Tag Archives: 45-51 park place

Imam Feisal Abdul Raif is leading the Ground Zero mosque building efforts

Park51 to Allow US Government Sign Off On Donations

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Imam Feisal Abdul Raif is leading the Ground Zero mosque building efforts
Imam Feisal Abdul Raif is leading the Ground Zero mosque building efforts

The Imam behind the Park51 development hopes that opening his books will open hearts for his Islamic community center.

In an effort to bolster fundraising and ease any suspicion towards the $100 million dollar price tag for the Park51 Islamic community center, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has allowed the US Government to sign off on all donations made to the development.

Also, according to a report in today’s New York Post, Rauf stated that “the mosque and Islamic cultural center will have a board of directors that will include Muslims, Christians and Jews.” This may be seen as yet another olive branch towards easing dissent towards building a mosque and islamic center near Ground Zero.

The inclusion of an inter-faith board of directors might have been in response to Julie Menin, Chairwoman of Community Board 1’s open column in the Daily News calling for a revised interfaith plan for the Park51 development. In that column Menin states, “I believe it is still possible to bridge the gap without compromising the core principles of what this project is about — not by moving the mosque further away from the site of the attacks, but by bringing other faiths in.”

How do you feel about the US Government being allowed to sign off on all donations made to the Park51 development?

New York Post WTC Remains Map

Grim Map Shows Suggested Boundaries of Ground Zero

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As we head into tomorrow’s 9th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, the New York Post has published a morbid map which argues the boundaries of Ground Zero can be determined by where human remains were discovered.

New York Post Human Remains Map of Ground Zero
New York Post Human Remains Map of Ground Zero (Credit: NYPost.com)

The article was written in response to the proximity of the Park51 Islamic Community Center and whether or not the area is far enough from the site of the terror attacks in New York City.

According to the article, “The map was obtained by The Post from sources after the Fire Department did not respond to requests to review it. It shows that remains were found just 348 feet to the south of the mosque site at 45 Park Place, on top of the massive post-office building that stretches along Barclay Street, from Church Street to West Broadway.”

1,123 victims of the World Trade Center attacks have yet to be identified by remains. 21,812 remains have been found and catalogued at the Fresh Kills Landfill, yet a little more than half have been identified.

But the map is only a partial glimpse of the scope of the search for remains. The vast majority of the 21,812 remains were culled from debris sorted at the Fresh Kills Landfill. Of those remains, only 12,771 have been identified so far.

For more information on the statistics, read the original article here.

Donald Trump places a bid to purchase the Park51 site.

Trump Offers to Buy Park51 Building

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Donald Trump places a bid to purchase the Park51 site.
Donald Trump places a bid to purchase the Park51 site.

Real Estate Mogul Donald Trump has offered to purchase the site where the Park51 Islamic Community Center stands.

A letter dated today was sent to the property owners via email with a statement:

“I am making this offer as a resident of New York and citizen of the United States, not because I think the location is a spectacular one (because it is not), but because it will end a very serious, inflammatory, and highly divisive situation,” Trump wrote to Hisham Elzanaty an owner who has the majority financing over the proposed site.

Building records show that the building at 45 Park Place has sold for $4.85 million in July 2009.  According to previous statements by Elzanaty, “Develop it, raze it, sell it. If someone wants to give me $18 or 20 million dollars today, its all theirs.”

Elezanaty’s attorney made a public comment claiming Trump’s offer was merely a publicity stunt, calling the offer “laughable” and said it was not a serious one.

Sheldon Silver Park51

Sheldon Silver: The Mosque Should Move

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Sheldon Silver Park51
Sheldon Silver weighs in on the Park51 debate.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver is calling for the relocation of the controversial Park51 mosque.

Silver, who agrees that the Constitution protects the rights of the developers who want to build the community center and mosque, also feels they should be as interested in compassion for 9/11 victim families

“They should find a suitable place that won’t cause the same controversy,” Silver stated at a press conference with Gov. Paterson.

The Governor also offered his help in relocating the Park51 development. Discussions between the developers and the Governor have not materialized.

Silver’s call for reconsideration came right before the Governor was set to speak with Archbishop Timothy Dolan to discuss Park51 and how to facilitate moving the controversial development.

Park51 and the Cordoba Initiative have stated clearly their resolve in staying at 45-51 Park Place, and show no signs of relocating their community center. Daisy Kahn, one of the founders and wife of Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, had stated that the relocation matter was “a bigger fight.”

Park51 Mosque Protest Image

The Heart of the Mosque Debate: Community Safety

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It has been extremely challenging to cover the deluge of news surrounding our neighborhood in the past few months.

When we started this site, we intended for it to be a community-building place online: a place where we could discuss with pride the rebuilding of the new World Trade Center and the metamorphosis it will surely bring to our area.

However, we could not have anticipated the national response towards the development of the Park51 mosque, a development connected — in ways other than geography — to the greater rebuilding of Lower Manhattan. Issues of ‘fundamental rights’ and ‘racism’ have sprung up, and our readers (and the nation as a whole) remain divided.

Ideological debates aside, some troubling events from this weekend leave us with another important question: How can we be protected and made safe from opponents targeting the mosque in our area?

In the video above (shared with us via Facebook), protesters lambast a person they wrongly believe is a Muslim.

Racial profiling and police profiling in our area has been recorded in negligible amounts. A recent New York Times article published a map of police stops in the city; stops in our area were nearly non-existent.

How will the environment and political tension surrounding the mosque change our neighborhood’s safety? Sure, we don’t live on Ground Zero, but this is an area where we walk for our groceries, for our subways and in September, this is the route some of us take to bring our children to school.

I’m not sure if all in the community share the same concerns as some. If the plans for Park51 go through — and they are as iconic as the developers plan — will this mean we as a community should start to get used to constant protests? If so, how long will they last? Who will help to protect residents of Lower Manhattan from the national scrutiny?

These are questions I feel are not being asked enough. I hope that someone out there is concerned not with the political, or the religious, but the safety ramifications this might cause our community.

Ground Zero Mosque

Park51 Location Chosen By 19 Year old Francisco Patino

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Ground Zero Mosque
The planned location of the Park51 Mosque a.k.a "The Ground Zero Mosque"

He was 14 at the time of the September 11th attacks, probably unaware that merely 5 years later he would be responsible for finding one of the most controversial developments in the nation.

According to reports published in the New York Daily News today, Francisco Patino was working for developer Sharif El-Gamal to help research and find an appropriate location for the Park51 development.

“I told him to go out and find available buildings for the project, and he did. He’s a phenomenal kid,” Gamal is quoted in the same article, “We were looking at buildings all over the area. I liked a lot of them but this was the one we ended up on. It was just meant to be.”

Patino, 23, currently works at Chase Manhattan Bank and has gained notoriety as a contestant on “American Inventor” a popular TV show that aired in 2006.

The article also mentions, “Patino was barely a man in 2006 and had only come to this country when he was 12. No young newcomer could be expected to understand the sensitivities beneath the contradictions.”

Opponents of the Park51 mosque are found nationwide.

CNN: 70% of All Americans Oppose Park51/Cordoba Mosque

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Opponents of the Park51 mosque are found nationwide.
Opponents of the Park51 mosque are found nationwide.

Results from a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll today shows that opposition to the Park51 mosque is not limited to New York City voters — but nationwide.

70 percent of all Americans oppose the plan to build a mosque 600 feet from the Ground Zero / World Trade Center site. While only 29 percent were in favor of the Park51 mosque.

In terms of the breakdown of those polled, opposition crossed all political lines and age demographics.

54 percent  of Democrats polled were against the development, while 82 percent of Republicans polled were against it. 70 percent of Independents polled were also against the building of the mosque.

6 in 10 people under the age of 50 oppose the plan.

These poll results come after a recent Quinnipiac poll determined that most New York voters were against the building of a mosque at Ground Zero.

The results from the poll are below:

Cnn Mosque Poll

Ground Zero Mosque

Another Hurdle for Park51 Mosque: Con Edison

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Ground Zero Mosque
The planned location of the Ground Zero Mosque.

After clearing a vote against landmark status for 45-47 Park Place, another hurdle has emerged concerning the development of what has been dubbed “The Ground Zero Mosque” or the Park51 Mosque.

The mosque which is slated to be located at 45-51 Park Place, built on two parcels of land, is only half owned by the developers spearheading the project according to the NY Post which first broke the report over the weekend. The building at 45-47 Park Place, which had been undergoing landmark status hearings is owned by Soho Properties, the developers of Park51 — whilst the building at 49-51 Park Place is not. Park51 is named after the address 51 Park Place, the address in scrutiny.

More surprisingly, the owner of the other parcel of land is actually Con Edison. This information took even Community Board 1 proponents by surprise who had not heard of this revelation through its own hearings.

According to the article, “Sharif El-Gamal, the head of Soho Properties, first came forward in 2006 seeking to buy the empty building at 45-47 Park Place, said Melvin Pomerantz, whose family owned the property.

Pomerantz said El-Gamal eventually raised $4.8 million cash for 45-47 Park Place. El- Gamal paid an extra $700,000 to take over the lease with Con Ed for the building next door. The lease expires in 2071.”

The discrepancy emerged because the two buildings were connected years ago, as it housed a former Burlington Coat Factory and was generally assumed ownership for that entire parcel was under one ownership, without the Community Board #1’s knowledge that Soho Properties would be developing half of the site under paying a $33K a month lease to Con Ed.

Con Ed is appraising the property for a potential sale, “The utility is now doing an appraisal to determine the property value, and it would be up to El-Gamal to decide whether to accept the price, the utility said. The price is estimated at $10 million to $20 million.

“We are following our legal obligations under the lease. We will not allow other considerations to enter into this transaction,” Con Ed said.

The sale proposal will go to the Public Service Commission, where it could possibly face a vote by a five-member board controlled by Gov. Paterson,” according to the same article.

Do you think that this will be a significant hurdle for the Park51 Mosque?

Imam Feisal Abdul Raif is leading the Ground Zero mosque building efforts

Landmark Commission Issues 9-0 Vote Against Landmark Status

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Imam Feisal Abdul Raif is leading the Ground Zero mosque building efforts
Imam Feisal Abdul Raif is leading the Ground Zero mosque building efforts

UPDATED:Developers of the Ground Zero mosque have recieved a green light from today’s Landmark status vote on 45-51 Park Place, the slated address of the Park51 mosque.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9-0 against granting landmark status to the former Burlington Coat Factory building, clearing the way for the Cordoba Initiative to develop their Park51 mosque.

The vote was seen as the biggest hurdle for the Cordoba initiative’s plans on building a Muslim community center 600 feet from the World Trade Center site.

However, according to the New York Post, should the vote clear the way for the dubbed “Ground Zero Mosque,” a lawsuit is set to be filed immediately against the landmark vote on behalf of 9/11 first responders.

“We believe the Landmarks Preservation Commission would have allowed politics and mayor’s fervent support for the project to replace the deliberative process,” said Jack Lester, an attorney for 9/11 responder Tim Brown according to the same article.

The next step for the developers would be to solidify the $100 million dollar price tag for construction costs. Imam Feisal Abdul Raif, one of the developers of the mosque is said to solicit funding from the Muslim communities, foundations as well as Muslim nations for funding.

How do you feel about granting the site landmark status? Should this stop the building of the mosque?

Park51 Architecture may be influenced by Cooper Union and 7 World Trade Center

Sharif El-Gamal Sees Mosque As Empire State Building

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Park51 Architecture may be influenced by Cooper Union and 7 World Trade Center
Park51 Architecture may be influenced by Cooper Union and 7 World Trade Center

The developer of the Park 51 mosque and community center, formerly known as the Cordoba Initiative — has put his ambitions on the record with the Wall Street Journal for the impending World Trade Center mosque to be a significant architectural structure in New York City.

“I want to build something that when people come to New York…that Park51 is on that red tour bus as something that they have to see because it’s one of the most significant buildings in New York City,” says El-Gamal in the Wall Street Journal.

El-Gamal’s architectural team could be a great indication of his potential success, but has not named a team just yet. However, he has noted that two buildings he considers great examples of the architectural direction of the mosque include the steely Cooper Union building in Astor place and the glass behemoth 7 World Trade Center building.

According to the same article it was noted that the design would evoke modernity and would not necessarily adopt a traditional mosque style, “It’s definitely going to be an expression of New York and of America,” Mr. El-Gamal said in an interview Friday, a few days after his project, now dubbed Park51, came under fire at a raucous Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing.”

The slated location for the Park51 mosque has already been converted into a makeshift mosque with nearly 400 Muslims who journey to the location at 45-51 Park Place for Friday prayer service.