Mega-Projects Dropping Like Flies

Wonderful. Parking lots and vacant lots are just what we needed. Maybe Dan Goldstein can work as a parking attendant.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 9:47 AM

Ah, My Backyard is finally safe. Thank you, worst recession in 50 years!

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 9:54 AM

It's pretty short sighted to welcome a recession, one may look forward to benefits and then find unpleasant consequences. I don't think than anyone really knows if AY would be bad or good in the aggregate, but this will give people the opportunity to think twice about it, and by people I mean the developers. My sense is that it took on a life of its own as a project, and whether it was going to work or not was subsumed by getting in done. And now lack of money may kill it as it's currently planned. That may be a good thing; my guess is that a lot of people concerned about it will suffer in a lot of other ways becuase of the recession.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 10:03 AM

New York has just gone through one of its greatest runs of prosperity, and what do we have to show for it? Ground Zero? Still a hole in the ground. AY? Cleared so that we can have a parking lot right in the center of town. Javits expansion? Nope. New Penn Station? The plug was pulled on this deal. How about the new downtown transit hub on Fulton Street? Going nowhere fast. Anyone wanna bet that the 2nd Ave subway is really going to be completed? Any new major public infrastructure projects, beside the third water tunnel? Nope.

What the hell do we have to show for it? Thanks to the "community activists", minor-league political hacks aka "Community Boards", NIMBY's, "affordable housing activists", "Forgotten New York" Luddites, the only damn thing we have to show for ourselves is lots and lots of upscale condos. Why? because these damn losers and Luddites make it impossible to build anything else. They raise the soft cost of building anything to such a point that the only thing worth developing is luxury housing. Nice work, elitist, navel-gazing NIMBY's.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: this town needs another Robert Moses. HE knew how to knock heads together and get things done. The entire Henry Hudson Parkway and Riverside Park was built in less than 3 years. Compare that to the endless saga of the Brooklyn Bridge Park,and all the blather about "consulting" with the "stakeholders". What drivel.

These folks have squandered a run of prosperity. Go have a latte in the "community" and pat yourself on the back.

Benson

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 10:21 AM

Yeah Johnny, when a firm like Bear Stearns, which was worth like $20 billion last year, goes out things have gotten pretty amazing. Having to cancel a big project because it's not going turn a profit or lacks investment dollars, is nothing compared to that. People who say "this is great, AY got canceled," are likely very naiive and have another thing coming. If you bought in the last five years and financed 80% or more you're likely to see negative equity in the next five years.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 10:46 AM

Make all of it a park until someone can build on it.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 10:54 AM

Benson, don't forget the squandered opportunity to build up the West Side for the Olympic bid. I kind of agree with you, though I hope you read the Moses book by Caro and relaize it wasn't all brilliant, e.g. Cross-Bronx Expressway. Anyway, he was a creature of another era - the problem is that Ratner is a poor modern day equivalent.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 10:54 AM

Benson - You manage to finger all of the wrong "culprits."

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 11:08 AM

Instead of building project that would help everyone, greedy developers had this" Grand Vision". These project was to benefit the rich, not regular people. Now the credit crunch is turning these things into mush. Atlantic Yards is dead Boy and Girls, dead and stinking! Maybe things will turn back to normal.

The What

Someday this war is gonna end...

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 11:21 AM

I think a statue in Dan Goldstein's honor is called for! He and the rest of DDDB fought the good fight alerting a not too interested public to the ramifications of AY and helped prevent it long enough that it collapsed of its overreaching. Its assumptions were ludicrous (wealthy people buying luxury condos to live at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic with hoards of testosterone fueled 'fans' roaming the hood, opposite a trashy mall, built by the developer himself a few years ago. Yes those condo owners would be running right over to Pathmark wouldn't they? Puleez!) Good riddance to bad rubbish. Back to Cincinnati Ratner!

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 12:00 PM

You knock-it-all-down guys are hilarious. You'd love China - the citizens have no say there. Try it out. Please.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 12:32 PM

I'm not surprised that Tish James prefers homeless people and illegal dumping to parking lots. She is such an idiot.

12:00, Daniel Goldstein and his cohorts have achieved nothing. Their goal from the beginning has been to kill the project via endless delays, but that has yet to happen. You're getting ahead of yourself, because a delay does not equal a termination. Had Ratner voiced plans to scrap the project, then I'd concede your point. But he plans to move forward, only at a pace slower than originally hoped.

If anything, this inability to distinguish between a delay and a termination is further proof of just how desperate the anti-AY camp is for a victory. I guess that losing in court more than a dozen times, seeing most of their political candidates suffer defeat, holding sparsely-attended rallies, and failing to generate sufficient public outrage takes its toll.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 12:50 PM

Au contraire Guest at 12:50, people have expressed the opinion that the Good Friday AY articles in the Times are Ratner's trial balloon of an exit strategy, hence the choice of that day, etc. It is the subtext rather than the delay announcement we are looking at. We are a subtle bunch actually.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 1:20 PM

why dont JZ front the cash? damn tool.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 1:29 PM

Benson et al in the same vein:

You'Allz got it WAY wrong!
Hahahahahaha! And Benson, you're way to mature (on in years) to reason so poorly. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Now, look...

This is how it is with the proposed AY:

The project as a whole was going to be financed heavily on gov't IOUs that we all would be stuck for. Now...much of this financing just AIN'T going to materialize. It wasn't a "done deal"...though it appears a good chunk (unfortunately) of it for the arena part of the project may be accounted for (i.e. so much grease money has been spread around our taxpayer IOUs will happen one way or the other!)so he'll profit heavily from that aspect of the project and drop the rest that was much less lucrative: the housing, the "created jobs", etc. that put the PR gloss on this white elephant boondoggle.

FCR's private financing is falling through I'm sure...do I hear "over-extended", Anyone?!

Hahahahahah!

As though Letitia and co. have r-e-a-l-l-y stood in the way of this project. Look. It would have happened even if we chained ourselves to the fences and Ward's Bakery which is unfortunately and needlessly being demolished.

The bulldozer (billions of dollars in wrecklessly thrown, squandered taxpayer burden) would have crushed all its path...it's just that recently much of the diesel to run it has dried up.

Oops!

In closing, listen, Benson, Robert Moses made some real messes. In this day and age when we see many of the messes that were bulldozed into the landscape, maybe we could use some common sense and learn from our mistakes?...no?

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 1:47 PM

"a decadent age of reckless individualism and self indulgence"

You mean the entire history of western civilization is now over?

Put down the Kool-aid.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 1:58 PM

"a decadent age of reckless individualism and self indulgence"

You mean the entire history of western civilization is now over?

Put down the Kool-aid.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 2:07 PM

I wish I get to live to see these things getting built, but I might be dead when it happens. :(

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 2:12 PM

12.32 PM;

Regarding your comment: "You knock-it-all-down guys are hilarious. You'd love China - the citizens have no say there. Try it out. Please", I suggest you re-read my post. Nowhere in my post do I make a negative comment about the core political processes: the City Council, zoning regulations, building codes, etc. If you've got a beef with a proposed development, take it to your local elected representative, the DOB, etc.

What I am knocking is the cadre of losers and Luddites who have created a parallel semi-political process (i.e. "community reviews", calls for "Contextual design", "community benefit agreements" or "affordable housing set-asides") for no other reason than to squash development.

Benson

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 3:04 PM

Bravo,Benson
Totaly agree about community boards" bunch of f...left wing idiots

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 3:15 PM

Really? I thought left wing wanted change, revolution etc. Right wing is conservative, i.e. stay the same.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 4:34 PM

Benson = Polemicist - 35 IQ points.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 4:45 PM

BENSON:

When I just read your last post I was a little flabbergasted.

Whatever happened to our tradition, as put forward by Lincoln:
that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
???

Don't you realize that much of the mess we are currently in is not because some so-called Luddites (oh, and *they're* really overrunning us!!!ha!) or Not-in-my-backyarders stalling whatever you conceive of, in your brainwashed way, as "PROGRESS"... The mess we're in is happening SPECIFICALLY because the people are NOT able to participate.

Look, the people who have opposed being ramrodded by Ratner are not some "mob", some "rabble". They are well-meaning, participatory and usually intelligent taxpayers in the process of getting ripped off...and there are some some elected officials in the mix too who are shocked and disgusted by the steamrolling of the AY meglomania. You hold up as the boogey man, that is, China. Hello, don't you realize the whole boondoggle that is the Atlantic Yards daydream is more in line with the bahavior of top-down and corrupt regimes?

Hell, the AY idea certainly doesn't even hold up to the ideals of the "Free Market" for G*d sake. It is a b-o-o-n-d-o-g-g-l-e massively ramrodded and ripping us off.

You just don't get it...so go back your daydreams over Robert Moses.

Posted by: guest at March 28, 2008 6:10 PM

Benson, Thanks for the voice of reason telling it like it is. Never mind the comments from the NIMBY loosers, in the end it will turn out worse for them and they will always be the bitter, jealous, sorry, looserd they are.

Posted by: guest at March 29, 2008 12:53 AM

"NIMBYs" are to blame? For what, Ratner's overextended incompetence?

Posted by: guest at March 29, 2008 2:24 AM