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After a raucous hearing, a Manhattan community board backed a proposal on Tuesday evening to build a 'Muslim community center' near the World Trade Center.
The 29-to-1 vote, with 10 abstentions, followed a four-hour back-and-forth between those who said the community center would be a monument to tolerance and those who believed it would be an affront to victims of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
C. Lee Hanson, 77, whose son Peter was killed in the attacks, said he opposed the center not because he was intolerant, but because he believed that building a tribute to Islam so close to the World Trade Center would be insensitive.
“The pain never goes away,” ... “When I look over there and I see a mosque, it’s going to hurt. Build it someplace else.”
But Mr. Williams was not the only critic. Many families of Sept. 11 victims fervently opposed the proposal, saying they were offended by the idea of building a prayer space so near the site.
“That should be a serene site,” Bill Doyle, a leader of a group of 9/11 families, said in a telephone interview. “Now you’re going to see protests and demonstrations there all the time.”
City officials, including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg; the City Council speaker, Christine C. Quinn; and the Manhattan borough president, Scott M. Stringer, have rallied behind the proposal... Ms. Quinn pledged on Tuesday to help shepherd the center to completion.
“I’m very confident we could find a way for both the landmark concept and the development of the mosque to move forward,”
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