New York City

Joel Meyerowitz is known for producing richly saturated images of daily American life and landscapes. Like Claude Monet, who created numerous studies of seasonal light falling on haystacks, Meyerowitz produced these images of the New York City skyline from his studio in varying amounts of light and at different times of day. With our knowledge of just how radically this skyline would change after the tragic events of September 11, 2001, however, the photographs become haunting records of a city that was. The twin towers of the World Trade Center—gently bathed in morning light, backlit, illuminated against the night sky—appear indestructible. After the attacks, Meyerowitz was the only photographer who was allowed unrestricted access to the nine-month cleanup at Ground Zero, where he made over 5,000 large-format images of the workers and the scene. He published this expansive record in Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive.