Marty Urges Cost-Cutting at Atlantic Yards
With a worsening economic picture and no end to its legal entanglements, the chances of Forest City ever building the Frank Gehry-designed vision it sold to the public are growing increasingly slim. Recognizing this reality, one of the project’s biggest supporters, Marty Markowitz weighed in yesterday with his own call for modifying the project to…
With a worsening economic picture and no end to its legal entanglements, the chances of Forest City ever building the Frank Gehry-designed vision it sold to the public are growing increasingly slim. Recognizing this reality, one of the project’s biggest supporters, Marty Markowitz weighed in yesterday with his own call for modifying the project to reflect the new realities. “I am asking Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation to give Barclays’ design a second look,” the borough president said in a statement, “and conceptualize a sports and entertainment venue that is more economically feasible but provides the modern amenities our residents and visitors to Brooklyn demand and deserve.” In a sign that the final outcome, if built, could be a nightmarish architectural hodge-podge of mediocrity, Markowitz also said that, “There may be a chance to incorporate design and construction changes that will lower the bottom line and celebrate the ‘Brownstone Brooklyn’ architecture that makes our borough unique.” Just what we need: New faux brownstone-y buildings mixed with diluted modernism.
Markowitz Calls for Paring Cost of Atlantic Yards [NY Times]
Marty: AY No Longer ‘Economically Feasible’ [Brooklyn Paper]
Markowitz on Barclays Center [AY Report]
Photo by Tracy Collins
maybe marty and his chorus of shills should have thought about all this before they gave ratner a sweetheart deal . . . .
next time, force him to agree to build on a timetable, otherwise give back the land he got on the cheap.
better to wait until economy comes back than to build a POS.
Oh. Well nevermind then.
Yeah, sorry…I meant Pru Center in Newark…
I think its pretty funny that Marty is talking about celebrating Brownstone Brooklyn architecture for a project that did anything but. Unless I’m missing something and all those humongous monstrosities Ratner and Gehry came up with are really brownstones in disguise.
duckumu: It’s the Prudential Center in Newark they’re talking about, not the Prudential Center in Boston.
The Prudential Center is surrounded on all sides by some of the best neighborhoods and shopping in Boston. There’s no black hole intersection similar to Flatbush/Atlantic anywhere near there. This site borders on the ugliest parts of Park Slope, Fort Greene, and Boerum Hill, and the horrible Atlantic Center.
Additionally the cultures of the areas are like night and day. A replica of Prudential in this area might not be successful because the clinetele is so different. Atlantic Ave is not exactly Boylston Street.
The Mitchell Llama houses that surround it are already faux-Brooklyn-esque, and look pretty nice. So… not really seeing this as a problem.
As for diluted modernism, that’s what all new architecture is mostly. So… what’s your point? There should be undiluted modernism? Meaning more glass? Meaning, what, exactly?
So we may end up with something resembling the Prudential Center at Flatbush and Atlantic instead, huh? I’ve actually been to the Prudential Center and (as much as it has been maligned on this blog) its actually pretty nice, bare bones but nice. I would argue that its look actually fits the neighborhood much more “contextually” than Gehry’s design would have….