Published to mark the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, After the Fall is a landmark oral history drawn from the celebrated collection of 9/11 interviews at Columbia University.


Within days of 9/11, Columbia’s Oral History Research Office deployed interviewers across the city to begin collecting the accounts and observations of hundreds of people from a diverse mix of New York neighborhoods and backgrounds. Over subsequent months and years, follow-up interviews produced a deep and revealing look at how the attacks changed individual lives and communities in New York City.



After the Fall presents a selection of these fascinating testimonies, with heartbreaking and enlightening stories from a broad range of New Yorkers. The interviews include first-responders, taxi drivers, school teachers, artists, religious leaders, immigrants, and others who were interviewed at intervals since the 2001 attacks. The result is a remarkable time-lapse account of the city as it changed in the wake of 9/11, one that will resonate powerfully with New Yorkers and millions of others who continue to feel the impact of the most damaging attack on American soil in history.