O, Canada: Paper Sniffs at NYC Mega-Projects
Yesterday the Globe and Mail, Canada’s paper of record, weighed in with an assessment of Atlantic Yards and the state of NYC’s big developments in general. Basically, our neighbor to the north doesn’t seem all that impressed with what it sees. The story’s got a zinger about B2, the first non-arena building on tap for…
Yesterday the Globe and Mail, Canada’s paper of record, weighed in with an assessment of Atlantic Yards and the state of NYC’s big developments in general. Basically, our neighbor to the north doesn’t seem all that impressed with what it sees. The story’s got a zinger about B2, the first non-arena building on tap for AY (“a red-and-pink agglomeration reminiscent of a hillside shantytown”), and it notes the “stark” contrast between a $15-a-head Atlantic Yards fundraiser held at Southpaw last week and the unveiling of the luxury boxes for the Barclays Center (“you could pony up $540,000 a year for one of 12 ‘elite’ boxes, which, in an illustration that rich people operate in a different sphere of logic, are actually bunkers, located under the bleachers, with no view of the action”). The article ends by sticking it to the Bloomberg administration’s various grand and doomed plans:
Atlantic Yards isn’t the only large-scale development in trouble. At the end of March, the developer Tishman Speyer was granted the rights to build office space, parklands, and residential towers on Manhattan’s West Side Railyards. But two weeks ago, when it couldn’t change the terms of the billion-dollar deal it had just agreed to, it walked off like a spoiled child. The Bloomberg Administration now has two failures to its credit in that one spot, after its ill-fated plan for a football stadium died with its Olympic bid. Still, the administration, which doesn’t seem to grasp that New York is a city of people who live at street level, continues to push these sorts of high concept developments. Up in Harlem, city council has just approved a rezoning that will see skyscraping office buildings and luxury condos consume historic 125th Street. The local community was opposed to it, of course. Not that it mattered.
Not Mr. Gehry’s Neighbourhood? [Globe and Mail]
Railyards photo by masnyc; unhappy face by Cubtracker.
Canada will be worthless once AY is built.
asinine in your opinion, 6:22. Unfortunately for your argument, the Canadian article made valid points. And so did Tdeezy.Just what would have constituted a higher standard to you? Oh, we love the AY project?
Actually the article was quite acerbic and took a rather jaundiced view of NYC real estate. But the real point for us is that the present redesign is even more awful and ridiculous than the earlier ones. Hillside shantytown indeed it is.
Tdeezy — The central flaw of your argument is that the quality (or lack thereof, as you point out) of the comments posted here has no bearing on whether the article itself merits publication in Canada’s paper of record.
It’s barely helpful for you to claim that New Yorkers should be happy someone is paying attention to what’s going on here. And, it’s also pretty noncontroversial (and again unhelpful) to say that New Yorkers shouldn’t expect accolades all the time. But, when the commentary from elsewhere is as assanine as what the Globe wrote, then it’s fair game to point out the problems and biases of the article. Indeed, fair reporting dictates as much.
More to the point, the Globe’s article ought to be held to a higher standard than the posters on this site, which is the central logical point you seem to ignore.
Wasn’t Gehry supposedly pulling out of the project?!!!
The proposed Atlantic Yards project has been a hoodwinking and travesty. I’m sorry.
The public financing for private gain is disgusting and the threat of eminent domain is wretched.
It involves so many hundreds of millions in public funds that it is on the radar screen in many places. Good for the Canadian-based paper for the publishing the article! Why not?!
BrooklynLove-
I’m not really commenting on the coverage of AY as the reaction of some of the posters to the source of the article. I personally see pros and cons to the plan although I certailny see that certain sides of the fence have benefitted greatly compared to others and I especially find what I view as the abuse of eminent domain saddening. Nevertheless… I absolutely agree, you could pick any major city to make the point. I’m using Toronto as the main example here just because it’s Canada’s major city which is the place people seem to have such an issue with. But I have the feeling these same folks would’ve jumped down the back of any international commentary be it Berlin or Paris as though no one outside of NYC is worthy of commenting on what looks like a plan that’s a bit on the shady side.
Side note – the article mentions that Frank Gehry is Canadian born which is probably a big reason why the newspaper thought to comment on the plan. As in every country Canada likes to talk about the status of its own.
Right on, BrooklynLove! Couldn’t agree more.
Tdeezy – interesting commentary but i could’ve picked any city anywhere to make the same point – that this blog bends over backward to find negative news about A-Y, yet posts little to no positive news (and when posting positive news does so along with a negative view). an analogy that would be specifically apt to baghdad would be: getting one’s gulf war status reports from the iraqi info minister <-> getting AY reports from brownstoner.com
Agree with you, Tdeezy.