Mapping the Atlantic Yards Timeline
No one on either side of the Atlantic Yards debate disputes the fact that its construction would be a major pain in the ass for residents. The question is rather how long people would be inconvenienced for (Chuck Ratner’s on record saying 15 years) and whether the end-product would be worth the inconvenience. To address…
No one on either side of the Atlantic Yards debate disputes the fact that its construction would be a major pain in the ass for residents. The question is rather how long people would be inconvenienced for (Chuck Ratner’s on record saying 15 years) and whether the end-product would be worth the inconvenience. To address the first part of that question, graphic designer Abby Weissman has overlaid the construction schedule with a site map. The result is the clearest representation we’ve seen to date of the timeline. For a bigger version of the map, click on the image above.
The (Projected) Ten-Year Atlantic Yards Timeline [AY Report]
Any sober assessment of the AY opposition shows that the other strategies you mention have fared as dismally as the boycotts. The lawsuits have failed and are unlikely do block or change the project. Aside from a few exceptions (mostly early on), the marches have attracted small numbers. Speaking out at dinner parties is useless unless people donate money, which they clearly have not done in large enough numbers (hence DDDB’s constant requests for donations). Regarding millionaires, there are plenty of ’em and if Ratner alienates a few, there will be twice that number waiting in the wings as the original crew relocates to Sullivan County.
AY = More Gentrification = More Whites + More Affluence + More Shops + More Restaurants + More Amenities + Better Services + Better Schools + Higher Property Values + Higher Rents + Greater Economic Activity + More Stability + More Family Friendly + Greater Investment in Community – Less Crime – Less Drug Trafficking + Less Blight – Less Trash – Less Filth – Less Violence – Less Fear – Less Slumification = Urban Nirvana
boycotts are just one of many strategies, including picketing, filing lawsuits, speaking out against the project during dinner parties, etc. Don’t you think that the hundreds of millionaires that you’re isolating (i.e., the community) have friends. Don’t you think these friends might be in the market someday in the future for condos or retail goods.
It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the opposition and simply dismiss them as granola-crunchy, anti-corporate and hippy. They are far more sophisticated than that.
BrooklynProud, I live in Fort Greene too, moved there when it was a lot less safe than it is now. There is TONS of money being invested into FG and Clinton Hill already, and much of it is from yuppies buying 1- and 2-family townhouses. They will cement a solid, safe middle-class existence there and improve schools there. AY is not going to help in that regard.
Have you SEEN Metrotech? It’s a suburban business center plopped down into Brooklyn. Tolerable during the day and desolate at night – too desolate for there even to be any crime. What Ratner does is look at a dirty, urban ‘blight’ and replace it with sterile, suburban blight. I grew up in the city, I like an urban existence. I’d rather have urban blight than suburban blight; and if some rich guy really wants to create a big suburban-blight development to enrich himself, I’d rather he didn’t do it in the middle of my nice urban neighborhood. If people like you want a sterile suburban place to live, why not just live in the suburbs, rather than move into my neighborhood and try to drag the suburbs with you?
And condo dweller: Prosspect Heights is a wonderful, vibrant nabe with great transportation and great amenities. So is Fort Greene. They have a strong mix of ethnicities and incomes, and they both have hogh-scool kids who can be troublesome. If you don’t want to live near poor people or venture out onto the sidewalks, why live here? Why barricade yourself into your condo in the sky? Are you one of these people who moves to Brooklyn because it’s apparently the cool thing to do, maybe blogs about it, and then moves away in terror after being mugged? My friend, maybe you shouldn’t have swallowed the hype – maybe Brooklyn wasn’t for you to begin with.
So you can maybe see why those of us who LIKE Brooklyn, who live here or moved here because we actually like the way it is, might be upset when rich people like you move here to be cool, then realize you don’t like it, and then try to change it to suit your own tastes rather than just move to a neighborhood you do like (if you’re a condo dweller in northwest Brooklyn you clearly have a fair amount of residential mobility). THAT’S the issue with AY for residents.
(Oh yeah, that and the traffic, construction, sewage, lack of schools and all the other infrastructural ways it’s going to screw us over in order to make one jerk even more extremely rich than he already is.)
Good luck with those boycotts, black_nimby. Anyone with half a brain knows that the boycotts of Brooklyn Brewery and Atlantic Center have been major flops. Stop living in the 1960s.
FCR has access to one of the wealthiest consumer base/demographics in the entire U.S. Scores of developers out there would salivate and literally give their right arm and firstborn for a chance at an opportunity like this. Instead of courting this community what does he do? He hires people to spit in their face at every opportunity for discourse. What sense is there in that. The AY proponents are obviously working with an out-dated business and economic model.
Like it or not, the project will be plagued for years to come. The community will boycott your shopping centers and retail outlets. It’s a really stupid move to cut off your arm to spite your face. This community is your consumer base; don’t isolate them (that includes the black nimbys too; which you so erroneously assert doesn’t exist).
I’d be my right arm that the above posters advocating for the poor own brownstones with units leased at market rate.
Like it or not, you are getting this project. Thanks to an ineptly-run opposition, it’s soon going to be a reality.
to the anons at 8:19 and 9:17- you’re both a great illustration of the kind of biased idiocy that feeds too much of the discussions on this board. Obviously you are both too shallow and stupid to understand or comprehend all (or perhaps, any) of the socio-economic factors that affect Brooklyn and pepole in general.
As for anon at 5:37 am- you are so ignorant of Crown Heights that you really have no credibility regarding what we do or do not need. And what we don’t need are people coming into a neighbor -any neighborhood- and deciding what they think is best for for it because your only interest is money and greed. Just because you try to sell it to us with sugar-coated press releases, dangle a few dollar bills in front of us, does not make you an expert on this or any other surrounding neighborhood. It justs makes you an obvious opportunist at other people’s expense.