Around the World Trade Center site, there’s a bustling gray market dominated by photo books filled with exploding planes and crumbling buildings. Here, one of many vendors makes a pitch to a group of tourists on Church Street and Liberty Street.
Photograph by Ashley Macknica.
Hawking a Book
On a good weekend, a vendor can sell 10 to 15 books a day.
Photograph by Ashley Macknica.
Competition
Outside the World Trade Center site on Church Street, a vendor displays a book, which he sells for $5.
Photograph by Ashley Macknica.
More Competition
Vendors vie for tourists’ attention. The books vary in price and image quality.
Photograph by Ashley Macknica.
Gray Market Books
The books cost about 70 or 80 cents to print in Chinatown, where people pull copyrighted photos off the Internet and add text. Vendors are often questioned by the police, but they know that their books are protected speech under the First Amendment.
Photograph by Ashley Macknica.
A Guided Book Tour
Book vendors sometimes function as unofficial guides to the World Trade Center site, pointing out what happened where on Sept. 11, 2001.
Photograph by Ashley Macknica.
Document of Tragedy
Many visitors leave the site with photo books in hand.
