sized Polaroid photograph taken by Joe McNally depicting family member and FDNY Engine 68 firefighter Daniel Foley, who is wearing his fire helmet and carrying a small shovel. He is dressed in plain clothes, and his pants are heavily coated in grey and white ash from rubble that Daniel sifted through while looking for his brother, Firefighter Thomas J. Foley. A flashlight is slung over his shoulder.

Historical Notes
Known as Danny, Daniel Foley—a firefighter with Engine 68 in the Bronx—was off-duty on 9/11. After learning of the attack, he rushed to the Rescue 3 firehouse where his 32-year old brother, Thomas, known as Tommy, worked. Danny searched for his brother at Ground Zero for eleven days before he was able to recover his remains. Rescue 3 lost all seven of its responding members on 9/11. Danny told Joe McNally that he spent 36 consecutive hours at Ground Zero starting on Tuesday, September 11. He remained on site until the end of the recovery period in May 2002 and later went on to serve for over 17 years with Rescue 3, the same firehouse where his brother worked.

Firefighter Danny Foley passed away from 9/11-related health effects in February 2020.

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.
HIDE