The American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Reverend Pat Robertson, filed a lawsuit today in New York State Supreme Court challenging yesterday's unanimous decision by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission that said that 45 Park Place did not warrant landmark designation and therefore could be demolished to make way for a proposed mosque and Islamic center two blocks north of Ground Zero.

The petition argued that the commission exhibited "an arbitrary and capricious abuse of discretion and contrary to decades of administrative precedent."

"This legal challenge," the organization declared in a press release this afternoon, "clearly points out the fact that the city did not follow its own rules and procedures in this case," said Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the ACLJ.

The ACLJ is representing Tim Brown, a firefighter and first responder, who survived the Twin Towers' collapse in the terrorist attacks on Ground Zero September 11, 2001.

"The deliberative process was tainted and violated procedural safeguards that have been in place for years. We're hopeful that the court will nullify the Commission's vote and conclude what most New Yorkers and Americans understand - this site is sacred ground and not the place to build a mosque," the press release maintained.

"The land use process of New York City now threatens to do what the terrorists failed to accomplish and destroy a building that has been under consideration for landmark status for twenty (20) years," the petition asserts.

The petition filed today is a proceeding pursuant to Article 78 of the New York Civil Practice Law and Rules.

The court is expected to set a hearing date for the lawsuit sometime in October.

"I've come to conclude that 45-47 Park Place does not rise to level of an individual landmark," Landmarks Chairman Bob Tierney said yesterday, arguing that it falls short when compared to other nearby buildings more worthy of recognition.

The building was formerly used by the Burlington Coat Factory and was recently purchased by a group known as the Cordoba House Initiative that wants to build a 13-story, $100 million cultural center on the site. The plans call for a mosque as well as performing arts spaces, a gym, and other facilities.

It had been partially damaged in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and many speakers at a hearing held by the commission last month argued for its designation as a landmark because loved ones they had lost in the terrorist attacks at Ground Zero.

Shelly Friedman, the attorney for the owner, reminded the commission at that hearing that it had first been considered for inclusion in an historic district in 1989 and had not been found worthy of inclusion and that, more recently, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer were in agreement that it was not worthy of a such a designation architecture.

The Anti-Defamation League issued a statement last Wednesday in which it said it was opposed to the current site selection near Ground Zero for a proposed Islamic Center and the recent off-lead article on the front page of The New York Times was an article by Michael Barbaro with reporting by Paul Vitello, that said that the league's statement intensified "a fierce national debate about the limits of religious freedom and the meaning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

Mayor Bloomberg defended the commission's vote in a speech at Governor's Island today:

"...we would be untrue to the best part of ourselves and who we are as New Yorkers and Americans if we said no to a mosque in lower Manhattan....to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to the terrorists, and we should not stand for that. For that reason, I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetimes."