Final Hold-Outs Emerge At Atlantic Yards
This ‘blighted’ house at 481 Dean Street has emerged at the last minute as the final barrier to the bulldozers at Atlantic Yards. According to The Post, the Ahmed family is still living there and, despite having already accepted the standard $85,000 relocation fee Ratner was offering renters to move, refusing to budge. “They saw…
This ‘blighted’ house at 481 Dean Street has emerged at the last minute as the final barrier to the bulldozers at Atlantic Yards. According to The Post, the Ahmed family is still living there and, despite having already accepted the standard $85,000 relocation fee Ratner was offering renters to move, refusing to budge. “They saw that man got all that money last week and thought, why should they leave?” said a relative of Aisha Ahmed, whose ex-husband bought the building in 1988. Ahmed’s two children are now claiming that they should each get an additional $85,000 buyout. It turns out that neither Forest City Ratner for ESDC even knew people were still living in the house. The Post also reported that a teenager entering the house late in the day yesterday said that the issue had been resolved.
antidope- I think the real self-righteous crusader is ratner, actually. he played off of that rather well (how else couold he have gotten the ever ass kissing Bertha Lewis to sign on? And the other so-called community activists. Now those are some real sell-outs. But no anger (or amusement) over them? I don’t call Goldstein a hero. But i admire his commitment and his fight. He went up against the big boys and made them take notice. he may not have won the war but he put up a damned good fight.
If the Post’s story is accurate, how is it that the ESDC and FCR didn’t know people were *still living* in the building? The doors had been padlocked with a huge chain (the hole in the door in the NY Post photo used to have a chain running thru it). Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of 481’s chain, but it was very much like 479’s:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tracy_collins/4489587660/
As always, thanks for your support, MM and bxgirl. Just feeling incredibly sad about all this – my only hope is that this becomes another wake-up call like the destruction of the old Penn Station and prevents anything like this from ever happening again. Because they’re trying it every day, currently down on Coney Island, and they must be stopped as well.
ENY, you are right. YOU are the hero for anonymously slinging ignorant bulls**t on a blog.
One reason was the Rat’s desire to get rid of the rent stabilized apartment buildings he’d bought in order to clear space for the parking lots for his arena. Dan Goldstein’s building sits right at center court for the planned arena. The Rat assumed that most homeowners would simply take his buyout offer/gag order and walk away, which they mostly did.
The real problem is those pesky renters. You see, if you’re a rent stabilized tenant, your landlord is required to give you a renewal lease as long as you’re not in default, unless he can prove that he needs the space for his family (and not even the Rat has that many relatives) or if the property is taken by eminent domain.
So the state seized the Rat’s apartment buildings (in return, of course, for fair market value payments funded by you and me) so that he could have all those renters evicted.
Eminent domain was always in the plan, he just didn’t expect to use it against an owner.
#ratnersux
It’s ok to disagree, ENY, you are always a gentleman about it, and it’s certainly not personal.
Too bad you’re wrong! 🙂
You go babs! I agree wholeheartedly. I can’t imagine how I would feel if someone wanted to tear down my home and entire block and neighborhood. Money is great, especially a lot of money, but a neighborhood is so much more than just the buildings, or their perceived worth.
There’s so much space without the use of eminent domain; so my question is why did they need to use eminent domain in the first place? I want development over the AY hole, but don’t see why that would necessitate taking private property adjacent to the site. It’s not like they’re builing a public school, hospital, fire station, museum or a park. Even if they were, they could do it within the existing footprint of AY without razing peoples’ homes.
not pissed. i’d call it amused.
everyone is out for herself.
remember that next time you join a crusade that wraps itself in righteousness.
Dan had no choice for him and his family. The state had already seized his property and they were now renters in their own home, with only a very short time to go before they would be evicted and thrown out into the (soon-to-be-obliterated) street.
That garbage smell is the stench rising from the political corruption surrounding this massive boondoggle.