A five-story building at 45 Park Place, two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, now houses a Muslim prayer space. Burlington Coat Factory operated a store there until Sept. 11, 2001, but it had been vacant since then, until a group of Muslims bought it in July.

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“Built in 1923, the building at 45 Park Place was bought by Sy Syms, the discount retailer, and a partner, Irving Pomerantz, in 1968, and became one of the early Syms stores. The store closed in 1990, the partners parted ways, and the Pomerantz family then leased the building to the Burlington Coat Factory.

On Sept. 11, the store, with 80 employees, was one of 250 Burlington outlets nationwide owned by the Milstein family. That morning, recalled Stephen Milstein, the company’s former general manager and vice president, the staff was in the basement when a piece of a plane plunged through the roof, either from American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the north tower at 8:46 a.m., or United Airlines Flight 175 crashing into the south tower at 9:03.”

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