Unpublished Photographs of an Unviewable World Trade Center Disaster Site

A completely new resource for me is a six-year-old web effort at awarding honors for taking pictures on September 11, 2001, and its aftermath---The Best of Photojournalism 2002. The Internet Archive has never heard of these pages before, so I don't know when they went up online. Almost the whole batch is unfamiliar to me (and where they are familiar, they are all part of the same entry,) which leads me to think they are of recent public vintage.

One eleven-image contest entry is titled simply "Unpublished," and I might hazard a guess as to why. They reveal a truth I've long suspected: that the supposed "volunteer" ethos in the 9-11 narrative was all a public relations scam---that the truth is, ground zero was a closed shop environment, and any access for the uninitiated was by invitation only, and then only to the periphery.

One caption does duty for all eleven shots:

The following photographs were all taken on the periphery of Ground Zero. The pilgrimage to Ground Zero began almost immediately after the attack. People came for a glimpse of what happened from the neighborhood and around the world. They came to see for themselves to help them believe this unthinkable act of terrorism was real, and to help them heal. The people in this new world neighborhood are ethnically diverse people with a new sense of community because of what happened in this community. Empty Sky When you re anywhere close to the area of the former World Trade Center, you can t help but feel a weird presence. You feel the wind and the light that hits your face and you realize that the two towers that once scraped the sky on the site in front of you--are gone. You notice how bright the light gets in the early afternoon. There is nothing to block it. And then there is the smell. The unforgettable odor that lingers even months after the attack; on some days is so thick, it s hard to breathe. As the days

Quote the Raven: nevermore.