The High Line’s and Rabbi Shmuley’s Unwelcome Neighbors
Stroller mommies taking in New York’s new High Line park aren’t the only ones vexed by the prospect of seeing more than they bargained for. Media-loving Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is threatening to sue the Libyan government, which owns the Englewood, N.J. property that abuts his home, for cutting down trees that kept his neighbors out of view.
The Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi, who last week warmly welcomed back to Libya a convicted mastermind of the deadly bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, is slated to visit the U.S. next month for the United Nations General Assembly. He is reportedly planning to pitch a Bedouin-style tent on the Libyan Mission-owned Englewood property.
Boteach, in a press release Monday, said that he and his family were deeply distressed by the thought of Gaddafi peering down their throats. He warned: “If they don’t restore my trees and fence to what they were, immediately, then I will sue them so that Libyan money goes to peaceful projects like planting trees rather than blowing up planes.”
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