This repository holds artifacts from the 9/11 Geospatial Archive, a project of the Center for Geospatial Innovation with support from the Fund for the City of New York and Alan Leidner. Noreen Whysel is the project archivist.
The main activity of the 9/11 Geospatial Archive Assessment was to identify and meet with institutions, agencies and individuals who may hold 9/11 artifacts and assess the extent of existing material and willingness to donate or receive archived materials, and to identify materials that can be donated and/or reproduced, for example digital files, storage media, physical maps, correspondence and other documentation related to the rescue and recovery efforts at the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001 attacks. These items would form the basis of a 9/11 Geospatial Archive (the Archive) to be developed as a flagship project of the Center for Geospatial Innovation.
The Center for Geospatial Innovation (the Center) is proposed as a premier center created to support research and education related to geospatial technologies in New York City and nationwide. We feel that the Archive would be a key component of the Center’s activities and also, given the national interest in 9/11 history, would represent a jewel around which the Center could promote its activities and seek funding for its operations. New York City, and the United States overall, has not experienced a more devastating and impactful event than the attacks of September 11, 2001 since Pearl Harbor. The effort to respond to the disaster was unprecedented in New York City and produced technological advancements and a collaborative model that may not have been possible under normal conditions. It is our goal that the Archive will serve to document this historic moment and the heroic efforts of the personnel and volunteers who participated in the rescue and recovery.
We created this space to collect digital assets and ephemera from the geographic response following the attack on the the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This includes primarily maps and shapefiles from geographers who worked on response efforts at the Emergency Management Data Center on Pier 92. We may also include materials from the 1993 attack, but currently it is not part of our project scope.
We have created a list of over 650 items that have been described in a Google document: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Gbpz1WXIjgWrzlEZzTbqT4NrbBVUY61EU8usclT1gNE/edit?usp=sharing
Included in this spreadsheet is item level description for materials that have been collected by the research team: archivist Noreen Whysel and Center for Geospatial Innovation Director Alan Leidner. Electronic materials have been saved to a Dropbox account. Materials are in the process of being transfered to this repository.
- What institutions hold 9/11 geospatial artifacts?
- Who is responsible for the artifacts at their institution?
- Format (digital/physical) of the existing artifacts
- Physical condition of the artifacts
- Ownership the artifacts (can the artifacts be donated or duplicated)
- Sensitivity of the materials (public, confidential, secret)
- Institution’s retention policy for the artifacts
You may contribute to this project in two ways:
- Submit assets such as photos, maps, shapefiles, presentations, recollections and audio/video recordings for consideration to the following Google form: https://forms.gle/YDJj86hAbKrNwC528
- If your items are sensitive and you do not wish to submit via a Google product, we have a dropbox where you can send files. Use this request form to submit to our Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/request/BYWbGSvr3NflneqlJ2xt
- Create a folder within the /items/collections/ directory of this repository. You may need to request details or permission from nwhysel@hotmail.com. The /sample-collection/ folder within that directory has a template for an asset spreadsheet and an About page for your collection.
We are asking if you submit files via any of these methods to also inclue a description of the items included. We have created an item list template here for you to submit along with any electronic artifacts: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qYlyX62VcQidA0iZmPDSMYgcI3x0_zTin9CxZcCX2Fk/edit?usp=sharing
We are creating a GitHub community around this collection effort. The community will adhere to GitHub's Community Guidelines: https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-community-guidelines
Note: We intend to include materials that are appropriate for incusion in a geographic archive of the 9/11/2001 World Trade Center attack. Items outside the scope of this event may be removed. We also reserve the right to remove any content for which copyright is not clear or that we are not able to obtain a license to display it. We may include descriptive information about materials that we do not have the license to display here, and have included materials located at other institutions that you may be able to examine at their locations. We are still in the process of developing a procedure for providing access to physical materials and other sensitive content, and appreciate your patience as we figure all that out.
A preliminary study was completed with some support from the Fund for the City of New York (office space) and Alan Leidner (additional consulting and financial support). We are in the process of seeking funding to continue this work. If you are interested in supporting us, or if your institution is interested in sponsoring us or serving as a Principal Investigator for a research grant, please contact Noreen Whysel at nwhysel@hotmail.com.