News and Events


NYC RESIDENTS FIGHTING CONSTRUCTION OF ALLEGED MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD-ASSOCIATED MOSQUE

What would you do if a large building was slated to be built directly in the middle of your residential neighborhood? If you're like the residents in the Brooklyn, NY neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay, you would fight it. But unfortunately, it's not that simple. That's because the large building is a mosque, and the local residents say that even though they don't oppose it on religious grounds, their opposition is being branded as Islamaphobic.

"They'll have the microphone and they'll mock us, curse us," local resident Patty Fatone told CBN's Erick Stakelbeck. "They'll condemn us for what we're saying."

Fatone is part of a neighborhood group called Bay People, Inc., which has organized to oppose the mosque. According to group members, their questions about the wisdom of building such a large structure in the middle of a non-Muslim neighborhood has led to them being demonized.


For example, that's what happened last summer when the group staged a peaceful protest:  Read More:


Is the Muslim Brotherhood Coming to Brooklyn?

By Erick Stakelbeck
CBN News Terrorism Analyst
Sunday, July 03, 2011

Click here to see Video:
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BROOKLYN, N.Y. - The proposed mosque at Ground Zero has sparked a heated national debate in recent months. But just a few miles away in Brooklyn, another mega-mosque controversy is brewing.

Sheepshead Bay is "old school" New York. It's the kind of place where generations of Italians, Irish, Russians and Jews have settled, drawn by the quiet charm and waterfront view of the working class, south Brooklyn neighborhood.

Voorhies Avenue -- with its tidy, well-kept row houses-- is typical of Sheepshead Bay, except for one major difference: a gaping hole where a very expensive mosque is planned to be built. Read More:





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DOB Orders Mosque Construction Workers To Leave Site


by Ned Berke on Feb 1st, 2011

Source: Bay People

The Department of Buildings has confirmed that inspectors visited the site of the Islamic Cultural Center (2812 Voorhies Avenue) today, and ordered all workers to cease construction immediately for violations of their partial Stop Work Order.

Upon inspection, the department found excavation work being performed that violated an existing Stop Work Order on the elevator pit. As a result, the agency is in the process of issuing violations for non-compliant conditions.  Read More:







Car pool: Opponents of mosque drive home project's lack of parking

By Thomas Tracy

Courier-Life

Last Updated: 5:32 PM, December 14, 2010

Posted: 5:32 PM, December 14, 2010

Comments: 0 
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The proposed Voorhies Avenue mosque violates city law because the plans do not include at least 13 parking spaces, opponents charged this week as they began a legal challenge to the controversial house of worship.

Bay People, the main opposition group, filed a challenge with the Department of Buildings claiming that mosque, which would be built between E. 28th and E. 29th streets, is required to provide parking spots for congregants. But the plan for the house of prayer and community center doesn't allocate any.


According to city law, an off-street parking spot must be built for every 15 people expected to fill a house of worship’s “largest room of assembly.” Read more:




Critics of controversial Sheepshead Bay mosque go to mat over parking regulations

BY MIKE MCLAUGHLIN
DAILY NEWS WRITER

Friday, December 17th 2010, 4:00 AM


Developers of the Voorhies Ave. mosque are claiming they're exempt from any parking regulations while opponents believe otherwise.
Marino for News
Developers of the Voorhies Ave. mosque are claiming they're exempt from any parking regulations while opponents believe otherwise. Read More:  


It's Not Easy To Build a Mosque in Brooklyn, Either

Nationwide Wave of Resistance to Mosque Construction Comes to Brooklyn

By Josh Nathan-Kazis

Published September 29, 2010, issue of October 08, 2010.

DEPENDING ON WHOM YOU ASK, THE NEW MOSQUE PLANNED FOR A QUIET BLOCK IN SOUTHERN BROOKLYN IS EITHER THE LATEST TARGET IN A WAVE OF COORDINATED ANTI-MUSLIM SENTIMENT, PART OF AN INSIDIOUS EFFORT TO SPREAD POLITICAL ISLAM THROUGHOUT AMERICA OR SIMPLY A PARKING NIGHTMARE WAITING TO HAPPEN.  READ MORE:  


EYE ON THE WORLD

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Photo and video report from rally against proposed mosque in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, September 26, 2010


This was the second rally organized by the Bay People Inc., the organization created by the people living in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn, NY. Like the first rally, between 200 and 300 people showed up, but this time, across the street there was a counter-rally of several dozen in support of the proposed mosque. Read more: 


Muhammad Comes to Manhattan

The imbroglio over the ground-zero mosque, like all New York stories, is about the clashing dreams of ordinary folks and, of course, real estate.

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Muslim prayer on a recent weekday on the ground floor of the old Burlington Coat Factory, where the proposed community center is planned to be built.  
(Photo: Timothy Fadek/Polaris)

It was startling to see Mike Bloomberg, head chief billionaire-in-charge, not known for effusive expressions of municipal compassion, on the verge of a public tear. The mayor, in what must be counted as the singular emotional policy statement of his nine years in office, was speaking on Governors Island, the Statue of Liberty stationed directly behind him. "Millions of immigrants" had arrived in this harbor over the past 250 years, Bloomberg said, his monotone surreally close to cracking, and it was no different today. New York remained "the freest city in the world." Political controversies would "come and go but our values and traditions endure and there is no neighborhood in this city off limits to God's love and mercy." Read more:






Annual ‘Peace Walk’ Stirs Tensions in Sheepshead Bay

Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Doug Chandler
Special To The Jewish Week

A peace walk caused controversy in Brooklyn when it includes a stop at the site for a controversial proposed mosque. Event takes place amid controversy over plans for a four-story mosque in the neighborhood.

To organizers of the Children of Abraham Peace Walk, an annual event in which Jews, Muslims and Christians march through various areas of Brooklyn, the idea of wending their way this year through Sheepshead Bay - to the site of a proposed mosque - seemed like "a lovely gesture," said one the planners, Rabbi Ellen Lippmann.

But to professionals in the field of community relations, some of whom have worked in the neighborhood to ease tensions around the proposal, the idea threatened to set back months of effort to prevent those emotions from getting out of hand. Read more:



The mosque will destroy our community
By Alex Tenenbaum
for The Brooklyn Paper

When my wife and I learned that we were expecting a baby, we knew that we needed a home for our growing family. The search for a home was difficult. I knew little about real estate, had no idea how much my family could afford. Thankfully, my wife decided to look in Sheepshead Bay.

We fell in love with the neighborhood: quiet streets, shady trees and beaches, great shopping and delicious restaurants just blocks away. When we entered our future house, we knew that we found a home for our growing family. Read more:





A Borough Away from Ground Zero, a Different Mosque Controversy


By Shlomo Friedman
From THEBROOKLYNINK

Every Friday night, Ham Ood Suliman, 18, drives the four miles from his apartment building on Avenue Z and East 28th Street in the Sheepshead Bay section of Brooklyn to Bath Avenue to attend prayers at the Muslim American Society's mosque. Read more:



Sheepshead bay group rallies supporters and scrambles to halt plan
to build Voorhies Ave. mosque

BY Mike Mclaughlin
DAILY NEWS WRITER 

Opponents battling a proposed Sheepshead Bay mosque have transformed into a fund-raising machine, getting online donations and holding events in glitzy restaurants.

Newly formed neighborhood group Bay People has led the ramped-up fight against the Voorhies Ave. mosque, claiming to have raked in $30,000 from hundreds of local donors. Read more:
EYE ON THE WORLD

Photo report from the protest against the proposed mosque in the residential neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY


Sunday June 27, 2010

The protest was organized by the Bay People Inc., the organization created by the people living in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn, NY. Between 200 and 300 people showed up. Read more:



Rally Reveals Conflict Within Anti-Mosque Movement


by Ned Berke on Jun 28th, 2010