Exactly twenty years ago today, on October 28th, 2001, CBS Sunday Morning aired a five-minute piece on Manhattan Unfurled. It was the result of a long collaboration with producer and writer Ed Forgotson, who had followed Matteo during more than a year while he worked on the project.
Both the filming of the actual interview and the final editing of the footage happened in the weeks right after September 11th, when the years-long project had profoundly changed in nature. The piece that aired on October 28th became an emotional homage to a skyline that was portrayed in a way that had just changed forever.
“But as for the real New York …” (at minute 4:15) is how Charles Osgood, who narrates and conducts the interview, begins the final section on the recently transformed Manhattan skyline.
Paul Goldberger, then architecture critic of the New Yorker magazine, also appears in the piece, offering his always illuminating insight.