In the lead article on the "Op-Ed" page of today's edition of The New York Times, Feisal Abdul Rauf, chairman of the Cordoba Initiative and the imam of the Farah mosque in Lower Manhattan, said that he is "proceeding" with the controversial planned community center at 45 Park Place, two blocks north of Ground Zero.

"Every day, including the past two weeks spent representing my country on a State Department tour in the Middle East, I have been struck by how the controversy has riveted the attention of Americans, as well as nearly everyone I met in my travels," he wrote, adding that "we have all been awed by how inflamed and emotional the issue of the proposed community center has become. The level of attention reflects the degree to which people care about the very American values under debate: recognition of the rights of others, tolerance and freedom of worship."

He wrote that he was proceeding with the center "with the support of the downtown community, government at all levels and leaders from across the religious spectrum, who will be our partners."

He stated that the center will "include a multi-faith memorial dedicated to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks," adding that "I am very sensitive to the feelings of the families of victims of 9/11, as are my fellow leaders of many faiths. We will accordingly seek the support of those families, and the support of our vibrant neighborhood, as we consider the ultimate plans for the community center."

His article declared that he knows "there will be interest in our financing, and so we will clearly identify all of our financial backers."

"President Obama and Mayor Michael Bloomberg both spoke out in support of our project. As I traveled overseas, I saw firsthand how their words and actions made a tremendous impact on the Muslim street and on Muslim leaders. It was striking: a Christian president and a Jewish mayor of New York supporting the rights of Muslims. Their statements sent a powerful message about what America stands for, and will be remembered as a milestone in improving American-Muslim relations.

"The wonderful outpouring of support for our right to build this community center from across the social, religious and political spectrum seriously undermines the ability of anti-American radicals to recruit young, impressionable Muslims by falsely claiming that America persecutes Muslims for their faith....Let us commemorate the anniversary of 9/11 by pausing to reflect and meditate and tone down the vitriol and rhetoric that serves only to strengthen the radicals and weaken our friends' belief in our values."

A September 5, 2010 article in The New York Post by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein stated that "the original owners of the Ground Zero mosque site mysteriously spurned dozens of higher bids before selling the prime downtown real estate at a bargain-basement price."

The article said that "the Pomerantz family, which had owned the building since the late 1960s and fielded offers after the patriarch died in 2006, rejected at least one bid that was nearly four times what prospective mosque builder Sharif El-Gamal eventually paid."

"New York developer Kevin Glodek was livid when he found out the building sold for a fraction of what he offered in 2007 - $18 million cash," according to sources close to the deal, the article said, adding that "Glodek and his partners wanted to build a 60-story condo tower with retail space on the Park Place site."

"But," the article continued, "Kukiko Mitani - whose late husband, Stephen Pomerantz, owned the property - and her brother-in-law, Melvin Pomerantz, a trustee to the estate, went silent at the end of 2007 and Glodek's deal disappeared, sources said."