Gehry Officially Off Yards Project
The writing’s been on the wall for some time, but The Times delivered the official death blow in an online article yesterday afternoon: “Frank Gehry is out as the architect for the Barclays Center arena, the centerpiece of the long-delayed and financially challenged Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, according to government officials and real estate…
The writing’s been on the wall for some time, but The Times delivered the official death blow in an online article yesterday afternoon: “Frank Gehry is out as the architect for the Barclays Center arena, the centerpiece of the long-delayed and financially challenged Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, according to government officials and real estate executives who have been briefed on the plans.” Taking the reins post-bait-and-switch will be a Kansas City-based architecture firm called Ellerbe Becket. Unfortunately for all of us, The Times describes the new design as bearing a resemblance to Conseco Field as well as an “airplane hangar.” Meanwhile, Atlantic Yards Report notes that Forbes is putting the odds of the Nets making it to Brooklyn at 50-50.
Developer Drops Gehry’s Design for Brooklyn Arena [NY Times]
FCR Names New Architect for Brooklyn Arena [Reuters]
Starchitect Dumped from Atlantic Yards for Cheaper Option [NY Daily News]
Star Architect Out of Arena Project [NY Post]
A discussion of the aesthetic merit of this debacle really misses the point.
It’s being paid for by our tax dollars.
How many pro-AYers would want their taxes raised to pay for this? My guess is none.
It alredy been proven the financial impact is negative. We’re simply transferring our tax dollars to Ratner. And because of the money-losing nature of this, ahem, investment, the tab to the city and state will actually be higher than the hundreds of millions we’re giving to Ratner.
Then, guess what happens when the lease on the free stadium we built the Nets ends? Yep, welcome to Newark.
i agree that it’s hard to tell what it looks like, although what i can see doesn’t inspire hope. too bad.
bklyn chicken – people who don’t agree with you “puzzle” you? you seriously need to get some perspective. typical condescension. i suppose you’ll tell us that this new design is fine for newark, but not for brooklyn.
bxgrl – which “rich people” are you talking about? thurston howell III? howard hughes? as if those are the kind of “rich people” who would buy an apt. in downtown brooklyn anyway. i’m pretty sure you would consider me “rich” and i chose to live in prospect heights – where it certainly cost me “that kind of money” to buy – and i did it specifically FOR the community. i really don’t get your insistence on ridiculous caricatures of people who you don’t know and obviously don’t understand. it doesn’t help your argument at all – just makes you look bitter.
see ya
“Take a walk around MSG day or night and compare it to Fort Green, Park Slope etc., because that is our future.”
The addition of an arena does not turn Brownstone Brooklyn into Midtown Manhattan. That’s REALLY your argument? Even though MSG is surrounded by 100’s of skyscrapers?
bklynite
I don’t think that Brooklyn has an Iconic building, unless you mean The Williamsburg Saving Building. Besides the Brooklyn Bridge what makes Brooklyn Brooklyn are the neighbourhoods and yes the brownstones.
11217 & fsrg
Take a walk around MSG day or night and compare it to Fort Green, Park Slope etc., because that is our future.
If you look at EB’s web site you can see a series of stadiums that may not leak but they will not recieve any design rewards. The the reason that they are going to be the contract architect is cost and because stadiums is what they do. Frank Gehry was the front man to make the project seem sexy, a journey man type office was always going to make the thing work.
I’ve been living here for over thirty years and experienced crime, neglect and sadness on the streets. It was one thing to live next to marginal people, that is part and parcel of living in a city. But this ugly development is the work of a greedy developer and politicians on the take. I may leave if this goes thru in my liftime.
Brklyn Chicken – by Ratner? are you kidding…Are you paid by DDDB or the Knicks –
no offense but when you say stuff like that you make yourself sound like a total moron.
fsrg- ooooh “zinger.” And you would be surprised at who I know. Obviously you didn’t bother to read Ratner’s marketing material. And I neither trust or believe what politicians say. After all, thanks to them we may be stuck for even more money for AY. But it seems you think you know so much better than everyone else -do enlighten us from your exalted vantage point.
“Did anyone really think that rich people buying top of the line luxury apartments would do so in the same building as those with affordable housing? No rich person I ever met. They don’t pay that kind of money to be part of the community- they pay to be away from it.”
BxGrl – you clearly dont know too many “rich people” (not that Ratner’s residential buildings were really going to be marketed to the truly “rich” – unless you are like all the politicians that say anyone who makes over 250K is rich (unless we are talking about Rent Stabilization, then it is middle class)
11217 I have been to several meetings — the ones I could attend. Ratner’s sham CBO, BUILD, pays union members to fill up “public” meetings with braying catcallers drowning out rational discourse.
Ratner’s defenders puzzle me. fsrq are you paid? I mean really.