Floating Mosque Topography (3#) -

In his Ground Zero Mosque piece of yesterday . . .

Clyde Haberman writes about Boundaries, which illustrates a pitfall of Fly-By Journalism, because Tribeca, the Imam's established location, is an entirely different Neighborhood.

We have to presume that the Tribeca Mosque is already serving a community in the Tribeca Neighborhood. When the Imam jumps over to the Wall Street Neighborhood, what community will he be serving there? And what will happen to the community he leaves behind in Tribeca? Have many Moslems in the Financial District asked for a new mosque to be located in their neighborhood?

Does the Tribeca Mosque currently serve an actual community of real people in Tribeca or is it merely shambolic? I am growing suspicious it may be the latter.

One of the issues here is not Boundaries, but, rather, Neighborhoods. This issue requires shoe leather to investigate on the ground at the Grass Roots level.

There are a lot of baby strollers currently clogging the sidewalks in the Wall Street Neighborhood? I hadn't noticed that the last time I was there.

At least some of the rhetoric about the proposed Islamic Center seems quite phantasmagoric at this point.

:: Clyde Haberman - NYTimes ::

:: Christopher Hitchens: GZM and Tolerance ::

:: CJR: How should the Press cover this story? ::

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