On September 11th, 2001, Bill Biggart and his wife Wendy Doremus were walking their dogs in downtown Manhattan. Around 8:45 am they noticed a big cloud of grey smoke forming against the New York City skyline. Soon after, a taxi driver had told the couple that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Bill ran home and grabbed two film cameras, and one digital and started to walk towards the World Trade Center shooting as he walked.
He moved quickly downtown towards the smoke and flames and began. As Bill’s pictures show, he eventually started shooting straight up at the towers that were burning. Bill was not that far from the first tower that fell, so he had been caught in the dust and debris of the catastrophic attack. As he was in the dust, he was still filming all the devastation going on around him.
Bill’s wife phoned him shortly after the first tower fell. Bill told her not to worry and he would meet her in 20 minutes at his studio.
“I’m safe,” he said, “I’m with the firemen.” He assured her. That was the last time they ever spoke. Roughly 20 minutes later, the second tower collapsed.
Four days later Bill’s body was discovered under rubble. His camera equipment was damaged, but his friend and a fellow photographer, Chip East, were able to retract the flash card and the films, which contained Bill’s final images. His last photograph was time stamped at 10:28:24, just moments before the second tower had collapsed.
