This mosque in Manhattan is turned 29 degrees from the street grid, because it faces Mecca, not the avenue.
This is the Islamic Cultural Center of New York, on Third Avenue in East Harlem, near East 96th Street. Plans for a large Islamic center go back to the late 1960s. The first center was small, in a townhouse at 1 Riverside Drive, which is still used for prayer.
In 1987, representatives of the Islamic member states at the United Nations, led by Kuwait, commissioned the new mosque from Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, a firm better known for skyscrapers.
More than 46 Muslim countries are said to have contributed to the cost, and work slowed during the Gulf War. Wikipedia gives the cost as 14 million dollars in one place and 17 million in another, so we give no figure.
The mosque opened on 15 April 1991, for Eid ul-Fitr. It was the first mosque built from the ground up in New York City.
The building is square, and four intersecting steel trusses leave the prayer hall free of columns. Granite and glass tiers step up to a copper dome that has turned green with age, like the Statue of Liberty. A minaret rises about 130 feet; that height comes from Wikipedia only.
The 29-degree turn points toward Mecca, and according to the architects it also makes the building stand out in the streetscape, brings in light and creates an open forecourt where worshippers gather before the call to prayer. The main prayer hall holds about 1,000 people.
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