Yes, stuff has been built there. The reflecting pool and memorial is complete, I think. The new One World Trade Center is probably around 40 stories tall by now, and the subway station is being worked on.
You’ve heard of YMCAs and such, haven’t you? It’s the same idea. It sounds like they are no longer saying it will include a mosque specifically. They’re saying it will have a “prayer space” instead, although obviously a lot of Muslims are going to use it. I think there was always going to be a nondenominational prayer space as well. The rest of the facility is going to have basketball courts and a library and other things that don’t have any religious component.
Just to add a bit, here’s a web cam (you’ll need daylight) and photo galleries up to September or here for more cams and some time-lapses. Google Earth’s 3d model is mostly up to date as well.
If you think you get to ask whether other people “should” be allowed to exercise their constitutional freedoms and that this is some kind of public debate everybody gets to weigh in on, you don’t really grasp constitutional freedoms.
I’m pretty sure I saw water running into the memorial, just like it will be running when everything is all built. I don’t know if that’s just a test, or if they are planning on keeping it going, but, yes, lots of progress has been made.
Basketball courts!!! How dare they! Obviously, the terrorists have won.
Amen, especially with regard to Manhattan proper. I was amused to realize, when I was vacationing there last summer, that it was entirely practical to walk from my Upper West Side hostel to Columbus Circle (just south of Central Park). Took a bit less than an hour at a leisurely pace. And this is considered a serious distance on Manhattan.
Oh, I knew that, I was just surprised to see it in operation. I guess I could have been clearer. Anyway, yes, much progress made. I’m looking forward to the underpass from the PATH station to the WFC, although I’m sure that 3 or 4 years away.
FinnAgain summed up my position rather nicely. They have every right to build a community center there or anywhere else they have property and planning permission.
the 92 St. Y, one of NYC’s preeminent community centers, also has a very famous center for Jewish religious life, including religious services.
So? Why do you assume that means that somehow the community is excluded from using the pool or learning Spanish or seeing a play? I know this may be surprising to you, but there is no “prove you’re a jew” requirement when you cross the threshold of the 92Y. It’s for everyone, and everyone makes use of it.
When I was but a wee Jewish kid, I played baseball in a little league sponsored by a Catholic Church. I also went to a YMCA sleepaway camp. Somehow, I survived those experiences without being forcibly converted to christianity.
I hope they build it; I work in the area and we can use reasonably priced gym.
The OP wasn’t asking if the Muslims should be allowed to build the Community Center, he/she was accepting that they are allowed to do so, and asking that given that, should they do it.
Certainly we can agree that just because somethings constitutional doesn’t mean its a good idea.
That is exactly what I was saying. They CAN build there, but SHOULD they? Our society has often combined those two. The majority of the time, people think that since they CAN do something, they SHOULD. My personal stand point is that they should still build the mosque, but perhaps bump it back a few blocks farther away. This would then allow it to be built, and hopefully shut the people that are extremely against this up.
However, I think that it is a community decision since the people in the general area are the most effected. Let them decide. Make the citizens within that area vote for it.
If it is built, some people will find it offensive considering that a few times in the past, mosques have been built on “sites of defeat.” I am not saying that this is one of those situations, but some people feel that way. If the mosque is completely denied by the government and local officials, well that would piss people off because it is against our Constitutional rights.
Either way it goes, there are going to be people pissed off. So I say find a middle ground and go from there.
