How It's Used

“Prince William [County] is also ground zero for the middle-class revolt against the Bush administration’s easy immigration policies. An estimated 10 million migrants have entered the United States since 2000, at least half of them illegally, and few places in the United States have reacted more angrily than Prince William County. Last year, the Prince William Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to require the local police to check the immigration status of all arrested persons.”

—David Frum, “The Vanishing Republican Voter,” The New York Times, September 7, 2008.

“Palm [B]each is ground zero of the Madoff affair. The posh sliver of land is home to a high concentration of those bilked by the brazen, alleged Ponzi artist. Bernard Madoff maintained a 8,700-square-foot mansion north of town and prospected for marks at the exclusive Palm Beach Country Club, where he was a member.”

—Daniel Gross, “Spit When You Say, ‘Madoff’: How Palm Beach's ultrarich are recovering from the financial scandal,” Slate, January 3, 2009.

"Ground zero of the Columbus battle has been Colorado, home to the nation's first official Columbus holiday about a century ago. Columbus Day parades in Denver have faced acrimonious protests for much of the past decade. Marchers have been on the receiving end of dismembered dolls and fake blood strewn across the parade route. Dozens of protesters have been arrested over the years."

—Conor Dougherty and Sundeep Reddy, “Is Columbus Day Sailing Off the Calendar? Parades Get Dumped, the Holiday Renamed; Brown's 'Fall Weekend,’” The Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2009.

"Huge craters filled with water from burst mains marked ground zero of each explosion. Despite being ringed by nine-foot high blast walls, the closest corner of the justice ministry to the detonation point was a mere three metres away. The blast had ricocheted across the road to a public works building, setting it alight and killing at least five people."

—Martin Chulov, "Two car bombs kill 147 in Iraq as militants target official buildings ahead of election: More than 700 wounded in second attack since July: Sunni militants suspected of being behind violence," The Guardian (UK), October 26, 2009.

"A few weeks after Sept. 11, 2001, Glenn Beck, a young Tampa-based disc jockey eager to break into conservative talk radio, called his new Manhattan agent, George Hiltzik, to help arrange a visit to Ground Zero. Hiltzik directed Beck to his 29-year-old son, Matt, who had returned to his job with the TriBeCa-based studio head Harvey Weinstein after playing a key role in electing Hillary Rodham Clinton to the U.S. Senate."

—Jason Horowitz, "To find right PR guru, Beck looked to his left," The Washington Post, October 28, 2009, p. C01.

Links

Related on eAlmanac
A Bomb
H Bomb

Beyond eAlmanac
Wikipedia article on Ground Zero
Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered Web site
The Tribute WTC Visitor Center official Web site