The September 11 Attacks - William Cirone's footage & + (editor's cut)

This video contains the files « William Cirone 01.avi » to « William Cirone 49.avi » which have been released to the public by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). I have complemented the footage with two clips which were released via FOIA request but are not available on NIST's cloud server.

Videographer : William Cirone
Locations : Ground Zero from the East, the North, the West, Manhattan, New York
Time: approx 10h45 a.m. - 04h20 p.m. EDT, September 11, 2001.

Possibly the first video evidence after the second collapse. Mr. Cirone was apparently a photographer for the Fire Department of New Jersey. This footage is complicated. The alleged 'original' video is made up of clips which don't follow a chronological sequence. This makes orientation in time and space difficult. I tried to reconstruct a plausible walking route.

In addition, relatively important footage from West Broadway & Barclay Street is missing on NIST's server. Mr. Cirone, a firefighter, certainly would have captured on video what was going on there at a time when he also was there. I compensate the missing footage. There is reason to believe that the added material has been shot either by Mr. Cirone himself, or by the photographer who accompanied him. A male wearing a white T-shirt, short hair and glasses, visible in several of his shots throughout the day.

To facilitate spacial orientation in this smokey, dirty and dusty chaos, I have carefully identified the shooting locations :

»» 00:12 »» Cedar Street & Broadway : First looking north over the Harry B. Helmsey Plaza towards One Liberty Plaza; Then looking southeast towards Nassau Street;

»» 00:34 »» Broadway & Dey Street : First looking northwest towards Ground Zero; Then southwest towards the corner Broadway & John Street; Turning, looking southwest into Broadway & John Street; Then looking southeast into John Street; And again southwest into Broadway; Then looking northeast into Broadway towards Fulton Street; Finally moving northeast on Broadway between Dey and Fulton Streets;

»» 01:32 »» Church Street & Liberty Street, western corner of One Liberty Plaza : Looking first south over Zuchotti Park; Then northwest toward Ground Zero; Then moving north on Broadway towards Cortlandt Street, looking west; 

»» 02:43 »» Church Street & Dey Street : In front of the former East River Savings Bank building; Then moving north between Dey and Fulton in front of the Millennium Hotel whilst looking towards ground Zero, actually facing 4 WTC and 5 WTC;

»» 04:32 »» West Broadway & Vesey Street i.e. the southeastern corner of 7 WTC : First overlooking Versey Street; Then moving north on West Broadway along the eastern face of 7 WTC, however not yet reaching Barclay Street;

»» 05:56 »» Additional, added footage, shot on Barclay Street and the corner West Broadway & Barclay, at a time approximately when Mr. Cirone was filming in that area; including Mr. Michael D. Hess, Corporation Counsel for New York City, calling for help when he and Mr. Barry Jennings of the city's Housing Department were trapped in Building Seven after trying to evacuate late;

»» 08:42 »» Additional, added footage, most probably shot by Mr. Cirone himself :  West Broadway & Barclay Street, starting with a broken window at the southeastern corner of Filterman Hall (Borough of Manhattan Community College); Then looking east into Barclay, briefly via West Broadway south towards Ground Zero; Also a look at the famous "number 75 Barclay Street" of Mayor Giuliani; Thereafter moving via Barclay to Washington Street, the northwestern corner of 7 WTC with a view towards 6 WTC;

»» 09:54 »» Barclay Street & Washington Street :  Looking along the western face of 7 WTC towards 6 WTC; Then a brief look into Barclay Street east, with Filterman Hall on the left, 7 WTC and the conEdison electricity substation on the right, and the Federal Building in the rear;

»» 10:24 »» West Street & Vesey Street :  Looking at 6 WTC and briefly south into West Street;

»» 11:10 »» Additional footage, most probably shot by Mr. Cirone himself :  West Street & Vesey, looking at 6 WTC and briefly north into West Street;

»» 11:36 »» West Street & Vesey Street :  Looking at 6 WTC and into Vesey Street towards 7 WTC; Then turning the view southwest towards the World Financial Center (renamed Brookfield Place); And finally north into West Street;

»» 14:20 »» Additional footage, most probably shot by Mr. Cirone himself :  West Street  & Vesey Street, looking east towards 6 WTC and 7 WTC as well as at the Verizon Building on the left;

»» 14:54 »» West Street & Liberty Street :  North of the skybridge across West Street connecting the World Financial Center with the World Trade Center, looking west at number 200, formerly known as One World Financial Center and at 225 Liberty Street (2 WFC) including the skybridge across Liberty Street connecting those two buildings; Then looking east towards Ground Zero and the remains of 3 WTC, the former Marriott Hotel;

»» 15:59 »» West Street & Cedar Street :  Now south of the skybridge across West Street, looking at 200 Liberty Street (1 WFC); Looking south into West Street; And northeast to the World Trade Center;

»» 17:09 »» Albany Street & South End Avenue :  First looking west towards Two World Financial Center in the rear; Strafing One World Financial Center when moving the camera and  buildings at West Street in the rear; Finally a look into South End Avenue to the south;

»» 17:28 »» Vesey Street :  Looking east towards 6 WTC and 7 WTC as well as at the Verizon Building;

»» 17:50 »» West Street :  Looking first from 200 West St, which is today the Goldman Sachs Headquarters but was in 2001 an undeveloped parking lot, towards WTC 6; Then moving north on West Street until the Tribeca Bridge at Chambers Street.

I refrain from digital image manipulation. In my opinion, any so-called 'enhancement', as observed in similar video creations elsewhere, is tampering with evidence. I consider this video document as material evidence in the disaster investigation. My objective is to use as much raw footage as ever available for a highly authentic document, and to avoid edited material if possible. I also conserved artifacts 'as is', and the FOIA patches which I may use may have encountered earlier compression losses.
However, I adapted all footage to NTSC standard (SD), doubled the frame rate to 59.94 fps (60000/1001), and restored the audio. Though working with mostly uncompressed footage, this online version is presented in the HEVC/H.265 video compression format.

This video has been created for exclusively educational, non-profit purposes.
Dedicated to the lives lost on September 11, 2001, and in the aftermath of that day. May they rest in Peace.
Thank you for taking the time to inform yourself.