From Manhattan Local News, courtesy TROP
Mosque to Open Two Blocks From World Trade Center
The downtown community has mixed feelings about plans for an Islamic center near Ground Zero, but Community Board 1 approved the plan Wednesday night.
By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — The old Burlington Coat Factory building on Park Place has sat shuttered and empty since the landing gear from a hijacked plane crashed through the roof on 9/11.
Now, a Muslim group hopes to build a mosque and cultural center there, replacing what they see as the worst of Islam with the best.
“We have a vision that is opposite the vision of the extremists,” said Daisy Khan, executive director of the Cordoba Initiative, the group behind the center. “We want to be a driving force for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan.”
Community Board 1’s Financial District Committee embraced the center’s message of tolerance and voted unanimously Wednesday night to support the project.
“Finally we can get that ugly space taken care of,” said Pat Moore, a member of the committee who lives nearby.
But other members of the community, who did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, want the mosque to find a different home.
“It doesn’t belong down here,” said Rosemary Cain, whose firefighter son was killed on 9/11. “It makes me sick to think the city would allow such a thing.”
While Cain acknowledged that “not every person who is Muslim is a terrorist,” she thinks the Muslim community as a whole never sufficiently declaimed the attacks.
John Schmidt, 29, a construction worker who is rebuilding the World Trade Center, also got angry when he heard about the plans.
“No way,” he said. “Muslims bombed the towers. Why would they put a mosque next to the Freedom Tower?”
Khan envisions the $100 million, 100,000-square-foot Cordoba House as much more than a mosque: She wants it to be a gathering place for the entire downtown community, including residents, workers and tourists, whether they are Muslim or not.
The 13-story center, which could open as soon as 2013 at 45 Park Place, will include a 500-seat auditorium, a basketball court, a swimming pool and a kitchen for cooking classes. Khan hopes to host interfaith conferences and panels along with more lighthearted events like a Muslim Idol talent competition.
Iqbal Hossain Chowdhury, 42, who runs a newsstand on Park Place, said the center would provide much-needed education for Muslims as well as non-Muslims.
“People read the Koran and they don’t know the meaning,” said Chowdhury, who is Muslim. “It is good for them to learn — to learn is best.”
Matt Migeal, 39, who was selling 9/11 photo books in front of the World Trade Center on Wednesday, also thought it was good for the mosque to move in.
“This didn’t happen because of Muslim people,” Migeal said, gesturing toward the site. “Terrorism and Islam have nothing to do [with each other].”
The Cordoba Initiative already runs a mosque on West Broadway and started holding weekly services in the new Park Place space last year. As the services grow, they could attract up to 2,000 people, Khan said.
Khan said she has heard very little criticism of the center so far, though she added that Saturday’s attempted Times Square bombing didn’t help.
“Events like [Times Square] always set us back,” Khan said. “Leaders have to push back in the other direction, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
I bet that mosque gets built before they do the Freedom towers.
I bet you’re right!
“We want to be a driving force for the rebuilding of Lower Manhattan.” Should have read “…for the infiltration of Lower Manhattan, paid for with Western pigs, monkeys, asses and dogs’ money” .
Theyre all a bunch of scum-bag barbarians.
Have a look at their world: they still live in mudbrick huts and treat women like shit.
Not to mention the whole drawing muhammed thing.
Get the fuck over yourselfs and stay in your filthy barren dump of a homeland.
This is a travesty…way to slap 9/11 victims and their families across the face. We might as well build a fucking memorial in pearl harbor for the japanese pilots that got shot down. Fuck muslims
“Christianity” you are not worthy of your name. Your comment should be removed as it is blatantly ignorant and insulting.
Let me define it for you since you don’t even seem to be educated on the difference between a culture, a religion, a people vs. a fundamentalist, or a terrorist and terrorist acts.
Chris·ti·an·i·ty (kr?s’ch?-?n’?-t?, kr?s’t?-)
n.
The Christian religion, founded on the life and teachings of Jesus.
Read up. Jesus would not echo your hateful and ignorant sentiments.
Nice Attitude, vlad does not remove comments that are made in err, are ignorant, insulting, satirical or offensive, perceived or otherwise.
ignorance