New Yorker Robert DeNiro To Host 9/11 Special

Posted Monday, February 18, 2002 at 10:19 AM Central

by Heather Koehler

Actor Robert DeNiro loves his 'Big Apple' and has played a very active role in the last several months with relief-effort fundraising. The Score star will voice his concerns again when he hosts a two-hour documentary featuring never-seen-before footage of the World Trade Center attacks.

"Robert DeNiro is a quintessential New Yorker who has been instrumental in building up the TriBeCa neighborhood, in the very area of the city that was devastated by the September 21 attacks. He has been an active spokesman for TriBeCa, and for all New Yorkers, for more than three decades," Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter said as to why he chose Bobby for the narrator.

The show is centered around footage shot by documentary filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet. The brothers were working on a project with Lower Manhattan's Engie 7, Ladder 1, a fire company with 230 years of history, when the tragedy struck. They have the only known footage of the first plane and then followed firefighters into the north tower with their cameras to get the rescues live. CBS will donate money raised from the broadcast to the Univormed Firefighters Association Scholarship Fund.