Visitors to the upper floors of the Muslim community center planned for near ground zero would walk through lofty spaces – for art exhibitions, for contemplation and prayer, for programs on interreligious dialogue, for a 9/11 memorial – as sunlight streams through irregularly shaped windows between white crisscrossing beams.
That is the image presented in the tentative architectural renderings that the planners of the center, called , have been showing at community meetings in recent weeks, and which were revealed to the wider public for the first time last week.
A sketch of the façade shows a latticework of white starlike designs, echoing patterns that can be seen in Islamic architecture and decorative tiles across the Middle East.
The design was meant to show “hints of tradition,” while the use of modern materials and glass panels would give an impression of translucence and “moving toward the future”, Sharif el-Gamal, the project’s developer, said in an interview last week.
An image of the façade has been in circulation since early this year, but last week the planners revealed renderings of how some interior spaces might look and how the center’s many amenities — including a restaurant, theater, day care center, gym and pool – might be stacked in a building of up to 15 stories.
There would also be a 9/11 memorial and a space open to people of “all faiths and of no faith” for prayer, contemplation and meditation, Mr. Gamal said.
New York Times, 2 October 2010
Over at the New York Post readers offer their views. Some examples:
“Wake up America, we have let the enemy in the gates. Only the return of Jesus Christ can save this doomed planet now. Mayor Bloomburg you self-hating Jew, take a stand AGAINST this travesty.”
“And new Yorkers did nothing. Disgusting.”
“I THINK I AM GONNA BE SICK!!!”
“what a slap in the face to all newyorkers. our city is doomed !”
“To be sure this is nothing more than a camel-humper’s wet dream that is never going to get built, all one has to do is take note of the burqaless, mini-skirted female in the 1st picture accompanying this article. That’s a complete pipedream with absolutely NO basis in muslim reality whatsoever.”
“Peculiar. It looks like the STAR OF DAVID crumbling from the top on down. Imagine that.”
“IF this provocative shaft for target pratice ever gets built, it will be proof that the politically correct idiots of New York have surrendered”
“Perfect place to hide WMD’s”
“‘We want to have a marriage between Islamic architecture and New York City.’ El-Gamal said. Hey… You already got that once, you jerk. It was a giant pile of rubble where the WTC once stood”
“Gee, which floor will house the ‘Muslim Women’s Issues Pavillion’? You know, the room where the forced cl1torectomies will take place? Anyone?”
“shortly after its completion, there will be more reports than you can count of radicals preaching death to infidels and ties to terrorist groups all over the world … as more and more mislams move closer to the mecca mosque, more and more people will move away including wall street taking NY’s brightest minds with them lower manhattan will become a no go zone like many places in europe … it will be a stark and depressing reminder of what happens when multicultural progressives are allowed to vote in your neighborhood”
“Osama Bin Laden and his boys must be very pleased to see a victory mosque rise from one of the buildings they damaged on 9/11”
“NO mosques, NO Muslims, NO exceptions”
“Note the falling Stars of David in the facade. Exactly the intended impression. Three cheers for Bloomberg.”
The rantings of ignorant bigots and anti-Muslim racists? Not according to Pamela Geller who advises her readers: “The comments over at the NY Post are the money.”
Far right groups modelled on the English Defence League have been set up across Europe and are planning to demonstrate in Amsterdam in support of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle told a crowd of supporters that the country needs to address a “militant terrorist situation” that has allowed Islamic religious law to take hold in some American cities.
Last Sunday ABC’s This Week programme organised a 
Russell G. Baker says he’s just speaking his mind when it comes to the controversial messages about the president and Muslims that he posts outside his Route 20 business, Baker’s Auto Body and Self-Storage.
North Carolina isn’t exactly a bastion of liberalism but even there a majority of voters think it’s off base for candidates to exploit the proposed “Ground Zero mosque” as a campaign issue. 51% label doing so as “inappropriate” to just 37% who consider it to be an acceptable tactic.