Gehry Backtracks, Softens Plans for Yards
Lost in last week’s holiday shuffle was Frank Gehry’s revision and qualification of his plans for the Atlantic Yards project. According to Brooklyn Papers, the famous architect even went so far as to call his original renderings “horrible”. So what’s he doing to change the design? Basically, with Ratner’s blessing, he’s softening it: Replacing shiny…
Lost in last week’s holiday shuffle was Frank Gehry’s revision and qualification of his plans for the Atlantic Yards project. According to Brooklyn Papers, the famous architect even went so far as to call his original renderings “horrible”. So what’s he doing to change the design? Basically, with Ratner’s blessing, he’s softening it: Replacing shiny facades with brick and adding more green space to the mix. All this goes a long way toward explaining why both he a DDDB stalwart Patti Hagan are both grinning ear-to-ear in the photo above. Gehry promised to tour Prospect Heights with Hagan, despite what his boss on the project might think about who he’s consorting with.
Gehry: My Design Was “Horrible” [Brooklyn Papers]
Dan, why did you ask brownstoner to remove your posts? I think David has a point about you trying to preserve your image – after all, you always have to be the smartest person in the room.
yes David, i wrote to Brownstoner and asked him to remove my posts. And since I asked he did.
you’re kidding, right?
anonymous, if you had half a clue about the legal hornets nest Ratner is walking into you wouldn’t be so cocksure of yourself.
I doubt it David — I’m not a basketball fan at all. There’s a big article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer today about the whole Ratner clan, and it does make one interesting point — while completion of the stadium is planned for 2008-2009, the rest won’t be finished until 2016 or so. That’s plenty of time for people to wake up and put the brakes on this.
http://www.cleveland.com/forestcity/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/business/1133343357258910.xml&coll=2
Brownstoner – how is it that Dan Goldsteins post following my Dec 1 4:27 post has mysteriously disappeared?????
Was it removed at his request since his post made him sound so foolish? –
Why would you allow such editing?
Nice dream, Babs. See you at the first Nets game.
David, obviously oppostion to this project is growing, to the extent that the NY Times is now running unfavorable articles about it and even Marty Markovitz is saying it will be changed. There is a long history of projects like this that have never and will never be built, although they looked like slam-dunks (basketball lingo not express, but it seemed apt) to begin with, such as Westway, the piers below the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, and most recently the Jets Stadium.
The more people find out about Ratner’s scheme, including what even he is forced to reveal (as in, “well, maybe the affordable housing won’t exactly be right there…”), the greater this opposition grows. And it will only get stronger.
Dan,
Talk about mixing things up! It is because you are living in a fantasy world that you cannot see that you and your efforts are doomed to fail. David makes some excellent points about how weak your support is. Try travelling outside your lefty activist circles and see how much people care about Ratner’s activities. But I throw up my hands, for I realize that you and Puca will be in denial until the building begins. Maybe after that, you guys can pull up stakes and relocate to San Francisco. I hear that they’re even more anti-development out there. The only problem is that real estate is more expensive out there, so you might actually have to find a real job.
If you really want to make that comparison Dan I am okay with it – since there are 270 million people in the country now (dont know what war march you are referring and what the pop. was then but I’ll humor you) so if 1M people attended a war march that is a ratio of 1:270 or .0037:
Therefore if you take ONLY the 300,000 people who live in the immediate vicinty you should have had 1,111 people at your rally to even make the analogy
and
if you included all of Brooklyn you were approximatley 8,850 people short.
I also hat to add insult to injury here BUT – it is also alot easier (and cheaper) to walk a few blocks in your neighborhood to a protest, then it is to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to Washington DC (or wherever) for a war protest.
So yes Dan your 400 person ‘protest’ was pathetically small.
400 people??? There are approximatley 300,000 residents in the ‘immediate’ vicinity of Atlantic Yards and 2.5m in the Boro – 400 people is beyond miniscule.
As for politicians opposing AY, your caveat “in some way” ignores the fact that many on your list actually support the bulk of what DDD opposes.
No one was forced to sell under anything close to an imminent threat of anything- there hasnt been a single ED proceeding/application up to and including today – and the vast majority sold out more than a year ago. – People sold b/c Ratner offered a huge profit to people who were generally newcomers to the area.
I walk around the streets (I live 10 blocks south of AY)and I grant you that many people do oppose the development – but quite frankly telling me they oppose it, doesnt equate to strong support to your cause in a manner that will overcome the pro-development majority in the rest of the boro, the Mayor, the Gov, the Brooklyn Boro Pres; Further most of the people oppose virtually everything that involves development of any kind.(except of course the development that allowed them to move-in in the first place)