Inside The Belly of The Beast!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today for the first time I was asked to go to the World Trade Center and gather some shots of the construction process. It was insane! First the hustle and bustle of New York down by the Towers is totally nuts…and I thought the area I am in was crazy. We sat at a stop light for what felt like 10 minutes. The people just kept pouring out of the subway entrance. Once we arrive about a block away from Ground Zero, I needed to get my day pass so security would let me onto the site. The man who gave me the pass has the greatest view out an office window ever…overlooking the WTC!!! It was breathtaking. After gathering the pass John and myself walked past movie trailers outside Brooks Brothers, down the road a little bit to the entrance of the PATH station.

This is the entrance for The PATH Station

Then the moment of the day happened…The security guards eye-balled my special pass and my drivers license to gain entrance. Once inside I lost all my words and my mind became blank. I could not believe that I was standing on the soil in which close to 3 thousand lost their lives. The feeling was honestly indescribable. While I was gazing around at the buildings and how tall they were already, my supervisor John is giving me the details of the job. Needless to say, I did not hear a word he said. I was trying to soak everything in, moving the dirt around with my boots, starring without blinking at the buildings and just thinking about the buildings that used to occupy that space. It was honestly surreal. I came back to reality when John said to me “so you think your comfortable enough to go by yourself?” I just answered “Uh…yea…sure”, but he noticed the hesitation in my voice and gave me a brief tour.

My job was to capture any work in progress. Sounds easy right? Well, it was tough. I was able to get some footage of some of the guys lifting rebar to what seemed to be the 7th or 8th floor. After gather footage of the rebar, I walked around and got some sweet pan shots (pan=moving the camera to the left of right). One in particular was a shot which showed outside traffic then panned to the left and captured an awesome view of the new World Trade Center tower. I also gathered some shots of men welding, bending the rebar, and lifting what seemed to be a walk way to connect to another building or extension without coming all the way back down to ground level.

The experience overall was absolutely incredible. I never have been to the World Trade Center before the attack and even after. So this was the very first time I was looking at the World Trade Center, never mind stepping on the soil. And when I mean soil, I mean soil, dirt that was under the grass, under the buildings before the towers sadly fell. Just having the dirt under my boots, I felt so inspired and proud to be an American. With all that work going on it was inspiring. I also felt saddened and and speechless. I know people who are reading this are going to say “how can you never have been there and you live in New Jersey?”. Truthfully, I just have never had the opportunity to make it there. There is no other way to express my feelings today. I was excited, joyous, intrigued, saddened, proud, and many other countless emotions. Today, I was proud to be an American!!!

Below are a couple photos and a video I was able to take down at The New World Trade Center today.

A shot of The New World Trade Center from the street.

Preparing for a crane lift shot

This is the World Trade Center Memorial from the street.

Shot along Church Str

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