Bloomberg Opines on Atantic Yards, Coney Island
Mayor Bloomberg spoke with reporters from the Community Newspaper Group, the parent company of The Brooklyn Paper, on Monday as part of his campaign tour, where they discussed everything from overzealous ticketing agents to Atlantic Yards. Concerning the latter, he hopes that developer Forest City Ratner can use the Frank Gehry designs for the arena…
Mayor Bloomberg spoke with reporters from the Community Newspaper Group, the parent company of The Brooklyn Paper, on Monday as part of his campaign tour, where they discussed everything from overzealous ticketing agents to Atlantic Yards. Concerning the latter, he hopes that developer Forest City Ratner can use the Frank Gehry designs for the arena and skyscrapers, as originally planned but later abandoned due to cost. It would make the arena—and Brooklyn—even more of an international draw, he reasoned: “Simon and Garfunkel on their tour would go to Brooklyn in a second before they go to Madison Square Garden. They’re New Yorkers.” (Has MSG been airlifted out of NYC recently?) Concerning the epic legal battles and financial concerns behind the massive development, the mayor sided with Ratner. “One of the great sins here is this small group of people stalled it so long [that] the economy is different,” he said. (AY Report disputes this view here.) Also of note, Mayor Bloomberg touched upon another hot-button development topic, Coney Island. Last month, City Council approved his plan for a new amusement park, hotels, theaters, a water park, and apartments. The last step is to purchase all or some of the land owned by developer Joe Sitt of Thor Equities. “Fundamentally, the deal with him is done,” the mayor said. He also insisted that Sitt will not develop the land himself, ominously adding that “He needs sewers; he needs water; he needs streets … If the city doesn’t want to cooperate, [Sitt’s] going to spend a lot of time with a lot of money tied up.”
Bloomy Still Wants Gehry—and Other Tidbits [Brooklyn Paper]
Bloomberg Blames AY Opponents for Loss of Gehry [AY Report]
Photo by David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons
Bloomberg may be loved for planting a million trees, but he’s cutting down 2 million to create all the mailings to get re-elected. He’s also planted a couple million (or so it seems) ugly ugly condos that will blight New York for decades. That’s his real legacy.
Dinkins did not make the omelet. Dinkins fucked the chicken in the ass that laid those eggs in the first place…
On a personal level, however, I find him pretty likeable.
Dinkins made the omelet.
Giuliani was a hemorrhoid on Dinkin’s ass for 4 years straight after he lost the first election. I remember that clearly.
thanks for the compliment DIBS, but I am quite old enough to remember and have lived here all through those years (at least since 1977).
Many of the thing FSRQ brought up are attention getting and feel good and sway peoples vote. And he and his billions know exactly how to minipulate you all. Salesman.
But am not going to argue his abilities. I don’t think he has been bad and probably pretty good.
But that maneuver to override term limits is unforgiveable and he also is too much a dictator (shelter for CrownHeights) and upper-class/Manhattan fixated.
Time for a change.
And it is his fault we don’t have much choice.(with help of Quinn and Yassky).
I love Bloomberg. I voted for him in the past and I plan to vote for him again.
311 was also a good idea. But when he says stuff like pharmaceutical executives “don’t make a lot of money” I wonder what he thinks about AVERAGE NY wage earners.
I’ll give him props for MillionTreesNYC.
The term limits business, however, is unforgivable.
> “Ed Koch had cracked the eggs, Giuliani made the omelet, and
> then Bloomberg appeared, and served it.”
Brilliant.
An interesting and relevant quote from Joyce Purnick’s Bloomberg biography due out this fall
“Ed Koch had cracked the eggs, Giuliani made the omelet, and then Bloomberg appeared, and served it.”
For those who don’t know Purnick, not only was she most definitely here during all these times/Mayors we’re talking about, she was closely following and reporting on them. During Koch’s mayoralty, she headed The New York Times City Hall bureau. She went on to become the Times Metro Editor, was a member of The Times’s editorial board, and wrote her Metro Matters column for 10 years. She left The Times in 2008 to devote full time to writing a biography of Michael Bloomberg.
Personally, I agree with those believe he is out of touch with us common folk. The way he is known to treat the press, I sometimes think he has a distinct disdain for regular people.