Few events in recent memory have called up the resonant ideological debates of 9/11 as forcefully as the mosque being planned near the former site of the World Trade Center in Manhattan. It appears these are debates we will keep having, as New York City's Landmarks Preservation Commission has voted to let the Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement proceed with their plans. Along with those plans will come more discussion of religious freedom, taste, and the specter of a Western/Muslim cultural World War. From the NY Times:
The city's Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9 to 0 against granting historic protection to the building at 45-47 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, where the $100 million center would be built...The vote on Tuesday was free of much of the vitriol that had been part of previous hearings. One by one, members of the commission debated the aesthetic significance of the building, designed in the Italian Renaissance Palazzo style by an unknown architect.After the commission voted, several 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."
Read the full story at the City Room blog.
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