by Kevin Bubriski  (Photographer), Richard B. Woodward (Afterword)
 
In the weeks immediately following September 11, Kevin Bubriski made four pilgrimages to the World Trade Center site from his home in Vermont to witness and record the impact of the tragedy. Like so many who had experienced the events from a distance, Bubriski was driven to visit Ground Zero in an attempt to better understand the terrible scenes reported on television and in the papers. Once at the barricades surrounding the site, Bubriski found people experiencing a remarkable sense of community, but also the deepest kind of personal reflection on loss and mortality. Businessmen, teenage friends, families, young lovers, and visitors from around the world approached the site slowly, eventually coming to a full stop, planting their feet firmly as if to keep themselves from wavering or falling. Each visitor then began a moment of quiet reflection, staring off at the mountainous ruins of twisted steel and debris amidst an omnipresent swirl of acidic smoke. It was at this time that the reality of the devastation set in.