Casa Frederick Catherwood

Missing: Last Seen at the World Trade Center is an exhibition of the missing person fliers distributed throughout New York City by the friends and family of those who did not come home in the days after September 11, 2001.

Nothing brings the tragedy home like the missing fliers. Seeing the faces on these fliers ensures that the events of that horrific day are remembered for the victims and their families, not for airplanes, buildings and unending statistics. These fliers were a spontaneous outpouring of love and desperate hope. Now, they are a part of American history.

The fliers were created as a response to two rumors, or hopes, that swept through the city after the World Trade Center collapsed. The first was that "thousands" of victims lay unconscious and unidentified in hospital beds – and family members crowded emergency rooms in hopes that their loved ones were inside. Unfortunately, for most this was not the case; very few were pulled out alive. The second thought was that hundreds of people were walking the streets dazed or suffering temporary amnesia. Again, these rumors were unfounded.

In our age of technology and instant communication, these families were employing the most basic means of communication, approaching strangers with a picture to ask if anyone had seen their loved ones. Showing the fliers was a way in which they could be active in their search, rather than waiting helplessly by the phone. Every day became a ritual of walking from one New York hospital to the next, hanging fliers along the way.

This exhibition travelled to 17 American cities and was seen by 1, 200,000 people before it embarked on an international tour that began, under the auspices of the State Department, in San Jose, Costa Rica.

            The exhibition opens September 1, 2010 and runs through October 15, 2010 at Casa Catherwood.

            This marks the first time the exhibition is seen in Mexico.  The exhibition is free.

Desaparecidos: Las Víctimas de las Torres Gemelas, es una exposición de los volantes distribuidos en toda la ciudad de Nueva  York por los amigos y familiares de las personas que estuvieron atraptadas en las Torres Gemelas durante el intento terrorista del 11 de septiembre de 2001.

Nada humaniza la tragedia como los volantes mismos, creados por las familias de los que fallecieron. Al ver los rostros de estos volantes se asegura de que los acontecimientos de ese día horrible son recordados por las víctimas que murieron y por los esfuerzos de sus seres queridos en localizer a esos atraptados en las Torres Gemelas. En fin, estos volantes fueron una manifestación espontánea de amor y de esperanza desesperada.  Ahora, los volantes son una parte de la historia estadounidense.

Los volantes que fueron creadas como respuesta a dos rumores, o esperanzas, que se extendió por la ciudad después de que el World Trade Center se derrumbó. La primera era que “miles” de víctimas yacía inconsciente y no identificados en las camas de hospital - y miembros de la familia habitaciones abarrotadas de emergencia con la esperanza de que sus seres queridos estaban dentro. Desafortunadamente, la mayoría de este no era el caso, muy pocos fueron rescatadas con vida. El segundo pensamiento fue que cientos de personas caminaban por las calles aturdido o sufrimientos amnesia temporal. Una vez más, estos rumores eran infundados.

En nuestra era de la tecnología y la comunicación instantánea, estas familias estaban empleando los medios más básicos de la comunicación, acercándose a los extraños con una imagen para preguntar si alguien había visto a sus seres queridos. Se muestran los aviadores era una manera en que podrían estar activos en su búsqueda, en lugar de esperar inútilmente junto al teléfono. Todos los días se convirtió en un ritual de caminar de un hospital de Nueva York a otro, buscando noticias sobre sus seres queridos, muchos colgando durante esos días de desesperación.

Esta exposición viajó a 17 ciudades de Estados Unidos y fue vista por 1, 200.000 personas antes de que se embarcó en una gira internacional que comenzó, bajo los auspicios del Departamento de Estado de EEUU, en San José, Costa Rica.

La exposición se abre 01 de septiembre 2010 y termina el 15 de octubre 2010 en Casa Catherwood.

Esto marca la primera vez que la exposición llega a México. La exposición es gratuita.

Hours:

Monday – Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Calle 59 #572, between 72 and 74 Streets, Centro

Free admission

Horario:

Lunes a sabado, 9 a 14 horas, y 17 and 21 horas.

Calle 59 #572, x 72 y 74, Centro

Admision gratuita

Review from the Los Angeles Times:

Exhibit Puts a New Face on Sept. 11

January 05, 2002|JOHN JOHNSON, TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANTA BARBARA — They are headstones in a cemetery without grass.

The 175 torn and weathered pages form a tapestry of human loss comparable to those other modern rosters of death, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the AIDS Memorial Quilt.

The images drawing crowds to the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum--"Missing--Last Seen at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001"--are familiar to almost everyone. Yet seeing these artifacts of tragedy up close carries a power so overwhelming that viewers have burst into tears.

“A businesswoman came in today, smartly dressed,” said Louis Nevaer, the exhibitor behind the display of the famous missing persons photos that blanketed New York in the days after the World Trade Center disaster. “After a while, she dashed to the door, crying. We’ve had to put in chairs upstairs for people who need to take a break.”

On the first leg of what promises to be an international tour, the collection offers an intimate look at an American tragedy most of the outside world saw only on television.

“This is poignant beyond words,” said Mary Lou LaBarge, visibly moved as she left the museum earlier this week. “We didn't feel the immediacy of it out here.”

To LaBarge and other visitors, seeing the fliers up close brought the World Trade Center tragedy home. Some of the papers are faded, others still bear duct tape that attached them to light posts, street signs or walls. Others look like they were rescued from the trash.

For Nevaer, communicating the tactile sense of the tragedy to those outside New York City was an important part of what he was aiming for when he created the exhibit.

“I find a helplessness among people here,” said Nevaer, a 39-year-old author and activist from New York. “You were all sleeping when it happened.”

The reason he brought the exhibit here first, he said, was that the planes that crashed into the towers were bound for California.

“In a sense we’re completing that journey,” Nevaer said.

If it's a journey completed, it's an extraordinarily melancholy one. The handbill-sized fliers tell the stories of people like Daniel Lopez, who borrowed a cellular phone to call his sister from the 78th floor of the north tower after the first plane hit. “I’m OK, but will remain here to help evacuate people. See you soon,” he said.

“These were my brother's last words,” the sister wrote under the picture of Lopez. “He was always the type to help somebody in need.”

For the complete article, click on the image below: