Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, Sullivan County photographer Jonathan C. Hyman is still documenting how Americans remember one of the most traumatic events in the nation’s history.

Almost immediately after the attacks, Hyman began photographing spontaneous memorials, flags, murals, tattoos, handmade signs and other public expressions of grief and remembrance.

What began as an observation of flags appearing across Sullivan County eventually grew into an archive of more than 20,000 photographs documenting how ordinary people responded to an extraordinary moment.

Hyman’s photographs later became part of the collection of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, and his work was featured in the museum exhibition Beyond Ground Zero: 9/11 and the American Landscape.

Speaking with Radio Catskill’s Jason Dole, Hyman said his interest in the project grew out of a much broader fascination with American culture and the ways people express themselves.

Hyman originally trained as a painter, earning an MFA in painting and drawing. But over time, he became more interested in what other people were creating and displaying than in making his own abstract work.

That interest eventually led him toward photography.

On September 11, 2001, Hyman was living in Sullivan County. He recalled going to pick up his daughter from the Homestead School after classes were closed and immediately noticing flags appearing throughout the area.

“I had the sense right from the beginning that it wasn’t just about patriotism,” Hyman said.

He began to see the flags and other displays as a form of communication — people trying to make sense of what had happened and express grief, fear, solidarity and anger in a public way.

Hyman continued photographing those expressions full time for about five years and remained heavily involved in the project for roughly a decade.

Photographing Everywhere Except Ground Zero

One of Hyman’s earliest decisions shaped the entire project: he deliberately avoided Ground Zero.

He believed countless photographers were already documenting the destruction in Lower Manhattan. Instead, he wanted to photograph what was happening everywhere else.

Hyman traveled through New York City, New Jersey, Sullivan County and communities around the country, documenting what people placed on buildings, firehouses, cars, roadsides and even their own bodies.

That decision ultimately helped distinguish his archive.

Hyman said the project also captured a moment before social media became central to everyday life.

In 2001, people were not constantly photographing and immediately publishing their lives online. A homemade sign, mural or memorial might only be visible to the people who physically passed it.

Hyman had to go looking for those expressions.

“In many ways I was participating in it and also documenting it,” he said.

Grief, Patriotism and Something More Complicated

At first glance, many of Hyman’s photographs are filled with familiar symbols: American flags, bald eagles and images of the Twin Towers.

But Hyman cautions against interpreting those images simply as expressions of nationalism.

Many people creating the memorials had no artistic training, he said, so they reached for familiar symbols from American popular culture.

Those symbols included the Statue of Liberty, comic book superheroes, religious imagery, fire department insignias and neighborhood references.

Hyman described seeing repeated combinations of what he calls “the flag, the eagle and the towers.”

But other images were more unexpected.

One mural showed Big Bird comforting pink World Trade Center towers beside a broken heart. Others featured superheroes including Spider-Man and Captain America.

In some murals, the Statue of Liberty was crying.

For Hyman, those images demonstrate the wide range of emotions Americans were trying to process.

“It wasn’t a rush to war. It wasn’t a rush to peace,” he said. “It was all of the soup that got stirred when people had something to say in public.”

Tattoos as Personal Memorials

Some of Hyman’s most striking photographs document 9/11 tattoos.

One man had a small clover tattoo with the words “9/11 Never Forget.” Another firefighter had the exploding towers tattooed across his back, along with the names of five firefighters from his firehouse who died in the attacks.

The firefighter told Hyman he normally considered tattoos vulgar but felt compelled to get one.

“The pain in my back and my ribs when I got this tattoo was good for the pain in my head,” Hyman recalled him saying.

Hyman said tattoos are especially powerful because they represent a permanent physical commitment to memory.

People were giving over part of their bodies to say publicly: this happened, this affected me, and I want it remembered.

How the Landscape Has Changed

Hyman has repeatedly returned to locations he first photographed in the years after September 11.

For the 10th anniversary, he revisited about 200 places. He photographed extensively again around the 20th anniversary and is continuing that work around the 25th.

Over time, the archive has become more than a record of 9/11 memorialization.

It has also become a record of how New York City and its neighborhoods have changed.

Many of the murals Hyman photographed are now gone. Buildings have been demolished, paintings have faded or memorials have disappeared.

Others, particularly in some Brooklyn neighborhoods, continue to be repainted and maintained.

Hyman said one thing that particularly interests him is how static the messages on many surviving 9/11 murals have remained.

Unlike political murals in other parts of the world, where imagery can shift as conflicts and public opinion change, many 9/11 murals have largely retained their original messages.

That raises new questions for scholars studying memory and public history.

What Does It Mean to “Never Forget”?

Twenty-five years later, Hyman continues to wrestle with one of the phrases most closely associated with September 11: “Never Forget.”

For him, the photographs preserve evidence of how vulnerable Americans felt — and the ways they tried to respond.

The memorials also show hope, he said, including a belief that something better might emerge from tragedy.

Hyman has also collaborated on a commemorative poster featuring photographs of 21 murals created by a Brooklyn 9/11 muralist whose work he has documented over the years.

The images show not only the murals themselves but the neighborhoods surrounding them — including the people walking past and the changing communities in which the memorials remain.

Hyman sees those details as an important part of the historical record.

The photographs, he said, are ultimately there for other people to interpret.

“You can talk about my pictures all you want,” Hyman said. “But here they are.”

Hyman’s work can be found at Jonathan C. Hyman Photographer, and his photography has also been featured in a PBS NewsHour profile examining his documentation of the American response to September 11.