Flag Tree and Shanksville Handholders photos by Jonathan Hyman

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Shanksville Handholders (near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 2003), top, shows a quiet moment between two motorcyclists who, en route across the country, paid their respects. Flag Trees (Newtown, Connecticut, 2003), above, was commissioned by a Wall Street broker to commemorate nine colleagues (and the son of one of them) from the American Stock Exchange who were killed at the World Trade Center.

Photography: 
Jonathan C. Hyman

It’s the rare American who doesn’t remember precisely where he or she was on September 11, 2001. For many, the searing memories prompted displays of patriotism and makeshift memorials for those who perished. Americans’ reaction to the painful days, and years, following 9/11 is the subject of Beyond Ground Zero: 9/11 and the American Landscape, Photographs by Jonathan C. Hyman, an exhibition at the National September 11 Memorial Museum in Manhattan through next May.

On that clear blue day in September, Hyman RC’82 quickly understood that the spontaneous memorials and artistic expressions of emotion and patriotism were uniquely American—and something to document. Over the next decade, Hyman, who was a Henry Rutgers Scholar and now works at Bryn Mawr College, photographed 20,000 works of art and memorials that Americans had left by roadsides and displayed elsewhere. The collection captures everything from small handmade flags, banners, and candles to memorials and murals as well as art embossed on cars, buildings, and people’s bodies.

There is Flag Trees (Newtown, Connecticut, 2003), the Hyman photograph (bottom) that reveals a cluster of maple trees with the stars and stripes painted vividly on the bark. The art was commissioned by a Wall Street broker to commemorate nine colleagues (and the son of one of them) from the American Stock Exchange who were killed at the World Trade Center. Shanksville Handholders (near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, 2003) (top) shows a quiet moment between two motorcyclists who, en route across the country, paid their respects at the field where hijacked Flight 93 crashed. These are just two of the moving images that return us to that seminal moment in American history.

For further information, visit 911memorial.org and  jchymangallery.com.