Muslims of New York, a long history coming back into the light

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By DAVID W. DUNLAP

One of New York's first mosques operated out of 17 Rector Street, seen in 1930, once in the heart of the Little Syria neighborhood downtown. Credit Percy Sperr

NEW YORK---Muslims have been called many things lately in America. New Yorkers, however, have had their own word for them, going back more than a century: Neighbors. Historians have long known about Little Syria, a flourishing community in Lower Manhattan, south of what is now the World Trade Center. Today, evidence is coming to light that Muslims not only lived in Little Syria but worshiped there, too, in a mosque — or masjid — on Rector Street, between Greenwich and Washington Streets (just around the corner from St. George’s). [link]