Church’s Troubles Typify Ground Zero Delays (2008 NYT - south tower fell on St. Nicholas)

NY Times ^ | 7/03/08 | CHARLES V. BAGLI

[Libloather]

Church’s Troubles Typify Ground Zero Delays
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
Published: July 3, 2008

The story of the tiny St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and its efforts to rebuild after the collapse of the World Trade Center is one of well-intentioned promises that led to endless negotiations, design disputes, delays and mounting costs.

It is, in other words, a microcosm of the seven-year, $16 billion, problem-plagued effort to reconstruct the entire trade center site.

Within a month of the attack on the trade center, Archbishop Demetrios, primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, pledged that the four-story church would rise “on the same sacred spot as a symbol of determined faith.” Gov. George E. Pataki agreed.

But today, the church exists only on blueprints. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency overseeing reconstruction, has not finalized the exchange of land needed to provide the congregation with a new home near ground zero. Until that deal is completed, the authority cannot proceed with building the southern foundation wall for the entire site, and cannot draw up designs for a bomb screening center for buses and trucks that would go under the new church.

[Libloather]

Read it for yourself - http://www.stnicholasnyc.com/

[Paladin2]

Simple. Make the mosque pay for it and make room for it at their place.

[ThunderSleeps]

Hmm, a Christian Church is given the run-around literally for years... Yet a Muslim Mosque and community center is fast-tracked through the system? I thought government was not supposed to play favorites with religions. Something is terribly terribly wrong in NYC.