New York: A museum commemorating the world`s most famous Holocaust victim is planning to move across the street from the proposed Ground Zero mosque, The New York Post has learned.
The non-profit Anne Frank Centre USA, a partner of the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, offers educational programs about the Holocaust and the history of World War II.
The group is poised to sign a lease in the 20-floor, glass-and-steel tower at 100 Church Street, sources involved in the negotiations confirmed.
The windows of the one million- square-foot office tower overlook Park 51, the planned 16-storey, 125,000-square-foot Muslim community centre and mosque at 45 Park Place, two blocks from Ground Zero.
The museum, which currently rents loft space at 38 Crosby Street in SoHo, took out ads last year seeking a larger home in order to re-create the "secret annex" where the doomed Jewish teen wrote her famous diary while hiding from the Nazis with her family in Amsterdam between 1942 and 1944.
The move would be more evidence that lower Manhattan is becoming a Mecca for religious and cultural groups of all stripes.
There are already more than 20 houses of worship below Canal Street and 13 museums south of Chambers Street, according to the Downtown Alliance. A nondenominational Christian church recently opened in 7 World Trade Centre.
The Anne Frank Centre is in negotiations with SL Green Realty Corp to rent 2,500 square feet of ground-floor space, according to Steven Durels, SL Green`s director of leasing for the building.
The asking rent is USD 50 a square foot, which would be USD 125,000 a month for the exhibition centre.
ANI
