Demolished church ignored in NYC mosque furor

laura Ingraham ^ | 8/24/10 | staff

[Nachum]

Supporters of a Greek Orthodox church destroyed on Sept. 11 say officials willing to speak out about a planned community center and mosque near ground zero have been silent on efforts to get the church rebuilt.

But the World Trade Center site's owner says a deal to help rebuild St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was offered and rejected, after years of negotiations, over money and other issues.

Though the projects are not related, supporters - including George Pataki, New York's governor at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks - have questioned why public officials have not addressed St. Nicholas' future while they lead a debate on whether and where the Islamic cultural center should be built.

[BelegStrongbow]

This has been all over FaceBook. There are probably twenty petitions begin circulated and they’re all tremendously popular.

[NonValueAdded]

Oh, they are well aware of it and HAVE addressed it in their remarks. Notice how the _resident was careful to say "... includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in lower Manhattan." You see, Port Authority land is involved in the St. Nicholas rebuilding. Hence the carefully couched remarks.

[A_Former_Democrat]

I would question the motives too . . .but I already know them

They’re called PC pandering and cowardice

[SES1066]

You see, Port Authority land is involved in the St. Nicholas rebuilding.

Unless I am mistaken, St.Nicholas did/does own the land that the destroyed church was upon as referenced in this 2008 NY Times article. The confusion may enter this story in that the Port Authority (PA) of New York and New Jersey, wanted this land for other uses at various times. Since the PA has almost ridiculously great power, it behooved this parish to pay attention to their various proposals to trade parcels of land. However the last that I had heard is that the PA had ended negotiations and left the Church to rebuild on the original land. However stories may vary according to political correctness.

[marron]

These days trying to build any church in an urban setting is increasingly difficult to impossible. They’ll drive you crazy, the planners and city councilmen, and local community “leaders”.

Which again is what makes this so surprising, that while you can’t get permission to build a church, even one that was already there, the mosque gets hand-waved right on through in nothing flat.

My understanding is that there is already a mosque a couple of blocks away. They don’t want another mosque, they want a monument and they want it specifically in Ground Zero.