Atlantic Yards or Atlantic Lots?
These past few days have been a big one for Atlantic Yards news. Saturday, hundreds of protesters led by three opposition groups and several politicians rallied at the Atlantic Yards footprint, calling for a halt to demolition until developer Forest City Ratner can provide details on its plans and assurances that it has the financing…
These past few days have been a big one for Atlantic Yards news. Saturday, hundreds of protesters led by three opposition groups and several politicians rallied at the Atlantic Yards footprint, calling for a halt to demolition until developer Forest City Ratner can provide details on its plans and assurances that it has the financing to see them through. They were met by a 50 percent larger group of counter-protesters, estimated Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder, who proceeded to comment on the ethnicity, neighborhood of residence and motivation of each one. On Sunday, Bruce Ratner penned an op-ed piece in the Daily News blaming construction delays on the project’s “rigorous public review” and legal challenges waged by opponents. He said “the delays have pushed us into a time when the economy has slowed, and both financing and tenant commitments are more challenging to obtain. But contrary to rumors, large deals are still getting done, and in the past year alone we have closed on the two largest construction financing in our company’s history, totaling over $1.3 billion. Atlantic Yards will be no different.” Ratner said the company’s first goal is to break ground on the Barclays Center (Nets basketball arena) this year, then the first residential building. “As for Miss Brooklyn, Frank Gehry’s signature commercial tower, a targeted marketing campaign to identify an anchor tenant is currently underway. When that tenant is confirmed, we will finalize plans and start building,” he wrote. He said the whole thing would be completed by 2018, which opponents called crazy talk.
Today, the New York Post obtained renderings commissioned by the Municipal Arts Society depicting how the project’s footprint would look as economic woes stall its construction indefinitely. They name it “Atlantic Lots” after the sea of parking lots that surround the arena and lone tower the developer said he’d work on first. Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt responded, “Frankly, this is so far from anything even remotely resembling what we are building that it’s not worth commenting on further.” For one thing, he said, the developer would mostly likely plant trees (you know, temporarily) on that big grey slab surrounding the arena. Also today, the Daily News has an article proclaiming “Miss Brooklyn is slashed more than 100 feet in a massive redo” from 620 feet to 511 feet. That of course happened before the project was approved Dec. 2006, but the new model looks substantially different, “replaced by an asymmetrical design that rises like a spiraling Lego structure.” State officials told the newspaper Miss Brooklyn would only have 650,000 square feet of office space and no condos or hotel. But a construction timetable for the project’s signature tower was not given, and an anchor tenant still needs to be secured before it can ever get financing. They also unveiled that red building to the right of Miss Brooklyn, also a revised design. Technically, the Post and Daily News models are not competing visions, they just depict different stages of construction. As usual, the Atlantic Yards Report has a meticulous dissection of everything. And a Metro columnist says the city would be better off if the Nets just went to Newark.
Ratner: AY Dead? Dream On [Daily News]
The Future is ‘Blight’ [NY Post]
Atlantic Yards’ Miss Brooklyn is Slashed [Daily News]
Opponents say Ratner’s Time Line for AY is Pie in the Sky [Daily News]
Nets to Newark Could be a Blessing [Metro]
Bruce Ratner: Put Up or Shut Up! [Daily Gotham]
Not a Done Deal: Time Out Rally Met With Counter-Protest [Daily Gotham]
Original aerial photos in Municipal Arts Society models by Jonathan Barkey
So the “uneducated Brooklyn native” (i.e. Black), will be “saved” from their ignorant selves, by the white gentrifiers…nice!
I would say that 70% of people oppose the project and 30% support it.
The supporters seem to be uneducated Brooklyn natives and those who are simply in it for the money and think their property values will escalate.
Give it to the Indians, Mr. “all my friends are natives”
Get over yourselves, if you are sitting commenting on this blog everday, chances are you have enough money that you will not have to worry about your housing every. So pointing fingers at so called manhattanites is just repetitive garble.
Who do you think is going to live in those high rise buildings? I have asked this question a million times on here, and no one answers. Do you think it is the poor folks in the neighborhood? No, it will be wealthy white folks from…Manhattan. So really what do you think, you will be surrounded by the people you propose to despise.
The majority of these anonymous posts make one thing very clear-
The fact that Ratner’s cronies enjoy spending their free time browsing Brownstoner.
Unless of course they’re paid shills, like the counterprotesters on Saturday.
Dear 11:03 great if you are in favor of it, then give up your brownstone for affordable housing. Now, give it to me now so I can build affordable housing and arena. EVERYONE agrees something should be built. But why take to make, when you can make on an empty lot. It is just stupid. Rich or not, Ratner could easily have done his project with out plowing existing streets and houses.
THAT is reality.
It’s Andrew Rowe again…Question for you 11:34 (the Anti-AY 11:34) and the others on this board who are against the arena and the larger project (and I preface this question by saying I’m NOT trying to be controversial). Are you from Brooklyn, as in a native, or a transplant from elsewhere? (Manhattan or somewhere outside of NYC) I only ask because I really don’t know any of my friends or acquiantences from the neighborhood who are against the project. The neighborhood chatter that I hear about the project (if there is any, which isn’t much) in black barber shops, local bodegas and long time neighborhood bars is that folks want to know when the baksetball is getting here. Is the divide between pro-AY and anti-AY racial and cultural? Again, I’m NOT trying to be controversial, but most of the folks who were around here when the neighborhood (Ft. Greene) was ravaged by the crack epidemic think that’s its great that folks would even be TALKING about bringing a professional sports franchise to a neighborhood that had been down for a long time. Maybe outsiders without that sense of perspective may see things differently (which for the sake of objectivity may not be a bad thing).
400 people is a poor showing for anyone claiming that there’s robust opposition to this. The reality is that most people know this site needs to/will be developed along with the attendant construction disruption and congestion. Aside from the fact that a handful hate it for that reason alone, most other people feel it’s inevitable and have a bad taste in their mouths because it really is a big giveaway and massive creation of excess profit for the developer. Not enough to get out there on a cold Saturday though. But times are changing and even those big excess profits are in doubt – it’s by no means a done deal. The developers have to keep insisting it’s happening until it’s too late in order to keep what they have in place. The tone of their rhetoric sounds more and more formulaic. If they figure out they need to sit on it, or break it up, they’ll drop it quick, and hopefully we’ll get something a little more balanced.
I live in Prospect Heights and all of our friends and neighbors that we know are against the project.
I’m all for the development of housing on the site – but not on the greed-driven scale proposed by Ratner.
I live in the area and agree with 11:12.