FROM GROUND ZERO UP

Irish photographer Joe Woolhead captured haunting images of the collapse of the World Trade Center in September 2001. He then spent 15 years documenting the extraordinary new building that has been built on the site of that profound tragedy

LIKE most of us, Joe Woolhead knows exactly where he was when terrorist planes crashed into the World Trade Center in 2001.

The Dubliner was in his apartment in the New York borough of Queens. When the news came on the radio, he immediately grabbed his Cannon camera and rushed to the subway, ducking into a shop to buy 10 rolls of film. He took the train as far as it would go.

In New York they say no-one knows the Twin Towers/Ground zero site like Woolhead. The pictures he took that day drew him back to the site three years later to start documenting the rebuilding of the towers, a project he worked on for the next 15 years.

Now the renowned publishing house Simon & Schuster is releasing a book of his photographs titled Once More To The Sky: The Rebuilding Of The World Trade

Center which is out on August 31.

Born and raised on Clancy Road in Finglas, Woolhead has been living in New York for over 28 years. Initially, he worked in construction but after a serious accident in 1996 he returned to film college.

When he took the subway on the day of the attacks, thousands of people were streaming against him. Woolhead walked against the tide. ‘I wanted to be a witness,’ he says. ‘I didn’t realise I was going to be a witness to something so catastrophic. I expected firefighters rescuing people from a fire, not two buildings collapsed into total rubble. I still can’t believe I was there.’ His photographs from that time were published all over the world.

He started documenting the rebuilding of Ground Zero three years later when asked by Dara McQuillan, another Irishman and director of media relations at Silverstein Properties, which was rebuilding the site. At first he wasn’t sure if he wanted to do it.

‘I had mixed emotions. I guess I felt uneasy,’ says Woolhead. ‘But then I started and I never really stopped.’

The book combines Woolhead’s photographs with those of another photographer, Scott Raab.

The Dubliner says: ‘The great satisfaction is knowing I documented what is probably the most significant building project in the whole world.’

Historic: As the World Trade Center was attacked, left, Joe Woolhead, inset, raced to the site. He has since documented those who have rebuilt it, above

Heads for HeigHts: Inspectors from CANUSA on a crane at Ground Zero overlooking the New York City skyline

tall order: One World Trade Center during reconstruction