Cordoba Initiative plans to erect a 15-story mosque and Muslim Center at Ground Zero. They claim they will be constructing a much-needed community center for the downtown neighborhood, but a $73 million, 60,000-square foot community center is already under construction a few blocks away.
So yet again we find more of the lies of the morphing mosque narrative debunked. There is no "need" for a community center, let alone a victory mosque at Ground Zero.
You'll also notice how all the discourse has been shut down, and the media is now functioning as the PR arm for radical Imam Rauf, thug Sharif El-Gamal, and Daisy the Khan.
Check this article out in a Downtown Manhattan newspaper.
Downtown by Design
Battery Park community center will be state of the artPark51 backers aiming to build a 13-story Muslim Center near Ground Zero claim they will be constructing a much needed community center for the downtown neighborhood, yet a $73 million, 60,000-square foot community center is already under construction a few blocks away.
The Battery Park Community Center is being built within the base of two new [unintelligible] Properties high-rise residential condominium towers: the Liberty Lane and Liberty Green, now under construction on North End Avenue.
The community center project itself was designed by Hanrahan Meyers with the goal of the highest environmentally friendly Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) platinum certification being overseen by environmental consultants [unintelligible].
Kevin G. Harney, principal and CFO of Stalco Construction, which is building the community center, said that while some companies find LEED work challenging, they found it “enticing,” because they have been involved in many other LEED projects.
“From air quality to debris removal, we are under strict guidelines,” Harney added.
The community center will be housed on the street level, in a mezzanine and on two underground levels of the towers. Along with the main lobby with an atrium, the facilities will include an adult swimming pool, a children’s pool, a gymnasium and fitness center, locker rooms, a theater/auditorium, dance studios, classrooms, offices, a cafeteria, kitchen, bathrooms, and storage and equipment rooms.
Even those that are simply passersby will be drawn to the curving 550-foot long outer glass arcade wall that runs alongside two ball fields and a soccer field facing West Street just north of the World Trade Center site. The arcade wall will feature a patterned interpretation of a composition, “Water,” commissioned by composer Michael Schumacher, said Thomas Hanrahan, RA, and a partner with Hanrahan Meyers’ Partner.
“Schumacher’s composition is represented visually in the digitized form in the pattern of the glass wall,” noted Victoria Meyer, a partner with Hanrahan Meyer. “The music will be also accessible through a smartphone application that will allow visitors to hear the score simply by pointing their phones at the wall, with different sections playing a different part of the composition.”
Inside the building, the glass wall fronts two swimming pools and a gymnasium. The interiors will feature metal panel and plaster over concrete ceilings, tile flooring, along with a sports hardwood floor inside the gymnasium.
The LiRo Group’s Anthony Buquicchio, the construction manager, said, “The design calls for light cell controls of interior lighting and maximizing daylighting, which will significantly reduce energy use through natural light harvesting.” Although located on the cellar level, the gymnasium and the pool will feature expansive windows.
The smaller children’s pool will also feature an innovative hydraulic pool floor elevator system.
“The elevator will control the depth of pool’s floor in order to accommodate users of varying physical abilities, including the disabled and children,” said Stalco’s vice president and senior project manager, Robert V. Isbit.
The community center is a result of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) rules wherein every developer has to provide some community space or facilities to Battery Park City residents. The BCPA will administer the project, which will be managed by a community nonprofit organization. – Lois Weiss
