An Islamic center planned for Voorhies Avenue in Sheepshead Bay won back its construction approval from the Department of Buildings Friday, according to the Brooklyn Paper, after a week-long standoff during which the city had withdrawn its go-ahead for building amid local opposition. The mini-controversy — mini, at least, compared to that of the Park51 Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan — was spawned from those who had claimed that potential roadway congestion was their main concern, but more recent rallies against the project have focused on anti-Islamic issues. One resident has pledged to “blow up the mosque” if it’s built, sources said. [Brooklyn Paper]
Posts Tagged ‘sheepshead bay’
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Two days after the Department of Buildings signed off on the design of a new Islamic community center planned for Voorhies Road in Sheephead Bay, officials balked Friday, ordering another one-to-five-month review of the proposal, the Brooklyn Paper reported. While the project — slated to accommodate 120 worshippers in its three-story structure — hasn’t been as high-profile as Lower Manhattan’s Park51, it, too, has been the subject of a significant amount of controversy, which began with neighbors who worried about potential traffic issues but has since devolved into unabashed anti-Islamic sentiment at several protests. Last week’s initial approval of the project would have given property owner Allowey Ahmed the go-ahead to break ground, and the Brooklyn Paper opines that “the delay smacks of a back-room deal, especially since the neighborhood political leaders are support the city’s stunning turnaround.” [Brooklyn Paper]
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The number of home sales in the outer boroughs
are falling fast. Sales of one-, two-, and three-family homes in
Brooklyn fell 37.5 percent last year, according to the
Daily News, and in Queens, home sales fell 34.8 percent last year. The
Richmond Hill neighborhood in Queens saw home sales fall from 938 sales
to 665 in
2007. In Astoria, the average number of days a home sat on the market
doubled in the past year, reaching 120 days on the market. In Brooklyn, Nancy Pecoraro, a vice president at Fillmore Real Estate,
said she has been selling far fewer homes in Sheepshead Bay because
prices are down from a year ago, but many sellers are still unwilling to
lower prices. [more] -
They may be pricey but the Upper East Side and
West Side
out, according to a Post analysis of data from the Real Estate Board of New
York’s Web site. Since Jan. 1, user searches on ResidentialNYC.com show that
the next three most popular areas are the
and
Brooklyn’s most popular were Park Slope, Bay Ridge, Bedford-Stuyvesant,
and
Hills,
Douglaston/Little Neck. The most popular in the
were Spuyten Duyvil, Throgs Neck, Riverdale, Parkchester and Jerome Park. Staten
Island’s most popular neighborhoods were Tottenville, Great Kills, Rossville,
and
