NEW YORK — A city panel cleared the way Tuesday for construction of a mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center, an issue that has caused a political uproar over religious freedom and the 2001 terrorist attacks even as the plan’s foes vow to press their case in court.
The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9-0 to deny landmark status to a building, two blocks from ground zero, that developers want to tear down and convert into an Islamic community center and mosque. The panel said the 152-year-old lower Manhattan building isn’t distinctive enough to be considered a landmark.
The decision drew praise from Mayor Mi chael Bloomberg, who called the project a test of Americans’ commitment to religious freedom.
“The World Trade Center site will forever hold a special place in our city, in our hearts,” said Bloomberg, a Republican turned independent. “But we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves, and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans, if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan.”
Opponents of the mosque say it shows disrespect for the memory of the 9/11 victims.
Zead Ramadan, board president of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said critics “are trying to connect this vile attack on our nation to the religion Islam, though that exact act stands against everything that Islam stands for.”
