Med Center to Save Memorial to Malcolm X
The City Planning Commission today approved the construction of a $25-million biomedical laboratory on the site where Malcolm X was slain, provided a substantial portion of the building is preserved.
That includes 40% of the Audubon Ballroom and the stage on which the black nationalist leader was shot to death Feb. 21, 1965.
In May, the commission had deferred a decision on a plan to demolish the ballroom at Broadway and 165th Street, across from Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Followers of Malcolm X objected.
The project still has to be approved by the city’s Board of Estimate.
Malcolm X headed the Harlem mosque of the Black Muslims but split with Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad in 1963. Malcolm X then formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity, which promoted black nationalism but admitted the possibility of interracial brotherhood.
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