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MENANDS -- The Turks are rising in the Capital Region.

In the past six months, Turks have bought a building on Broadway in Menands, renovated it and created the Turkish Cultural Center of Albany with the help of the organization's first paid full-time employee.

Once limited mostly to a few graduate students from Turkey in the 1980s, an estimated 200 Turkish families now live in this region and work as professors, researchers and pizza shop owners.

One of their members owns Ali Baba restaurant in Troy, which supplies Turkish specialties to dinners at the center, including gatherings each weekend to break the fast during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends Sept. 10.

A core group of a few dozen families started the cultural center because the local Turkish population had reached a critical mass that could support it. Also, several Turkish couples had babies in the past year and they were confronted with an age-old conundrum of immigrants: how to assimilate into American society without losing their own cultural identity.

After a year of fund-raising, the not-for-profit organization made a down payment on the $250,000 two-story structure on a commercial and industrial stretch in Menands. The organization turned an empty office building into a multi-use facility with classrooms, an after-school play area, game room, dining hall and conference room. The center is decorated with Turkish coffee pots, glassware, paintings and handicrafts. The distinctive red Turkish flag, with a white star and crescent moon, stands next to an American flag.

A grand opening in the fall is planned. The members expect to offer Turkish language courses for Americans and English language courses for newly arrived Turks.

There is no mosque on the site and the center will not be used for Islamic prayer services, organizers said. Turkey is a Muslim country, with Christians, Jews and non-Muslims making up less than 1 percent of the 78 million people in the republic. Yet the president of the local organization took care to explain that the Turkish Cultural Center of Albany is not a religious or political group. In keeping with Islamic teaching, the center will not serve alcohol or allow smoking, but women, children and people of all faiths will be welcome to participate. There will be no dress code. Cultural dinners, interfaith programs and classes in Turkish cooking will be open to the public.