Peyser Finds Ratner's Ass, Inserts Nose
We didn’t see Post columnist Andrea Peyer’s article until late in the day yesterday. Given the extreme hyperbole and brash tone, it’s amazing it wasn’t clearly labeled more clearly as an opinion piece. But whatever. Here’s a taste of what she wrote: It’s about freaking time. Three long and frustrating years have passed since I…
We didn’t see Post columnist Andrea Peyer‘s article until late in the day yesterday. Given the extreme hyperbole and brash tone, it’s amazing it wasn’t clearly labeled more clearly as an opinion piece. But whatever. Here’s a taste of what she wrote:
It’s about freaking time. Three long and frustrating years have passed since I walked with developer Bruce Ratner along Brooklyn’s horrendously blighted Atlantic Yards – and we were greeted by a pile of seven discarded hypodermic syringes…After navigating miles of red tape and enduring fierce protests led by dilettante celebrities who don’t give a rat’s rump about the borough of Brooklyn, construction has started.
Now, it’s one thing to disagree with the anti-Yards contingent about whether this will be a good thing for Brooklyn, but to cast them collectively as not caring about the borough is plain silly. Peyser’s tough-gal prose (all the more annoying in contrast to her starry-eyed depiction of Ratner) is just another example of the class warfare PR campaign that Ratner has managed to wage. All those syringes she mentions seeing on the ground could have been equally well removed by builders developing this area organically without the crutch of eminent domain.
Score One For The Good Guys [NY Post]
Re: Score One For The Good Guys [No Land Grab]
Andrea Peyser Spies a Rat [AY Report]
Fort Greener – I apologize that I could be interpreted to be calling people “abnormal” – certainly not my intention but when I read what I wrote I agree that “abnormality” could have been infered…
Unfortunately, however, you comments goes directly to the point I was trying to make – within two minutes of me posting there is an immediate response of “this guys calling everyone abnormal what’s he going to do next call us retarded?” This was the entire tone of the AY debate and why we have ended up with this monstrosity in our neighborhood…
I’m more ‘for’ the development than ‘against’, but I say Peyser’s column yesterday and thought it was absolutely ridiculous. I automatically assumed that she was a Manhattanite who never ever comes into Brooklyn… I cannot believe that piece of crap article was written by someone who resides in BK! She’s nuts. And wack. What a fluff piece.
Andrea Peyser is an Ann Coulter in the making.
What do you mean by “builders developing this area organically”? You make it sound so easy. Don’t you think whatever you and other AY opponents would want at the site would be met with equal opposition?
No, no. Her name was “Abby” someone. Abby who? “Abby Normal”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UexffH422Vg
Hey 10:18, you paint a very colorful picture of the opponents. Ever think of writing for a newspaper –maybe Andrea needs an assistant. I, for one, never get side-tracked on the issue of ‘what’s normalcy’ which I why I would never take it upon myself to call opponents of this project abnormal.
I think pretty standard and assumed that a columnist is opinion piece. That goes for any newspaper – so off-base on that criticism.
Of course, I don’t believe her nonsense either about what she saw (needles, rats) etc –or at least it could be said about any construction site or empty lot in even the toniest neighborhoods.
She a columnist – only intent is to provoke, stoke the disagreements, etc.
Not further enlighten or engage in intelligent discourse.
Yet the anti-AY often is often just as shrill.
She doesn’t live in Park Slope. She lives on Warren St. between Court & Clinton. Why And let me tell you, she’s a lot uglier than her “glamour” shot by her column.
B’Stoner –
A) Your title for this post is so crass it’s actually sad and B) there is a case to be made that opponents didn’t “care” as in large part they were representing what could be considered a short-sighted view about something that could benefit many…
I strongly believe that there would have been a better chance of a middle ground more beneficial to all of us if the most vocal opponents hadn’t been the usual bunch of crazies (government conspiracy theorists etc.), joke celebrities (i.e. the silly attempt to put Heath and Michelle in the mix) and brownstone owners who just came off as pure elitists (whether or not they were/are)…did you go to any of those anti-yards rallies? what percentage of the crowd would a reasonable person consider “normal”? (let’s not get side-tracked on “what’s normalcy?”) The “anti-” people on my block were comprised of renters with low income jobs (or no jobs) living in rent stabilized apartments and “renovators” that are trying to make their houses exact replicas of 1860 living in between moving their three cars from one side of the street to the other. The “middle” who, whether you like it or not will be the new core residents for these neighborhoods, were absent from the discussion because they were completely alienated by the hysteria.
The yards are a disgrace/blighted and I am truly sorry for those that will be paid to have their property seized through eminent domain (you can’t put a price on your home) but hopefully there’s a lesson to be learned for the next battles that we will fight in the inevitable development of the area – you cannot win these battles unless you tone down the rhetoric and broaden the base that your message appeals to.