ISLAMIC CENTER NEAR WTC SITE GETS GREEN LIGHT; BIGOTRY GETS RED LIGHT!

The bigots lost. Despite the efforts ranging from bottom feeder nimrods like Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer to people who should know better like the Anti-Defamation League, the Islamic Center at the old Burlington Coat Factory location on Park Place and Broadway, near the site of the World Trade Center has lept past the final hurdle. By a unanimous vote, The New York City Landmarks Commission decided not to give the site landmark status – a move made by the opponents of the center to keep it from being built – and allowed the plans for it to go forward. If the bigots that fought these efforts wanted to consider this to be a symbolic victory for those they wanted to consider (by default due to their religion, mind you) the perpetrators of 9-11, it is. But then again, it is a victory for a good and just people overall. We are all going to benefit from this center, despite what the conservatives say – and will say in their propaganda in the days, weeks, months and years to come before it all stops. But they better understand something quick: They don’t own 9-11. They are not the only ones who felt the pain and anguish of that day. Most importantly 9-11 is not their Reichstag. If they want to act like it is, they had best remember the fate of the people who made the Reichstag their rallying cry, because it is going to befall them if they don’t start backing off on their hatred and polarization. And if we never said it before, we need to say it now: Anti-Defamation League, go back to the days when you fought for the good of all people or go to hell. Your lunacy is going to be the death of us.

CNN

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission denied landmark status Tuesday for a building at the site of a proposed Islamic center and mosque near ground zero.

The commissioners voted unanimously against landmark status for 45-47 Park Place. It and an adjoining building are owned by real estate developer Soho Properties, which intends to build an Islamic center two blocks north of the former site of the World Trade Center.

While the public vote was the focus of much debate about the planned Islamic center and mosque, the commission could not have prevented the developers from building such a community center. The commission, by designating the building a landmark, could only have prevented Soho Properties from demolishing the building or significantly altering its exterior.

There is a prayer site in the building currently, so Muslims are peacefully praying in the building already.

“We will continue going forward with the project. It’s a project that will build bridges,” said Oz Sultan, spokesman for the Cordoba Initiative, the organization behind the planned center. It says the group is “committed to promoting positive interaction between the Muslim world and the West.”

Cordoba opposed landmark status for the five-story building because it would like to build a taller, modern building. “It’s not minarets,” said Sultan, who described a mock-up of the proposed center as consistent with the latest architecture found in New York City.

New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and other city leaders support the Islamic center.

Opponents, including former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, have argued against a mosque being so close to the scene of the nation’s worst terrorist attack.

“Peace-seeking Muslims, pls understand, Ground Zero mosque is UNNECESSARY provocation; it stabs hearts. Pls reject it in interest of healing,” Palin said last month on her Twitter account.

The Anti-Defamation League, an organization that battles anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry, is asking that the Islamic center and mosque be built farther away from ground zero in consideration of families who lost loved ones during the September 11, 2001, attacks.

“Building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right,” the organization said in a written statement.

The Landmarks Preservation Commission pointed out prior to its decision that it would have nothing to do with the planned use of the structure.

“The purpose of tomorrow’s vote is to decide whether the building has a special character or special historical or aesthetic interest or value as part of the development, heritage or cultural characteristics of New York City, New York state or the nation,” commission spokeswoman Elisabeth de Bourbon said Monday.

Most recently the home of a Burlington Coat Factory retailer, 45-47 Park Place was completed in 1858. The Landmarks Commission described it as “a prominent example of the store and loft structures that dominated the dry goods warehouse districts of Lower Manhattan” during the era.