No to mosque at Ground Zero Petition

[Intense]

Here is an interesting piece though slanted and accusatory, does comment on problems within Islam. My question is this, If one has to choose between the Site and the message, which does one cling to?


Mosque hysteria: All houses of worship are welcome everywhere in New York

Read more: Mosque hysteria: All houses of worship are welcome everywhere in New York


A plan to build a mosque and Muslim cultural center two blocks from Ground Zero has unleashed a virulent and un-American wave of religious intolerance.

As a fundamental matter of principle, houses of worship are welcome in New York. Whether they be churches, synagogues, temples or mosques, whether they be modest storefronts or soaring cathedrals, they have a home here.

Islam included - and even downtown.

There is no doubt that many in this country distrust the religion that was twisted malignantly into the force behind 9/11. And some, in blind ignorance, hate. Among those are Mark Williams, the Tea Party leader, who attacked the concept of a mosque near Ground Zero by describing Islam and the Prophet Muhammed in the most repugnant terms.

If there is an upside to Williams' vileness, it is that he has exposed the unreasoning prejudice behind the furor over the planned mosque and cultural center - and provoked an examination of what the project is actually all about.

Its key proponent is Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, 61, who has a long history of opposing radical teachings and reaching out across religious lines to Christians and Jews. He leads a mosque in Tribeca, several of whose members were killed in the collapse of the World Trade Center.

"We condemn terrorists. We recognize it exists in our faith community but we are committed to eradicate it," Rauf said yesterday, nicely supported by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Rep. Jerry Nadler, state Sen. Daniel Squadron, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Councilwoman Margaret Chin.

In the 1990s, Rauf founded the American Society for Muslim Advancement with the stated goal of bringing together American Muslims and non-Muslims. To that end, he has said, he and backers purchased 45 Park Place, the former Burlington Coat Factory outlet that was wrecked on 9/11 when chunks of the landing gear from one of the hijacked planes plunged through the roof.

A new 13-story building, named Cordoba House, would include a mosque, classrooms, a fitness center and pool, as well as a theater. It was modeled after the 92nd St. Y, which has both a community center and prayer space.

Although the project needed no public approvals because it fit the local zoning, Rauf's organization voluntarily presented the concept to a committee of Community Board 1, which unanimously passed a supporting resolution.

That vote led to the facility being dubbed the "Ground Zero mosque," a term that generated unfortunate passions culminating in Williams' ugliness. In fact, Cordoba House is two blocks away. Had it been closer, the point would be the same: All religions have equal rights.



Read more: Mosque hysteria: All houses of worship are welcome everywhere in New York

Mosque hysteria: All houses of worship are welcome everywhere in New York

 

[Intense]

No to mosque at Ground Zero Petition


Planting a mosque just two blocks from where Muslims murdered Americans on 9/11 in the name of Islam is a huge slap in the face. Why shouldn’t Muslims be sensitive enough to realize that a huge mosque planted right near the horrific wound to the U.S. created at Ground Zero by Muslims is outrageous to us? They claim a right to be insulted by cartoons mocking their prophet, even to the point of beheading people.

The Imam of the Ground Zero Insult, Faisal Abdul Rauf, is not the nice guy he likes to hold himself out to be. At his Friday afternoon khutbah services and in his book What’s Right With Islam Rauf states that he wants the mosque to be a place where inter-faith understanding is fostered. His sonorous voice is smooth and almost hypnotic. His writing style appears to be rational and unthreatening.

However, this does not jibe with the aspects of him that are downright hostile and frightening.

During a recent Friday sermon, this writer did due diligence as a mosque monitor and heard Rauf deny that Muslims perpetrated 9/11. In an interview with CNN shortly after 9/11, Rauf said, “U.S. policies were an accessory to the crime that happened. We [the U.S.] have been an accessory to a lot of innocent lives dying in the world. Osama bin Laden was made in the USA.” Elsewhere, Rauf has stated that terrorism will end only when the West acknowledges the harm it has done to Muslims. And that it was Christians who started mass attacks on civilians.

Rauf has numerous ties to CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Department of Justice funding case brought against Hamas, an openly terrorist organization. CAIR is also the initiator of numerous cases designed to intimidate non-Muslims from criticizing aggressive Muslim behavior, and to use our own legal and democratic processes to undermine and dominate America, forcing it to become Islamic.

Rauf calls himself a Sufi, evoking among non-Muslims a “peace and love” image. But that’s not the whole picture. Sufism has many sides to it, including the Koranic injunction to spread Islam one way or another, and it has a rich history of waging war, too. Could it be that one of the frequently used tools of war, lying to the enemy, explains the contradiction between Rauf’s image as reconciler of religions and his sympathies and associations with terrorists?

A previous Rauf project, Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow, clearly shows on its website that it is headed and funded by individuals from Saudi Arabia, the country that spawned fifteen of the nineteen jihad jockeys who rode the 9/11 planes of destruction. The funding for the mosque at Ground Zero is much murkier so far. All that has been publicly disclosed is that the support comes from unidentified sources in Saudi Arabia and Muslim-ruled Malaysia. Rauf reportedly says he paid $4.85 million for the property — in cash. Where exactly did this money come from? Was it Wahhabist-supporting Saudi sources, which have already funded many other mosques in New York City?

The mosque is called Cordoba House. Muslims like to refer to Spain and especially the city of Cordoba as a place where their rule reached a glorious peak. Contrary to the myth of a Golden Age of equality during the Muslim occupation of Spain (and in particular in Cordoba), Spain and Cordoba were places where Christians and Jews suffered as social inferiors under Islamic oppression. Equal civil rights never existed for non-Muslims under Sharia, or Islamic law. Rauf even admits as much when he writes, “Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule simply had to pay a tax to finance their protection by their Muslim overlords.” This is not equality! Americans do not demand a special tax to protect Muslims from ourselves. That would be extortion, not “protection.”

Through another organization Rauf started called the Cordoba Initiative, he created the “Sharia Index.” This will measure how closely countries follow Sharia, or Islamic law. While Sharia can cover such relatively innocuous aspects of Muslim life as religious weddings (hopefully not to twelve-year-old girls), it also demands that all Muslim life be governed by laws derived from the Koran, without the intervention of civic institutions, such as democracy. And the Koran dictates that everyone, even non-Muslims, must ultimately live under Sharia. Do you understand how that is in direct conflict with our Constitution and other aspects of our secular society?

Rauf gets even trickier here. He states in What’s Right With Islam that a society that follows natural law, such as America, is already practicing Sharia. However, he does not note that his peculiar definition of Sharia acceptance is shared by just about no other Imam. So what prevents him from adjusting his singular idea of Sharia back to the norm of forced conversions, murdering non-Muslims and apostates, amputations of thieves’ hands, stoning of adulterous women, execution of homosexuals, etc.? Throughout his writing, Rauf floats an image of a harmonious, pleasant Islam — nice to everybody. But this is totally disconnected from Islam’s actual history of bloody conquest, enslavement, and humiliation of other people — which he never acknowledges.

Still another unsettling part of Rauf’s problem mosque is why the city has given the building a pass. Records for the Department of Buildings have shown numerous complaints for illegal construction and no access, yet the issues were listed as “resolved.”

Community Board One’s financial district committee needs to reconsider its endorsement of this mosque. The prestigious American groups that are reportedly also financing the mosque, The Ford Foundation and The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, need to think again about what they are getting into. The Department of Buildings needs to reassess its action. The Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, which supports the project (Why? What has a religious building got to do with immigration?) needs to reevaluate its approval.

Mayor Bloomberg himself needs to withdraw his support for this mosque, especially in light of the recent Times Square car bomb attempt. If not, he will be helping to provide a handy meeting place for future terrorists, those who understand Imam Rauf’s real message: Speak sweetly, appear to be a well-adjusted member of American society, and plan the destruction of America, either with bombs or “peaceful” undermining.


No to mosque at Ground Zero - Petition Spot

You do know that there is Freedom of Religion in the U.S. right?

I signed the put a Mosque on Ground Zero petition

You have every Right to support your belief's, as do I. Your comment on Constitutionality is misplaced.

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

Islam is not a religion.Ask any muslim.

 

[bodecea]

Islam is not a religion.Ask any muslim.

It most certainly is....as Christianity is a religion and Judaism is a religion and Buddhism is a religion and Hinduism is a religion.

 

[Intense]

Islam is not a religion.Ask any muslim.

There are both those within Islam that seek true reform and those that use it as a mask and disguise, a tool as a means to an end. I've known both kinds. It is not always easy to tell who is who sometimes Fit. The true reformers are as much in danger of harm, from the latter as us.

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

Islam is not a religion.Ask any muslim.

It most certainly is....as Christianity is a religion and Judaism is a religion and Buddhism is a religion and Hinduism is a religion.

Thanks for your opinion.

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 163(a):
Narrated Ibn 'Umar:

That the Prophet said, "My livelihood is under the shade of my spear (from war booty), and he who disobeys my orders will be humiliated by paying the Jizya.

Sounds more like a street gang.

 

[bodecea]

Islam is not a religion.Ask any muslim.

It most certainly is....as Christianity is a religion and Judaism is a religion and Buddhism is a religion and Hinduism is a religion.

Thanks for your opinion.

Volume 4, Book 52, Number 163(a):
Narrated Ibn 'Umar:

That the Prophet said, "My livelihood is under the shade of my spear (from war booty), and he who disobeys my orders will be humiliated by paying the Jizya.

Sounds more like a street gang.

Ah...so you were only re-stating your well known opinion about Islam and Muslims. Got it.

 

[skookerasbil]

Upate..........the whole thing is probably going to get scuttled. Apparently, there was a huge step forward in an effort to stop this via making the area a "historical site", thus, this radical Imamm wouldnt even be able to break ground!!!



Mosque proposed for Ground Zero faces new hurdle as landmarks panel reviews historic protections for the building - NYPOST.com





win



Fcukk these assholes...........they can take their Sharia law and go build a rug palace up in northern Idaho!!!

 

[Anguille]

Queen's is not the burbs. It is the second most populated borough, next to Brooklyn, and the most diverse. Good try though.

Golly gosh gumdrops! I stand corrected!!! I bow before you, O Cosmopolitan One!!

Christian, Jew , Muslim, alike, we bow only to our maker. Except for Obama. He bows to most every one. Learn this Grasshopper, live a bountiful life.

Only people of faith in Queens? Dosn't sound very diverse to me.

I have a friend from Brooklyn who claims her neighborhood has been certified the most ethnically diverse in the US. I believe her over you. Sorry Charlie!

 

[JScott]

This petition is a petition of prejudice.

So what? Most all Petitions to block something or prevent something come from some sort of Prejudice. As an American we are free to be as Prejudice as we want. INCLUDING this petition.

BUT as I noted unless the CITY changes the ZONING codes for that area, this petition is nothing more than a waste of time and ink. And as far as I can tell no one in New York is interested in changing the Zoning codes.

I notice people like you do not complain when the left whines about something and demands a boycott or a petition.

What are "people like me"? You dont know me.

Ill explain, though, that I would not sign a petition that would try to ban a class of people from doing anything in this, the land of the free. Freedom wains a little more if this is how this country is.

You go ahead and sign this petition so we know who you are. So we know who the people are in this country who would say, loud and clear,"Im prejudice, I hate Muslims".

Go ahead and talk about your patriotism. Its a false patriotism if you think one religion is inferior to yours.

You were the kind of people that put Japanese citizens in camps and the kind of people that lynched blacks.

You discriminated against the Irish when they immigrated here, and the Chinese. The American Indians were hunted like coyotes. Now its Latinos and Muslims.

It never ends with people like you.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason. ~Voltaire

 

[Intense]

Golly gosh gumdrops! I stand corrected!!! I bow before you, O Cosmopolitan One!!

Christian, Jew , Muslim, alike, we bow only to our maker. Except for Obama. He bows to most every one. Learn this Grasshopper, live a bountiful life.

Only people of faith in Queens? Dosn't sound very diverse to me.

I have a friend from Brooklyn who claims her neighborhood has been certified the most ethnically diverse in the US. I believe her over you. Sorry Charlie!

The future of America lies among the garden apartments of Queens.
By Maggie Samways



“It’s one of the most diverse places in the city, with more than 65 percent of the population made up of immigrants from all over the world,” says Jaime Weisberg, director of Queens Congregations United for Action, a faith-based community organization. “Walking down the streets, you see it in the clothing styles, languages spoken, restaurants and stores. Economically, this plays out in other ways, from the beautiful historic districts to the severe overcrowding conditions that many low-income residents experience.”


Photograph: Sophia WallaceThat wasn’t always the case. Built in the early 1900s by the Queensboro Corporation, the garden apartments that make up Jackson Heights were intended to be a self-contained upper- and middle-class urban alternative to suburbia. But when U.S. immigration laws changed in the 1960s, lots of new arrivals settled in the area. Now, of its roughly 175,000 residents, approximately 60 percent identify as Hispanic, 15 percent white, 10 percent black, and nearly 20 percent South and East Asian, according to a report by the Furman Center at NYU. Jackson Heights also has the city’s second-largest foreign-born population, behind neighboring Elmhurst.

It’s not just the broad ethnic mix that makes Jackson Heights stand above the rest. The nabe has long been home to a prominent gay community (as witnessed by the fabulous Queens Pride Parade, which sashays right up 37th Avenue). And the area’s affordability and status as a major subway hub put it within reach for a broad spectrum of both native New Yorkers and immigrants: people with deep pockets and those on a limited budget.


Photograph: Sophia Wallace“Jackson Heights is indicative of the future of the U.S., where whites are no longer the majority,” says Dalton Conley, sociology chair at NYU. “Also, people don’t realize this, but the area has the most diverse group of Hispanics, from all over Latin America.”

According to longtime resident Daniel Karatzas, author of Jackson Heights: A Garden in the City, the design of the neighborhood, with its European-modeled garden apartments and “city within a city” feel, makes it particularly appealing to new immigrants. “Nothing is perfect in our fair city, but thanks to the scale and the sense of place in Jackson Heights, newcomers have found it a pleasant place to call home.”

Number of languages spoken in Queens: 138


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RUNNERS-UP


Midtown South
Photograph: Sophia WallaceFort Greene/Clinton Hill
“I am partial to my own neighborhood. We celebrate our diversity, which includes residents who have a generational attachment to the community and ‘newbies’—students from Pratt Institute and St. Joseph’s College, and transplants from Manhattan and Long Island and Park Slope, among other local areas.”—John Dew, president of Community Board 2

Midtown South
“I would nominate my own neighborhood, Midtown South, Penn Station South or whatever you want to call it. It is incredibly diverse, given the multifaceted functions of the neighborhood: welfare hotels, upscale condos, ladies garment workers’ houses, the fur industry, all the commuters from Jersey, etc.”—Dalton Conley, sociology chair at NYU



Read more: New York’s Most Diverse Neighborhood - Time Out New York

New York’s Most Diverse Neighborhood - Time Out New York

 

[Intense]

This petition is a petition of prejudice.

So what? Most all Petitions to block something or prevent something come from some sort of Prejudice. As an American we are free to be as Prejudice as we want. INCLUDING this petition.

BUT as I noted unless the CITY changes the ZONING codes for that area, this petition is nothing more than a waste of time and ink. And as far as I can tell no one in New York is interested in changing the Zoning codes.

I notice people like you do not complain when the left whines about something and demands a boycott or a petition.

What are "people like me"? You dont know me.

Ill explain, though, that I would not sign a petition that would try to ban a class of people from doing anything in this, the land of the free. Freedom wains a little more if this is how this country is.

You go ahead and sign this petition so we know who you are. So we know who the people are in this country who would say, loud and clear,"Im prejudice, I hate Muslims".

Go ahead and talk about your patriotism. Its a false patriotism if you think one religion is inferior to yours.

You were the kind of people that put Japanese citizens in camps and the kind of people that lynched blacks.

You discriminated against the Irish when they immigrated here, and the Chinese. The American Indians were hunted like coyotes. Now its Latinos and Muslims.

It never ends with people like you.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason. ~Voltaire

Wow!!! All that finger pointing and nothing to show for it. No profiling or false judgement here. One size fits all whether you like it or not, huh... Step up my friends, for the show that never ends.

 

[Intense]

Golly gosh gumdrops! I stand corrected!!! I bow before you, O Cosmopolitan One!!

Christian, Jew , Muslim, alike, we bow only to our maker. Except for Obama. He bows to most every one. Learn this Grasshopper, live a bountiful life.

Only people of faith in Queens? Dosn't sound very diverse to me.

I have a friend from Brooklyn who claims her neighborhood has been certified the most ethnically diverse in the US. I believe her over you. Sorry Charlie!

Maybe You should get out more, learn more, listen more, and talk less?

Do you even have a clue as to the demographics.

District Profiles - New York City Department of City Planning

 

[bodecea]

This petition is a petition of prejudice.

So what? Most all Petitions to block something or prevent something come from some sort of Prejudice. As an American we are free to be as Prejudice as we want. INCLUDING this petition.

BUT as I noted unless the CITY changes the ZONING codes for that area, this petition is nothing more than a waste of time and ink. And as far as I can tell no one in New York is interested in changing the Zoning codes.

I notice people like you do not complain when the left whines about something and demands a boycott or a petition.

What are "people like me"? You dont know me.

Ill explain, though, that I would not sign a petition that would try to ban a class of people from doing anything in this, the land of the free. Freedom wains a little more if this is how this country is.

You go ahead and sign this petition so we know who you are. So we know who the people are in this country who would say, loud and clear,"Im prejudice, I hate Muslims".

Go ahead and talk about your patriotism. Its a false patriotism if you think one religion is inferior to yours.

You were the kind of people that put Japanese citizens in camps and the kind of people that lynched blacks.

You discriminated against the Irish when they immigrated here, and the Chinese. The American Indians were hunted like coyotes. Now its Latinos and Muslims.

It never ends with people like you.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason. ~Voltaire

Love your Voltaire quote...rep to you.

 

[Anguille]

Christian, Jew , Muslim, alike, we bow only to our maker. Except for Obama. He bows to most every one. Learn this Grasshopper, live a bountiful life.

Only people of faith in Queens? Dosn't sound very diverse to me.

I have a friend from Brooklyn who claims her neighborhood has been certified the most ethnically diverse in the US. I believe her over you. Sorry Charlie!

The future of America lies among the garden apartments of Queens.
By Maggie Samways



“It’s one of the most diverse places in the city, with more than 65 percent of the population made up of immigrants from all over the world,” says Jaime Weisberg, director of Queens Congregations United for Action, a faith-based community organization. “Walking down the streets, you see it in the clothing styles, languages spoken, restaurants and stores. Economically, this plays out in other ways, from the beautiful historic districts to the severe overcrowding conditions that many low-income residents experience.”


Photograph: Sophia WallaceThat wasn’t always the case. Built in the early 1900s by the Queensboro Corporation, the garden apartments that make up Jackson Heights were intended to be a self-contained upper- and middle-class urban alternative to suburbia. But when U.S. immigration laws changed in the 1960s, lots of new arrivals settled in the area. Now, of its roughly 175,000 residents, approximately 60 percent identify as Hispanic, 15 percent white, 10 percent black, and nearly 20 percent South and East Asian, according to a report by the Furman Center at NYU. Jackson Heights also has the city’s second-largest foreign-born population, behind neighboring Elmhurst.

It’s not just the broad ethnic mix that makes Jackson Heights stand above the rest. The nabe has long been home to a prominent gay community (as witnessed by the fabulous Queens Pride Parade, which sashays right up 37th Avenue). And the area’s affordability and status as a major subway hub put it within reach for a broad spectrum of both native New Yorkers and immigrants: people with deep pockets and those on a limited budget.


Photograph: Sophia Wallace“Jackson Heights is indicative of the future of the U.S., where whites are no longer the majority,” says Dalton Conley, sociology chair at NYU. “Also, people don’t realize this, but the area has the most diverse group of Hispanics, from all over Latin America.”

According to longtime resident Daniel Karatzas, author of Jackson Heights: A Garden in the City, the design of the neighborhood, with its European-modeled garden apartments and “city within a city” feel, makes it particularly appealing to new immigrants. “Nothing is perfect in our fair city, but thanks to the scale and the sense of place in Jackson Heights, newcomers have found it a pleasant place to call home.”

Number of languages spoken in Queens: 138


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RUNNERS-UP


Midtown South
Photograph: Sophia WallaceFort Greene/Clinton Hill
“I am partial to my own neighborhood. We celebrate our diversity, which includes residents who have a generational attachment to the community and ‘newbies’—students from Pratt Institute and St. Joseph’s College, and transplants from Manhattan and Long Island and Park Slope, among other local areas.”—John Dew, president of Community Board 2

Midtown South
“I would nominate my own neighborhood, Midtown South, Penn Station South or whatever you want to call it. It is incredibly diverse, given the multifaceted functions of the neighborhood: welfare hotels, upscale condos, ladies garment workers’ houses, the fur industry, all the commuters from Jersey, etc.”—Dalton Conley, sociology chair at NYU



Read more: New York’s Most Diverse Neighborhood - Time Out New York

New York’s Most Diverse Neighborhood - Time Out New York

Yeah, but you know, even with that impressive resume, it still just Queens after all.

 

[txlonghorn]

No to mosque at Ground Zero Petition

Are you trying to say that you believe all Muslims to be terrorists?

Does that mean that all Catholics rape young boys?

Should there be any Catholic churches ANYWHERE in the US?

No more so than the liberal assertion that all republicans / tea party members are racists.

I think the only point being made here is that there is a thing called respect and that there are plenty of other places that this mosque could be established without showing a lack of that respect. The irony is troubling...some of us seem to show much more tolerance of other religions while trampling on Christians beliefs. A cross sends them into a tail spin, but a mosque....build it anywhere. Odd...very odd.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Here's an idea... why not just build another really tall office building? No need for a church of any kind.. but I have tio say, especially a church celebrating the very same fanatics wo brought the thing down in the first place.

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

FACTOID - The twin towers were brought down by MUSLIMS n the name of ISLAM.

 

[Intense]

Golly gosh gumdrops! I stand corrected!!! I bow before you, O Cosmopolitan One!!

Christian, Jew , Muslim, alike, we bow only to our maker. Except for Obama. He bows to most every one. Learn this Grasshopper, live a bountiful life.

Only people of faith in Queens? Dosn't sound very diverse to me.

I have a friend from Brooklyn who claims her neighborhood has been certified the most ethnically diverse in the US. I believe her over you. Sorry Charlie!

Did I tell you that you look stunning in that gown.

 

[Intense]

Only people of faith in Queens? Dosn't sound very diverse to me.

I have a friend from Brooklyn who claims her neighborhood has been certified the most ethnically diverse in the US. I believe her over you. Sorry Charlie!

The future of America lies among the garden apartments of Queens.
By Maggie Samways



“It’s one of the most diverse places in the city, with more than 65 percent of the population made up of immigrants from all over the world,” says Jaime Weisberg, director of Queens Congregations United for Action, a faith-based community organization. “Walking down the streets, you see it in the clothing styles, languages spoken, restaurants and stores. Economically, this plays out in other ways, from the beautiful historic districts to the severe overcrowding conditions that many low-income residents experience.”


Photograph: Sophia WallaceThat wasn’t always the case. Built in the early 1900s by the Queensboro Corporation, the garden apartments that make up Jackson Heights were intended to be a self-contained upper- and middle-class urban alternative to suburbia. But when U.S. immigration laws changed in the 1960s, lots of new arrivals settled in the area. Now, of its roughly 175,000 residents, approximately 60 percent identify as Hispanic, 15 percent white, 10 percent black, and nearly 20 percent South and East Asian, according to a report by the Furman Center at NYU. Jackson Heights also has the city’s second-largest foreign-born population, behind neighboring Elmhurst.

It’s not just the broad ethnic mix that makes Jackson Heights stand above the rest. The nabe has long been home to a prominent gay community (as witnessed by the fabulous Queens Pride Parade, which sashays right up 37th Avenue). And the area’s affordability and status as a major subway hub put it within reach for a broad spectrum of both native New Yorkers and immigrants: people with deep pockets and those on a limited budget.


Photograph: Sophia Wallace“Jackson Heights is indicative of the future of the U.S., where whites are no longer the majority,” says Dalton Conley, sociology chair at NYU. “Also, people don’t realize this, but the area has the most diverse group of Hispanics, from all over Latin America.”

According to longtime resident Daniel Karatzas, author of Jackson Heights: A Garden in the City, the design of the neighborhood, with its European-modeled garden apartments and “city within a city” feel, makes it particularly appealing to new immigrants. “Nothing is perfect in our fair city, but thanks to the scale and the sense of place in Jackson Heights, newcomers have found it a pleasant place to call home.”

Number of languages spoken in Queens: 138


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

RUNNERS-UP


Midtown South
Photograph: Sophia WallaceFort Greene/Clinton Hill
“I am partial to my own neighborhood. We celebrate our diversity, which includes residents who have a generational attachment to the community and ‘newbies’—students from Pratt Institute and St. Joseph’s College, and transplants from Manhattan and Long Island and Park Slope, among other local areas.”—John Dew, president of Community Board 2

Midtown South
“I would nominate my own neighborhood, Midtown South, Penn Station South or whatever you want to call it. It is incredibly diverse, given the multifaceted functions of the neighborhood: welfare hotels, upscale condos, ladies garment workers’ houses, the fur industry, all the commuters from Jersey, etc.”—Dalton Conley, sociology chair at NYU



Read more: New York’s Most Diverse Neighborhood - Time Out New York

New York’s Most Diverse Neighborhood - Time Out New York

Yeah, but you know, even with that impressive resume, it still just Queens after all.

The back bone of the City.