Its not a mosque, and its not at ground zero

[Bill McIntyre]

Its a lot like a YMCA. A YMCA may have a place to pray in addition to basketball courts and meeting rooms, but we don't call it a Cathedral.


ROBERT SCHLESINGER
The 'Ground Zero Mosque' Is Not a Mosque (or at Ground Zero)

By ROBERT SCHLESINGER
Posted: August 16, 2010
Despite what you might have heard, a 13-story mosque is not going to be built at ground zero in lower Manhattan. For that matter, a 13-story mosque is not going to be built within a few blocks of ground zero. Rather a 13-story building is going up which will contain, among other things, a mosque.

This might seem like an academic distinction, but in the heated debate surrounding Park51, or as the building is known more commonly, the "ground zero mosque," it really is an important one.

First here are the facts: The building in question is planned to be a Muslim community center, a sort of YMCA (or, I suppose, YMMA). The plans are for it to have fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court), a 500-seat auditorium, a restaurant and a cooking school, exhibition space, a library, art studios, a 9/11 memorial--the impudence! the outrage!--and childcare facilities (which no doubt will soon be referred to as a "Manhattan Madrasa"). And it's also going to house a mosque.

But calling the entire building a mosque is a bit like referring to the Empire State Building as a 103-story Walgreens because the pharmacy chain has a store on the ground floor.

And for that matter it's important to keep in mind that it's not at ground zero. It's two blocks north of ground zero, on a street running parallel to the old World Trade Center site. And as FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver has observed, Park51 although somewhat architecturally daring does not contain minarets or other spire-like features that would give it greater prominence than an ordinary, 12-story building. Like dozens and dozens of other buildings, and several other places of worship near to Ground Zero, it would be quite well concealed among Lower Manhattan's dense street grid.

In other words to look at the building, you wouldn't say: Aha! A mosque! But the press routinely refers to the building as a mosque, and its critics often blur or are unclear about its location. So over the weekend, Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said on Fox News Sunday that, "I do think it's unwise to build a mosque at the site where 3,000 Americans lost their lives as the result of a terrorist attack." (Emphasis added.)

Again, these may seem like small points, but they're not. This debate is taking place on a gut, emotional level. Reasonable critics argue, for example, that this is about sensitivity rather than about liberty. And on that gut level, there's a real difference between a 13-story mosque (which conjures images of a foreign looking structure with minarets and so forth) rising up out of--or even adjacent to--the hole in the ground that used to be the World Trade Center, and a 13-story community center tucked away on a side street a couple of blocks from ground zero. The former lends itself to the sort of irresponsible rhetoric of triumphalist Islamicists that Newt Gingrich goes on about. The latter is, well, reality.

[SpearMax]

Originally Posted by Bill McIntyre

But calling the entire building a mosque is a bit like referring to the Empire State Building as a 103-story Walgreens because the pharmacy chain has a store on the ground floor.

Bill, interesting article. Here is an image of a Mosque. My question to you using the Walgreens analogy is:

How many square feet will the mosque portion of the building be compared to the total square footage of the entire building?

[Bill McIntyre]

Originally Posted by SpearMax

Bill, interesting article. Here is an image of a Mosque.

Here is an image of a church. Does it look much like a YMCA? I know you read the article, but for those who didn't-

And as FiveThirtyEight's Nate Silver has observed, Park51 although somewhat architecturally daring does not contain minarets or other spire-like features that would give it greater prominence than an ordinary, 12-story building. Like dozens and dozens of other buildings, and several other places of worship near to Ground Zero, it would be quite well concealed among Lower Manhattan's dense street grid.

My question to you using the Walgreens analogy is:

How many square feet will the mosque portion of the building be compared to the total square footage of the entire building?

I don't know. Does it really matter?

[Nate Baker]

Originally Posted by SpearMax

Bill, interesting article. Here is an image of a Mosque. My question to you using the Walgreens analogy is:

How many square feet will the mosque portion of the building be compared to the total square footage of the entire building?

[SpearMax]

Originally Posted by Bill McIntyre

Here is an image of a church. Does it look much like a YMCA? I know you read the article, but for those who didn't-

I don't know. Does it really matter?

Bill, I read the article and am not stoning you.

I merely posted the photo to reinforce what the article said - i.e. that it will not look like a mosque.

My desire to know proportionate size is based on many years of managing office buildings and real estate in general.

i.e. if the mosque part of the building is only 500 square feet out of 50,000 square feet total, maybe the author's point would be better made. The concept of materiality comes into play here in my mind. I would then say - so what? It sounds like a chapel inside a big hospital.

[SpearMax]

Bill, any luck with finding out the square footage answer? I think it would be useful for me and others to form a concrete opinion one way or the other on this issue. Thanks, Tony

[Bill McIntyre]

Originally Posted by SpearMax

Bill, any luck with finding out the square footage answer? I think it would be useful for me and others to form a concrete opinion one way or the other on this issue. Thanks, Tony

No, the best I can find is stuff like this.

Rauf has announced his plans to turn the building into a complete Islamic cultural center, with a mosque, a museum, "merchandising options," and room for seminars to reconcile religions, "to counteract the backlash against Muslims in general, " Speigel reported. The project may cost as much as $150 million. Plans for the facility also include a 500-seat performing arts theater, fitness center, swimming pool, library, public conference rooms, basketball courts and restaurants, according to the Tribeca Tribune.

I doubt if they have gone as far as actually drawing specific plans.

[SpearMax]

Originally Posted by Bill McIntyre

No, the best I can find is stuff like this.



I doubt if they have gone as far as actually drawing specific plans.

Bill, they might have a building code that limits the "church" aspect of a structure. Maybe a contractor like Bret can tell us if such restrictions are typically in building codes. Then we would have to look at NYC code specifically. Based on everything you have presented, this thing could turn out to be one big Mosque percentage-wise that is. Tony