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Yesterday I published a memorial archive of 1,800 photographs of NYC since 9/11: 25years.org

I posted some of these photos in 2001, shrunk down for low-res screens and dial-up modems. A quarter century later, they can now appear at full size. Over 1,000 of them have never been shown before.

I visited the same locations again and again to take before/after/now comparisons: memorials aging and disappearing, trees growing and dying, street art painted over and emerging again. Sometimes I remembered exactly where I stood in 2001, sometimes I had to check reference photos.

In late July I started sifting through the more than 100,000 snapshots I’ve taken since 2001. More than 30,000 of them were related to 9/11 or to the changes it brought to NYC. I edited those down to 3,300 photos, then cut again to 1,800.

The photo archive is split into nine sections: the day itself, cleanup, rebuilding, commerce, patriotism, elections, protests, security and remembrance.

It’s also a time capsule of NYC street life before smartphones and social media, when memes were posted on walls and protests were organized through flyers and stickers.

I’ve never discussed my leukemia (CML) diagnosis before, which happened nine years after 9/11. Was it related to the acrid air and persistent dust that filled my apartment on Canal Street? Or just a genetic accident as I aged 25 years? There’s no way to know.