*Ground Zero: No longer Black and White

Through Suzanne Berne’s descriptions, Ground Zero amplifies the fact that there is always more to see. There is no argument that September 11, 2001 was and still is one of the United State’s most horrific days. For most people, September 11^th was just another normal routine Tuesday.  Some people went to work, some went to school, and some even went to their birthday celebrations. Having been such an ordinary day, no one would have expected for life all around them to turn completely black and white. On September 11, 2001, the United States of American faced a series of terrorist attacks killing more than three thousand sons and daughters. And because of the camera crews, not only did New York residents have to experience the pain, but so did the rest of the world as everyone, together, watched three aircraft crash into the twin towers, destroying everything in sight. Today, what’s left after the attack is now known as Ground Zero and it may look like a boring construction sight, but Suzanne Berne and the families of those who lost their lives would think differently.

            In Berne’s first couple paragraphs, she describes the scenery and how “people from everywhere” came to Ground Zero to pretty much stare at nothing. “Nothing” as she puts it “is what it first [looks] like.” Suzanne Berne states how after adjusting your eyes, “nothing becomes something more potent” and how such a simple construction sight with cranes, bulldozers and jackhammers is really a “great bowl of light [that seems] spacious and grand.” Ground Zero is empty, but after looking at it for more than a second, “the absence begins to assume a material form, when what is not there becomes visible.” Ground Zero is a space not known for what it is, but rather for what it was. Berne describes how all of a sudden the twin towers are brought back to life and how that heartbreaking day is repeated all over again, having to stare “devastation” eye to eye, “superimposing those terrible images onto the industrial emptiness right in front.” Suzanne Berne continuously states how there is more to see within Ground Zero and she does so using short, simple paragraphs making it easier to understand and actually feel the way she did in Manhattan. Suzanne Berne’s essay, Ground Zero, not only proves that there is always more to see, but it also reflects on how even though over three thousand people died, they will be never be forgotten.

            After reading Suzanne Berne’s essay, Ground Zero, to me, seems not like a tourist attraction, but more of a black and white picture where people come to add their own color.