From Publishers Weekly
Although cameras were prohibited at Ground Zero during the cleanup, Josyph, maker of the documentary Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero, surreptitiously filmed workers and residents as they salvaged the ravaged Financial District. He defends his clandestine actions, reasoning, "If I was out of line in wanting the world to see this, the line itself was out of line, for it was a critical entitlement for anybody touched by the news of the 11th." Armed with his video camera, Josyph grew close to carpenters, shoeshiners, dockbuilders and other locals who were affected by the attack that "generated an urban black hole, a nexus of negative energy that would suck down and disappear everything in its vicinity." Josyph's vivid accounts of being near Ground Zero long after September 11 (the area was blanketed by a stagnant "odor that even attacked lamentation itself," and all of his video footage "was tracked with the harsh metallic turbulence of the work, and pierced by the ubiquitous backup beeps of grapplers and trucks") create a clear picture of a singular time in a unique neighborhood, and his decision to ignore regulations and film the neighborhood's reconstruction is one that will prove essential to historical record. 21 illustrations. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.