I will be in NY for a first-time visit 9/28-10/2. Are they allowing any viewing or visitation of any type at Ground Zero?

Marsha, please refer to the site as The World Trade Center Site. Ground Zero is an offensive name the media made up.

The WTC site is open to the public. It is a big giant hole you cannot miss if you are in the Financial District. Take the subway to City Hall and walk south about 3 blocks or get off at Fulton Street and you will run right into it.

I'm a New Yorker who works across the street from the site and I don't find the words "ground zero" to be offensive. It's a shorthand way of referring to the area and imo conveys the devastation that was there. There is no more World Trade Center and there never will be so we may as well get used to calling it something else.

`If you don't find "Ground Zero" offensive, than you aren't a New Yorker. Even the local papers don't use that term.

NYer, so what? Who cares what the tabloids call it? You must have a very delicate skin if you let something as stupid as "ground zero" offend you. Not very New York-like, now is it. What offends me is the huge freaking hole in the ground where a few thousand people were murdered, ok with you?

I prefer the term Ground HERO

There are so many people and nations trying to further divide our world. Perhaps we can avoid it here. Marsha, you can pay your respects at the WTC site and you may also find it meaningful to view the church across the street where the fence surrounding the church is filled with memorials.

I don't see a problem with calling it the World Trade Center site. After all, we don't call Pearl Harbor or Auschwitz Ground Zero.

Junebug, thank you very much I work for Deutchsbank and if you work in the area you know exactly my former location. As a New Yorker that lives in the Village and now works on 6th Avenue, I have every right to politely suggest that Marsha call it by its name.

Fred, I work in the World Financial Center and I have to look at ground zero every single day. No one here in my office is bothered by the use of "ground zero", everyone says it. We had to witness bodies being pulled out of that pile from our windows for months. If it bothers you to hear it called ground zero, fine, that's your perogative. I didn't think your "request" was particularly polite, you told her not to refer to it and you seemed to be speaking for all New Yorkers. Not everyone feels the same way as you do.

I guess the NYTimes isn't a "local paper" then? A quick search on their website produced 447 hits for the words "ground zero." Before reading this post, I have never heard anyone express offense at the use of that term.

Fred,

Sorry if this offends you, but most of us do not want to refer to a pile of rubble as the World Trade Center. Personally, I would rather think of those beautiful towers as the World trade center.

I agree that it is a disgusting thought, but the truth is the World Trade Center is gone.

It is no longer the WORLD TRADE CENTER.
But it is the WORLD TRADE CENTER SITE. Which is a hell of a lot more respectful a name than Ground Zero which was a media name, they always have to make up some catchy name for everything!

Marsha, yes you can visit the site, and I think Rachel's suggestion to take some time looking at the memorials at the church fence would be very moving, thank you for wanting to pay respect.

After all that has gone on here, it seems petty to argue over the name of the site, but I must admit, until I heard someone reflect last week on TV that "at this point (as they re-viewed how they felt at this same time LAST YEAR) we were still calling it the Trade Towers, the media has coined the term "Ground Zero" . . .I think that Fred must have seen the show and this is where he got his lofty idea to speak for all New Yorkers. Please focus on the victims and their families, not on yourself.