Raising the Flag at Ground Zero

Raising the Flag at Ground Zero is a photograph by Thomas E. Franklin of The Bergen Record, taken on September 11, 2001. The picture shows three New York City firefighter raising the American flag at ground zero of the World Trade Center following the September 11 attacks. The official name for the photograph used by The Record is Ground Zero Spirit. The photo appeared on The Record front page on September 12, 2001. The paper also put it on the Associated Press wire and it appeared on the covers of several newspapers around the world. It has often been compared to the Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal during World War II.

Photograph

Frankline shot the photograph shortly after 5 p.m. with a telephoto lens. At this time, he was standing under a pedestrian walkway across the West Side Highway that connected the center to the World Financial Center, located at the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site. Franklin said the firefighters were about 150 yards (137 m) away from him and the debris was 100 yards (91 m) beyond that. They were about 20 feet (6 m) off the ground.Franklin had hitched a ride on a tug boat across the Hudson River, arriving around noon after the towers had collapsed. He was with photographer James Nachtwey when he saw the firefighters.

The firefighters pictured were Brooklyn-based firefighters George Johnson of Rockaway Beach and Dan McWilliams of Long Island (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten......
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