On the Parameters of Ground Zero

In New York City, not far from the site of the former World Trade Center, there exists a vacant Burlington Coat Factory building, which as most of you are probably aware of by now, has been chosen as the site of an Islamic cultural center. This “Ground Zero Mosque,” oddly enough, has been taken as an act of bad faith by some. In response to the ensuing controversy, proponents of the project have made a number of interesting defenses, one of the more frequent being that the proposed site isn’t even at Ground Zero at all, but two blocks away. This argument depends on an untenable definition of what Ground Zero is.

As many may recall, only two buildings were directly struck on September 11, yet the debris from the initial impact and the ensuing collapse ended up causing all seven buildings in the WTC complex irreparable damage. As it happens, certain buildings farther from the epicenter met similar fates, such as one vacant Burlington Coat Factory building, which has been vacant since 2001 because the landing gear from the first plane put a hole in its roof and its top two floors. So, yes, technically if one defines Ground Zero as WTC 1and 2, this is not Ground Zero. It’s an entirely different building in Manhatten destroyed by terrorism on September 11.

Which is a pedantic and irrelevant distinction.