Scene Through the Lens | September 13, 2021

I’ve spent a good part of the past few weeks photographing for the twentieth anniversary of September 11.

I made the pictures for our story on how the Western Pennsylvania borough of Shanksville has changed in small ways, but not in one big one: Residents continue to dedicate themselves to honoring the victims of Flight 93 as heroes. They’ve become the stewards and storytellers of hallowed ground.

While there, I visually reported on the Flight 93 National Memorial, where a pathway marks the final flight path of the Boeing 757, a marble wall stands with the names of the 40 passengers and crew, and the crash impact site serves as their final resting place.

I also met many fascinating and interesting people on those stories, and even more as I visited a dozen towns in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, for a photo essay that just posted today. It’s look at some of the hundreds of steel fragments of the World Trade Center that were distributed across the U.S., and beyond, to create local memorials.

After I photographed each of the twelve memorial sites with WTC artifacts, I walked around the neighborhoods and communities near them, meeting people who live there.

The images of the artifacts are paired up in the essay - Pieces of the Past - with pictures of some of the people I talked with near each site - like the mother of the young girl in downtown Coatesville pictured above - about what we all remember, or know about that day.

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:

» SEE MORE: Archived columns and Twenty years of a photo column