By Aprille Muscara
NEW YORK
(IPS) - In a case viewed
by many as a test of religious toler-
ance in the post-9/11 era, the New
York City Landmarks Preservation
Commission (LPC) voted unani-
mously Tuesday morning, August 3,
against designating the future loca-
tion of aMuslim-led community cen-
ter as a historic landmark.
The vote means that demolition
plans to make way for the controver-
sial 13-story, 100 million-dollar center
two blocks from the former Twin
Towers in lower Manhattan can pro-
ceed.
The center has been opposed by
conservative Republicans such as
Sarah Palin, Rick Lazio, and Newt
Gingrich, as well as the head of the
Anti-Defamation League, Abraham
Foxman.
In response to Tuesday's decision,
theAmerican Center for Lawand Jus-
tice (ACLJ) told IPS that it plans to file
an Article 78 appeal against the LPC
on behalf of TimBrown, a 9/11 first re-
sponder firefighter.
"Legally speaking, this will be one
of multiple legal angles that [the
ACLJ] will take," Jordan Sekulow, di-
rector of international operations,
told IPS, "This is the first part of our
strategy."
However, numerous other faith
and community organizations, in-
cluding the Jewish lobby group J-
Street, the American Jewish
Committee and September 11th Fam-
ilies for Peaceful Tomorrows, sided
with the project, with J-Street accus-
ing its opponents of "tapping into
fear, prejudice, and partisanship."
An official with the Cordoba Ini-
tiative, which is a co-sponsor of the
community center, told IPS that no
concrete timetable has yet been de-
cided for demolition of the building
or construction of the center.
LPC Commissioner Christopher
Moore said Tuesday that the decision
against designating 45-47 Park Place
as a protected site was not made on
the basis of religious freedom, even as
he acknowledged the sensitivities
surrounding development of the area.
"Memories do not reside in land-
ing gear or in a building. I
believe it resides in its
space, its address
and its connec-
tion to the hor-
rific events of
9/11," Moore
said. "Last I
heard, we do
not landmark
the sky, but I
wish we could."
No matter what
will take the building's
place, Moore concluded, "its
space will always memorialize the
people who were in those planes, in
those buildings and in the sky."
Although no comments were per-
mitted at the vote, members of the
public attended the hearing to wit-
ness the commission's decision. One
woman in the audience, U.S. flag in
hand, held up a sign reading "Islam
builds mosques at the sites of their
conquests of victory. Don't glorify
murders of 3,000. No 9/11 victory
mosque."
In an echo of last month's hearing
where public comments were heard,
some audience members shouted at
the panel upon the vote's conclusion,
calling the decision a "disgrace."
Barbara Paolucci, a community
activist and longtime New York City
resident was among them. "It's a
moral issue," Paolucci told IPS. "The
landing gear that was flown into one
of the towers is in [the building] –
that makes it a war memorial."
Isaac Luria, vice president of Com-
munications for J-Street, attended the
meeting and presented the commis-
sionwith a petition of support for the
center, dubbed Park51.
Luria characterized the opposition
to Park51 in recent months as "offen-
sive and wrong" in an e-mail. "On
what possible basis doMuslimAmer-
icans have less of a right than Ameri-
cans of another background to
develop this communal center?"
Luria asked, adding, "It's a propa-
ganda gift to Islamic extremists glob-
ally who hope to whip up anger over
the treatment of Muslims."
Most of the alarm about Park51,
which has come from Tea Partiers,
politicians, pundits and ordinary cit-
izens, has arisen from its undisclosed
funding sources and the site's loca-
tion at 45-51 Park Place, so close to the
twin tower rubble.
"Even nine years after 9/11, people
are too emotionally charged for [the
center] to be there without being la-
beled as insensitive to the feelings of
victims," New York City resident
Wilton Arellano told IPS.
The disquiet over the project –
ranging from concerns for 9/11 fami-
lies' ability to heal to vitriolic lies
about terrorist shrines – have not
fallen on deaf ears.
Daisy Khan, one of the founders of
Park51, revealed plans Tuesday for a
9/11 memorial to be part of the center
in an interview with the Wall Street
Journal. She also said that board
members will be of various religions
and noted the possible inclusionof an
interfaith chapel in the final product,
adding that no funding has yet been
raised for the project.
"We've heard and felt [the families
of the 9/11 victims'] pain andwe're ex-
tending ourselves," Khan said. "We
want to repair the breach and be at
the front and center to start the heal-
ing."
Meanwhile, MelodyMoezzi, attor-
ney and author of "War on Error: Real
Stories of American Muslims," be-
lieves that Park51 and the support
that non-Muslim individuals and
groups have shown it says a great deal
about American-Islamic relations in
the post-9/11 United States.
"Most Americans realize that Islam
is not amonolith, and they knowbet-
ter than to judge the whole of a com-
munity by the worst among us,"
Moezzi told IPS. "Just as most Chris-
tians do not want to be judged by the
KKK or Hitler's false claims to Chris-
tianity, most Muslims, too, do not
want to be judged by somemisguided
terrorists' false claims to Islam."
Last month, the project's devel-
oper, Soho Properties, rebranded it as
"a community center for all New
York," scrapping its initial Cordoba
House moniker for the more generic
Park51.
According to its Web site, Cor-
doba House will now be a "pro-
gram" of Park51 and "will be a center
for interfaith dialogue and engage-
ment."
The community center is set to
house a 500-seat auditorium, swim-
ming pool, meeting rooms, retail
shops, culinary school, restaurant
and mosque – the target of most of
the project's criticisms – which will
be administered separately from the
rest of the center.
Muslim center
prevails in battle
over site near
'Ground Zero'
The disquiet over the
project – ranging from con-
cerns for 9/11 families' abil-
ity to heal to vitriolic lies
about terrorist shrines –
have not fallen on deaf ears.
Ramadan
20
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