You might think making movies and TV shows has nothing in common with disaster response. But Paul Eliacin will tell you the two are closer than anyone realizes, as he grasped on Sept. 11, 2001.
Eliacin belongs to the Theatrical Teamsters Local 817 — the union that drives trucks, hauls equipment and rigs lighting for film and television productions across New York. In 2001, Eliacin was working on the “Law & Order: SVU” set. He was home that Tuesday watching television when the show was interrupted by a news bulletin showing a plane diving into the World Trade Center.
Eliacin’s next move says everything you need to know about his character: He called City Hall, asking how he could help.
Initially told that no more hands were needed, he got his chance another way. Local 817’s president, Thomas J. O’Donnell Jr., was organizing a crew to go to Ground Zero and Eliacin put his name on the list. He headed downtown the next day.
A Story Few Know: The Film Industry Helped Light Ground Zero, Aiding Rescue Efforts
“Our job was the same thing we do when we make movies,” Eliacin explained.
He ran cables and kept the generator running while members of Local 52, the studio lighting union, mounted lights aimed at the smoking rubble so crews could keep searching through the night. It was, he said, like being on a film set, except the disaster was real.
“It was like a war zone,” he said.
His work changed after a firefighter called out, “all hands on deck.” Eliacin joined the line, passing buckets of rock, wood and twisted metal down the pile alongside the firefighters. He remembers the moment a firefighter yelled for a body bag, and 25 years later, he still tears up when he talks about it.
Eliacin describes those grueling weeks at Ground Zero as a time when the country forgot its divisions. People showed up in FBI jackets, Army fatigues and firefighter gear, and civilians dropped off boots, gloves and water for the crews.
“Anytime there’s a tragedy, this country always comes together and helps one another,” he said, and he’d like to see that spirit back.
The rubble is gone, but the physical impact is lifelong. Eliacin has PTSD and still has nightmares. He lives with respiratory conditions he attributes to the toxic dust at the site. He credits the federal 9/11 health program, established under the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, with providing free, lifetime treatment for 9/11-related illnesses, including annual screenings and a system that flags him for check-in calls if he’s hospitalized for any reason.
Documenting an Untold Story on Film
Eliacin has been filming his own record of that experience since his second day at the site.
He told himself, “This is historic, and someone has to record this. I sneaked in a camera every day, and recorded everything that I saw. I went deep inside where cameras weren’t allowed … but nobody said anything to me, even though they saw me doing it.”
Now he’s assembling it into a documentary called “The Lights on 9/11,” telling the story of the film industry’s role at Ground Zero that has never been told on screen. He’s added footage from the 10th anniversary, though he found ceremonies too painful to attend and hasn’t returned since.
He’s editing now and hopes to submit the film to the Tribeca Film Festival.
Another Untold Story
There’s another 9/11 story Eliacin wants people to know: the undocumented immigrants who cleaned up Ground Zero after the search-and-rescue phase ended.
“These people are in hiding, and they are human beings like us all. They are sick like us all. They have had the same sickness and maybe cancer, but they’re in hiding because they are immigrants,” he said.
He pointed to long-stalled legislation, originally introduced by then-Rep. Joseph Crowley and later carried by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to protect these workers from deportation.
“That bill has been floating around in Congress since 9/11,” Eliacin said. “It would be symbolic if it was announced on the 25th anniversary that this bill was passed.”
Asked what he wants a viewer fifty years from now to take from his film, Eliacin said he wants 9/11 taught in schools the way his generation learned about Pearl Harbor. He also wants young Teamsters and first responders to understand what he calls “carrying the torch.” One of the Teamsters who worked beside him at Ground Zero now has colon cancer. The man told him he’d do it all again. And so would Eliacin.
Eliacin also wrote and directed the 2004 feature film “Up in Harlem,” featuring Ice-T, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
Carolyn Schuk can be reached at carolyn@santaclaraweekly.com.