The brouhaha over the proposed Ground Zero mosque occupies most of the column inches, but that doesn’t mean that other less notorious Muslim Brotherhood real estate ventures aren’t of equal (or greater) consequence to New York City and the rest of the country.
Wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen are quietly and continuously establishing partnerships and joint ventures in the United States to launch ambitious building projects of all kinds. Some of them — the Islamic centers and mosques — are directly related to Islamic da’wa, or proselytization. Others are simply lucrative, and serve the Muslim Brotherhood more indirectly by being profitable. Funneling money back to the sheikhs in Saudi Arabia and the Emirates is also useful to the Great Jihad.
Regular GoV reader Heroyalwhyness did a little digging and collected some information about the Muslim building boom in New York City. Much of the information below is derived from the SkyscraperPage forum. She sent this in a while ago, but I just got around to organizing and formatting it.
Heroyalwhyness says:
I don’t have anything concrete (pun intended)… but here are some dots — culled from construction blogs and financial papers to consider and explore further. We know Mayor Bloomberg is expanding his financial arm into sharia compliant finance, as is Carnegie.
1. Imam Rauf and Daisy are planning to be in Abu Dhabi, September 2, 2010 (on our dime)
2. Aabar Investment, a company controlled by the Abu Dhabi Government, is helping fund the development of a 73-story luxury apartment building and hotel in New York City, across the street from Carnegie Hall…higher than the three tallest skyscrapers within the area: Carnegie Hill Tower, the Metropolitan Tower, and CitiSpire… incidentally named “Carnegie 57” constructed by Extell, run by Gary Barnett
- Extell Avoids a Landmark, Sells to Abu Dhabi (first project in NY for this partnership)
- An Abu Dhabi government-controlled investment company has become the majority shareholder in Extell
- These are probably the same foreign men that Matt and Shvo were entertaining at Bagatelle a few months ago — supposedly they spent $90,000 on champagne at a brunch there with a group of Arabian looking men. Looks like it is paying off now that they’ve got these guys buying their units for $2,000 a foot. link
- “You can see Gary’s fingerprints all over the city in what has been done and will be done.”
3. Carnegie Corp of NY’s scholarships promote sharia law, Islam.
4. Aabar Investment, a company controlled by the Abu Dhabi government, has paid Extell for a majority stake in the project, and the deal could be the “start of several property projects in New York” from the Middle Easterners. The Essex House right behind the vacant lot is owned by Dubai’s Jumeirah, so maybe this neighborhood should now be called the Emirate? 5. The actual developer of the GZ mosque, El-Gamal rose from waiter to real estate mogul with financial help from one “Hisham Elzanaty”
Hisham Elzanaty is interviewed along with Ghazi Khankan providing the following description of mosques in NYC to a reporter from the Daily News in March of 1999:“When I came to New York in 1960, there were probably four Islamic centers, or mosques,” said Ghazi Khankan, a leader at the Islamic Center of Long Island. “Now you have over 200.”
“Here’s a point nobody is mentioning and one that is still confusing me — this organization has 100 million dollars to build this mosque. They are building it in a commercial area with a very low residential density that probably has a few families of practicing Muslims (if any at all). They say they aspire to be a community center akin to the 92st Y (which is built in a highly residential neighborhood) yet they continue to try to build it specifically here. If you have a 100 million to build this ‘community center’ you can essentially afford to build one anywhere in the city, in locations where this center might actually be used by people of the Muslim faith. Instead they keep pushing on building it right by the WTC.”
(via skyscraperpage.com forum)
The photo at the top of this post is just a tiny sample. Check out the original larger photos: Photo 1, Photo 2.
The city dwellers drop like flies
Delirium and madness in their eyes…
It’s worth the wait, surreal estate
Surreal estate, no time, no date
Accept no fake surreal estate
Design by fate, surreal estate.
— from “Surreal Estate” by Be Bop Deluxe
6 comments:
Much as I might wish that none of this was happening, such is not the case. Therefore, my view on this is like that of the once-thriving Japanese market for American real estate.
Does anyone recall Mitsubishi's purchase of the Rockerfeller Center?
The Japanese took a half billion (with a "b") dollar bath on that little real estate fiasco.
OPEC countries continue to bleed America's economy and purchase scads of our real estate. I look forward to when they, most likely along with the Chinese, suddenly discover that raping your own investment portfolio just doesn't make sense.
Thank you, Heroyalwhyness for doing the homework on this subject. Most telling of all is the following:
“Here’s a point nobody is mentioning and one that is still confusing me — this organization has 100 million dollars to build this mosque. They are building it in a commercial area with a very low residential density that probably has a few families of practicing Muslims (if any at all). They say they aspire to be a community center akin to the 92st Y (which is built in a highly residential neighborhood) yet they continue to try to build it specifically here. If you have a 100 million to build this ‘community center’ you can essentially afford to build one anywhere in the city, in locations where this center might actually be used by people of the Muslim faith. Instead they keep pushing on building it right by the WTC.”
"Community center" my eye! Even if this obscenity does get built, it will have served an important purpose in giving American an indisputable foretaste of just what Islam intends for all of us in the West.
Few patriotic Americans are likely to forget this Islamic thumb-in-the-eye and it is yet another insult added to injury that will, one day, probably see many in this country turn a blind eye to almost any degree of savagery when retribution is visited upon the Muslim world.
One can only speculate as to how it is that Muslims can be so blind about the possibility of blowback for all of their constant atrocities and gloating. When it finally comes, payback is going to be a cast iron you-know-what,
development of a 73-story luxury apartment building and hotel in New York City, across the street from Carnegie Hall…higher than the three tallest skyscrapers within the area
I'm sure these, and other super-tall Muslim buildings like the Burj Khalifa (previously known as the Burj Dubai), have nothing to do with the Islamic mandate that no infidel building can be taller than a Muslim one.
Since the buildings are designed and built by the infidels, just how Islamic are they? Or do they count any building that is used by Muslims to be one?
(Or does the building have to get down on its face and pray to Mecca five times a day?)
Here's a funny word that might help with such cultural stabs in the future - 'nationalization'.
Since the buildings are designed and built by the infidels, just how Islamic are they? Or do they count any building that is used by Muslims to be one?
Pretty much the latter. As far as I can tell, the latter is actually preferred, since it demonstrates dominance over the infidel.
@Randian:
Yeah, I figured that a dishonest culture won't have any problems choosing whatever view fits it most in any situation.
But the twist is that the Arab-Invaders-of-Israel (AKA Palestinians) like to say that they've built the country for us, because there were many Arab construction workers at some point (that is until they started murdering their employers, and the industry responded by bringing workers from eastern Europe, and the far east), so I thought the same argument can be used against them, for fun's sake.
Perhaps the answer to the problem of Middle Eastern Muslim money buying up the U.S. is for the U.S. to stop shoveling all the money to Middle Eastern Muslims for their oil.
But that would require some real changes in our oil-based economy, such as promoting solar, wind, and nuclear energy.
Of course, your answer will be "drill, baby, drill." Unfortunately, even a huge ramp up in U.S. based production doesn't come close to meeting our current insatiable demand for oil.
And of course there's also the other reason for curbing oil consumption - the one that you, Baron, undoubtedly believe is a "hoax."
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