Rally Round the Mega-Project
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and AY Report bring word of a rally Forest City Ratner is organizing at Borough Hall this Thursday afternoon to demonstrate support for Atlantic Yards. The event is called “Brooklyn Day,” and, as AY Report writes, it suggests FCR isn’t considering Atlantic Yards a “done deal.” The poster for Brooklyn Day…
Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and AY Report bring word of a rally Forest City Ratner is organizing at Borough Hall this Thursday afternoon to demonstrate support for Atlantic Yards. The event is called “Brooklyn Day,” and, as AY Report writes, it suggests FCR isn’t considering Atlantic Yards a “done deal.” The poster for Brooklyn Day says it’s being held in honor of “Brooklyn’s renaissance; The progress of Atlantic Yards; Affordable housing, union jobs and community development; and The return of professional sports to the borough.” The event seems primarily pitched to construction workers (they got their own invitation separate from the poster above) and, aside from the promise of union jobs, the promo material emphasizes that AY will bring the Nets to Brooklyn. Per AY Report: “The rally poster suggests that the developer is de-emphasizing the promises of affordable housing—after all, the developer has 12+ years to build Phase 1, and no deadline for Phase 2—and returning to the old mantra of basketball. After all, the basketball motif dominates the poster and, at the top, ‘The Nets moving to Brooklyn!’ appears in larger type than ‘support the Atlantic Yards Project.’ Can the iconographic power of the flag and the Brooklyn Bridge nudge the stalled project forward?” Desperate times call for desperate rallies? It’ll be interesting to see how many legitimate supporters of Atlantic Yards the event draws and whether any anti-AY people show up for a counter-rally.
At Borough Hall on Thursday, Another FCR-Organized AY rally [AY Report]
Ratner Calls Rally In Support of…Ratner [DDDB]
Funny, when DDDB attracts 400 people to a rally, everyone calls it a success, but when Ratner attracts the same or more, it’s called a failure.
You people are nuts!
This event was pathetic. There were maybe 400 people there, so why should anyone care, they are not the community. You could pay those people to be there, to be against the project, as long as they got paid, they could not care less about anyone but themselves.
Think of the money FCR just wasted on this nonsense, he could probably have paid the rent for a few hundred currently homeless people! Pathetic.
Posted by: guest at June 3, 2008 10:44 AM
dumb and numb
What is conventional work?
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“Regarding the “Unity Plan”, which developer is actually going be able to execute this plan? Would said developer have the resources to obtain financing in the current climate? ”
Well actually there was a bidder, Extell development company which outbid Ratner to buidl something like the UNITY plan. Ther is nothing “hippie” about the UNITY plan, whatever that even means. As for who could execute the UNITY plan, any number of developers could. And that is the point. You divide up the yards, so multiple developers can construct the project and actualy finish it, instead of putting 22 acres into the incompetent hands of a single developer, Ratner, who clearly can’t obtain financing.
So while the UNITY plan is a real plan, with no “hippies” involved, it is clear that Atlantic Yards is pipe dream proposed by a trickster, unable to execute it.
Unity’s URL is http://unitplan.org. If you use the other one you get nowhere.
And it’s a very good plan that allows multiple developers which will better allow for completion, not this Ratner mess that will never, ever get built.
Take a look before you start ignorantly saying there are no other plans. There’s a lot more information out there than you’ll find in a Ratner press release.
And how does “Brooklyn Day” suddenly become a Ratner holiday? Like THAT shouldn’t bother anybody???
2:08 – “different black people” here. I find FCR’s use of ACORN, Rev. Daughtrey, BUILD, and black celebs like Jay Z and b’ball players to be very disengenous.
IF the project had been done on the up and up, without eminent domain, and with the affordable component as a priority, not a maybe, THEN I’d be less cynical.
IF the demo of properties already owned by FCR actually were using BUILD members (minority construction workers and trainees), and people were being trained now for the work they will be performing supposedly “soon”, THEN that would be the fulfillment of a pledge.
IF the affordable housing was a centerpiece, or co-equal component of the housing in the complex, not an add-on for a mythical Phase 2, that depends on the profit margin of Phase 1, and is therefore not a sure thing, THEN I’d have some respect for them.
But when “affordable” means up to an income of $120K, how many of those who are lined up for a nice apartment, you know those people bussed in for past rallies and basketball players’ autographs, how many of them will actually get one? How many of them will get a job at AY?
My black friends and colleagues can see through this, and don’t like it. You can believe what you choose, but don’t deny the real possiblility that while there are many good things to be said about developing the site, much more can be said about the methods FCR has used to get what they want.
2:14- is there a legal difference between “blighted” and “underdeveloped” (or undeveloped)? Are areas defined differently by those terms and therefore treated differently in terms of the use of eminent domain?
“Ratner’s deal, while imperfect (as almost any plan is, considering it involves human beings), will obstensibly create affordable housing, jobs, entertainment”
why only ostensibly? Could be you also are not quite as sure about the strength of Ratner’s promises?