The more things change, the more things stay the same. An approach that didn’t work 32 years ago has been repackaged for a new generation.

I returned to NYC from my house on Cape Cod less than a week after 9/11. The first thing I did when I got home was race downtown to see the fallen towers. Many of you know this story, but when I got there and raised my camera to my eyes, a police officer approached me, whapped me on my arm, and said, "No photos. It's a crime scene." I realized then that we'd have no historical record of this horrific event if pictures weren't allowed. I had studied a few historical archives at the Library of Congress in D.C., and I knew I had to be the one to create an archive of this seminal moment in my city's - our global - history. Over the next 9 months, I returned to Ground Zero, a.k.a, The Pile, daily (with a few travel exceptions), to photograph the wreckage, light, architecture, and the incredible group of people who were there to excavate, clean up, rake for remains, and help in any way possible. It was a community of remarkable people - a brother and sisterhood - of ironworkers, NYPD, FDNY, Captains, Chaplains, security workers, and politicians. I snuck in daily to photograph and got kicked out daily. It wasn't until I quite literally stumbled into a group of men from the Arson and Explosion Squad, who asked what an older guy like me with a big old camera was doing down there, that I found my way in without fear of being evicted. They all quickly believed in the importance of the photographic record I was attempting to make. They gave me their phone numbers and said to call them if I had any trouble, and they'd bring me back to the site. Eventually, I got an official mayoral badge that granted me easier access to the Pile. In the end, I made over 8,500 pictures. My focus was never on human remains. I wanted to capture the place, the light, the people. I owe so much of this experience and access to my band of brothers from the Arson and Explosion Squad. Here is merely a tiny selection of some of the pictures. Many can be seen, however, at the Museum of the City of N.Y., World Trade Center Memorial Museum, Smithsonian Museum of American History, Library of Congress, and about 500 in my book, Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive. 1. A Worker in a Raking Field searching for human remains, 2002

Do you remember this photo? People have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day. From '03, by @TomJunod: esqr.co/HXkjjSj

Announcing the winners of the 2023 Dan Jenkins Medal for Excellence in Sportswriting. Congratulations to Bill Rhoden (@WCRhoden), Tom Junod (@TomJunod) and Paula Lavigne (@pinepaula). Get all the details at jenkinsmedal.com.

Only a handful of people on the planet have the physical and intellectual ability to be a NFL quarterback. Who would step away from that gig in his playing prime? And why? @SethWickersham answers those questions with this profile on Andrew Luck. espn.com/nfl/insider/insider…

I wrote a book. Pre-order it here: amazon.com/Data-Baby-Life-Ps…