A Manhattan community board approved Tuesday the construction of a mosque and Islamic cultural center near the World Trade Center site.
The measure passed 29-to-1, with 9 abstentions.
The vote was not essential, but it is seen as key to obtaining public support for the project.
It comes as word of a decades-old landmark status application could threaten the project.
City officials said yesterday that the 150-year-old building that would be torn down for the mosque is historically and architecturally significant, as it was constructed in the Italian Renaissance palazzo style.
It was proposed as a landmark in the late 1980s, but after an initial public hearing, no action was taken.
The landmarks Preservation Commission says it will hold another public hearing early this summer. The commission says even if the building is given landmark status, the building could still be altered for use as a mosque.
The Cordoba Institute’s $100 million plan has angered some residents and families of September 11th victims, who say it’s insensitive.
Those behind the project say it would help to improve relations between Muslims and non-Muslims around the world.
(Source: NY1)
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4 Responses
1) The Imam in charge of this mosque project NOW is showing himself as being against terrorism. However, just after 9/11 he condemned the US and supported the rights of those murderers.
2)In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, NOT ONE Islamic religious official voiced ANY condemnation of this horrific act. Now that it is “politically correct” to do so, SOME (including this Imam) has done the “politically correct” thing.
3) The BIGGEST QUESTION is who is financing this HUGH project? Is this a foreign power? Saudia Arabia? Libya?
There is a protest march scheduled for June 6th at the site.
They will let them build a mosque at ground zero but they can’t put another bank in Boro Park
#3
What is the connection between a mosque in Manhattan and a bank in Brooklyn?