Photograph, Print
Father Brian Jordan, Friar, Church of St. Francis of Assisi, Midtown Manhattan
- Description
- Life-sized Polaroid photograph taken by Joe McNally depicting Father Brian Jordan, Friar, Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Jordan is dressed in his Friar's robe and a pair of sneakers. He holds a bottle of holy water and wears his chaplain's shield on a chain around his neck.
- Historical Notes
- Roman Catholic Franciscan Order of Friars Minor, Father Brian Jordan was visiting a patient at New York-Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights on the morning of September 11, 2001.
After learning about the unfolding events at the World Trade Center, he walked to his office at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi (West 31st Street), where he allowed people to seek refuge and use his telephone. Later in the day, he swapped the sandals that he traditionally wore as a Franciscan Friar for sneakers and traveled to Ground Zero. Maintaining that concession to his clerical garb, Father Jordan wore the same sneakers when photographed by Joe McNally a few weeks later. Also visible in the photograph is the vial of holy water he carried with him and the credentials that allowed him access to the site as a chaplain.
Through much of the nine-month recovery period that followed 9/11, Father Jordan blessed the remains of those who had been killed and offered solace to those in need. When still-upright steel columns in a T-shape were found in the wreckage of 6 World Trade Center on September 23, Father Jordan blessed it as a cross and began a tradition of presiding over Sunday prayer services at what became known as the Cross at Ground Zero.
Father Jordan has contributed his story to the 9/11 Memorial Museum’s oral history collection.
Curator's Comment
In the weeks after September 11, LIFE Magazine photographer Joe McNally (b. 1952) invited rescuers, recovery workers, survivors, and bereaved family members to a studio in Manhattan’s Bowery district, not far from Ground Zero. Here, the participants were memorialized by a unique Polaroid camera—dubbed the Moby C—equipped with a lens from a U-2 spy plane. This room-sized instrument could capture an exposure of singular clarity on an eight-foot tall piece of film in the blackened studio. Each 90-second session required meticulous staging and absolute stillness. Whereas most photographers were concentrating on documenting the devastation of the attacks downtown, McNally was interested in recording the heroism and sorrow etched into the human faces at the center of this national tragedy. Those who faced the camera were mostly everyday people who sought no special recognition. “They came only with the intention of participating in a project, telling their story, and sharing in the telling of others,” McNally reflected.
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has enjoyed a long relationship with McNally's images. In 2006, McNally donated his portrait of FDNY Ladder 20 firefighter Adrienne Walsh to support the Museum’s nascent permanent collection. When the outdoor Memorial opened to the public in 2011, a selection from the series was borrowed from the photographer and rotated onto view in the temporary Visitor Center at 90 West Street. Annual acquisitions from the Faces of Ground Zero archive have continued, often as gifts arranged by McNally. In 2017, the Museum assumed custody of the remaining Polaroids in an agreement that will result in the collection’s completed donation by 2027.
The image in this record is the product of a color transparency from a Mamiya RZ 6x7 Pro II 120 format camera that McNally positioned to record a shot simultaneous with the Polaroid Moby C’s flash of light. The unique, original Polaroid exhibits a more subtle and creamier tonality.
The 9/11 Memorial Museum has enjoyed a long relationship with McNally's images. In 2006, McNally donated his portrait of FDNY Ladder 20 firefighter Adrienne Walsh to support the Museum’s nascent permanent collection. When the outdoor Memorial opened to the public in 2011, a selection from the series was borrowed from the photographer and rotated onto view in the temporary Visitor Center at 90 West Street. Annual acquisitions from the Faces of Ground Zero archive have continued, often as gifts arranged by McNally. In 2017, the Museum assumed custody of the remaining Polaroids in an agreement that will result in the collection’s completed donation by 2027.
The image in this record is the product of a color transparency from a Mamiya RZ 6x7 Pro II 120 format camera that McNally positioned to record a shot simultaneous with the Polaroid Moby C’s flash of light. The unique, original Polaroid exhibits a more subtle and creamier tonality.
- Accession Number: C.2017.161.1
- Dimensions: 109 in X 44 in
- Dimensions (Metric): 276.86 cm X 111.76 cm
- Source: Joseph McNally
- Credit Line: Collection 9/11 Memorial Museum. © Joe McNally.
All materials made publicly available by the 9/11 Memorial & Museum on this site are intended for research and educational use only. Users may need to obtain other permissions for their intended use(s) and are responsible for determining copyright status and securing these permissions.
To inquire about copyrights and reproductions, contact: xxx@911memorial.org
