(WWJ) -- Saturday marks the 20-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a day many will never forget.
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In the pre-social media era, Americans watched many of the (apocalyptic) scene unfold on TV screens or in newspapers as two hijacked airplanes crashed into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.
We’ve all got a few images or videos forever burned in our minds. But now David Turnley, a University of Michigan professor and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer, has released a new photographic documentary offering new close-up encounters of the moments before the Twin Towers collapsed, and the immediate aftermath.
Turnley’s never-before-seen photos show bystanders looking up in disbelief, exasperated first responders standing among the rubble and scores of people running from the wreckage as the smoke trails behind them.
Turnley even captured some extraordinary photos showing some people who look to be going about an ordinary day -- riding a bike or rollerblading through complete devastation surrounding them.
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Many of the photos seen in Turnley’s photographic documentary -- which is sent to Bruce Springsteen’s “Lift Me Up” -- had remained in his own personal archive until this week.
The video can be seen on YouTube, and he will also be posting 60 more photos in a six-day Instagram series (available at @davidturnley) in the days leading up to the 20-year anniversary of the attacks.
Turnley is a professor at the University of Michigan’s Residential College and the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design. For the past 40 years, he has covered most of the world's major events, uprisings and wars—including the Persian Gulf War, the struggle to end apartheid, revolutions in Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, to name a few.
"It was a gorgeous blue sky morning, and I was in the shower on West 10th Street in New York's West Village when I heard what sounded like a train wreck. I moved to the city in the late '90s after 20 years of covering war all over the world," wrote Turnley, in a recent Instagram post. "After getting dressed for an appointment, I walked out the door to see the first twin tower in flames. I grabbed my cameras—and 20 rolls of film—and by the time I returned to head down to the World Trade Center, another plane had just hit the second tower. War had followed me."
Turnley says he rushed to the site of the chaos, just two blocks away from his home, where he photographed the collapse of both towers, before heading into the rubble with the first firefighters and police officers that responded to the scene.
"I am posting this work to honor—20 years later—all those who lost their lives and those who risked their lives to help,” Turnley said.
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