The developer who once proposed a mosque and Muslim community center near ground zero now plans a museum devoted to Islam at the same site.
According to The New York Times, Sharif El-Gamal said through a spokesman he wants to build a three-story museum “dedicated to exploring the faith of Islam and its arts and culture.”
He said in a statement that he commissioned French architect Jean Nouvel to design a 5,000-square-foot museum. The building also would include a sanctuary for prayer services and community programs.
It’s unclear how El-Gamal would fund the project.
Spokesman Hank Sheinkopf would only say that El-Gamal would initially finance it himself and hoped to find other benefactors.
No timetable was given. Buildings at 45 Park Place and 51 Park Place, two blocks from the World Trade Center site, would need to be demolished first.
(AP)
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5 Responses
Great, we can learn more about the “religion of peace” and how they had nothing to do with 9/11.
The history of this matter is a good illustration of how to understand “real-estate-developer-speak.” The current proposal is substantially less grand than the first proposal, and I expect that the final proposal, if it ever gets built, will be less grand than the current proposal. And a 5,000 square-foot museum is, in some ways, an insult to its content, for which a lot of opponents of this development (of which I am not one) have been hoping.
In response to reb pork’s insensitive comments I say not all muslims are terrorists but most terrorists are muslim.
There already is a museum in that neighborhood about Islam. These guys just don’t like what it shows.
“most terrorists are muslim.”
Probably not true. We forget the violent non-Muslim terrorists such as the Tamil Tigers, the IRA, the ETA, the Shining Path, the FARC, and others around the world that don’t attack Jews, not to mention the various extremist groups in the US. And the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine isn’t Muslim.