<p>Thank you for your post! Of course your and your father's opinion matters. And all sides agreeing to move the site would now most probably be the best solution.</p>
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<p>But what bothers me about this whole thing is that American Muslims who want to build a mosque are somehow being linked to the fanatical Mideastern Muslims who attacked the WTC on 9/11.</p>
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<div class="quote-block">Originally Posted by <strong>Litchfield Hills</strong> <a href="/forum/thread/70021/the-building-of-a-mosque-in-proximity-to-ground-zero/100#post_1944154"><img alt="View Post" class="inlineimg" src="/img/forum/go_quote.gif" style="border-bottom:0px solid;border-left:0px solid;border-top:0px solid;border-right:0px solid;"></a><br><br><p>What boB is trying to say, is that no one is saying the CAN'T build the Community Center\Mosque\Call it what you want there. It is just insensitive. </p>
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<p>As far as his assertion about whether Manhattanites or people in lower Manhattan or people from a more expansive area have opinions that matter in this, the WTC was a REGIONAL institution. I worked there for 7 years for the Port Authority. It was a long-standing PA joke that the WTC (which housed the PAs headquarters) was like big brother. From any PA facility, all you needed to do was turn your shoulder, and there it was - from JFK Airport, to the Outerbridge Crossing, the Newark ports, the GW Bridge. Tens of thousands commuted to the WTC every day. </p>
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<p>At the time, I lived in a town 15 miles west of the GW Bridge. 16 members of my parish were killed. More people from my town died that day then in the Korean War. </p>
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<p>My father was a career NYC fireman. He had thankfully retired in 1997. The Saturday following 9/11, me, my Dad, and my brother went into the city with my brother's truck loaded to the gills with water and gatorade, and visited several of the firehouses that my Dad ran when he was a Battalion Chief in the late 80s and early 90s. (Battalion 9, 19th and 7th). My Dad stopped counting the number of firemen he knew somewhere in the 40s. What struck him was the number of people he knew from his days at the fire academy (1979-1983) that he knew as 20 year old kids, that now had families and kids of their own. I have seen my father cry once in my 42 years. It was that day.</p>
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<p>Does that mean that the sensitivities of people like my Dad do not count, because he does not live in Manhattan (never did actually, born and raised in Brooklyn, moved to the burbs when I was a kid)? Or that the opinions of someone from a sleepy commuter town that lost more people that day then in the Korean War don't count becuse they only worked in Manhattan, and did not live there?</p>
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