The Falling Man is a photograph taken byAssociated Press photographerRichard Drew of an unidentified man falling from theWorld Trade Center during theSeptember 11 attacks in New York City. The unidentified man in the image was trapped on the upper floors of theNorth Tower, and it is unknown whether he fell while searching for safety or jumped to escape the fire and smoke. The photograph was taken at 9:41:15 A.M.
The photograph was widely criticized after publication in international media on September 12, 2001, with readers labeling the image as disturbing, cold-blooded, ghoulish, and sadistic.[1][2] However, in the years following, the photo has gained acclaim.[3] British singerElton John, who purchased it for his personal collection, called it "the most beautiful image of something so tragic".[4]
ATime magazine retrospective published in 2016 stated: "Falling Man's identity is still unknown, but he is believed to have been an employee at theWindows on the World restaurant, which sat atop the North Tower. The true power ofFalling Man, however, is less about who its subject was and more about what he became: a makeshiftUnknown Soldier in an often unknown and uncertain war, suspended forever in history."[5]
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, four passenger airplanes were commandeered by 19Al-Qaeda terrorists after takeoff. Two of these hijacked airliners,American Airlines Flight 11 andUnited Airlines Flight 175, were intentionally crashed into the Twin Towers of theWorld Trade Center complex inNew York City, killing or trapping well over 1,300 people above the 91st floor of theNorth Tower and more than 600 above the 76th floor of theSouth.
That morning, an estimated 200 people were witnessed falling from the upper levels of the burning skyscrapers.[6][7] All but three came from the North Tower, where considerably more people were confined to a much smaller number of floors. Most of the people who fell from the World Trade Center deliberately jumped to their deaths to escape the smoke, flames, and extreme heat (in some places, estimated at over 2,000 °F (1,090 °C)). A smaller percentage of the falling deaths were accidents caused by people losing their grip or being knocked off-balance near window ledges, or attempting to climb down to a lower floor below the fire. Officials could not recover or identify the remains of those forced out of the towers due to the conditions on the ground near the base of the building at the time, prior totheir collapse. TheNew York City medical examiner's office said it does not classify them as "jumpers," explaining that a "jumper" is defined as someone who "goes to the office in the morning knowing that they will commit suicide," adding that the victims who fell from the towers did not want to die but "were forced out by the smoke and flames or blown out."[7] The medical examiner's office listedmanner of death ashomicide for all deaths associated with the 9/11 attacks.
The morning of September 11, Richard Drew was on assignment for the Associated Press, photographing a maternity fashion show in Bryant Park.[8][9] Alerted by his editor to the attacks, Drew took the subway to theChambers Street subway station, near the World Trade Center site.[8][10] He took the falling man image while at the corner ofWest andVesey Street from a low angle.[11] He took eight photographs in sequence, after realizing that a series of loud cracking sounds was not that of falling concrete, but rather people hitting the ground.[11] He took between ten and twelve different sequences of images of people jumping from the tower, before having to leave the site due to the South Tower's collapse.[8]
The man fell from the south side of the North Tower's west face. Thus, the left half of the backdrop features the North Tower while the South Tower is visible on the right. The photograph gives the impression that the man is falling straight down; however, a series of photographs taken of his fall shows him to be tumbling through the air.[10][12][13]
The photograph initially appeared in newspapers around the world, including on page seven ofThe New York Times on September 12, 2001. The photo's caption read, "A person falls headfirst after jumping from the north tower of the World Trade Center. It was a horrific sight that was repeated in the moments after the planes struck the towers."[14] It appeared only once in theTimes because of criticism and anger against its use.[15] Five and a half years later, it appeared on page 1 ofThe New York Times Book Review on May 27, 2007.[16]
I hope we're not trying to figure out who he is and more figure out who we are through watching that.
The identity of the subject of the photograph has never been officially confirmed. The large number of people trapped in the tower has made identifying the man in the twelve photos difficult, though several sources have attempted to identify him.
Canadian journalistPeter Cheney was asked by his employer,The Globe and Mail, to try to identify the man in the picture for a story. After happening upon his missing persons poster, Cheney speculated that the man pictured in the photo may have been Norberto Hernandez, apastry chef atWindows on the World, a restaurant located on the 106th floor of theNorth Tower. Hernandez's sister initially agreed with Cheney,[17] and invited him to the funeral. Cheney received an aggressive response from Hernandez's daughters, who denied Hernandez could have been the man in the photo and ordered him to leave.[18] Cheney decided to publish the article regardless, leaving Hernandez's widow and daughters very upset, primarily because of theCatholic view of suicide as sinful. Some of his immediate family refused to view the photograph.[19]
After theGlobe and Mail story went viral, American journalistTom Junod spoke to Richard Drew and discovered that the photo was but one in a sequence of twelve, something Cheney did not realize. Upon viewing the entire sequence, Junod concluded that the man in the photo had darker skin than Hernandez and was actually dressed in more casual clothing; he contacted Hernandez's widow and daughters, who allowed him to visit. Junod showed them the entire photo sequence, and upon viewing, the family confidently ruled out Hernandez as a candidate.[8] Hernandez's widow noticed that the clothes the man in the photograph was wearing were different from what Hernandez wore on the morning of the attacks, and did not look like any he owned.[19][20]
After being implored by Hernandez's widow to "clear [her] husband's name", Junod began writing an article about the photograph.[19] His piece, "The Falling Man", was published in the September 2003 issue ofEsquire magazine. It was adapted into a documentary film by the same name. The article gave the possible identity of the falling man as Jonathan Briley, a 43-year-oldsound engineer who worked at Windows on the World. Briley hadasthma and would have known he was in danger when smoke began to pour into the restaurant.[8] He was initially identified by his brother, Timothy.[8]Michael Lomonaco, the restaurant'sexecutive chef, also suggested that the man was Briley based on his body type and clothes.[21] In one of the photos, the Falling Man's shirt or white jacket was blown open and up, revealing an orange t-shirt similar to one shirt that Briley often wore. Briley's older sister Gwendolyn also suggested that he could be the victim. She told reporters ofThe Sunday Mirror, "When I first looked at the picture ... and I saw it was a man—tall, slim—I said, 'If I didn't know any better, that could be Jonathan.'"[22] Briley's remains were recovered the day after 9/11.[8] Jonathan Briley was brother toAlex Briley, a member of the bandVillage People.
9/11: The Falling Man is a 2006documentary film about the photo. It was made by American filmmakerHenry Singer and filmed by Richard Numeroff, a New York-based director of photography. The film is loosely based on Junod'sEsquire story. It also drew its material from photographerLyle Owerko's pictures of falling people. It debuted on March 16, 2006, on theBritish television networkChannel 4, later made itsNorth American premiere onCanada'sCBC Newsworld on September 6, 2006, and has been broadcast in more than 30 countries. The U.S. premiere was September 10, 2007, on theDiscovery Times Channel.[citation needed]
The novelFalling Man, byDon DeLillo, is about the September 11 attacks. The "falling man" in the novel is a performance artist recreating the events of the photograph.[23] DeLillo says he was unfamiliar with the title of the picture when he named his book. The artist straps himself into a harness and jumps from an elevated structure in a high visibility area (such as a highway overpass), hanging in the pose ofThe Falling Man.
In July 2022,GameStop caused controversy by allowing anon-fungible token titledFalling Man to be listed on their newly-launchedNFT platform. The digital image depicted an astronaut falling in a pose and background replicating Drew's photograph. The seller's description read, "This one probably fell from theMIR station", referencing the 1997 crash ofSpektr. The NFT was later delisted from the platform.[24][25][26]
Nothing andFull of Hell's collaborative albumWhen No Birds Sang is partly inspired byThe Falling Man.[27]
