(CBS News)
A judge in New York has dismissed a lawsuit that tried to block an Islamic community center from opening near the World Trade Center site.
The New York Times reports that a lawsuit brought by a former firefighter seeking to block construction of the center was tossed out.
Timothy Brown had sought to reverse a decision by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission denying landmark status to a 150-year-old building that developers want to demolish to make room for the Park 51 community center, which will include a mosque.
In Friday’s decision, State Supreme Court Justice Paul G. Feinman wrote that Brown lacked any special legal standing on the fate of the building.
Adam Leitman Bailey, a lawyer for the center’s developer, told the Times the judge’s decision was “a victory for America.”
“Despite the tempest of religious hatred, the judge flexed our Constitution’s muscles enforcing the very bedrock of our democracy,” Bailey told the Times.
Battles over real estate and development deals are nothing new in New York City. But this particular battle has at its core the very deep-seated emotions tied to the attacks here almost 10 years ago, on September 11, 2001.
It was about one year ago when anger at the proposed mosque erupted in lower Manhattan, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller. But it hadn’t always been that way. Six months earlier, in December 2009, The New York Times ran a story about the proposal. It went unnoticed.
Tags: Adam Leitman Bailey, N.Y.C Islamic Center, park 51, World Trade Center
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