Bertha Lewis Celebrates
We can’t be 100% sure that this is legit, but it sure looks it and the source vouched heavily for it. Tell us what you really think, Bertha! ———- Forwarded message ———- From: Bertha Lewis Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 8:04 PM Subject: Daniel Goldstein and the 7 year itch To: [REDACTED] Finally, the…
We can’t be 100% sure that this is legit, but it sure looks it and the source vouched heavily for it. Tell us what you really think, Bertha!
———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Bertha Lewis
Date: Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 8:04 PM
Subject: Daniel Goldstein and the 7 year itch
To: [REDACTED]
Finally, the itch that was Daniel Goldstein has been scratched and scratched out. After almost seven years of flawed strategies, smear campaigns, stupid tactics, disingenuous rhetoric and total disregard for people who have lived in the downtown Brooklyn community for years before he even thought about coming here; finally he got what he really wanted. A Deal. Not for the community he claimed to love so much, but for the only beneficiary of his community of one, himself, Double Dealing Danny Goldstein. How utterly despicable for him to be in the newspaper today whining that he did not have enough time to move, and had nowhere to go because he was being stiffed by the State and Forest City Ratner, when low and behold, all the time, he was negotiating, not for the community , but for himself. Well good riddance and don’t let the door hit ya’. Low and moderate income people have had to wait years for housing while he obstructed the Atlantic Yards Project that could have been well over half done by now. He never had to worry about housing so he did’nt care how long other people had to wait. Behold, the Gentrifier. He has slandered and denigrated not only me but my organization and my members relentlessly. What benefit has he delivered to the community? None except for his own pocket. Well, the housing at Atlantic Yards will be built, and the day after he moves out, which I hope will be sooner rather than later, the building that he squatted in these past years should be razed to ground immediately, and salt poured into the soil, so that never again can the likes of one of the biggest shakedown artists in Brooklyn return. We will still be here, we will still be fighting for the all the people that Danny spurned and used for his own enrichment. We hope that now everyone in Brooklyn and New York can see him for what he really is and can see what his actions cost Brooklyn. I hope whatever he settled for was worth the pain and misery he caused to so many people who just wanted a decent place to live in Brooklyn and who just wanted a decent job and a place for their family. Now that the flim flam man is gone, they can finally see it on the horizon.
—
Bertha Lewis
ACORN
2-4 Nevins Street
Brooklyn, New York 11217
718 246 7900
718 246 7939 fax
[REDACTED] cell
blewis@acornmail.net
Acorn’s support of Ratner has been the most cynical poverty-pimping move I’ve seen in decades of living in the area. The biggest laugh I got was Acorn earning the bribe Ratner paid it (for NO guarantees of low income housing) by claiming to “represent” me and my neighbors. Acorn actually dispatched an emissary to our block association meetings not once but twice, trying to get us to sign onto the CBA. What was in it for us? The Acorn rep claimed that Ratner would give priority to small business owners in the area surrounding AY…we would all be doing business with Ratner and making megabucks.
Anyone on this board old enough to remember what happened when Jive Turkey tried to distribute menus in Metrotech? When we brought that up, the Acorn rep claimed to be clueless. Of course we were offered no guarantees, but were repeatedly urged to sign on the dotted line in support of the CBA. Needless to say, we declined.
When Ms. Lewis stated several days ago that Acorn was “on life support” due to the recent video that led to defunding by Congress, after all its insider embezzlement problems and AY machinations, all I could think was, it’s about time.
C’mon FCG! Let’s not drag this out! I quoted you in my post exactly as you said it. (Indeed, it was a cut and paste from your own post). I saw where you characterized the AY opposition as “overwhelmingly” white, middle-class and recent arrivals. However, you then went on to describe the “few Black DDDB supporters” as “middle class newcomers.” Since it’s still not clear to me who exactly are all the folks on either side of this issue, I guestion the broad generalization of the demographics. But, that said, it was specifically your characterization of the Black folk who are against AY which compelled me to tangle with you on this thread in the first place.
Peace out. We are 2 Black Brooklynites who happen to be on different sides of this issue. Not only can I live with that but also I think we probably both have bigger fish to fry than each other, don’t we? 🙂
What a sad rant Lewis makes. Truly regrettable. As was said above, eminent domain has displaced black people and ruined neighborhoods all over the country. To cheer the displacement of people by the government for the sake of a private developer’s basketball arena is just depressing. To say that the owner in a neighborhood is a “squatter” takes the cake. Let’s all remember to ask Ms. Bertha what she thinks of AY in April 22, 2020.
ENY,
Agree with you and joe from brooklyn,
Magnificent Amberson’s is a great movie.
check out:
The Third Man, another classic
and
The Trial (cool take on Kafka)
Agreed, Brooklynista. I appreciate your viewpoint. Thanks to you, too.
Brooklynista,
I never spoke in absolutes or purported to be the spokesperson for any constituency. My only point is that everytime I saw a DDDB event, such as the protest outside the groundbreaking, or the various events at Freddy’s, I saw very few, if any, people of color. Hell, there were more black folk in attendance at the groundbreaking than at the protest.
Also please note that I never said DDDB was “entirely” comprised of white, middle class newcomers, rather that they were “overwhelmingly” so. I challenge you to prove me wrong on that point.
But you make my point for me ENY. I don’t take issue with all that FortGreeneCorey said. Just the broad generalizations which suggest that, if you are a REAL Black person who REALLY knows and lives in Brooklyn, you can’t be opposed to AY. Last I checked, I am still very much Black and I am still very much opposed to AY. IMO, you got it right when you said “one size does not fit all.” Thanks!
“I tell you that I know there to be a whole bunch of Black Brooklynites who were/are absolutely opposed to AY, that’s very much a fact.”
Not me. I’m black, born in ENY in 1963, never left, live in Crown Heights, rented for years in the 1990s at on Dean St behind the AY site.
I do agree that the views are diverse among our people, and one size does not fit all. Generalizations are inherently inaccurate. But Ft Greene Corey raised legitimate points, which are vaild irrespective of Bertha Lewis. Regarding Ms. Lewis, she is certainly no innocent victim here, but nevertheless voices (if this is indeed an e-mail she wrote) what are legitimate questions about Daniel Goldstein.
If Bertha had any class, she would have taken DG’s statement at face value, thanked him for finally ending his war, and been on the phone with Ratner ten minutes later DEMANDING that he fulfill his end of the deal. That is, good, permanent jobs for lower income people, initially in the construction phase, and then later in the development itself, and truly affordable housing.
Seven years after this fight started, and perhaps five years after Bertha, ACORN, Rev. Daughtry and BUILD all signed on, there is still NOTHING in writing that guarantees that affordable housing will EVER be built. Every statement that even bothers to mention it, always has a codicil. *will be built depending on the success of the rest of the project. *will be built after everthing else is done….maybe.
BUILD, a local effort to have minority construction workers hired on this project, and major cheerleaders for it, defended FCR in loud, testosterone filled rallies with desperate people looking for work. Ratner better deliver.
Lower income people who hoped this huge, 16 tower complex would have room for them, were among the loudest people in the room, and were the bulk of ACORN’s supporters. Bertha better have some pithy remarks better than the scorn heaped on Goldstein ready when these people wake up and find that their concerns will not be met anytime soon, and someone with a baby on their hip today will be lucky if their kid will ever see an affordable apartment connected with this project, when he/she is in their mid 20’s.
What really gets me is not that they lied. People lie all the time. It’s the cynical usage of desperate people, and the use of the race card in this deal that I find dispicable. FCR deliberately used high profile sports and entertainment figures to bring impressionable young people into the fray, they used the promise of jobs and housing to bring their parents. At the end of the day, they got an autographed tee shirt and a lot of wind. They were told that the evil white gentrifiers wanted to keep them from having a piece of the pie. Organizations like ACORN are supposed to be fighting this kind of blatent manipulation, and beating down the office doors demanding change, but instead, Bertha Lewis was bought out by the Man. Nothing she says has any credibility or credence.