After wrapping up with my work at the Getty office on Varick following my BVLGARI shoot, I packed up my gear to head home. "Great," I thought, "The 1 train is right on Canal! Super easy to get home."

Wrong. No downtown 1 trains that night.

Fortunately, while I was in a dress and it was close to 1 a.m., I had packed flats in my camera bag just in case I felt like walking home from wherever I happened to end up. Yes, my gear weighs about as much as me these days, but the weather was impeccable. Walking it was.

Because I live downtown and often pass the World Trade Center site, my walks home can get pretty interesting - particularly on nights like September 10th into the early hours of the 11th.

I will be honest in saying that I was completely consumed in Fashion Week and chatting with one of my best friends on the west coast rather than thinking about 9/11, that is, until I stumbled upon this little motorcycle rally as I approached the WTC. Immediately hanging up with Shasta to un-sling my camera bag, I hopped up on one of the police barriers to get a better angle - dress and all.

Shockingly, the NYPD didn't care in the slightest that I was playing leap frog on their concrete barriers. Like Steve Manuel always used to say: Don't ever ask permission, just shoot until they tell you to stop.

So, I kept shooting. Hopping from concrete slab to concrete slab, the full, pleated 3/4-length A-line of my black cotton Calvin Klein dress unfolding with each leap, I waited for someone to tell me to stop, but no one ever did.

Very anti-climactic, I know, but strange as well.

Why didn't they ask me to stop?

Top Photo: Motorcycle rally heading north on Church Street past the WTC site.

Bottom Photo: Fellow carrying an American flag south on Church Street past the WTC site.