Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times The Landmarks Preservation Commission denied landmarks’ designation on Tuesday for 45 Park Place, where a Muslim group hopes to build an Islamic cultural center and mosque.
Updated, 12:45 p.m. | After a protracted battle that set off a national debate over freedom of religion, a Muslim center and mosque to be built two blocks from ground zero surmounted a final hurdle on Tuesday.
The city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9 to 0 against granting historic protection to the building at 45-47 Park Place in Lower Manhattan, where the $100 million center would be built.
That decision clears the way for the construction of Park51, a tower of as many as 15 stories that will house a mosque, a 500-seat auditorium, and a pool. Its leaders say it will be modeled on the Y.M.C.A. and Jewish Community Center in Manhattan.
The vote on Tuesday was free of much of the vitriol that had been part of previous hearings. One by one, members of the commission debated the aesthetic significance of the building, designed in the Italian Renaissance Palazzo style by an unknown architect.
Later in the day, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who has forcefully defended the planned mosque, praised the landmarks commission’s vote.
“To cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists,” he said, standing with religious leaders in front of the Statue of Liberty.
Christopher Moore, a member of the commission, said the vote was not a matter of religion, though he argued that the building could not be divorced from the memory of the Sept. 11 attacks.
“It is not directly on ground zero, but it is a part of ground zero,” Mr. Moore said.
After the commission voted, several members of the audience shouted “Shame on you!” and “Disgrace!” One woman carried a sign reading, “Don’t Glorify Murders of 3,000; No 9/11 Victory Mosque.”
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