Aaron McLamb was cleaning a bookbinding machine in a Brooklyn factory when he happened to glance out a window and see history unfolding on the morning of September 11, 2001. Then a 20-year-old volunteer at the headquarters of the Jehovah's Witnesses, McLamb recalled that he momentarily turned away from his work and noticed a “very large fire” in the north tower of the World Trade Center, across the East River in lower Manhattan. He immediately got his 35 mm Canon Rebel 2000 camera and climbed to the top floor of the 10-story building, snapping photos until he ran out of film.
One of his pictures — of a lone fire truck racing across the Brooklyn Bridge toward the burning twin towers — is among the most remembered from that terrible day, symbolizing the bravery and sacrifice of the city’s first responders. All six crew members on the Ladder 118 fire truck were killed when the south tower collapsed at 9:59 a.m. while they evacuated people from the adjacent Marriott Hotel. A total of 2,753 people were killed in New York City after two hijacked passenger planes hit the towers, along with 184 people at the Pentagon and 40 victims on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when the passengers and crew fought back against the terrorists.
Nearly 10,000 more people have died from illnesses, many related to toxic air from at Ground Zero, in the years that followed. Ladder 118, based at the Middagh Street firehouse in Brooklyn Heights, was crewed by Joseph Agnello, Vernon Cherry, Scott Davidson, Leon Smith, Peter Vega and Lt. Two others from the firehouse — Capt.
Robert Wallace -- also died that day but weren’t on the Ladder 118 truck. They are among the 343 fire department personnel killed on 9/11, along with 37 Port Authority police officers, 23 city police officers and eight paramedics and EMTs. On the morning of September 11, McLamb, an amateur photographer with a longtime interest in firefighting, said he was “intentionally shooting fire trucks” as he took pictures of the emergency response.
He recalled spotting Ladder 118 leaving its firehouse, and noted that the tiller-style truck, operated by drivers in both the front and rear, has “always been my favorite.” McLamb said he watched the truck as it traveled “right underneath us on Prospect Street and circled our building, and then got up on the Brooklyn Bridge.” “So, I was just waiting for them to get in position for that photo,” he added. After the Ladder 118 firefighters arrived at the World Trade Center, they were helping others escape from the Marriott when the collapse of the 110-story south tower — more than a quarter-mile tall — buried them under thousands of tons of rubble. The collapse created a “huge dust cloud,” McLamb said, and he and other workers watching from the 10th floor “were asked to go close all the windows in the whole building.” “So that — that put a stop to taking any more pictures,” he said.
There were papers everywhere, like office papers, 8 1/2 by 11,” he said. Like millions of others around the world, he spent the rest of his day watching live TV coverage of the horrifying events. During the next week, he had his film developed and the photos printed.
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