US

Thousands of Records, Irreplaceable Historical Documents and Art Still Missing From 9/11

Art and Records Lost on 9/11 Still a MysteryLetters written by Helen Keller. Forty-thousand photographic negatives of John F. Kennedy taken by the president’s personal cameraman. Sculptures by Alexander Calder and Auguste Rodin. The 1921 agreement that created the agency that built the World Trade Center.

Besides ending nearly 3,000 lives, destroying planes and reducing buildings to tons of rubble and ash, the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks destroyed tens of thousands of records, irreplaceable historical documents and art.

In some cases, the inventories were destroyed along with the records. And the loss of human life at the time overshadowed the search for lost paper. A decade later, dozens of agencies and archivists say they’re still not completely sure what they lost or found, leaving them without much of a guide to piece together missing history.

“You can’t get the picture back, because critical pieces are missing,” said Kathleen D. Roe, operations director at the New York State Archives and co-chairwoman of the World Trade Center Documentation Project. “And so you can’t know what the whole picture looks like.”

The picture starts in the seven-building trade center complex. Hijackers flew jetliners into the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, which collapsed onto the rest of the complex, which included three smaller office buildings, a Marriott hotel and U.S. Customs. 7 World Trade Center, a skyscraper just north of the twin towers, collapsed that afternoon.

The trade center was home to more than 430 companies, including law firms, manufacturers and financial institutions. Twenty-one libraries were destroyed, including that of The Journal of Commerce. Dozens of federal, state and local government agencies were at the site, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Central Intelligence Agency had a clandestine office on the 25th floor of 7 World Trade Center, which also housed the city’s emergency command center and an outpost of the U.S. Secret Service.

The first tangible losses beyond death were obvious, and massive.

The Cantor Fitzgerald brokerage, where more than 650 employees were killed, owned a trove of drawings and sculptures that included a cast of Rodin’s “The Thinker” — which resurfaced briefly after the attacks before mysteriously disappearing again. Fragments of other sculptures also were recovered.

The Ferdinand Gallozzi Library of U.S. Customs Service in 6 World Trade Center held a collection of documents related to U.S. trade dating back to at least the 1840s. And in the same building were nearly 900,000 objects excavated from the Five Points neighborhood of lower Manhattan, a famous working-class slum of the 19th century.

The Kennedy negatives, by photographer Jacques Lowe, had been stowed away in a fireproof vault at 5 World Trade Center, a nine-story building in the complex. Helen Keller International, whose offices burned up when its building, a block from the trade center, was struck by debris, lost a modest archive.

Classified and confidential documents also disappeared at the Pentagon, where American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into it on 9/11.

A private disaster response company, BMS CAT, was hired to help recover materials in the library, where the jet plane’s nose came to rest. The company claimed it saved all but 100 volumes. But the recovery limited access to information related to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s, as the U.S. prepared to launch an attack a month later.

In New York, CIA and Secret Service personnel sifted through debris carted from the trade center to a Staten Island landfill for lost documents, hard drives with classified information and intelligence reports.

Two weeks after the attacks, archivists and librarians gathered at New York University to discuss how to document what was lost, forming the World Trade Center Documentation Task Force. But they received only a handful of responses to survey questions about damaged or destroyed records.

“The current atmosphere of litigation, politics and overall distrust surrounding the 9/11 attacks has made information sharing and compilation a complex task,” said the final 2005 report of the project.

Federal agencies are required by law to report the destruction of records to the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration — but none did. Federal archivists called the failure understandable, given the greater disaster.

After Sept. 11, “agencies did not do precisely what was required vis-à-vis records loss,” said David S. Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, in an email to The Associated Press. “Appropriately, agencies were more concerned with loss of life and rebuilding operations — not managing or preserving records.”

He said off-site storage and redundant electronic systems backed up some records; but the attacks spurred the archives agency to emphasize the need for disaster planning to federal records managers.

Said Steven Aftergood, the director of the project on government secrecy at the watchdog group the Federation of American Scientists: “Under extreme circumstances, like those of 9/11, ordinary record keeping procedures will fail. Routine archival practices were never intended to deal with the destruction of entire offices or buildings.”

Only the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the Southern District formally requested help from federal archivists after discovering stored case files kept had been damaged by mold and water.

The EEOC had to reconstruct 1,500 discrimination case files, said Elizabeth Grossman, supervisory trial attorney for the agency in 2001 at the time of the attacks. Cases were delayed for months. Computers had been backed up only as of Aug. 31, 2001. Witness interviews had to be conducted all over again.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the region’s airports, bridges and the World Trade Center, had much of its archives and library in the building.

But a decade later, it only has “a general idea” of what documents were destroyed, Port Authority spokesman Steve Coleman said, including most of its video and photo archives, board meeting minutes and the compact that created the bi-state agency. It was kept on the 67th floor of the north tower.

“We do not have a detailed list” of the missing records, Coleman said in an email. The agency meticulously stores thousands of tons of steel from the building and other wreckage of the trade center in a hangar at Kennedy Airport.

A meeting had been scheduled — on Sept. 11, 2001 — by a group of libraries that had wanted to claim parts of the Port Authority collection, stored in the north tower. The meeting had been postponed at the last minute, said Ronald Becker, the head of special collections at Rutgers University Libraries, who was supposed to attend.

Not everything was lost. Copies of inventories had been sent out to the libraries that had sought to take parts of the collection, and as workers sifted through the rubble at ground zero, they found remnants of a photographic collection kept by the agency. Tens of thousands images were restored from what had been a collection of one million before the attacks.

One photo contact sheet — a picture of the Port Authority’s aviation director — was discovered by a recovery worker two days after the attacks. It was given to the Sept. 11 museum, along with office IDs, letters and other bits of paper that were recovered in the rubble in the days and weeks afterward.

Jan Ramirez, the curator of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, said there was no historical consciousness surrounding the site before it was destroyed.

“It was modern, it was dynamic. It was not in peril. It was not something that needed to be preserved,” she said.

“Now we know better.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Comments (59)

  • Die Trying
    Posted on August 1, 2011 at 3:55pm

    sorry Beck but you are WRONG. 9/11 was an inside job. Until you acknowledge this, you are part of the propaganda machine.

    Report Post »  
    • OKC08GT500
      Posted on August 1, 2011 at 7:37pm

      Is your tinfoil hat on a little tight?

      Report Post » OKC08GT500  
    • SonOfaCommunist
      Posted on August 2, 2011 at 1:15am

      No tin hat on tower 7? You might want to look it up. Its announced 15 or so minutes before hand that it also collapsed but there it was magically still standing in the background….wierd, no?

      Report Post » SonOfaCommunist  
  • yiska8
    Posted on August 1, 2011 at 11:36am

    Maybe these items were already taken and or JFK photos or info was the missing link or answers to long standing questions.If the attacks were known about, maybe, everything was stolen beforehand and insurance collected afterward. Everything melded together and even though I don’t think there was a deliberate demolition of the buildings, I would think that jet fuel would be enough to burn through and take down the WTC. A Big heist covered up by Big Terror. The Islamists got their freak message out and the thieves did their job probably days or weeks before anyone noticed the missing items. Someone really wanted those rare items and wanted them bad enough so that all that happened was worth a statue or photos sitting in their posession or on their mantle. Maybe certain items or info was left behind to burn on purpose. Maybe someone was getting too close to a truth. Scary times, people. Much scarier now, 10 years later.Shalom.

    Report Post » yiska8  
  • satch56
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 9:46pm

    These pigs run our government.May they all and I reapeat all of them pay for their sins.They are anti American.They should suffer our wrath.

    Report Post »  
  • W@nd@
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 5:20pm

    I cannot understand did they not have photocopies? or
    data backed up off site in 1-2 other places?
    and surely i cannot understand why the govt wants to be so in our lives?
    when they cannot be accountable for what they are already charged in caring for..!!!
    something sick about all of this…
    not just for the loss
    but oh well ~ ‘what can we do?’ attitude
    concerning the whole thing!
    I know
    you can build a rabid mosque on site
    that’s the ticket….
    makes about as much sense as anything else govt does
    or allows to be done….
    just pretty sad
    all the way around…

    Report Post »  
  • AB5r
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 3:24pm

    Test, comments not getting through.

    Report Post » AB5r  
    • AB5r
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 6:39pm

      Lksdf lkjwl dlksjd islwop]s, s.,mmcvpo lds;kwpo kfldpwmf.

      Report Post » AB5r  
  • daddy warbucks
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 10:40am

    What if the NWO is not a conspiracy theory?

    A logical next step would be a question, who in our government was/is complicit?

    9/11: Explosive Evidence – Experts Speak Out:
    http://youtu.be/aEGGNbgwjAg

    Report Post »  
  • Lonescrapper
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 9:42am

    Did they check Sandy Bergers socks?

    Report Post » Lonescrapper  
  • riseandshine
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 3:39am

    Structural damage from the towers’ fall caused that massive building to fall down symetrically at nearly freefall speed (6.5 sec)..straight down into it’s own footprint…..lol…..even the government, after much prodding (since Building 7, oddly, wasn’t even mentioned in the 9/11 Commision’s report) wouldn’t say something that preposterous….We have videos….we have the pictures of that day…we meaning everyone…it’s all right there for everyone to see…where’s this massive structural damage?….I guess they just didn’t have the know-how to build a decent steel framed skyscraper back in them early days…way back in 1987

    Report Post » riseandshine  
    • willnotbackdown
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 9:01am

      factual correction construction began in 1966 The north tower was opened in Dec. 1970 and the south tower in Jan. 1972; they were dedicated in April 1973.

      Report Post »  
    • 13th Imam
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 9:21am

      Gravity is a funny thing. Not may times in history has an apple fallen from a tree and gone sideways into the neighbors yard. I’d say without a stiif wind blowing it has NEVER happened. Who was waiting with their finger on the controlled demolition charges for those two planes to hit the buildings. Great timing for a Gubbermint that can‘t figure out that you can’t spend more than you steal forever.

      Report Post » 13th Imam  
    • uneedmorekoolaid
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 10:18am

      Wow amazing how many Americans love a good conspiracy. Does that mean we are good at looking between the lines or just suckers for listening to lies?

      Report Post » uneedmorekoolaid  
    • tower7femacamp
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 11:19am

      Silverstone told us all the building was demo’d
      and still the Govt lies ????
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100

      and Rumsfeld forgets….. or lies….you decide

      Report Post » tower7femacamp  
    • tower7femacamp
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 11:22am

      wow is it a conspiracy that we are 16 trillion in debt ?
      or that the Federal reserve is owned by the Rothschilds thru the Bank Of England ?

      Report Post » tower7femacamp  
    • GroundZero is Nuclear Demolition x3
      Posted on August 1, 2011 at 9:37am

      @13th Yet, u want us to believe thermal energy can come from nowhere. Thermal images taken on the 16th show way too much energy to be accounted for by any ration mean put forth by official explanation.
      Gravity is strong, but it will not create thermal energy in that volume. Fission reaction is the ONLY plausible answer, short of a completely unknown technology.
      Dust analysis confirm nuclear demolition.
      The use of LASERS for enrichment, have made detonations much cleaner than 1940′s sliderule tech.

      Report Post »  
  • OneRepublic4us
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 2:37am

    From 9/11/2001 I understand what President Bush tried to explain to us, Radical Islamist, extremists, al Qaeda, killed thousand of Americans. There wasn’t a “country” to blame for it. Flash forward to today, I understand that at this moment we can’t precision nuke Iran, Pakistan and, heck, Libya just for insurance. Or can we?

    Report Post » OneRepublic4us  
  • banjarmon
    Posted on July 31, 2011 at 1:55am

    The reactions of people all over the world told me who was and wished this atrocity of 9-11 on the US. The ones that celebrated with cheers and dancing in the streets when the Towers fell were saying WE DID IT!!

    To my dieing Day I will fight to keep these muslims from taking over AMERICA. I want MY KIDS GRAND KIDS to live FREE in the Country known for it’s FREEDOM, The UNITED STATES of AMERICA!!!

    Report Post » banjarmon  
  • HotBreakingStory
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 11:27pm

    Breaking story! The feds are scrambling like mad to black this out!

    A Coup d’etat began during the 2008 presidential election.

    Obama is not the president, he’s the acting president. He disappeared for 2 weeks after his election win only to reappear looking exhausted sitting next to John McCain, with a bad poker face, for a press photo shoot. Obama is now a Pentagon puppet.

    Osama Bin Laden is a name and a code. It appears he was created by the New World Order. The New World Order consists of some of the richest people in the world with the goal of overthrowing the US government, some from inside our own government. They are also trying to collapse our currency and are behind all of the “buy gold” hype, not to mention thousands of money making opportunities online and late night infomercials. They are positioned to make billions by collapsing our economy.

    The attacks on 9/11 appear to be attacks on capitalism. The people that make up the New World Order are media moguls, CEO’s and many others. The coup is also the reason why all the CEOs who ran in the last midterm didn’t get elected either.

    Here’s what Obama, Osama, Biden, Bin Laden, the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists, and Sarah Palin had to do with the last presidential election and the military’s overthrow of our government. Thousands of people are learning about this and sharing it everyday. http://alturl.com/iu924

    Report Post » HotBreakingStory  
  • Roros
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 10:37pm

    Could the old subway tunnel have any bearing?.

    Report Post »  
  • richard bensen
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 10:07pm

    No matter the US Government cover-ups,the dirty tricks,deceptions,lies,corruption,the attack on 11 September 2001 happened and now we know who our enemy is.What I can’t quite understand is why we are still coddling the Islamic faith like it means to do us no harm.”oh only the Islamic radicals (political correct speech) means us harm.I say bull S**T..What don’t people understand???.In my time the threat was communists,but in retrospect I’ll take it over Islam.Trust me ,I can’t stand a “commie,but imagine what my feelings are for Islam.This is a misguided faith that has no tolerance for any faith other than Islam,meaning in plain language,if you don’t convert to my way of thinking then “Infidel” You must die! Christians,Jews,Homosexuals,Atheists,Drinkers,Conservatives,Liberals,Commies,etc….WAKE UP and smell the Pork!!!!!!!

    Report Post » richard bensen  
  • thecrow
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 9:24pm

    Danny Jowenko lives.

    http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/truth-crushed-to-earth-shall-rise/

    Report Post »  
    • tower7femacamp
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 11:26am

      CROW it has been reported Danny died in a car wreck
      and they have already removed your youtube link.

      Soon all 911 information will wipe away clean, so post them while you can
      and Blazers you better do your research while you still can.

      Report Post » tower7femacamp  
  • thecrow
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 9:15pm

    “The Central Intelligence Agency had a clandestine office on the 25th floor of 7 World Trade Center, which also housed the city’s emergency command center and an outpost of the U.S. Secret Service.”

    Barry Jennings lives.

    http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/barry-jennings-speaks/

    Report Post »  
    • jhaydeng
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 10:31pm

      Who cares about lost “things”! How about not getting back irreplaceable lives!!!

      Report Post »  
    • tower7femacamp
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 11:29am

      Barry was an honest and brave man
      God rest his soul

      Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality of those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.

      - Robert F. Kennedy

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEuJimaumW4&feature=related

      Report Post » tower7femacamp  
  • STUBBYK
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:25pm

    Hey Jack, you’ve got the same name as your uncle. The one that was stuck on the roof when the ladder fell and you had to help your Uncle ********. Right or left handed?

    Report Post »  
  • Secessionista
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:08pm

    September 11 has yet to be repaid to the muslim world. But it is coming.

    Report Post » Secessionista  
    • GFWSR
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:27pm

      I hope you are right, as repayment is long overdue. I hope it occurs in my lifetime! Sadly, the people who should be addressing the issue likely aren’t.

      Report Post »  
    • Lamarr01
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 9:09pm

      I seriously doubt two dozen muslime radicals could have pulled off hijacking three commercial jet liners and crashed them into buildings. Hani Hanjour was supposed to have crashed into into the Pentagon but he was confused by the instrument panel on a Cessna 172 he was trying to rent.

      Jihadists are just to stupid to have planned and pulled off such a complex operation.

      Take a look at the idiot who was trying to build two bombs to blow up Fort Hood. His bomb-making equipment including six bottles of smokeless gunpowder, shotgun shells, two clocks, spools of wire, a string of Christmas lights, an electric drill, two pressure cookers and an article titled “How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.”

      Accusing ********* of having the ability to bring down the Twin Towers has been a source of pride in the ******** world. If brains were dynamite, most ********* couldn’t blow their nose. Praying with your face in the carpet and your anus in the air probably causes brain damage.

      Report Post » Lamarr01  
  • Seede
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:06pm

    We had a fire at the military records division in St. Louis back in 1973 and the military records of military personal from 1912 to 1959 were destroyed and Air Force personal from 1947 ton 1963 and H to Z were also destroyed. That meant that thousands of military personal who fought and were wounded or died had no evidence for any claims. You would think that the hot shots would have thought this through and had micro filmed the records or stored them in a safe place but as usual the. politicians didn’t really care any more then than they do today. The fire was always under suspicion and the cause was never solved. This is really a shame.

    Report Post »  
    • Mateytwo Barreett
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:38pm

      News FLASH! Its only taken ten YEARS t discover the stuff is gone. They found the jewelry stoes had been ransacked in just a few days.

      Report Post » Mateytwo Barreett  
    • Dinkiecb
      Posted on July 31, 2011 at 9:09am

      The government LOVES paperwork .. and duplication… Bet the IRS has all the payroll information from that time period of the people who were in the military. Also when I was in they did “morning reports” everyday.. that means theres lists of people that were in units, in basic training they issue you your uniforms…they use to keep track of what you were “issued”… also there were photo’s taken to “send to your folks”… individual unit’s always had files on ya, for various things…bet all that stuff is stored at all the various bases around the world sittin in a moldy warehouse someplace.

      Report Post »  
  • Secessionista
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:02pm

    Interesting that the government and financial institutions possessed so much irreplaceable materials in that complex of buildings, and that the CIA had a secret operation there. Amazing what we learn about our neighborhoods after they are destroyed.

    Report Post » Secessionista  
  • willnotbackdown
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:43pm

    That was only the begining. When Islam conquers (they do not come to power with peaceful intent) the try to eradicate they previous culture and build victory mosques (expample the cathedral of ST Sophia in what should be Constantinople is not a mosque, funny how in addition they are always one of the holiest site in islam). I just fear in the next 20 to 50 years most of the great church art and quite a bit of the secular art will be intentionally destroyed like the Buddist monuments in Afganistan. I just regret that the fool in Noraway will be used to silance any opposition to diversity and any attempts to save European culture.

    Report Post »  
    • Jack MeOff
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:54pm

      you‘ll be back’in down when the cleric says to backdown…Sheeple!!

       
  • Captain Crunch
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:43pm

    I years to come we will see pieces of art, photos, cia papers, etc turn up on the black market. That stuff just didnt disappear unless it all burnt or was appropiated by sticky fingers. From what we all saw everything didn’t burn.

    Report Post »  
    • Jack MeOff
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:58pm

      you talk about sticky fingers and IM the pervert???

       
    • Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:59pm

      Indeed, that was my first thought as well; if it is not so much rubbish or torched into oblivion then it will eventually turn up in some private underground collections around the world. Also, this will just give even more ammuniton to the lunatic conspiracy fringes about it being an ‘inside govt job’ to cover up some kind of ‘evidence’ of ‘grand universal right wing conspiracies’.

      Report Post » Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}  
  • felix
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:30pm

    the religion of peace took it all

    Report Post »  
    • Jack MeOff
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:41pm

      2001 and 2011 look where America is…..
      Can you say… Allahu Akbar??
      Bet your Azz you’ll say it when your under Sharia Law American Sheeple!!!!

       
    • Captain Crunch
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:54pm

      @Jack MeOff

      This isn’t the pervert site. You might find a link like that on Huffpo which is where you need to take your deviant self.

      Report Post »  
    • Zer0
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:07pm

      @Cptn. Crunch,

      What Jack Meoff is attempting is elementary reverse psychology. Angering and insulting everyone on this board in the hopes that someone gets upset enough to grab a gun and murder a Muslim. Jack is probably a disgruntled militia member, too afraid to get their hands dirty.

      Report Post »  
    • Jack MeOff
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:25pm

      Zero:
      Get over your self pro-claimed phD in psyc 101.. I have done nothing to anger or incite anyone on the blaze.. I have fun, that is all… Get over it, and while your at it…..GET A LIFE WITH A SENSE OF HUMOR!!! (you need it!)

       
    • Captain Crunch
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 8:31pm

      @Zer0
      Just ignore the perv. Maybe he’ll tak his offensive name tothe gueer blog where he belongs.

      Report Post »  
    • Zer0
      Posted on July 30, 2011 at 11:16pm

      CORRECTION:

      Jack’s just butt hurt because his “daddy” didn’t love him.

      Report Post »  
  • Bill me later
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:27pm

    Fasle Flag U.S. Gov at work

    Report Post »  
  • Netsurfer2
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:23pm

    Can you trust those that are working there at the time???

    Report Post » Netsurfer2  
  • MODEL82A1
    Posted on July 30, 2011 at 7:23pm

    “Missing”? Let us know when any of it turns up.

    Report Post » MODEL82A1  

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