A mosque outgrows its Harlem home
On a recent moonlit night on Frederick Douglass Boulevard just south of 116th Street, in the shadows of a spiffy new condo building called the Livmor, the crowd for a Ramadan prayer at Aqsa mosque spilled out onto the sidewalk. Two dozen West African women in bright-colored head wraps knelt on a blue tarp, listening as the imam’s prayer filtered through an open door, his voice competing with the staccato bounce of a basketball on the pavement and a group of young boys rapping. The mosque is literally bursting at the seams.
Three years ago, two West African mosques facing escalating rents consolidated into one congregation and building. The joint effort, Aqsa mosque, now faces the same problem. Imam Souleimane Konate believes that Homeside Development Corp., which bought the Aqsa building for $3.7 million in 2008, wants to build on the site or sell to another developer.
“The economy is not that great,”says Joseph Rabizadeh, the new landlord, refusing to elaborate on his plans for the property. But Massey Knakal Managing Director Shimon Shkury, who sold it to him, believes it will eventually be developed. “At some point, you’ll definitely see a high-rise of mixed-use buildings going up there,” he says. “It has tremendous opportunity.”
The loss of the mosque would deal a heavy blow to Harlem’s West African community, which has played a pivotal role in central Harlem since the mid-1980s, when Senegalese immigrants started to arrive in large numbers. Many set up shop along 116th Street in a market built by the city and Malcolm Shabazz mosque. A vibrant network of restaurants, African grocery stores and fabric shops arose around the market. Other African immigrants soon joined them in creating an “oasis in a desert,” according to State Sen. Bill Perkins, who represents the district.
Mr. Konate hopes West Africans will continue to be part of a prosperous Harlem. Members of the mosque are trying to raise more than $2 million to buy the former site of the Greater Zion Hill Baptist Church, just a block away, which was gutted by a fire in 2000.
“The community is here,” Mr. Konate says. “If you leave this place and go somewhere in the Bronx, there will be no African community left in Harlem.”
http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20101031/REAL_ESTATE/101029828