WTC Memorial Foundation honors Warwick artist

NEW YORK - Within a few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center, Warwick Valley High School art teacher Rocco Manno began painting a mural on the barn at his family’s farm next to Kings Highway. His artwork, now a familiar landmark to anyone traveling that road between Warwick and Chester, was based on a widely circulated photograph taken, at that time, by Tom Franklin, a photographer for the Bergen Record. The photograph, which reminds many viewers of the famous image of the Marines raising the Flag on Iwo Jima during World War II, captured three New York City firefighters defiantly raising an American Flag above the rubble of the collapsed World Trade Center towers. This past June, Manno, who lives in Warwick with his wife, Kelly, and their one-year-old son, Rocco, received a call from Clifford Chanin, curator of a current World Trade Center (WTC) Memorial Foundation photography exhibit. Chanin, who also is the WTC Memorial Foundation senior advisor, informed Manno that a photograph of his barn mural had been selected for the official journal, “9/11 and the American Landscape.” The journal, a collection of photographs by Jonathan Hyman with an introduction by author and columnist Pete Hamill, was to be distributed during a special 9/11 fifth anniversary exhibit at 7 World Trade Center. Manno and his family were invited to be guests of honor at the pre-exhibit reception and ceremonies. The exhibit, “9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman,” featured a selection of 63 photographs of personal tributes and memorials created across the country in response to the terrorist attacks. Photographer Jonathan Hyman had spent four years traveling throughout the United States photographing American expressions through folk art and other displays of emotions. He took more than 15,000 photographs of the personal tributes and memorials and only 63 were selected for the exhibit. The photograph of Rocco Manno’s mural in Warwick was chosen for the cover of the exhibit’s official journal. “This was a total surprise,” Manno said. “I was expecting a small photo but never the cover. And when we did go to the opening ceremony, there were so many dignitaries and other big wigs present, I wondered what we were doing there.” The free exhibit, “9/11 and the American Landscape: Photographs by Jonathan Hyman,” showing images of Sept. 11 tributes from around the nation, will run through Oct. 7 on the 45th floor of 7 World Trade Center at 250 Greenwich St., overlooking Ground Zero.