Atlantic Yards: The Morning After
“In theory, it should be everything that a progressive urban policy analyst like me would want from a new development. Atlantic Yards would create lots of new housing immediately adjacent to mass transit lines. It would be a mix of residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment space. And it would create new affordable housing and green…
“In theory, it should be everything that a progressive urban policy analyst like me would want from a new development. Atlantic Yards would create lots of new housing immediately adjacent to mass transit lines. It would be a mix of residential, commercial, retail, and entertainment space. And it would create new affordable housing and green space. But, somehow, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner got it all wrong…” Read the rest of Urban Policy Analyst John Petro’s opinion piece today on The Huffington Post.
fsrg said “now if maybe the NIMBYS stfu and allow grown-ups to be heard a couple of changes could be implemented – we’ll have plenty of time – its going to take 20 years!”
As one of the NIMBYS (I live on this block of Dean Street shown in this photo on AYR – http://tinyurl.com/deanStParkingLot), I don’t plan to stfu, despite the futility of trying to get anyone in gov’t to listen to anyone other than FCR.
From the very start, the developer, city and state have very rarely listened to anything those in the immediate neighborhood have had to say, so I wouldn’t hold out much hope for them hearing whatever you or anyone else might suggest in the next 20+ years. They seem to pretty much do whatever FCR wants them to do.
fsrg also said “show me 1 place where the loss of a single street like this resulted in any significant change in quality of life…” See photo above. And this clusterf*ck is due to the groundbreaking ceremony with a few thousand attendees. Imagine what game nights will look like, in addition to 20,000 new residents (assuming the 16 towers are built) plus 1000s of parking spaces. In fact, the developer’s own traffic studies predict significant adverse impacts at many intersections around the entire site, with no real way to mitigate them.
brownstoner = cnn
The only positive thing I can see in this project is that the original, horribly ugly, Gehry “masterpiece” will NOT be built. God only knows what will end up being constructed, but at least the Gehry monstrosities will not. In the end, AY will probably be more along the lines of Ratner’s hideous Atlantic terminal shopping center, which looks like he assembled the construction materials at a fire sale.
This project is a huge gift to Ratner from Emperor Bloomberg and our dancing chimp-like borough president. Of course, Paterson, Sheldon Silver, and the MTA don’t come off blameless either. They all cry that the budget sky is falling and then trip over themselves to give the store away to Ratner.
Thank god I don’t live in that area and can mostly avoid even looking at it. Pathmark has other branches in Brooklyn and the rest of the stores are nothing to write home about.
agreed. now: Drinks!
“Development over the yards could have been better”
well I agree that based on the plans it could have been better (and i could have been worse) –
now if maybe the NIMBYS stfu and allow grown-ups to be heard a couple of changes could be implemented – we’ll have plenty of time – its going to take 20 years!
touchy touchy fsrq – I guess it’s kind of hard to argue in favor of a bad design without any facts to support you, but when you are the judge of what is “significant,” you can pooh-pooh anything you want.
I’m not saying the sky is falling, just that the urban design is crappy. Yeah, we live with plenty of bad design in the world, – Metrotech, the Atlantic Center, Penn Plaza, the original WTC to name a few – but that’s no reason to “JUST SHUT UP” and not point it out when it comes up. Actually, Penn Plaza/Penn Station is a great example of how the quality of life of tens of thousands of daily commuters is negatively impacted.
It’s a lost opportunity. Development over the yards could have been better, could have connected Park Slope with Fort Greene, could have promoted more economic growth by extending and connecting commercial strips on 5th Ave, Flatbush Ave. and Vanderbilt Ave., could have provided thousands of lineal feet of vibrant streets and graceful public places, but no, this design doesn’t do that. A squandered opportunity.
Yeah the arena is going to take over Pacific and 5th – and 1.Flatbush breaks the Street grid here anyway therefore 2. this isnt even a full size block anyway and 3. it will be covered by an arena – so their will be no “enclaves”, no “locked gates” or anything “insular”, i.e. all your issues with “superblocks” so what is your issue then.
As for data related to Carlton…what are you looking for??? the pedestrian per hour count for pacific between Carlton and Vanderbilt? Its one f’ing block, the only pedestrian flow impacted is between Carlton and Vanderbilt; its hardly Broadway and 42nd.
I AGREE its not the favored design, but you are the one who is making like the loss of this one block street is going to bring the 1970s back – show me 1 place where the loss of a single street like this resulted in any significant change in quality of life – anywhere in the world!
Read your kid the story of chicken little tonight – maybe youll learn something
fsrq – the arena is also taking over Pacific st and 5th Ave. You say “hardly any impact at all” but offer no analysis to back it up. It’s just happy talk that seems to to be a characteristic of just about every argument I’ve heard in support of the project.
I also think you missed Grumpy’s point. The developer COULD have gotten a BPC-like design, but instead, they are going to build something that is more like the Gowanus Houses with (the new) Madison Square Garden on top.
Apparently someone likes BPC Grumppy – they get more per sq ft there then virtually anywhere in Brooklyn