NY Newspaper Photographers Raise Funds

Eleven newspaper photographers from the New York area have set up an exhibition of their images from September 11 to help World Trade Center charities, especially the Uniform Firefighters, Association Widows and Children's Fund and The New York Police and Fire Widows' and Children's Benefit Fund.

The exhibition is open every day from 2 to 9 p.m. in the Bolivar Arellano Gallery, 420, East 9th Street in New York. Call (212) 420-1263 for more information. For now, the show, which includes many images of ground zero in the first few days after the attack, is scheduled to run till the end of the year. Depending on the size, photographs cost $25 or $50 and take a few days to be printed. Some pre-printed images are immediately available for $15 or $25.

The owner of the gallery, photographer Bolivar Arellano from the New York Post, said he wanted to do something after September 11 and asked fellow photographer Juan Gonzalez of the Post to contribute photographs. Very soon, the word spread and other photographers, even from competing newspapers such as the New York Daily News, joined in the effort. They are Mary Altaffer, Tamara Beckwith, G.N. Miller and Steven Hirsch from the Post; Todd Maisel, Susan Watts and Michael Schwartz from the Daily News; Robert Mecea from Newsday; and Jose Rivera from El Diario.

Arellano, who's still recovering from inhaling dust particles at ground zero, recalls: "I said, `Let me try to do something to collect money for the families.' This is not for photographers. Everybody collaborates. This is a form of therapy for us that we're doing something."

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