Inquirer staff photographer Tom Gralish’s weekly visual exploration of our region
“No Photography” signs are posted inside the visitor center and gift shop at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pa. But not for the reason you might expect.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
Walking up to the outdoor sites at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville, Pa. last week I was not surprised to see signs saying that smoking, food, bikes or pets are not permitted.
The final resting place of the 40 passengers and crew of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed there on September 11, 2001 should absolutely be a space that respects the sacrifice they made.
I was at the memorial taking pictures for upcoming Inquirer stories on the twentieth anniversary of the worst terrorist attack in U.S. History, and had just stepped into the gift stop at the entrance to the visitor center.
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Photographing the video screen as it looped through announcements of upcoming events and the Sept. 11 observance, I froze as the image of a camera with a red slash mark through it flashed in my viewfinder.
Did the National Park Service really prohibit the taking of pictures? In a gift shop?
I felt exposed - caught in the act with my two big “professional” DSLRs - and quietly left to put them back in my car, wondering why the “No Photography” sign wasn’t posted along with the hamburger, bike, cigarette and dog sign at the entrance from the parking lot.
Returning to look at the exhibits I asked the ranger, “why no pictures?”
He explained that the Park Service did not own the copyright for some of the photos included in the permanent exhibit, so they couldn’t be copied. They didn’t want to label the individual images as such, so just thought it would be easier to post the “No Photography” signs throughout the building.
I was relieved to learn it was nothing against photographers. That we were still welcome there, to reflect on the day that would change America forever. And we were still free to capture our impressions, and share our experience on this hallowed ground.
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 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
May 17, 2021: The cast of "Islamic Snow White" rehearsing in the open-air Clinton Street Amphitheater in Camden before performing the musical to celebrate the end of Ramadan last week. The production will be headed to the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival in Washington in June, and the Camden Rep company expects to present it in Philadelphia as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted.Read moreTOM GRALISH / Staff Photographer
