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March 8, 2007

Peyser Finds Ratner's Ass, Inserts Nose

We didn't see Post columnist Andrea Peyer's article until late in the day yesterday. Given the extreme hyperbole and brash tone, it's amazing it wasn't clearly labeled more clearly as an opinion piece. But whatever. Here's a taste of what she wrote:

It's about freaking time. Three long and frustrating years have passed since I walked with developer Bruce Ratner along Brooklyn's horrendously blighted Atlantic Yards - and we were greeted by a pile of seven discarded hypodermic syringes...After navigating miles of red tape and enduring fierce protests led by dilettante celebrities who don't give a rat's rump about the borough of Brooklyn, construction has started.

Now, it's one thing to disagree with the anti-Yards contingent about whether this will be a good thing for Brooklyn, but to cast them collectively as not caring about the borough is plain silly. Peyser's tough-gal prose (all the more annoying in contrast to her starry-eyed depiction of Ratner) is just another example of the class warfare PR campaign that Ratner has managed to wage. All those syringes she mentions seeing on the ground could have been equally well removed by builders developing this area organically without the crutch of eminent domain.
Score One For The Good Guys [NY Post]
Re: Score One For The Good Guys [No Land Grab]
Andrea Peyser Spies a Rat [AY Report]

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Comments

It's a column, so it is inherently an opinion piece. Not that I don't find Peyser abhorrent on any number of topics.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 9:37 AM

She's a Boob!

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 9:51 AM

peyser is and always has been a piece of S$%&. btw, she lives in park slope, so she must care about brooklyn...right?

she's like the troll, you just need to ignore her and then she'll go away.

plus she writes for a rag.

Posted by: what bubble? at March 8, 2007 9:52 AM

I don't know what Peyser found, but your headline found my laughing spot.
That's a good one Mr. B'stoner

Posted by: Mentch at March 8, 2007 10:12 AM

Yeah, that's her thing. Tuff girl, thugette, media gun moll. Now rounding out the image is groupie for the black hats. Great work if you can get it.

Posted by: donatella at March 8, 2007 10:16 AM

B'Stoner -

A) Your title for this post is so crass it's actually sad and B) there is a case to be made that opponents didn't "care" as in large part they were representing what could be considered a short-sighted view about something that could benefit many...

I strongly believe that there would have been a better chance of a middle ground more beneficial to all of us if the most vocal opponents hadn't been the usual bunch of crazies (government conspiracy theorists etc.), joke celebrities (i.e. the silly attempt to put Heath and Michelle in the mix) and brownstone owners who just came off as pure elitists (whether or not they were/are)...did you go to any of those anti-yards rallies? what percentage of the crowd would a reasonable person consider "normal"? (let's not get side-tracked on "what's normalcy?") The "anti-" people on my block were comprised of renters with low income jobs (or no jobs) living in rent stabilized apartments and "renovators" that are trying to make their houses exact replicas of 1860 living in between moving their three cars from one side of the street to the other. The "middle" who, whether you like it or not will be the new core residents for these neighborhoods, were absent from the discussion because they were completely alienated by the hysteria.

The yards are a disgrace/blighted and I am truly sorry for those that will be paid to have their property seized through eminent domain (you can't put a price on your home) but hopefully there's a lesson to be learned for the next battles that we will fight in the inevitable development of the area - you cannot win these battles unless you tone down the rhetoric and broaden the base that your message appeals to.

Posted by: ThirtyThreeSixty at March 8, 2007 10:18 AM

She doesn't live in Park Slope. She lives on Warren St. between Court & Clinton. Why And let me tell you, she's a lot uglier than her "glamour" shot by her column.

Posted by: jones at March 8, 2007 10:23 AM

I think pretty standard and assumed that a columnist is opinion piece. That goes for any newspaper - so off-base on that criticism.
Of course, I don't believe her nonsense either about what she saw (needles, rats) etc --or at least it could be said about any construction site or empty lot in even the toniest neighborhoods.
She a columnist - only intent is to provoke, stoke the disagreements, etc.
Not further enlighten or engage in intelligent discourse.
Yet the anti-AY often is often just as shrill.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 10:29 AM

Hey 10:18, you paint a very colorful picture of the opponents. Ever think of writing for a newspaper --maybe Andrea needs an assistant. I, for one, never get side-tracked on the issue of 'what's normalcy' which I why I would never take it upon myself to call opponents of this project abnormal.

Posted by: anon Fort Greener at March 8, 2007 10:30 AM

No, no. Her name was "Abby" someone. Abby who? "Abby Normal"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UexffH422Vg

Posted by: feldman at March 8, 2007 10:39 AM

What do you mean by "builders developing this area organically"? You make it sound so easy. Don't you think whatever you and other AY opponents would want at the site would be met with equal opposition?

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 10:40 AM

Andrea Peyser is an Ann Coulter in the making.

Posted by: North Sleeper at March 8, 2007 10:41 AM

I'm more 'for' the development than 'against', but I say Peyser's column yesterday and thought it was absolutely ridiculous. I automatically assumed that she was a Manhattanite who never ever comes into Brooklyn... I cannot believe that piece of crap article was written by someone who resides in BK! She's nuts. And wack. What a fluff piece.

Posted by: Brooklyn Zoo at March 8, 2007 10:43 AM

Fort Greener - I apologize that I could be interpreted to be calling people "abnormal" - certainly not my intention but when I read what I wrote I agree that "abnormality" could have been infered...

Unfortunately, however, you comments goes directly to the point I was trying to make - within two minutes of me posting there is an immediate response of "this guys calling everyone abnormal what's he going to do next call us retarded?" This was the entire tone of the AY debate and why we have ended up with this monstrosity in our neighborhood...

Posted by: ThirtyThreeSixty at March 8, 2007 10:43 AM

Hyperbole and brash tone? There's a guy called Goldstein who fits that description.

Why is it OK for AY opponents to constantly imply that Ratner, Markowitz, Bloomberg, etc. do not care about the borough, but when Peyser says the same about AY opponents it's suddenly a problem?

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 10:52 AM

Brownstoner.... which small developers can afford to build a platform? Should the city build the platform and increase taxes to cover it? Or maybe we should just cut back on social services to build it....

Posted by: anon at March 8, 2007 11:09 AM

There are a lot of developers who could have done this project without city money. Don't you remember that one of them actually bid MORE money for the site than Ratner? Ratner isn't building the platform, the money from the city is.

Posted by: anonymous at March 8, 2007 11:18 AM

I agree with 10:18. Its very similar to whats happening in politics right now. The extreme right and left get very shrill and no one pays attention to the moderates.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 11:30 AM

Hopefully one day soon the right will finally own all of the media so that there will be no opposition to tarnish our mission of world homogenization. Forget these people who chose to live in blighted areas, they are clearly trash.

Posted by: Andrea Peyer at March 8, 2007 11:51 AM

I'll be if you look at the train tracks at Grand Central you'll likely find some garbage and the occasional hypodermic needle. Maybe they should build the yards there to get rid of the blight.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 12:21 PM

11:51,

On a humor scale of 1-10, your attempted impersonation of Andrea Peyser scores a solid 2. Five lashes with a wet noodle for a lack of originality!

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 12:23 PM

Dear 10:18 and 10:43,

"Unfortunately, however, you comments goes directly to the point I was trying to make - within two minutes of me posting there is an immediate response of "this guys calling everyone abnormal what's he going to do next call us retarded?"

I didn't see that comment. Is that your thought in italics?

Posted by: anon Fort Greener at March 8, 2007 12:53 PM

12:23 PM,

I tried, next time i'll do better. thanks for the wet noodle alert!

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 1:17 PM

Boerum Hill resident here.

When I walk around the nieghborhood, to the west of the AY Arena, I see nothing but new construction going on (i.e. seemingly all of State St., good portions of Atlantic + fits & spurts on 4th). If the MTA made the yards land available in small pieces, the same thing would happen there.

If the City wants to get rid of blight, it should try helping out with the areas between Nevins and 3rd. Wyckoff Gardens residents have to live surrounded by auto body shops + pell mell light manufacturing sites. There are hardly any parks or qulatiy retail. The city couldn't have deisgned a more bleak environment to put public housing in. Why doesn;t the City + State do something to spruce up that area and bring in better parks + retail etc?

The answer is that they're not out to get rid of blight. They're out to get paid off by this developer.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 1:19 PM

Boerum Hill resident at 1:19pm,

Nevins and 3rd / Wyckoff Gardens area isn't blighted.

It exists precisely as it was always zoned to be.

For businesses...
1) that pay their taxes (presumably...)
2) that provide jobs to individuals
3) that provide needed services or light manufacturing and industrial functions to the community at large

It's not meant to be residential, luxury retail or even mid-level retail.

It's zoned for a particular purpose (light industry, services etc.), and serves it.

The city community has great need for garages, repair shops, grocery/dairy depots, printing houses, welding shops, plumbers, supply warehouses etc. to support the very retail and residential functions you mention.

Some empty/for-lease buildings aside, are not most such properties in the area housing functional businesses use as described above, as per actual zoning for the area?

Posted by: doh at March 8, 2007 1:51 PM

doh,

UMMM, isn't the planned use for Atlantic Yards area - used for transporation now and being re-zoned for residential + other commercial uses?

My point is if you're looking for "blight" you're going to see the real thing around areas like Nevins & 3rd vs. a twisting of the word at Atlantic + Flatbush.

My second point is the the State & City are spending money to revitalize an area that has already self revitalized. They are about 10 years too late for that party. At the same time, areas like that around Wykoff Gardens could use some real reviatlization, so that maybe residents there could be surrounded by things like parks and and a decent supermarket instead of things like dumpsters, piles of old tires and barrels of industrial goo.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 2:45 PM

Anonymous 2:45pm,

I was not the one using the term "blight," you were.

I was debunking your use of the term "blight," as if it attempted to say "well, if they really want to see blight, go a few blocks west.

My whole point is that I don't support any of that argument, least of all passing it to someone else's backyard.

Posted by: doh at March 8, 2007 2:55 PM

Although I do now see that your intentions on the subject were different than I first read into it, and that we're actually in agreement on the larger issues present, so ignore my last post, it was ill-informed.

Posted by: doh at March 8, 2007 3:18 PM

A brownsoner 1st: two posters agreeing.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 8, 2007 4:13 PM

andrea peyser is walking crap.
and representative of the so called publication she works for.

Posted by: Anonymous at March 9, 2007 12:27 AM

AY is only one project among the large number of projects along Flatbush Avenue that will improve the quality of life along its length.

Posted by: rentar at March 11, 2007 3:27 PM

Andrea might REALLY ask
Where have the garbage cans gone on that street?
Who is dumping the garbage there?
Why has the MTA and State purposely NOT CLEANED that area in nearly 40 years?
To suggest that the "blight" is an evolution of the people living there, is just about as snooty as Andrea Peyser pretends not to be.
She is so misguided. Your title is great.

As for the usual "crazies" as someone stated up there... life in the clouds must be nice, but if you think people who question the corrupt government are crazies, then bring it freakin on.
The continuation of business as usual in this country rests on the obivious notions of people like you. Ignorance IS bliss!

Posted by: Missy at March 12, 2007 9:53 AM

« Judge Rules Ratner Obtained Properties Illegally Orthodox Jewish Group Digging Gothic Architecture »

March 8, 2007

Peyser Finds Ratner's Ass, Inserts Nose

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