Capturing the Silence of September 12
Mike O’Meally stepped out of his New York apartment on the morning of September 12, 2001, with his skateboard in one hand and a camera in the other. The city had changed overnight. The air smelled of ash, fire, and something the photographer describes as the scent of death. With thousands of lives lost and the city in a state of high alert, O’Meally did what he knew. He met his friends and began to skate through the quiet, hazy streets of downtown Manhattan.
Twenty-five years later, these images are finally being shared in a new book titled 9/12. Designed by Jeremy Elkin, the volume contains 33 photographs taken by O’Meally during that singular day of uncertainty. While historians and the public spent years analyzing the events of the previous day, O’Meally’s work offers a view of a city caught between the immediate trauma and the long, difficult period of recovery that followed. The book is not intended to monetize a national tragedy, but rather to serve as a contribution back to the city of New York through donations to the FDNY Fire Family Transport Foundation.
The Experience of a City in Shock
O’Meally recalls the morning of September 11 as a blur of panic and disconnected communication. His roommate, musician Max Huber, spent the day glued to the television while the landline phones short-circuited under the strain of millions of calls. When fellow photographer Lance Dawes called to ask if O’Meally intended to document the aftermath, he initially hesitated. The atmosphere felt less like a city and more like a warzone. Other photographers, such as Gary Van Der Griek, ventured into the smoke to capture iconic images, but O’Meally opted to observe the shift in the city’s pulse the following day.
By September 12, the typical roar of New York traffic had faded. The city was noisy, but the sound was broken by intermittent silence and the constant movement of emergency vehicles. O’Meally recalls that while people displayed flags and gestures of defiance, the underlying fear was palpable. Residents looked at the sky and scanned the horizon, wondering if other landmarks like the Chrysler Building remained in jeopardy. It was in this heavy, expectant atmosphere that he captured the scene of skaters moving down Broadway, a group he describes as the horsemen of the apocalypse emerging from the dust.
Reframing the Documentation of Tragedy
Critics have occasionally questioned whether the act of skateboarding through a disaster zone is appropriate or disrespectful. O’Meally has wrestled with this himself, noting that his motivation was not to mock the situation, but to survive it through routine. He points out that psychological research suggests individual-tailored coping mechanisms are the most effective way to process acute stress. For a group of skaters, that mechanism was the board. Looking back, he sees the images as evidence of resilience rather than arrogance.
Despite the historical significance of the shots, O’Meally kept the film largely archived for decades. He felt the weight of the event made it difficult to view the pictures as an art project. It was only after discussions with peers like Jacob Rosenberg that he felt enough time had passed to look at the contact sheets with pride. These images serve as a time capsule, capturing not just the tragedy, but the surreal optimism of a city forced to find its footing again. The book serves as a final, considered document of those quiet, dusty hours that defined a generation of New Yorkers.