Top Ten Brooklyn Stories of Last Decade?
Rich Calder of The Post takes a stab at defining the ten biggest Brooklyn stories of the last decade. It seems like a decent list to us, though we would have put the rezonings of Downtown Brooklyn and Williamsburg higher on the list. What about you? What’s missing or shouldn’t have made the cut? 1….
Rich Calder of The Post takes a stab at defining the ten biggest Brooklyn stories of the last decade. It seems like a decent list to us, though we would have put the rezonings of Downtown Brooklyn and Williamsburg higher on the list. What about you? What’s missing or shouldn’t have made the cut?
1. Atlantic Yards
2. The Fight (Sitt vs. Bloomberg) for Coney Island’s Future
3. Cyclones Arrive at Keyspan Park
4. Condos Added to Brooklyn Bridge Park Plan
5. Astroland Closes
6. Rezoning of Downtown Brooklyn and Williamsburg
7. Marty Markowitz Becomes Borough President
8. Clarence Norman Busted for Selling Judgeships
9. Ikea Comes to Red Hook
10. Opening of Brooklyn Cruise Terminal
Calder’s Honorable Mentions on the jump…
Brooklyn’s Top 10 Stories of the Decade [NY Post]
Honorable mention:
– Feds call for Superfund designation of Gowanus Canal;
– Jehovah Witnesses begin selling properties in Heights and DUMBO;
– Walentas continues transformation of DUMBO;
– Hasids and Hipsters fight over bike lanes in W’burg.
Photo by loop_oh
Well said, Brenda.
I love it, fsrg. A decline under one man isn’t a real decline that can be credited to him, because it’s not as impressive as the decline under your hero. A decline is a decline. And the people responsible for it (Kelly and others) were good enough for Bloomberg to bring back, after Rudy’s stellar choices.
I don’t want to argue about, or defend the Dinkins administration, or even the Giuliani or Bloomberg administrations. I just think people should give Dinkins his due. The decline of the crime rate started with him. Why is that so hard to admit? It takes nothing away from Rudy’s accomplishments in this area.
Additionally, in defense of Bloomberg – in Guiliani’s 2nd Term crime only declined slightly and then again started a major drop again in ’02.
Administration does matter and the current one has homicides down to less than 470 – which is even more remarkable because the city population is estimated to be up over 1M people since 1999
Reading the Post roundup (which was a great time-saver for those of us who haven’t been following the Big Deal Stories too closely for the past 10 years), what emerges as the big story to me is that Brooklyn became a real-estate Klondike, and the gold rush, while it has slacked off, ain’t over yet. But the Mega-Story is: Don’t Believe the Hype. Condo builders promise ‘open space’ and forget to provide it; Ikea promises local jobs but can’t document how many; everyone promises a glorious wonderland for Coney Island or Atlantic Yards and all they do is wheel and deal behind the scenes to make a killing; pols promise to limit their terms and just can’t bring themselves to do it. And a public with Attention Deficit Disorder never holds anyone fully accountable as the weasels let time do their dirty work for them. This situation will get worse with the ongoing decline of full-time, local, professional journalism, unless more sharp-eyed and diligent citizen watchdogs like the late and much-missed Bob Guskind spring up to fill the vaccuum.
Harlem is iconic both for the Black community and the City. There is no comparison to the experience of Blacks in Harlem and Italians in Bensonhurst, and Bensonhurst does not have the cultural presence in music, art or history that Harlem does. This is no insult to Bensonhurst, or Italian Americans (although I’m sure one person will immediately see it that way). Harlem simply is a much greater historical and cultural presence.
I know it’s not just Brooklyn, but 311 was started in 2002. Brownstoner a few years later.
DIY is now a high risk endeavor. Not like the ’90’s.
Slopefarm you better go back and check your graphs, crime did NOT precipitously decline in ANY year of the Dinkins admin and the decline in EVERY year of Guiliani’s first term far exceeded Dinkins best year.
“crime started dropping fairly rapidly.”
Slopefarm;
Really? See the statistics cited by FSRG.
Here is a fact that cannot be disputed: at the end of Dinkin’s term, the disgust with his policies was so widespread, particularly those concerning crime, that the following occured:
-Senator Moynihan tore him a new one at a speech in April 1993. In that speech, he coined a phrase to characterize Dinkin’s attitude towards crime: “Defining Deviancy Down”, and went on to write a book about it.
-The LIBERAL party endorsed Giuliani’s run for mayor.
Spin all you want, but these are facts.
And there is also the Freakonomics Theory of why crime dropped during those years.