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Six weeks after the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, Rev. Thomas Taylor, a Lutheran pastor volunteering in the Ground Zero morgue, ducked into St. Paul’s, the Lower Manhattan chapel that famously became a hub for volunteers and bereaved relatives. Near the back, he spotted a man sitting on a pew, intently sketching the raw scenes of human tragedy playing out all around him.

“I thought, ‘Wow, this guy can really draw,’ ” Mr. Taylor, now 60, recalls. The man with the pad was Toronto artist John Coburn, who had been drawing New York for years and had travelled to Manhattan within a month of the disaster.

Mr. Coburn asked if he could sketch Mr. Taylor, who was wearing a rescue helmet and had spent many nights ministering to first responders and volunteers.

The man with the pad was Toronto artist John Coburn, who had been drawing New York for years and had travelled to Manhattan within a month of the disaster. (John Coburn)

Afterward, Mr. Taylor leafed through dozens of Mr. Coburn’s emotion-laden images depicting fire halls, Ground Zero carnage or visual collages of victims created from chance encounters with grieving family members. He told Mr. Coburn the images had the power to aid the healing that had to take place in the aftermath.

This week, 27 of Mr. Coburn’s 9/11 drawings – which freakishly survived a 2006 fire that destroyed his Dupont Street studio – were presented as a donation to the National September 11 Museum and Memorial at a reception in the Canadian consulate in Midtown Manhattan. He’ll also be participating in a 15th-anniversary service on Sunday at a Long Island Lutheran church where Mr. Taylor now works.

“It’s going to be somewhat sombre,” the pastor said in an interview. “Some of my friends in the 9/11 community are finding this year to be harder [than previous anniversaries] and we don’t know why.”

The Hamilton-born artist began drawing New York street scenes during a visit when he was just a 17-year-old college student. (John Coburn)

Mr. Coburn’s rich drawings have had a remarkable circular journey.

When Mr. Taylor suggested he compile them into a book, Mr. Coburn, with a growing circle of supporters, raised the funds and published Healing Hearts in late 2002. A signed copy of the book, which was never publicly released, was sent to almost all of the families of the 3,000 victims, with FedEx donating the shipping costs.

Mr. Coburn, 59, recounts that he was galvanized to press ahead with the project after meeting Rosemary Cain, whose son George, a firefighter, had perished when the towers collapsed. Mr. Coburn created a sketch of him based on a photo she provided. “If your little book can help four people remember my son George,” she told him, “it’s worthwhile.”

Mr. Coburn’s detailed and intimate images, which often include marginalia, evoke the work of the French artist and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé, as well as the photos of some of New York’s great street photographers. (John Coburn)

The Hamilton-born artist began drawing New York street scenes during a visit when he was just a 17-year-old college student. He’s returned to the city dozens of times. He makes his art by sitting on a portable stool on the sidewalk and watching the city do its thing. “What wanders by often becomes part of the drawing,” he said.

Mr. Coburn’s detailed and intimate images, which often include marginalia, evoke the work of the French artist and illustrator Jean-Jacques Sempé, as well as the photos of some of New York’s great street photographers. He’s published three volumes of his New York drawings, and his work has been shown around the city, including an exhibition at The New Yorker’s former Times Square offices.

When he arrived in late October, 2001, Mr. Coburn snuck through two cordon barriers and hurried through the silent canyons of Lower Manhattan until he reached Ground Zero. When a police officer brusquely told him to leave the area, he pulled out an old drawing of the twin towers. “He looked at it and said, ‘You do what you need to do,’ and walked away.”

Mr. Coburn’s rich drawings have had a remarkable circular journey. (John Coburn)

Four years after the book was printed, a late-night fire ripped through the old Toronto warehouse where Mr. Coburn had his studio. He recalls standing on the sidewalk and praying that the drawing of George Cain would survive. The next morning, a firefighter discovered a folio containing 27 drawings that had somehow evaded the flames. Most of the canvases had water stains and burned edges, making them that much more evocative.

After Mr. Coburn displayed those drawings at an exhibit at a Wall Street corporate headquarters in 2011, several curators, including the then-president of the auction house Christie’s, approached him about finding a permanent home for them in New York. Mr. Coburn and his art dealer, Thomas Beckett, finally donated them to the 9/11 museum, where they’ll now be on display.

As for the book, both he and Mr. Taylor hope a second edition can be published and made available to the general public. “These drawings,” Mr. Coburn mused this week, “are a testament to survival.”

This week, 27 of Mr. Coburn’s 9/11 drawings – which freakishly survived a 2006 fire that destroyed his Dupont Street studio – were presented as a donation to the National September 11 Museum and Memorial at a reception in the Canadian consulate in Midtown Manhattan. (John Coburn)