Inquirer staff photographer Tom Gralish’s weekly visual exploration of our region
The time - 9:03:02 A.M. - that United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into Tower Two (the South Tower) of the World Trade Center is embedded in the walkway at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pa. Four time line markers chronicle the exact moment each of the four hijacked aircraft crashed on 9/11.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
Twenty years ago a United Airlines plane crashed into a former coal field near after a struggle in the cockpit between the passengers and al-Qaida hijackers.
The Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pa. is the final resting place of the 40 passengers and crew - sacred ground and a monument to the sacrifice they made.
Since 1998, a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color:
August 30, 2021: Smoking, food, bikes or pets are not allowed on the hallowed grounds of the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pa. "No Photography" signs are also posted inside the Visitor Center and gift shop. But not for the reason you might expect. It's because some of the images in the permanent exhibit space where the hijacked plane crashed on Sept. 11, 2001 are copyrighted, and cannot be reproduced.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
August 23, 2021: A scene along the salt marshes and small inlets in Port Republic, Atlantic County, where the Mullica River flows into Great Bay. The area is not far from the monument marking the location of the Battle of Chestnut Neck, one of the stops along the 130-mile Pinelands National Scenic Byway designated earlier this year.Read moreTOM GRALISH / TOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
August 16, 2021: Delores and Novic - they didn’t want to give last names, saying, “What happens in AC stays in AC" - avoid the beach, preferring to sit in the shade of the casinos on the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
August 9, 2021: Lill Hayes does a wheelie along the Boardwalk in Atlantic City.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
August 2, 2021: Chris Coger (left) on Shadow and Malik Divers astride Big Sunny ride in Clark Park in West Philadelphia. Divers rides out of the brand-new Concrete Cowboys stables at Bartram's Garden. (He coined the term for his horse-riding program more than a decade ago, before the Idris Elba movie that took the same title rather than use that of the book, "Ghetto Cowboy," it was based on.)Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
July 26, 2021: A relatively recent addition to the Fashion District and Center City skyline (seen from the Philadelphia Bus Terminal, in the 1000 block of Filbert Street) a large tenpin joins City Hall (right, completed in 1901) and One Liberty Place (center, completed in 1987).Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
July 19, 2021: The beach in Atlantic City on a midweek July afternoon.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
July 12, 2021: A newly installed oversized police badge is visible in the lobby of the former Inquirer and Daily News Building on North Broad Street. The 18-story Beaux-Arts-style skyscraper is being renovated to become the new headquarters of the Philadelphia Police Department. The newspapers and Inquirer.com moved into offices in the former Strawbridge & Clothier department store at Eighth and Market Streets nine years ago last week.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
July 5, 2021: The embroidered footwear of comedian Bill Cosby (right) as he makes his first public appearance, standing with his attorneys outside his Elkins Park home on Wednesday following his release from prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned his 2018 sexual assault conviction.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
June 28, 2021: There were once almost 150 small lion heads on the ornate bronze spiked railing that surrounds City Hall. They, like most of the statuary on the building - including the big one of William Penn - were designed by Alexander Milne Calder. Less than two dozen of the lions remain after 100 years. And this is one of only two still facing forward.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
June 21, 2021: A tourist approaches the Phillie Phanatic statue at the Independence Visitor Center. The team mascot was one of a phlock of 20 Phanatics that were decorated by different local artists and spread around the city in 2010 as part of a tourism campaign (All the other fiberglass statues were auctioned off for charity at the end of the summer).Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
June 14, 2021: Statuary at Memorial Hall (now the Please Touch Museum) in Fairmount Park, one of the few buildings remaining from the 1876 International Centennial Exhibition, includes two Pegasus sculptures (front) by Vincenz Bildhauer Pilz and one of Columbia on the dome (rear) by A. J. M. Mueler. The bronze winged horse sculptures were originally installed at the Imperial Opera House in Vienna but the Austrian government thought them out of scale and ordered them removed and melted down. They were rescued by a Philadelphia businessman and moved here in time for the Exhibition. The current, smaller Columbia replaced the original after it was damaged in a thunderstorm in 1901.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
June 7, 2021: City Hall tower is reflected in the scrim of water on the surface of the 11,600 square-foot fountain in Dilworth Park.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
May 31, 2021: Mr. Bill, the 25-foot-tall fiberglass giant on Route 73 in Winslow has been greeting travelers and ice cream lovers for decades.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
May 24, 2021: A restaurant worker waits for diners outside an establishment in the 1500 block of Walnut Street. The dogs are part of a sign in front of the restaurant.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
