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JOE WOOLHEAD

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, Joe Woolhead has been living in New York City for over 30 years. Initially, he worked in construction as a laborer, painter, plasterer, and stonemason. After a serious accident at One Chase Manhattan Plaza in 1996, he returned to college and rediscovered his passion for creative arts, particularly poetry and photography. He graduated from Hunter College with a degree in film in 2002. When the attacks happened on September 11th, 2001, he grabbed his camera and shot what he witnessed over the course of three days. His photographs from that time were subsequently published all over the world.


In 2004, Joe began working with Silverstein Properties, his focus being the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. In 2006, he started work at the 9/11 Memorial documenting the construction of the museum and the memorial pools. He continued his work at One WTC, 4 WTC, 3 WTC, the Oculus, and the Performing Arts Center, ultimately shooting over 3 million photographs of the iconic WTC project. He has also worked for Disney / ABC documenting their new Hudson Square headquarters, and Related Companies at the first phase construction of Hudson Yards.


In his role as official World Trade Center photographer, Joe collaborated with author Scott Raab on Simon & Schuster’s Once More to the Sky (2021), where he also wrote the book’s prologue. Joe was also featured prominently in the book A Century Downtown (2020), as well as in publications such as New York Daily News, New York Post, The New York Times, Esquire, The New Yorker, Time magazine, New York magazine, The Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle and Sunday Times. He has also been featured in several documentaries including Garry Keane’s The Irish New Yorkers (Gaeil Nua Eabhrac) and Sean O’Cualain's Men at Lunch (Lon sa Speir). He lives in Queens with his wife, Ozy and their son, Chet.

Contact Us

Avenue Bellevue, 10300 NE 8th St, Bellevue, WA 98004

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