Raising the Flag at Ground Zero
Encyclopedia
Raising the Flag at Ground Zero is a photograph by Thomas E. Franklin
Thomas E. Franklin
Thomas Ewan Franklin is an American photographer for The Bergen Record, best known for his photograph Raising the Flag at Ground Zero, which depicts firefighters raising the American flag at the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks.-Biography:Franklin is a 1988 graduate of the...

 of The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
The Record (Bergen County)
The Record is a newspaper in northern New Jersey. It has the second largest circulation of New Jersey's daily newspapers, behind The Star-Ledger. Owned by the Borg family since 1930, it is the flagship publication of the North Jersey Media Group. Stephen Borg is the publisher of The Record...

, taken on September 11, 2001. The picture shows three New York City firefighter
New York City Fire Department
The New York City Fire Department or the Fire Department of the City of New York has the responsibility for protecting the citizens and property of New York City's five boroughs from fires and fire hazards, providing emergency medical services, technical rescue as well as providing first response...

s raising the American flag
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...

 at ground zero of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...

 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
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...

 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
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.The photograph was extremely...

 photograph taken by Joe Rosenthal
Joe Rosenthal
Joseph John Rosenthal was an American photographer who received the Pulitzer Prize for his iconic World War II photograph Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima, taken during the Battle of Iwo Jima. His picture became one of the best-known photographs of the war.-Early life:Joseph Rosenthal was born on...

 during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

.

Photograph

Franklin shot the photograph shortly after 5 p.m. with a telephoto lens
Telephoto lens
In photography and cinematography, a telephoto lens is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a telephoto group that extends the light path to create a long-focus...

. At this time, he was standing under a pedestrian walkway across the West Side Highway
West Side Highway
The West Side Highway is a mostly surface section of New York State Route 9A that runs from West 72nd Street along the Hudson River to the southern tip of Manhattan. It replaced the West Side Elevated Highway, built between 1929 and 1951, which was shut down in 1973 due to neglect and lack of...

 that connected the center to the World Financial Center
World Financial Center
The World Financial Center is a complex of buildings across West Street from the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan in New York City, overlooking the Hudson River. This complex is home to offices of companies including Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, Nomura Group, the Wall Street...

, located at the northwest corner of the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...

 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
Hudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...

, arriving around noon after the towers had collapsed. He was with photographer James Nachtwey
James Nachtwey
James Nachtwey is an American photojournalist and war photographer.He grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Dartmouth College, where he studied Art History and Political Science ....

 when he saw the firefighters.

The firefighters pictured were Brooklyn-based firefighters George Johnson of Rockaway Beach
Rockaway Beach, Queens
Rockaway Beach is a neighborhood on the Rockaway Peninsula in the New York City borough of Queens. It is located on the South Shore of Long Island. The neighborhood is bounded by Arverne to the east and Rockaway Park to the west...

 and Dan McWilliams of Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

 (both from Ladder 157), and Billy Eisengrein of Staten Island
Staten Island
Staten Island is a borough of New York City, New York, United States, located in the southwest part of the city. Staten Island is separated from New Jersey by the Arthur Kill and the Kill Van Kull, and from the rest of New York by New York Bay...

 (Rescue 2).

Flag

The flag came from the 130-foot (40 m) yacht
Yacht
A yacht is a recreational boat or ship. The term originated from the Dutch Jacht meaning "hunt". It was originally defined as a light fast sailing vessel used by the Dutch navy to pursue pirates and other transgressors around and into the shallow waters of the Low Countries...

 named Star of America, owned by Shirley Dreifus of the Majestic Star, which was docked in the yacht basin in the Hudson River at the World Financial Center. McWilliams cut the yardarm off of the yacht with a K-Saw and then took the flag and its pole from the yacht to an evacuation area on the northwest side of the site. They found a pole about 20 feet (6 m) off the ground.

The flag has since disappeared. The city thought it had possession of the flag after the attack, Rudolph Giuliani and George Pataki
George Pataki
George Elmer Pataki is an American politician who was the 53rd Governor of New York. A member of the Republican Party, Pataki served three consecutive four-year terms from January 1, 1995 until December 31, 2006.- Early life :...

 signed it, and the flag flew at the New York City Hall
New York City Hall
New York City Hall is located at the center of City Hall Park in the Civic Center area of Lower Manhattan, New York City, USA, between Broadway, Park Row, and Chambers Street. The building is the oldest City Hall in the United States that still houses its original governmental functions, such as...

, Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium
Yankee Stadium was a stadium located in The Bronx in New York City, New York. It was the home ballpark of the New York Yankees from 1923 to 1973 and from 1976 to 2008. The stadium hosted 6,581 Yankees regular season home games during its 85-year history. It was also the former home of the New York...

, and the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)
USS Theodore Roosevelt is the fourth Nimitz-class supercarrier. Her radio call sign is Rough Rider, the name of President Theodore Roosevelt's volunteer cavalry unit during the Spanish-American War...

 during its service in the Mideast. However, when the flag's owner prepared to formally donate the flag it was discovered that there was a size discrepancy: while the yacht's flag measured four feet by six feet, the flag the city had in its possession measured five feet by eight feet. the flag has yet to be found. The owner, Shirley Dreifus, has started a Web site (www.findthe911flag.com) in an effort to get the flag back.

Later use

The "Heroes 2001" stamp, USA Scott
Scott catalogue
The Scott catalogue of postage stamps, published by Scott Publishing Co, a subsidiary of Amos Press, is updated annually and lists all the stamps of the entire world which its editors recognize as issued for postal purposes. It is published in six large volumes and is also produced in...

 #B2, was unveiled on March 11, 2002 by President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....

, in a ceremony attended by Franklin, Johnson, Eisengrein, and McWilliams. These stamps were semipostal
Semipostal
A semi-postal stamp or semipostal stamp, also known as a charity stamp, is a postage stamp issued to raise money for a particular purpose and sold at a premium over the postal value...

s: they had a purchase price (45¢) higher than their postage value (34¢), with the balance given to the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Federal Emergency Management Agency
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is an agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security, initially created by Presidential Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 1978 and implemented by two Executive Orders...

's relief efforts. A special exception was thus made to the normal requirement by the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...

 that subjects of stamps be deceased.

In December 2001 The New York City Fire Department unveiled plans for a statue based on the photograph to be placed at the Brooklyn headquarters. In an effort to be politically correct, the statue was to include black, white, and Hispanic firefighters. However, it was cancelled in an outcry about rewriting history because all the depicted firefighters are white.

On November 5, 2007, a 40-foot-high bronze monument based on the photograph called 'To Lift A Nation' and depicting three New York firefighters raising the flag over the ruins of the World Trade Center was dedicated at the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial Park in Emmitsburg, Md.

From another angle

The picture taken by Thomas E. Franklin is not to be confused with another picture of the same event but from a different angle by Ricky Flores for The Journal News
The Journal News
The Journal News is a newspaper in New York serving the suburban New York City counties of Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam, a region known as the Lower Hudson Valley. It is owned by the Gannett Company, Inc. The Journal News was created through a merger of several daily community newspapers...

. Flores also was able to get near Ground Zero on the day of the attacks and at around the same time that Franklin took his shot, Flores was able to get into a second story of a building on Canal Street
Canal Street (Manhattan)
Canal Street is a major street in New York City, crossing lower Manhattan to join New Jersey in the west to Brooklyn in the east . It forms the main spine of Chinatown, and separates it from Little Italy...

with its glass shattered out and capture this picture.

External links

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