Post by Nikkol on Aug 4, 2010 8:13:28 GMT -5
Mosque Plan Clears Hurdle in New York
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Sharif El-Gamal, chief executive of SoHo Properties, the developer of the project, center, praised the commission’s decision.
By MICHAEL BARBARO and JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: August 3, 2010
As New York City removed the final hurdle for a controversial mosque near ground zero, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg forcefully defended the project on Tuesday as a symbol of America’s religious tolerance and sought to reframe a fiery national debate over the project.
With the Statue of Liberty as his backdrop, the mayor pleaded with New Yorkers to reject suspicions about the planned 13-story complex, to be located two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, saying that “we would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.”
“To cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists — and we should not stand for that,” the mayor said.
Grappling with one of the more delicate aspects of the debate, Mr. Bloomberg said that the families of Sept. 11 victims — some of whom have vocally opposed the project — should welcome it.
“The attack was an act of war — and our first responders defended not only our city but also our country and our Constitution,” he said, becoming slightly choked up at one point in his speech, which he delivered on Governors Island. “We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights — and the freedoms the terrorists attacked.”
But even as the mayor called for the mosque to be embraced, those opposed to the project pledged to aggressively fight it, using both litigation and public pressure. A prominent Republican and foreign policy analyst said he was working with business, civic and political leaders to organize a campaign to persuade architects, contractors and donors to steer clear of the project. He said they would also aggressively scrutinize any donors who supported it.
The Republican, Daniel Senor, a former high-ranking official with the coalition government in Iraq, said that anybody who works with the center “needs to know there is going to be a real stigma associated with this project.”
“Do they really want to be involved with something so detrimental, that might set New York back?” he asked.
Lawyers representing a firefighter who survived 9/11 also said they would file a lawsuit on Wednesday to block the city’s approval.
The plan for the complex, which began as a local zoning dispute, has quickly snowballed into an intense national debate about the nature of Islam and the meaning of the Sept. 11 attacks.
National Republican leaders, like the former House speaker, Newt Gringrich, and Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee, assailed the proposal, calling it offensive. On Friday, the Anti-Defamation League, an influential Jewish civil rights group, declared its opposition, distressing many in the interfaith community.
The disagreement has underscored how differently the World Trade Center site is viewed by those in New York and those outside of it.
In the city, the space has returned, haltingly, to the urban grid, sprouting new office towers and train stops. But beyond New York’s borders, it looms as a powerful symbol of the war on terror and the lives lost on that day.
Those opposed to the project have argued that building a Muslim community center so close to the site where radical Muslims killed about 2,750 people is as much a political statement as a religious gesture, and have demanded that developers find a different location.
Bill Doyle, whose 25-year-old son, Joseph, was killed in the attacks, said many families who lost loved ones at the site were “incensed” about the mosque, viewing it as a tribute to the terrorists behind the hijackings. Part of their anger stems from their broader frustration over redevelopment of the site, and plans for a memorial that would be located beneath street level.
“High up in the air you have a 13-story mosque, outshining the memorial itself,” Mr. Doyle said. “It’s almost a slap in the face.”
Proponents, eager to address the raw feelings the issue has aroused, emphasize that the center would focus on interfaith dialogue, include members of other religions on its board, and feature what its developer called “a Sept. 11 memorial and contemplation space.”
Sharif El-Gamal, the developer, said he was reaching out to elected officials, community groups and opponents to directly explain the center’s mission and allay any fears about it.
But it has been challenging. On Tuesday, at the final Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing on the project, Mr. El-Gamal said he tried to introduce himself to a Republican candidate for governor, Rick A. Lazio, a vocal opponent of the project.
“He just looked at me and walked by,” Mr. El-Gamal said.
On Tuesday morning, the project received its final city approval when the landmarks commission voted 9 to 0 to deny granting historic protection to the building in Lower Manhattan where the $100 million center would be constructed.
Opponents, who have turned out in large numbers to speak out against the plan at public hearings this summer, seemed resigned to losing the vote, and few showed up to protest. After the commission voted, scattered members of the audience shouted “Shame on you!” and “Disgrace!” One woman carried a sign reading, “Don’t Glorify Murders of 3,000; No 9/11 Victory Mosque.”
There were signs that the intense backlash had left moderate American Muslims uneasy about the plan for such a large center near ground zero.
“There is some ambivalence within the community,” said Hussein Rashid, a visiting professor of religious studies at Hofstra University who specializes in Islam in America. “We still want to know who is going to be involved in this. So far, we have heard from just a few Muslim voices. If this is meant to be a community center, who in the community will be involved?”
The mosque presented a potentially challenging political situation for Mr. Bloomberg. Some of his most fervent supporters — religious Jews, working-class whites in the boroughs outside Manhattan and conservative Republicans — opposed the idea.
But Mr. Bloomberg loathes what he sees as old-school ethnic politics. And from the start, he viewed it as a simple question of law and American values, privately expressing consternation at those who sought to block the project. As the fight over the proposal intensified, he encouraged aides to find an occasion for him to deliver a major speech on the topic.
Even some of his friends disagreed with him. But behind the scenes, Mr. Bloomberg was heartened to hear that some of the families of Sept. 11 victims supported his position, and told him so at a fund-raiser for the memorial at the site two weeks ago, aides to the mayor said.
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times
Sharif El-Gamal, chief executive of SoHo Properties, the developer of the project, center, praised the commission’s decision.
By MICHAEL BARBARO and JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
Published: August 3, 2010
As New York City removed the final hurdle for a controversial mosque near ground zero, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg forcefully defended the project on Tuesday as a symbol of America’s religious tolerance and sought to reframe a fiery national debate over the project.
With the Statue of Liberty as his backdrop, the mayor pleaded with New Yorkers to reject suspicions about the planned 13-story complex, to be located two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, saying that “we would betray our values if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else.”
“To cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists — and we should not stand for that,” the mayor said.
Grappling with one of the more delicate aspects of the debate, Mr. Bloomberg said that the families of Sept. 11 victims — some of whom have vocally opposed the project — should welcome it.
“The attack was an act of war — and our first responders defended not only our city but also our country and our Constitution,” he said, becoming slightly choked up at one point in his speech, which he delivered on Governors Island. “We do not honor their lives by denying the very constitutional rights they died protecting. We honor their lives by defending those rights — and the freedoms the terrorists attacked.”
But even as the mayor called for the mosque to be embraced, those opposed to the project pledged to aggressively fight it, using both litigation and public pressure. A prominent Republican and foreign policy analyst said he was working with business, civic and political leaders to organize a campaign to persuade architects, contractors and donors to steer clear of the project. He said they would also aggressively scrutinize any donors who supported it.
The Republican, Daniel Senor, a former high-ranking official with the coalition government in Iraq, said that anybody who works with the center “needs to know there is going to be a real stigma associated with this project.”
“Do they really want to be involved with something so detrimental, that might set New York back?” he asked.
Lawyers representing a firefighter who survived 9/11 also said they would file a lawsuit on Wednesday to block the city’s approval.
The plan for the complex, which began as a local zoning dispute, has quickly snowballed into an intense national debate about the nature of Islam and the meaning of the Sept. 11 attacks.
National Republican leaders, like the former House speaker, Newt Gringrich, and Sarah Palin, the 2008 vice presidential nominee, assailed the proposal, calling it offensive. On Friday, the Anti-Defamation League, an influential Jewish civil rights group, declared its opposition, distressing many in the interfaith community.
The disagreement has underscored how differently the World Trade Center site is viewed by those in New York and those outside of it.
In the city, the space has returned, haltingly, to the urban grid, sprouting new office towers and train stops. But beyond New York’s borders, it looms as a powerful symbol of the war on terror and the lives lost on that day.
Those opposed to the project have argued that building a Muslim community center so close to the site where radical Muslims killed about 2,750 people is as much a political statement as a religious gesture, and have demanded that developers find a different location.
Bill Doyle, whose 25-year-old son, Joseph, was killed in the attacks, said many families who lost loved ones at the site were “incensed” about the mosque, viewing it as a tribute to the terrorists behind the hijackings. Part of their anger stems from their broader frustration over redevelopment of the site, and plans for a memorial that would be located beneath street level.
“High up in the air you have a 13-story mosque, outshining the memorial itself,” Mr. Doyle said. “It’s almost a slap in the face.”
Proponents, eager to address the raw feelings the issue has aroused, emphasize that the center would focus on interfaith dialogue, include members of other religions on its board, and feature what its developer called “a Sept. 11 memorial and contemplation space.”
Sharif El-Gamal, the developer, said he was reaching out to elected officials, community groups and opponents to directly explain the center’s mission and allay any fears about it.
But it has been challenging. On Tuesday, at the final Landmarks Preservation Commission hearing on the project, Mr. El-Gamal said he tried to introduce himself to a Republican candidate for governor, Rick A. Lazio, a vocal opponent of the project.
“He just looked at me and walked by,” Mr. El-Gamal said.
On Tuesday morning, the project received its final city approval when the landmarks commission voted 9 to 0 to deny granting historic protection to the building in Lower Manhattan where the $100 million center would be constructed.
Opponents, who have turned out in large numbers to speak out against the plan at public hearings this summer, seemed resigned to losing the vote, and few showed up to protest. After the commission voted, scattered members of the audience shouted “Shame on you!” and “Disgrace!” One woman carried a sign reading, “Don’t Glorify Murders of 3,000; No 9/11 Victory Mosque.”
There were signs that the intense backlash had left moderate American Muslims uneasy about the plan for such a large center near ground zero.
“There is some ambivalence within the community,” said Hussein Rashid, a visiting professor of religious studies at Hofstra University who specializes in Islam in America. “We still want to know who is going to be involved in this. So far, we have heard from just a few Muslim voices. If this is meant to be a community center, who in the community will be involved?”
The mosque presented a potentially challenging political situation for Mr. Bloomberg. Some of his most fervent supporters — religious Jews, working-class whites in the boroughs outside Manhattan and conservative Republicans — opposed the idea.
But Mr. Bloomberg loathes what he sees as old-school ethnic politics. And from the start, he viewed it as a simple question of law and American values, privately expressing consternation at those who sought to block the project. As the fight over the proposal intensified, he encouraged aides to find an occasion for him to deliver a major speech on the topic.
Even some of his friends disagreed with him. But behind the scenes, Mr. Bloomberg was heartened to hear that some of the families of Sept. 11 victims supported his position, and told him so at a fund-raiser for the memorial at the site two weeks ago, aides to the mayor said.
