- This is the view from my studio on West 26th (on the Hudson River) facing north, looking up the west side towards midtown and uptown Manhattan - Chelsea / New York City.
- In this 180 degree angle picture you can see the Empire State Building on the east side (right of picture) to Hoboken, New Jersey on the west side of the Hudson River (left).
- Looking in this direction: it is resplendent New York without the tragedies of what occurred in the weeks before.

- The photo on the left shows lower Manhattan during the summer of 2001 while driving down the east side of the BQE, just before the Brooklyn Bridge. Like cell phones, digitals are great as you can use them while you drive, whoops!
- The right photo shows the same area on September 17th, 2001 but driving west on the BQE (Brooklyn Queens Expressway).
- What astonishes me in both these images is the clarity of the sky and the blue of the ocean even after such darkness, something's remain true blue I guess? Nevertheless, the sky is scared where the WTC Towers used to stand and when I cross any of the lower east side bridges, I look over and feel their absence.

- I took these photos of Times Square just a few days after the disaster of Sept. 11, 2001 (911) they convey the loss which all New Yorkers felt.
- As stated above in the night skyline photo (table 3), everything was covered in the flag, additionally construction workers left personal messages on the scaffolding of Microsoft's new building on Times Square (right photo).

- The picture on the left was taken during the spring of 2001 it shows the WTC Towers in happier times from a friends roof top apartment in Tribeca looking down onto Church Street.
- The image on the right was given me by my son Joshua Pas who found it on the web in Canada and for which the photo credit is unknown to us: what a frightening juxtaposition.

- left: In the weeks after the tragedy school children from all over the world sent drawings and projects to New York.
Here you can see how some of them were displayed in a subway station near the WTC, below the drawings are donations of food and water placed there by passers by. The two spectres or monsters lifting out of the buildings in the large painting on the left certainly tells you something about how these kids perceived this event.
- right: Huang Chih-Yang (with whom I was working with) looks at the art works sent from school children in the Canal and Broadway St. station.

- Everything became kinda of crazy in the weeks that followed 911, with a new war and anthrax scares, police from all over America, soldiers, National Guard, security forces and fighter jets in the canopy of sky above the city.
- left: National Guard standing on Broadway and Canal Streets / when you crossed any of the major bridges in the weeks following 911 it felt like you should have your passport ready with all the national guard, soldiers and their security checks.

- left: Horse mounted police line up their horses on Times Sq.
- right: For every war there is also an antiwar sentiment / the image on the right was taken a week after the tragedy and shows peace protesters camped on Union Square.

- Never has such an event been watched by so many directly as did see the horror of that day - I pray we all learn something from it.
- top left: The world comes to share in the grief felt by all as people stop and read the messages left on Broadway St. just a few hundred feet from the site of the World Trade Center tragedy months after things had returned to what might be considered normal in lower Manhattan - you couldn't get this close for many months after Sept. 11th.
- top right: I looked through a whole in the fence at the church where all of the objects in the left photo could be seen. What I saw reinforced this truth: our life's are indeed just a vapour in the chronicles of time.
- bottom: I found these prayers and candles sitting on the street on Times Square: they convey the solace we all felt for the innocent victims and heroes of this tragic event.

- My friend, the Chinese / New York artist Pan Xing Lei does a performance for CrossPathCulture in the large window of the Chashama Theater on Times Sq. just weeks after Sept. 11th. Dressed as the "bei wei buddha", with a gas mask and figures of carnage in the background, Pan creates a striking and provocative performance for New Yorkers to see on the street.
- As a side note: this image was used as the cover of a book on Pan Xing's work published in China shortly there after.

- Life is for the living and life does goes on - I took these pictures several weeks after 911 at the Bronx Museum during the opening of "The Hip Hop" exhibition there 2001.

- left: I took this image in June of 2002, exactly 9 months and 11 days after 911. It's looking down a street at what is now called the site of the WTC tragedy. All the horror has been stripped away and it looks much like any generic construction site. vendors have returned and posters honouring the fallen are everywhere, by corporate sponsors from around the world - in true New York fashion.
- right: I took a ride on the Staten Island Ferry with my mother and sister who where visiting from Canada. we sailed out of the South Port terminal by Lady Liberty (c.f. ps. above) and back again. I was impressed with this emotion: while the sky is still scarred in my minds eye by the absence of the twin towers and several other buildings from the left of the island, it's still a impressive view from Jersey City on the left to lower Manhattan in the centre , the Brooklyn bridge and my domicile in Brooklyn to the to the right. yes impressive by any standard.

"Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice."
Proverbs 24:17

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." Author Unkown