BILL BIGGART: 'I'm With the
Firemen'
They
found Bill Biggart's body Saturday among the
firefighters. He was a photographer, 54, born to an
American Army couple in the divided city of Berlin, and
it seemed to his wife, Wendy Doremus, that a thread ran
through his work. Bill covered division and conflict:
Howard Beach, Wounded Knee, Northern Ireland, Gaza, the
gulf war. "When I saw the second plane hit, all I was
hoping was that my father didn't go down; I thought,
`God, I just hope he's out sailing,' " his son William
said, but by then Bill Biggart was already downtown.
Bill lived just north of Greenwich Village and he
loved sailing, he loved trees. He bought people with
backyards trees for their birthdays. And he spent so much
time watering the trees he'd planted on Weehawken Street,
near the Hudson River, that the transvestites who
frequented the area were convinced he worked for
Greenpeace.
During the attack, his wife called him on his
cellphone to tell him it was terrorism, not an accident.
"I'm O.K.," he said. "I'm with the firemen."
.