Hole in the Cultural Record
January 1st, 2003"When Martin Scorsese wanted to recreate the city’s 19th century tenements, bordellos, and saloons for his upcoming movie ‘The Gangs of New York,’ he sent his film producers to visit the archives of a neighborhood called Five Points. The collection contained over 850,000 items from the infamous slum — dishes, thimbles, combs, medicine bottles, and children’s toys — that documented the history of working-class life in lower Manhattan.
"A little over a year after the visit, the entire collection, except for 18 items that were on loan, was destroyed when debris smashed into the World Trade Center 6 building." — Mark Berkey-Gerard for the Gotham Gazette.
Surely, the loss of human life we experienced on September 11, 2002 can’t compare to this. There is no need to discuss the value of people over objects. The fact still remains that the the damage done to our material culture, including company histories, photograph negatives, musical scores, a portion of Helen Keller’s letters, leaves a gaping hole in our cultural record.