US News

PARK SLOPE REELING: IT HOSTED ATTA

Federal investigators have zeroed in on a Brooklyn building they believe suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta briefly called home when he first arrived in the United States with terror on his mind, The Post has learned.

The FBI’s probe into Atta’s movements has led agents to a three-story home in fashionable Park Slope.

They suspect Atta rented a room there more than a year ago as he began to orchestrate the final stages of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, federal and state law-enforcement sources say.

Investigators say Atta arrived at Newark Airport on June 3, 2000, from the Czech Republic on the first leg of his martyrdom mission. They believe he may have rented a room on 12th Street in Park Slope, the sources said.

FBI agents interviewed the building’s owner in October of this year. Details of that interview were not available. The owner of the building declined to discuss the matter with The Post.

“There’s nothing for you to find out,” she said.

The feds may have traced Atta to the building through a parking ticket he received on a rental car during his time in New York. He is thought to have stayed here for only a few weeks before heading to Florida.

The building in which Atta is thought to have stayed is a modest brick row-house with three doorbells. It is on a street where residents include a mix of well-heeled yuppies, lower-wage workers and recent immigrants – a scenario that would have offered Atta anonymity, investigators say.

Atta, who is believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 11 into the north tower of the trade center, would have been able to eye the Twin Towers from the building’s rooftop, and needed only to walk three blocks to the R train, which would have carried him in minutes to his future target.

Residents of 12th Street were stunned to hear that one of the ringleaders of the WTC attack may have lived next door. Many underlined lingering fears about terrorists in their midst by asking not to be identified in interviews with The Post.

A woman who lives next door to the identified building flinched when shown a picture of Atta.

“That’s scary. That’s the guy who gives me nightmares every time I see his face,” she said.

“It breaks my heart,” said one elderly, longtime resident. “It’s a disgrace that he was here. I wish I could have done something to prevent it.”

Neighbors said the owner of the building regularly ran ads seeking international travelers. They said tourists often showed up in taxis directly from the airports.

“They come with their luggage,” one man said. “I think they’re running some kind of bed-and-breakfast there.”

Workers in banks, check-cashing outfits and shops along the nearby Fifth Avenue shopping strip did not recall seeing Atta in the area.