N.Y. Photo Show Is a Shrine to Sept. 11

A World Trade Center photography exhibit created after the Sept. 11 attacks has been trying to shut its doors since Thanksgiving, but cannot stop the hordes of viewers who demand it remain open.

The SoHo exhibit, “Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs,” has become a shrine of sorts, drawing 3,500 New Yorkers and tourists each day, as people search for some way to connect emotionally with the tragedy.

“People go to ground zero and there’s nothing left to see,” exhibit publicist Amy Wentz said. “So we’re finding most of the people who come here now are tourists. This sort of allows them to bear witness.”

Michael Shulan is a co-founder of the exhibit, as well as co-owner of the Prince Street storefront that houses it rent-free.

The exhibit was created after Shulan and three other local artists and photographers realized that thousands of New Yorkers, some of them professional photographers, had documented Sept. 11 and its immediate aftermath. They decided to create a vehicle for donating and archiving the best of those photos.

Practically overnight their tiny storefront space was deluged with photos and with volunteers such as Wentz, who lives near Ground Zero. About 300 people have given their time to the effort.

Now, 4,000 images are on display, either on their Web site, www.hereisnewyork.org, or at the exhibit--many hanging on clips, attached to strings that dangle across the space. All the photographers have waived their rights to the pictures. There are no names on the pictures, and nothing distinguishes the images by famous photojournalists from the shots by amateurs.

A traveling version of the exhibit opened in Chicago on Friday.

The exhibit sells prints of the images for $25 each, with all profits donated to the Children’s Aid Society. About $500,000 has been raised so far to assist children who lost parents in the attacks.

Top sellers include a photo shot from inside a destroyed building across the street from the Twin Towers, with the broken window frame forming a crucifix.

On a typical afternoon in January, the New York gallery was packed, with a long line of people waiting patiently outside in the crisp air. Inside, people seemed compelled to talk, in English and an assortment of other languages, about what they were seeing and to share Sept. 11 stories. Many were moved to tears.

“If you weren’t here you feel cut off from what happened,” said co-founder Charles Traub, chairman of the master of fine arts photography program at the School of Visual Arts. “And New York is like a child of the world.”

Traub likened seeing the photos to recovering the bodies of the lost, saying it makes the attack seem real.

“I think people don’t want to let go of the experience,” he said. “And my dream is that because of that, the American public will be all the more mindful of those things that happen all over the world.”

The nearly renovated Tweed Courthouse, located next to City Hall, would like to house the archive, Traub said, but hasn’t the funds to properly store and display it. Several galleries have expressed interest in housing the work from famous photojournalists, but that, Traub insists, would destroy the exhibit’s point.

Target, the department store company, is sponsoring shows drawn from the exhibit in Chicago and three other cities. This month, 300 of the images will travel to several cities in Germany. And 40 cities worldwide have requested the exhibit. But the organizers don’t have experience in corporate fund-raising, and day-to-day operations are so overwhelming that nobody has figured out what ought to be done next.

Despite the chaos and the long hours of work, Traub said, the experience has created a family.

“I know what the firefighters feel--the brotherhood,” Traub said, admitting it will be hard to break up the volunteer team. “They are inspired by what took place, and by having a means of contributing. It’s a remarkable case study in collective energy.”