Hearing for Lingering Atlantic Yards Case

I’d prefer his vacation be a PERMANENT one, benson. And, like, immediately.

That’s the whole point, more4less — we won’t see any revenue on this fiasco for decades, if ever. Certainly the MTA is getting virtually nothing for the railyards (at the same time they cry poverty). As Johnny points out, stadiums are money losers all over the place, but cities keep building them because of the threat that owners will take their franchise elsewhere, or bring the franchise to that city. I’d love to be proven wrong, not by others’ words, but by millions of dollars flowing into our city coffers (not into Ratner’s).

As bxgrl points out, the promise of high paying jobs will mostly remain unfulfilled, except for the basketball players. Just think of how many jobs the city could have provided for street cleaners had Bloomturd wanted to spend its money that way instead of gifting it to his buddy, Ratner. The stadium jobs will not be at a much higher lever nor will they pay much more. Actually, the only point on which I disagree with bxgrl is that I would say that Ratner is at least tottering on the edge of evil. Then again, I think Bloomturd has gone completely past that point.

Dh- yes he did- Goldstein’s building was one of several that were renovated and made into condos. The brownstones around the area were becoming more and more desirable- I knew several people who lived in the area, any chance that neighborhood had of a further renaissance is now totally gone. In the 25 years it will take for Ratner to complete his project- this would have been a bustling, very viable neighborhood.

BHS- of course developers are in it for the money but Ratner had very little ethics in how he played racial po9litics. As someone who lives close by and whose neighborhood will be impacted, I saw how cynically he played people like Rev. Daugherty and Bertha Lewis off against the rest of the community. And in my community, they called him on it.

Most people know ths is a done deal- but there is nothing wrong with taking him to court to make a point. If you want taxpayer money (and I fault the city and state agencies as well) you should expect to answer to them for it.

I never accused Ratner of anything beyond wanting to make money. This city was built by real estate developers wanting to make money, and I’m sure many had far less ethics than he has.
I fully fault the ESDC, the MTA and others in government for not negotiating more airtight contracts and then holding FCR to those contracts.

I did not live here before the AY project started, but I have a hard time taking the “destroyed a neighborhood” statement seriously.

By the time this project is done, a bit more than 2 blocks will have been demolished, and around 2 and a half blocks of rail/storage yards will have been built over.

Real estate prices in the area surrounding the project seem to indicate a neutral impact on desirability of the area, and I here close to no complaints from my neighbors about the project.

I have said many times that I think that this project could have been done much better on many different levels.
I do not think one-sided positions on either side help move the discussion forward.