In Memory of September 11th, 2001

The Dignified Devil is in awe of New York City. Having lived there and roamed its streets and skyscrapers, the Devil often spent sleepless nights pacing from the Village to the Park, watching the day break with millions of well-heeled footsteps.

New York is the one city that could swim above and around the Devil, could overpower him with the engagement of his senses. He met a genie there, once, received a magic lantern and still couldn’t dream of wishing for anything more than what the City offered.

Truly excited by both its tonics and its toxins, the Devil was thrilled by attitudes rooted in the here-ness, the day-to-day feeling of the power of the now or never. He’d lie down and look up, soaking in the dominant boroughs.

While the Devil loves the wild, the urban wilderness offered an anonymity that granted access to the invisible, the intangible and the indivisible; an endlessness to which disaster appeared briefly and struck hard during his life there.

The shock of being caught off-guard by ignorant cowards seeking instability woke the Devil from his daze of ecstasy and rallied him to react in an unfamiliar way. Usually content to confront the world in his own shoes, in the months that followed 9/11/01, the Devil saw himself as one in a family of millions. The Devil loves company, there’s no mistaking that, but at this juncture he also found community and discovered a calm world of lost creative souls united by a passion for living life with eyes wide open.

The Dignified Devil was at home here, and he will not allow his collection of moments and memories, dear or devastating, to be forgotten or unspoken for. While the Devil most definitely lives in the present, he remembers the past, and cherishes the future.

The Dignified Devil thinks of New York City and smells vibrant colors that stride the spectrum from piss to perfection, and he couldn’t dream of wishing for anything more.

In remembrance of the tragic events of September 11th, we thought it would be appropriate to share an old article from @issue magazine (Volume 8 No. 2 from August, 2002). It outlines a very brief history of one of the most prolific and famous pro-bono projects in the history of design. The I LOVE NY logo has an amazing little story, that was only amplified on that faithful day in September, 2001. Click here.