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The developer of the ill-fated Ground Zero Mosque won't relent on his goal of planting a flag on the grave of 3,000 Americans. The New York Post reports that Sharif El-Gamal and his banking partners announced Wednesday that he secured "Sharia-compliant financing" to build a luxury condominium tower and an Islamic museum on the same site as the proposed Ground Zero Mosque -- four blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood. The $174 million dollar project features a three-story Islamic cultural museum at 51 Park Place and 48 high-end residential condos in a 43-story tower at 45 Park...

The infamous Ground Zero Mosque project is officially dead. We won. We the People.Crains New York reports that the unsavory developer behind the Ground Zero Mosque initiative, Sharif El-Gamal, is now making different plans: “Mr. El-Gamal’s Soho Properties has proposed a 667-foot condominium tower at lower Manhattan’s 45 Park Place. The glass skyscraper, which has yet to break ground, will include at least 15 full-floor units of 3,200 to 3,700 square feet, and average prices higher than $3,000 a square foot, according to plans released to Bloomberg by the developer.”If El-Gamal hopes to snag $3,000 a square foot, there is...

The New York Times has a big write up on the latest developments on the now scrapped Ground Zero mosque plan. All of you who fought that 15 story mosquestrosity with us – kudos to you. We fought back and we won. Sharon Otterman, the write of the NY Times piece, asked for my comments but of course didn’t use any of them. Here is what I said when asked about Sharif el-Gamal’s plans to build a museum to Islam at the site of the jihad attacks at Ground Zero. Sharon, I believe that a center at Ground Zero studying...

NEW YORK -- The developer who once proposed a mosque and Muslim community center near ground zero now plans a museum devoted to Islam at the same site. According to The New York Times, Sharif El-Gamal said through a spokesman he wants to build a three-story museum "dedicated to exploring the faith of Islam and its arts and culture."

NEW YORK (AP) -- The developer of an Islamic cultural center that opened Wednesday evening near the site of the terrorist attacks that leveled the World Trade Center says the biggest error on the project was not involving the families of 9/11 victims from the start. People crowded into the center, where a small orchestra played traditional Middle Eastern instruments and a photo exhibit of New York children of different ethnicities lined the walls. The enthusiasm at the opening belied its troubled beginnings. snip He called opposition to the center - which prompted one of the most virulent national discussions...

The organization planning to build an Islamic community center near the World Trade Center said the imam who has been the public face of the project, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, will be playing a reduced role in the facility. The nonprofit group Park51 announced Friday that it had named a new imam to help lead religious programing so that Rauf could focus on other initiatives. Rauf announced late this fall that he would be starting a global movement that would fight extremism and promote better relations between people of different faiths and cultures. He is set to start a national...

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has advertised the controversial Ground Zero mosque as an Islamic outreach to the community, a cultural center open and intended to unify all religions. Today, he still stands by that assertion, even as his proposed mosque continues to exact the opposite effect before it’s even built. Now, harsh critics, such as Chairman of the Religious Freedom Coalition, William Murray, are presented with even more perplexing information in the form of Sharif El-Gamal (pictured), the mysterious developer behind the mosque. Reportedly a waiter by profession who suddenly “came into” the kind of money to spearhead a $100...

While there has been much emotion and argument over the proposed mosque two blocks from Ground Zero, it has largely swirled over issues that miss the nature and significance of the issues involved. Thus we hear endless variations on the theme “How can a moderate imam whose stated goal is to promote healing in the wake of 9/11 be so insensitive to the feelings of those who lost those they loved at the hands of Islamic fanatics?” But, as the public is slowly learning, Imam Rauf is no moderate and bridge-building is not his agenda. The project with which Rauf...

The original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price. The Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid, The Post has learned. El-Gamal did offer what could be viewed as a sweetener to his $4.8 million bid in July 2009 -- a job as a property manager for a son of the family,...

The mosque developers are tax deadbeats. Sharif El-Gamal, the leading organizer behind the mosque and community center near Ground Zero, owes $224,270.77 in back property tax on the site, city records show. El-Gamal's company, 45 Park Place Partners, failed to pay its half-yearly bills in January and July, according to the city Finance Department. The delinquency is a possible violation of El-Gamal's lease with Con Edison, which owns half of the proposed building site on Park Place. El-Gamal owns the other half but must pay taxes on the entire parcel.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The developer behind plans to build an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from ground zero kicked off fundraising for the project Friday by raising $10,000 in just a few minutes from a congregation of Muslim worshippers. Sharif El-Gamal announced the start of the funding drive at the conclusion of Friday prayer sessions that have been taking place since last year in the vacant Manhattan clothing store that is to be torn down to make way for the new center.

Park51 developer Sharif El-Gamal, accidental protagonist of the most politicized real estate story in recent memory, sat behind the blond-wood desk in his office six floors above the lower Broadway mall, and, meaty hands clasped before him, held forth on what it takes to make it in real estate. After all, it is real estate—not fanning national anti-Muslim hysteria—that is Mr. El-Gamal's actual business. "You know, the real estate business is a very tough business, and you have to be patient and persistent, and aggressive, and thank God I have all those qualities," said Mr. El-Gamal, who looks something like...

SNIP Sharif El-Gamal is the developer behind the plan to erect an Islamic community center and mosque two blocks from the World Trade Center site. Calls are mounting for him and the other backers to find a new home for their center, further away from the site of the September 11th terrorist attacks, but El-Gamal isn't budging. He is sticking with his plans to erect a 13-story center and prayer space in Lower Manhattan. He likens the project to a YMCA or Jewish Community Center, with programs open to all residents of all faiths. "A landmark, an iconic building that...

After weeks of heated debate over plans for an Islamic community center near Ground Zero - the site of the 9/11 attacks on New York - it seems Muslim leaders will soon back down, agreeing to move to a new site. ...

Sponsors of the proposed mosque near Ground Zero are not slamming the door on Gov. Paterson's idea to build the center someplace else. "We are open to a conversation to find out more on what the governor has in mind," the center, Park51, said in a Twitter post yesterday. SNIP Mosque developer Sharif El-Gamal has said the group is interested in hearing from Paterson but added that "this has always been about serving lower Manhattan." He did not return calls and emails yesterday. SNIP

Mysterious Group Buys Building Next to Ground Zero For Mosque Wednesday, December 16, 2009 Jim Hoft A mysterous Muslim group with unknown sponsors has purchased a building steps away from Ground Zero. Hudson New York reported: An identified group with unknown sponsors has purchased building steps away from where the WorldTrade Center once stood — to turn it into potentially one of the largest New York City mosques. At the moment the building, the old Burlington Coat Factory, already serves as a mini-mosque: an iron grill lifts every Friday afternoon for a little known Imam leading prayers a few yards...