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A year after controversy engulfed plans to build a Muslim community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, the project’s developers are quietly moving ahead: In recent months they have hired a paid staff, started fund-raising drives and continued holding prayers and cultural events in their existing building two blocks from ground zero.
...
Sharif El-Gamal, the lead developer, who controls the property at 45-51 Park Place, has spent the past year trying to regroup. He has severed ties with the project’s original imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf. He has crisscrossed the country to attract donors, built relationships with neighborhood groups and Muslim organizations and recruited the aunt of a 9/11 victim to his advisory board — all things he says he should have done before going public last year.
This part gave me a good laugh.
Mr. El-Gamal also said he would assess the community response to the events now held at Park51’s makeshift space, varying from art exhibits and yoga and Brazilian martial arts classes to Muslim holiday observances and a discussion for Muslim and non-Muslim children about bullying.
Bullying? That's a no-no. Bombing? We'll talk, but bullying is off limits.
I'm sure at some point this project will get done.
But I mentioned this in another thread yesterday - regular people do have power. Regular people put a stop to the original plans for a mega-mosque at that location. If it was up to the city leaders and those who have the financial means to pull this off - it would be a done deal. But it didn't happen because regular Americans stood against this.
We have the power to have the kind of America that we want. It's in our hands when we make the effort to take the reins.
A year after controversy engulfed plans to build a Muslim community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan, the project’s developers are quietly moving ahead: In recent months they have hired a paid staff, started fund-raising drives and continued holding prayers and cultural events in their existing building two blocks from ground zero.
... Sharif El-Gamal, the lead developer, who controls the property at 45-51 Park Place, has spent the past year trying to regroup. He has severed ties with the project’s original imam, Feisal Abdul Rauf. He has crisscrossed the country to attract donors, built relationships with neighborhood groups and Muslim organizations and recruited the aunt of a 9/11 victim to his advisory board — all things he says he should have done before going public last year.
This part gave me a good laugh.
Mr. El-Gamal also said he would assess the community response to the events now held at Park51’s makeshift space, varying from art exhibits and yoga and Brazilian martial arts classes to Muslim holiday observances and a discussion for Muslim and non-Muslim children about bullying.
Bullying? That's a no-no. Bombing? We'll talk, but bullying is off limits.
I'm sure at some point this project will get done.
But I mentioned this in another thread yesterday - regular people do have power. Regular people put a stop to the original plans for a mega-mosque at that location. If it was up to the city leaders and those who have the financial means to pull this off - it would be a done deal. But it didn't happen because regular Americans stood against this.
We have the power to have the kind of America that we want. It's in our hands when we make the effort to take the reins.
It more likely didn't happen because they don't have the money to build the mosque/MCC in the first place and are still meeting in the old Burlington Coat Factory building on that site. The other part of the story is that they are scaling the building down from the originally-proposed 13 stories to 3 or 5.
Do you have any information indicating that this group is involved with any bombings?
The co-founder of the controversial Islamic center Park 51, located just two blocks from Ground Zero, told PIX 11 he's ready to open its doors this week, with a special, photographic exhibit. "September 21st is the United Nations' International Day of Peace," Sharif El-Gamal said in his first, local television interview. "We figured what better day to launch our first project."
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