Greg Atlas, representing the collective Tape Art, announced on September 7, 2026 that a digital archive of New York City’s September 11 street‑art memorials is now publicly available online. The restored collection features 490 silhouette images that were created in the weeks and months following the attacks and had been missing from the public record for years.
In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, dozens of artists and community groups took to the city’s streets, walls, and sidewalks to paint simple black silhouettes that honored the lives lost and expressed collective grief. Tape Art was among the most active contributors, adding its own series of figures to the visual landscape of the city. Over time, the physical pieces faded, were removed, or were otherwise lost, and the digital record of the work disappeared from public view.
Atlas embarked on a project to locate, photograph, and digitize the surviving silhouettes. The effort involved gathering the original images from private collections, archives, and personal photographs, then scanning and cataloguing each piece. The resulting online repository now provides a searchable database where each of the 490 silhouettes can be viewed in high resolution, along with basic information about its location and date of creation.
The restored archive serves as a historical resource that documents how New York’s artistic community responded to the tragedy. By making the images accessible, the project aims to preserve the visual memory of the city’s spontaneous memorials and to allow scholars, educators, and the public to explore this unique chapter of urban art history. The availability of the archive marks the first time since its disappearance that the full scope of the 9/11 street‑art tribute can be examined in a single, publicly reachable platform.
The launch of the site underscores ongoing efforts to safeguard cultural artifacts tied to pivotal moments in the city’s past, ensuring that the silhouettes remain part of New York’s collective remembrance.