Paula found this story in today's NY Post, and asked me to post it, along with the CNN story about the film, from last week.
From the Post:
Quote:
Film eyes mystery of missing Ground Zero flags
By MELISSA KLEIN
Last Updated: 6:52 AM, September 1, 2013
Posted: 12:36 AM, September 1, 2013
The famous flag raised over Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, flew for just hours that day, and hasn’t been seen since. And the whereabouts of the banner that filled in for the iconic stars and stripes — allegedly procured by the FDNY when the original disappeared — is a mystery, too.
“That is the million-dollar question,” said Michael Tucker, a director of the new CNN documentary, “The Flag.” “City Hall couldn’t give us a definitive answer. We tried to check with the city archives, they didn’t know. They said check with the 9/11 museum.”
But the National September 11 Memorial & Museum also didn’t know where the streamers were — neither flag is part of its collection.
AP / Copyright 2001, The Record of Bergen County, NJ
STARS AND SWIPED: George Johnson, Dan McWilliams and Billy Eisengrein inspire the nation on Sept. 11.
The film, to air Wednesday at 9 p.m., attempts to uncover what happened to the flag that came to be a symbol of hope after the terrorist attacks.
Photographer Thomas Franklin’s shot of three firefighters raising Old Glory over the ruins of the World Trade Center was published around the world. It appeared on the front page of The New York Post on Sept. 13, 2001, and was eventually reproduced on a US postage stamp.
One of the firefighters in the photo grabbed the flag, along with its pole, off a yacht in the North Cove Marina near Ground Zero.
Firefighter Billy Eisengrein, the man on the right in the photograph, says he and his fellow Bravest had other things on their minds that day.
“It was literally over in just a few minutes,” he said in the documentary. “We found a spot and raised the flag. The three of us looked at each other, we looked at the flag, and that was that. We just felt that we had other things that needed to be accomplished right then.”
As the image of the impromptu ceremony gained fame, the Navy requested the flag. Thomas Von Essen, the city fire commissioner at the time, asked his firefighter brother to retrieve it.
Roddy Von Essen knew getting the flag would be a problem.
“We know the way that the firemen can be very possessive about things, and we didn’t know if they were just going to be happy to give that flag up,” he says in the film.
So he sent a representative from the FDNY press office — a man he remembers only as Gerard — to get the banner, he recalled.
“He came back, he had the flag,” he says. “He said, ‘This is the flag.’ We brought it over to the mayor.”
That flag was displayed at a Yankee Stadium prayer service on Sept. 23, 2001, and it was signed by Mayor Giuliani and Gov. Pataki.
Then the Navy sent the Stars and Stripes to fly over the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, which launched airstrikes against Afghanistan shortly after the attack. When the flag returned to New York, it was hoisted above City Hall.
A year after the attacks, the couple who owned the yacht from which the famed flag came, Shirley Dreifus and Spiros Kopelakis, wanted it back from City Hall to display at a fund-raiser. But when they opened the box with their alleged property, they instantly knew it was not their small, 3-by-5-foot standard.
“The flag was gigantic,” Dreifus told The Post. The couple filed a notice of intent to sue the city, but never went through with the action.
Attempts to get answers from City Hall went nowhere.
“They never did anything, and they don’t seem to care,” she said.
The couple sent the “fake” signed flag back to City Hall — where that one seems to have vanished as well. Despite filmmaker inquiries and calls from The Post, officials refuse even to say whether the city still has it.
For years, the assumption was that the original flag vanished after the image of it became famous, perhaps pilfered by someone who wanted to make a buck.
But the filmmakers tracked down video shot at Ground Zero on the night of Sept. 11, 2001: By 10:15 p.m., the flagpole was already bare.
Where the substitute flag procured by the FDNY came from is another mystery. Tucker thinks a first responder may have grabbed the famous original and still has it.
“If the real flag was to show up, then it would kind of be like the mother of all battles in typical New York style,” he said. “Whose flag is this, anyway?”
melissa.klein@nypost.com
In this tale, the flag and it's pole were stolen from a yacht nearby. I guess it is commonplace for the FDNY rank and file to loot private property whenever it suits them. :nope:
Commissioner Von Essen assigns his brother to find the flag, and he in turn puts this important job off on a guy whose name he doesn't even remember, who is to get it from an undisclosed location. :nope:
Again the FDNY are portrayed as McHale's Navy or the Keystone Kops, and it's all "Gerard's" fault.
Large version here.
From CNN:
Quote:
August 22nd, 2013
10:18 AM ET
‘THE FLAG’ Pursues the Mystery of a Missing 9/11 Icon
The First Commissioned CNN FILMS Documentary Debuts Wednesday, September 4
The first original production commissioned for CNN FILMS, THE FLAG, directed by Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein, follows the mysterious journey of the American flag featured in one of the most iconic photographs taken at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The 90-minute film is based upon the forthcoming book by David Friend, Vanity Fair’s editor of creative development and formerly LIFE magazine’s director of photography (The Flag, August 27), and will debut Wednesday, September 4, at 9:00pm, 10:30pm, and 1:00am. All times Eastern.
A vibrant American flag, flying from the back of a boat moored very near the Twin Towers, managed to survive the destruction of the World Trade Center 12 years ago. Someone removed the flag from the boat on September 11th. Thomas Franklin, a photographer for the New Jersey newspaper The Record, took a searing photograph of that flag as it was raised by three fire fighters above the smoldering rubble on the evening of the terrorist attacks. That image immediately became one of the archetypical photographs of the disaster.
Shortly after the iconic photo was taken, the whereabouts of the original flag became a mystery. Who would keep it – and why?
The flag that toured the country to reassure the nation, flew over Yankee Stadium as a patriotic rebuke to terrorism, and flew over the USS Roosevelt as the battleship carried troops to Afghanistan in response to the attacks, was represented as the same flag that was raised at Ground Zero. It turns out the original flag disappeared shortly after it was photographed.
Tucker and Epperlein interviewedthe owners of the original flag, Shirley Dreifus and Spiros Kopelakis. Theyreveal key details about their flag that distinguish it from the imposter.
“That’s not the flag that they raised on 9/11. The flag that went to Yankee Stadium, or was on the ship [the USS Roosevelt], could not have been the flag that was in the photograph,” Dreifus says in the documentary.
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, as well as fire fighters, police officers, photographers who were at Ground Zero, the makers of the flag, editors who used the Franklin photograph, and others, all speak about their memories of that day for the documentary. Each discusses also his memories of the famous flag.
“I see the rebuilding starting with that photograph,” Giuliani says. “That was the moment on which, these three fire fighters, speaking for all New Yorkers – and all Americans – said: ‘Enough is enough. We’re going to fight back.’”
Tucker and Epperlein try to solve the mystery of the flag’s journey. Along the way, their interviews with key eyewitnesses from 9/11 reveal moving insights into the tragedy – and, highlight the enduring power that imagery holds for healing and national reconciliation that, for some, the original flag still represents.
“This is the icon of the century, this flag,” Kopelakis says emphatically, “and it is not any excuse, from any politician, not to try to find this flag.”
THE FLAG will encore on Sunday, September 8 at 9:00pm, 10:30pm, 1:00am, and 2:30am, and will broadcast again on Wednesday, September 11 at the same Eastern times.
As an original production for CNN FILMS, THE FLAG will air exclusively on CNN. It is the fourth CNN FILMS broadcast. ESCAPE FIRE, GIRL RISING, and OUR NIXON debuted earlier this year. CNN FILMS will mark its first anniversary in October 2013.
About CNN FILMS
CNN Films brings documentaries beyond the small screen by developing strategic partnerships to leverage distribution opportunities at film festivals and in theaters. Amy Entelis, senior vice president of talent and content development for CNN Worldwide, and Vinnie Malhotra, senior vice president of development and acquisitions for CNN Worldwide, oversee the acquisition strategy of documentaries for CNN Films. Malhotra manages the day-to-day operation of CNN Films, and works directly with filmmakers to develop original projects.
About CNN
CNN Worldwide is a portfolio of two dozen news and information services across cable, satellite, radio, wireless devices and the Internet in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. Domestically, CNN reaches more individuals on television, the web and mobile devices than any other cable TV news organization in the United States; internationally, CNN is the most widely distributed news channel reaching more than 271 million households abroad; and CNN Digital is a top network for online news, mobile news and social media. Additionally, CNN Newsource is the world’s most extensively utilized news service partnering with hundreds of local and international news organizations around the world. CNN is division of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc., a Time Warner Company.
In this story again, the Flag's rightful owner is the one who discovers it is the wrong one.
This is the Star of America yacht.
http://www.y4as.com/starofamerica.htm
http://s3-media4.ak.yelpcdn.com/bpho...sH2VPxxA/l.jpg
A yacht this size requires full time Captain and Crew. The idea that three Firefighters would board this yacht and loot it's property, damaged or not, is ridiculous.
This was on 9/11, when there were victims buried to be searched for and saved. There were injured people everywhere (:nope:) that needed help. These guys were stealing stuff for a patriotic display?
According to this story from Hackensack from 2005, the owners sued the City for $525,000 but the lawsuit "fizzled", whatever that means. It seems like they have a slam dunk case, witnesses and all, how would it fizzle?
Quote:
The flag raised over the ruins of the World Trade Center was taken by firefighter Dan McWilliams from the Star of America yacht, docked near the site. It measured 3 feet by 5 feet. The flag returned a year later to the yacht's owners, Spiros Kopelakis and Shirley Dreifus, measured 5 feet by 8 feet.
Quote:
Franklin's photo seemed, more than any other image, to capture that day's conflicting emotions of anger, sadness and pride. Franklin said that even now, he receives messages from people who were moved by the image.
Exactly what it was staged to do.
In this USAtoday article from 2006, the story has changed again.
Quote:
Seven months later, the three firemen were guests of honor as the flag was run up the City Hall pole. But Dan McWilliams, one of the firemen, said softly, "That's not the flag."
Bill Kelly, the firefighters' lawyer, stared at him. "That's much bigger than the one we put up," McWilliams explained. Kelly says he looked at the other two firemen: "They said, 'No, that's not it.' " The men said nothing more, and the flag flew at City Hall for a week before beginning a tour of police stations and firehouses.
Now it is McWilliams (no relation) who discovers the imposter, not the owner.
Quote:
At Ground Zero, the firefighters found a long metal flagpole jutting at a 45-degree angle from a ledge about 20 feet above the ground. They climbed up and began rigging the flag to the pole.
In this story, they happened to come upon the flagpole, already there on the 45 degree angle ready to hoist their stolen flag.
Once again, we have a narrative which has been resurrected over and over again, to reinforce the ridiculous story behind another staged Norman Rockwell propaganda photo. The never ending search for the flag will bring many opportunities to reinforce the myths that are 9/11.
Funny that CNN chose this subject to debut "CNN Films", and you can watch it Wednesday, September 4 at 9 p.m. ET.
I'm sure they will lay the BS on thick to make an hour out of this story.
I say charge the Thieves with theft and trespassing, it's not like they needed the flag for a Boston Bombing tourniquet.
Nice find Paula!
l