With Marcy Borders’s death from stomach cancer, aged 42, the picture is back again, of course: Borders, caked in dust on September 11, 2001, looking stunned at the camera, caught on the day that would come to define her far-too-short life.
When I see that famous image I recall meeting her nearly 10 years later, and us both standing in the living room of her apartment in Bayonne, New Jersey, looking at the dress she wore that day which she had kept unwashed. It still smelled of smoke and burning, it was still dusty, and had a soot-like film to it, a thick, claggy texture: a remnant of a terrible day that still reeked and felt of that day.
Borders, then a Bank of America assistant, was photographed by Stan Honda in the lobby of a building following her escape on September 11 from the 81st floor of the North Tower.
The picture was seen around the world, and the soubriquet of ‘Dust Lady’ was known more than Borders’ own name. It inspired, much to her horror and upset she told me, Halloween costumes.
