A Manhattan “entrance” for Iran has many tentacles within the 5 boroughs, together with a 36-story workplace constructing on Fifth Avenue thought-about its crown jewel.
The Alavi Basis — named in a brand new report as a lynchpin of Iran’s “affect” marketing campaign contained in the US — additionally owns a 36,000-square-foot constructing in Queens that’s dwelling to a mosque and a college with a taxpayer-funded pre-Ok program.
In 2017, the federal authorities seized the hovering constructing at 650 Fifth Ave on the nook of East 52nd in what was then seen as an enormous victory within the conflict on terror.
An appellate decide, nevertheless, overturned the motion on procedural grounds, and the authorized battle remains to be ongoing, in accordance with the report from George Washington College’s program on extremism.
The tax-exempt basis owns 4 different properties within the US that it leases out to Muslim organizations for $1 a 12 months to function mosques, group facilities and colleges.
Revenue from industrial rents at 650 Fifth Ave. permits them to finance the subsidy.
Tenants on the Fifth Avenue skyscraper at present embody Nike’s flagship Home of Innovation, a Rolex service middle and a variety of regulation companies.
The seventeenth flooring beforehand was rented out to a fund owned by President Biden’s son Hunter and brother James.
The Alavi constructing on Queens Boulevard is dwelling to the Islamic Institute of New York, the Imam Ali mosque and the personal Al Razi College, in accordance with GWU researchers.
The personal faculty, with 163 college students, acquired greater than $1 million in authorities grants in 2022, in accordance with tax data. The GWU report famous the varsity receives funding from the New York state Division of Schooling.
The Razi faculty and Islamic Institute have tried to distance themselves from their landlord.
An indication at one level was put up within the faculty’s foyer noting that Alavi has “no involvement” in any of the constructing tenants’ actions, in accordance with a 2009 New York Occasions report.
Alavi, nevertheless, has pumped over $1.6 million into the institute over time, along with spending tens of millions on sustaining and renovating the constructing, the report discovered.
The institute and mosque often commemorate the anniversary of the 1979 Iranian revolution and have a good time Quds day, an annual anti-Israel day of rage declared by Ayatollah Khomeini, the report mentioned, citing now eliminated pages from the institute’s web site.
Iranian officers equivalent to Mohammad Khazaee, a former regime ambassador to the United Nations has often spoken at its occasions and often met with Alavi boss and ex-con Farshid Jahedi.
Alavi didn’t reply to a request for remark.