Bruce Teitelbaum’s One45 Hosts Timbuktu Islamic Center

A development site in Harlem is once again hosting a use unrelated to the 1,000 housing units planned for the property.

This time it isn’t idling tractor-trailers but an impromptu space for a former tenant to hold Eid al-Fitr services, a celebration marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The Timbuktu Islamic Center plans to hold its Eid services on Friday at a site at West 145th Street and Lenox Avenue, where developer Bruce Teitelbaum and partners plan 1,000 housing units across three buildings, as part of the project known as One45.

The center previously leased space at a retail complex that is being demolished to make way for the development. The mosque moved a few blocks away to 350 West 145th Street, but a fire broke out over the weekend at its building, leaving it without a place to hold Eid services.

On Thursday, trucks arrived to deliver tents to be set up on a cleared portion of the development site.

Modibo Soumano, president of the center, said the fire damaged the first floor of their building, and made holding services on Friday impossible. When reached by phone on Thursday, Soumano said he reached out to Teitelbaum about holding the celebrations at the site, and was told “no problem.”

“They are nice people,” he said, noting that this was not the first time Teitelbaum and his partners helped the center. It also provided a $500,000 loan to the center to help acquire the building in 2023.

The New York City Fire Department responded to the fire on Saturday morning, bringing it under control within half an hour, according to a department representative. One firefighter was transported to the hospital with minor injuries. As of Thursday the cause of the blaze was still under investigation.

Teitelbaum said he offered up his development site, seeing it as an “opportunity to do some good” amid “too much divisiveness, anger and hate nowadays.”

“Our Jewish faith teaches us the importance of, and the obligation to do what’s right, especially so when someone is in need,” Teitelbaum said in a statement. “So we are glad to lend a helping hand to our Muslim friends who are worshipping the Holy day of Eid.”

The final tenant of the one-story retail building at 106-108 West 145th Street, the National Action Network, left at the end of January after the developer threatened to evict the organization. The developer quickly obtained demolition permits, but work will pause for Friday’s services.

One45 has been several years in the making and nearly died in May 2022 when the developers withdrew their application.

Months later, Teitelbaum set up a big-rig truck depot on part of the site, carrying through a threat that the property would be put to use absent the City Council’s sign off on his housing development plans. He later called the move a mistake after returning to the negotiation table and rebooting the project.

The development was revived after Council member Kristin Richardson Jordan, who opposed the project, decided against running for reelection and was replaced by Council member Yusef Salaam. With the leadership change and the state’s extension of a key construction deadline for the property tax break 421a, Teitelbaum released new plans for the project and restarted the city’s land use review process. The City Council signed off on the project in July.

As approved, the project is expected to include 1,000 apartments, of which at least 338 will be affordable. Teitelbaum has said that he is open to increasing the project’s unit count and share of affordable apartments, but doing so would require public subsidies. The Mamdani administration hasn’t indicated that it will ramp up financing for the development.

Meanwhile, developers are staring down a deadline to qualify for 421a. Certain projects are still able to receive the expired benefit if they are completed by June 15, 2031.