Ratner Cans Gehry For Good
Yesterday Forest City Ratner made official what everybody already knew: Architect Frank Gehry, his name having been prostituted to sell a sham project to the public, will have nothing to do with the design of any of the buildings in the Atlantic Yards footprint. We do not anticipate that Mr. Gehry will be designing any…
Yesterday Forest City Ratner made official what everybody already knew: Architect Frank Gehry, his name having been prostituted to sell a sham project to the public, will have nothing to do with the design of any of the buildings in the Atlantic Yards footprint. We do not anticipate that Mr. Gehry will be designing any of the individual buildings, said Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Mr. Ratner. Jettisoning Mr. Gehry is expected to generate $200 million in savings for the developer. But don’t cry any tears for Gehry: The Times reports that he’s already been paid “tens of millions of dollars” for his work up to this point.
Gehry Is Out as Designer of Project in Brooklyn [NY Times]
Photo by Tracy Collins
Santa, the point that you make that no one cares about the LES parking lot today is true–NO ONE CARES! No one is fighting to have Brooklyn return to its 17th-century farmland, or to have Williamsburg revert back to 2-architectural genrations ago (working class wood-frame houses before 1-story warehouses before high-rise condos), etc. Most nostalgia is very short-sighted. Two generations later from now, people will not care or fight to have back what AY is today, because we are not losing something like the old Penn Station here!
Remember FCR’s arena was approved at $637 million. In less than 2 years it went up to $950, and now $800 million, they say. Construction materials did not go up at that rate. Why did it go up so much; was it affordable at approval? Was it ever possible to build architecturally or financially? No. Especially ever since Forest City scrapped the commercial tower that never had any demand anyway.
Notably Ouroussoff’s tirade places the blame squarely on Forest City Ratner’s head and, to a lesser extent, government—right where it belongs.
Our opposition to Atlantic Yards, to name just a few reasons, has always been about the political corruption, the sweetheart, backroom deals, the laughable and undemocratic approval “process,” the ongoing bait-and-switch, the feeding from the public subsidy trough, the abuse of eminent domain, the superblocks, and the offensive scale and density of the project. We also weren’t too pleased when the now-lamented Gehry said in 2003 that he was “excited to build a neighborhood practically from scratch.”
The opposition is about the concept of the arena itself, NOT what it looks like or who designed it. It was wrongheaded as a concept in 2003, and it is wrongheaded as a concept now. An arena doesn’t belong and doesn’t fit in the fabric of Brownstone Brooklyn, or any residential neighborhood. That is why city zoning regulations, overridden in this instance by the state, do not allow arenas in residential neighborhoods.
Ellerbe Becket, Lemony Snicket or Frank Gehry could be the architect, but it all would be just so much window-dressing on an affront to the community.
There is no accounting for taste. Some like Gehry some don’t. Some like Ellerbe Becket (really, some do) and some don’t. Whether one prefers spaceships or airplane hangars is not the issue.
We fully understand that Ouroussoff must view the project through his critic’s lens, and well he should (though had he brought his skeptic’s lens earlier, he might not be kicking himself now.) And though we don’t agree with him that Atlantic Yards was ever about the public good—even as architecture—we do agree with him that Ratner’s dumping of Gehry is a “shameful betrayal of the public trust,” and a bait-and-switch.
The final dots that need to be connected are left unconnected by Ourossoff. Bait-and-switchers don’t just bait-and-switch once, it is a pattern. And if Ratner’s Gehry bait-and-switch is stunning, so is the bait-and-switch on “affordable” housing, “publicly accessible open space,” job creation, commercial space, reneging on a contract with the MTA, and changing the project timeline from 10 years to, unofficially “decades” and officially 6 years to build just the arena according to state financing documents. Atlantic Yards itself is a monument to bait-and-switch.
And remember, numerous times over the past six months various Ratner team members, including Bruce Ratner, Nets President Brett Yormark, and Forest City Ratner mouthpiece Joe DePlasco have all told the public, through reporters, that Frank Gehry was their architect for the arena when all the while Elllerbe Becket was working up their new “spiritless box” or “airplane hangar.”
Why should anyone trust Forest City about anything they say or do, at this point?
Now we need our elected leaders, starting with Gov Paterson, to restore the public trust, to convince us that they view the public as more than mere play things for duplicitous developers and backdrops for ribbon cuttings. We need the man in charge of the two agencies preparing to make concessions to Forest City for its Zombie Project—the MTA and the Empire State Development Corporation—to say enough is enough, and take away Ratner’s tackle box so the Atlantic Yards bait-and-switch ploys can be put to rest.
I actually live a block from where they were going to start ripping shit up and I have to say Im pretty happy. I however moved after 2005 and wasnt part of the protest.
also the whole Stuy Town thing JDB is blabing about is stupid. Lots of people lots their homes and had no say because they were very poor and it was the 40’s and 50’s and no one had a say these matters. I remember reading an artcile somewhere about the huge parking lot below Delancey which was once filled with regular streets and housing. They bulldozed it all and then realized they didnt have to money to keep going so they turned it into a parking lot. Rewind 60 years later….still a parking lot.
Thanks dave but no can do. I’ve got a date with some dumplings.
WonTon…come to the party on June 17.
WonTon and MM, it is not Ratner’s or any developer’s job to set the guidelines for low/moderate/mid-income housing. Any business person is going to look to maximize profit.
WonTon, trying to think of Ratner’s original intentions for Gehry’s designs is pure conjecture.
MM, designers often have unrealized commissions. Life goes on.
Norman’s no fan of the Gehry plan. Go and read his latest posts. What he is doing is digging a little deeper than the New York Times and the other media to come up with the real reason behind Gehry getting dumped. Which has nothing to do with the DDDB lawsuits and everything to do with Ratner’s real agenda: squeeze every tax subsidy and break he can get away with, while building as cheaply as possible.
The same tactics that brought you such other beautiful Ratner developments like Atlantic Center, Atlantic Terminal and MetroTech.
A lot of people got hosed by the Gehry flim flam. But anybody with eyes could see what real Ratner style “development” looks like.
Just one more downsize to go, which is from the new model to a kiosk in the Atlantic Terminal that sells Nets keychains. Then we’ll be getting somewhere.
jpd:
if you put something the scale of stuytown with its open space ratio and put it on the table, i am pretty sure goldstein et al would jump at it.
ratnervile is a few orders of magnitude larger. not the same animal at all.