A Mosque Outgrows its Harlem Home

(Crain’s) — On a recent moonlit night on Frederick Douglass Boulevard just south of 116th Street, in the shadows of a spiffy new condo building called the Livmor, the crowd for a Ramadan prayer at Aqsa mosque spilled out onto the sidewalk. Two dozen West African women in bright-colored head wraps knelt on a blue tarp, listening as the imam’s prayer filtered through an open door, his voice competing with the staccato bounce of a basketball on the pavement and a group of young boys rapping. The mosque is literally bursting at the seams.  Three years ago, two West African mosques facing escalating rents consolidated into one congregation and building. The joint effort, Aqsa mosque, now faces the same problem. Imam Souleimane Konate believes that Homeside Development Corp., which bought the Aqsa building for $3.7 million in 2008, wants to build on the site or sell to another developer.

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