Ad Campaign Asks: Where Were You on 9/11?

On August 17, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey began construction of the footings for the World Trade Center Memorial and Museum. The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, the primary financial contributor for their efforts, continues to work to collect money for the construction of the memorial. The foundation has raised $132.8 million privately, and needs to raise a total of $300 million to complete the memorial, which is set to open in 2009. A new series of ads, launched on Thursday, is designed to increase public awareness of The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, in the hopes of helping to raise the rest of the money.

Gerry Graf, executive creative director of the TBWA/Chiat/Day agency, conceived the ads for the foundation. Graf was in a hotel room in Los Angeles when his wife called to tell him about the terrorist attacks. "The first thing I thought was, this is our Pearl Harbor," Graf said. The print ads feature photos of an empty locker room, a subway station, a street of row houses, an office desk, an elevated train track, and other bleak images surrounding the words "Where were you when it happened?"

The ads feature the stories of people all around the worldwho remember exactly where they were when they heard about the planes hitting the twin towers. Gary Robertson says that he was on his farm in California. Kiara Bradley was driving a bus. Fire Department Lt. Mickey Kross was at New York’s Engine Company 16, and he went on to the burning World Trade Center and survived the north tower’s collapse. One radio spot contains the voices of various people: "I was in the shower. ... I was in a dentist's office in Bulgaria. ... I was on the Q train." The foundation has compiled about 250 "where were you" oral histories.

Michael Frisch, a history professor at the University of Buffalo, says that the 2001 terrorist attacks will be remembered for life by the people who experienced it, in the same way that people recall the assassinations of important public figures such as Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy, and the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. "It’s that expression of a connection between the historical and personal. You need to locate a personal relationship to that history," said Frisch.

A Web site formed by college students has also collected stories from people who remember the exact details of that day. The site, called WhereWereYou, has collected more than 2,500 stories in the first year after the attacks. "It is important to remember how time stopped," said Marie Pelkey, who was an 18 when she co-founded WhereWereYou. "No matter what we were doing, being in class, driving to work, arguing with family, alone overseas, at the airport ... it was in essence a human event that connected us all."