In addition to the main theater, events also took place in the building's smaller "Syria Mosque Ballroom" space.

I was riveted by the cursive Arabic calligraphy on the building: la ghalib il-Allah, “There is no victor but Allah,” the well-known refrain [inscribed on the walls of][9] Granada’s Alhambra.

Excitedly, I took a youthful step towards the lobby, when my host turned around and said, "This is not the kind of mosque in which you bend up and down facing Mecca.

This is a meeting hall–theater built by Shriners, a nice bunch of people who build hospitals for [disabled] children and raise money through parades and circuses.

[10] The station also represented a milestone in the television industry, providing the first "network" of a coaxial cable feed that included Pittsburgh and 13 other cities from Boston to St.