Proposed Park51 Mosque Site Does Not Merit Landmark Status For Being Hit By Sept. 11 Debris: Lawyer
By Jose Martinez
March 15th, 2011
The lawyer for the owner of a building near Ground Zero that would house a controversial mosque says it doesn’t deserve landmark status just because part of a plane hit it on 9/11.
The former Burlington Coat Factory building at 45-47 Park Place is no more historically significant than dozens of buildings pelted with plane parts on Sept. 11, 2001, lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey told a Manhattan court Tuesday.
He was arguing the merits of a lawsuit filed by an FDNY firefighter – with the backing of a Washington conservative group – challenging the city’s refusal to grant landmark status.
Bailey trashed the legal action as anti-Muslim nonsense cloaked in Ground Zero mystique.
“Our property is not at Ground Zero,” he said.
“You can’t throw a football and hit it from Ground Zero.”
Firefighter Timothy Brown’s suit says the building deserves the status because a plane’s landing gear crashed into it on 9/11.
“That building is a monument to that day because of what happened with the landing gear,” said Jack Lester, a lawyer for Brown.
Adam-Leitman-Bailey_Proposed-Park51-Mosque_Press-Mention-1.pdf