Mega-Projects Dropping Like Flies
This morning Clyde Haberman has an op-ed summing up how a lot of New Yorkers feel right now about the city’s grand development plans: Most believe they’re not gonna happen anytime soon. For Brooklyn, the big maybe-never is Atlantic Yards, but there’s been a pileup in the past couple of weeks of other fading prospects:…
This morning Clyde Haberman has an op-ed summing up how a lot of New Yorkers feel right now about the city’s grand development plans: Most believe they’re not gonna happen anytime soon. For Brooklyn, the big maybe-never is Atlantic Yards, but there’s been a pileup in the past couple of weeks of other fading prospects: the MTA’s promise to extend service is on hold; Moynihan Station is looking to be a bust; and no one knows whether the long-planned Javits expansion will occur. But it’s not like New York hasn’t faced shattered visions before, and often for the better. Haberman quotes CUNY poli-sci professor John H. Mollenkopf as saying huge projects frequently go through several design phases over many years, and so, “‘New York will come back, and we will get another crack at all these things.'” On a related score, Metro’s Amy Zimmer reports on how there are worries that a stalled AY means empty space at the site will be used as parking lots for years to come. Councilmember Letitia James says parking lots are “a revenue generator and right now [land is] sitting fallow, arguing that Forest City Ratner should not allow the property, which is now attracting the homeless and illegal dumping, to be used in such a fashion.
As Builders’ Grand Visions Dissolve, So Does Our Faith [NY Times]
Visions of Parking Lots at Stalled Atlantic Yards Site [Metro]
Photo of demolished building in AY footprint by threecee.
I wish I get to live to see these things getting built, but I might be dead when it happens. 🙁
“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.
“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.
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?
why dont JZ front the cash? damn tool.
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.
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.
You knock-it-all-down guys are hilarious. You’d love China – the citizens have no say there. Try it out. Please.
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!