Reason number 14 to love New York: “Because sometimes immense, gratuitous, noncontextual acts of real-estate ego don’t pan out.” Those adjectives belong to New York magazine, pointing out that Ratner’s “$4.2 billion, 22-acre combination of residential towers and office buildings, anchored by a basketball arena for the Nets, was supposed to completely transform downtown Brooklyn—with seemingly little thought given to what it might do to the already paralyzed intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.” Though the lawsuits against the project “never got any real traction,” they did indeed delay the project, they write, until the market changed. “At the moment, the old neighborhood is winning. Score two points for entropy.” Is this a victory for opponents? A pit-stop on the way to development? Construction may be a while off, but demolition is long underway.
Because Sometimes Immense, Gratuitous, Noncontextual Acts Of Real-estate Ego Don’t Pan Out [New York]