How Low-Income Can You Go?
The latest Atlantic Yards puff piece arrived in mailboxes earlier this week and the cover photo is something of a head-scratcher. We’re not so sure a family in matching $75 designer polo shirts was quite who Bertha Lewis had in mind when she sold ACORN’s support to Bruce Ratner for half a million bucks and…
The latest Atlantic Yards puff piece arrived in mailboxes earlier this week and the cover photo is something of a head-scratcher. We’re not so sure a family in matching $75 designer polo shirts was quite who Bertha Lewis had in mind when she sold ACORN’s support to Bruce Ratner for half a million bucks and a kiss. Of course, the mailer actually got the demographic just right: The large majority of apartments in the proposed complex ARE for the polo-shirt set. Too bad that wasn’t made clear to all the low-income folks Ratner got to spend the day in line at the first public forum who actually have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting an apartment.
I just don’t understand the copy. I mean, is that 12 hours a day, 5 days a week? What kind of job does the guy have? What is his salary? Why can’t he afford to live in Brooklyn? Does he have mega debts or something? Does his wife work? Are those his only children? Are they his children? I get the shock value of the copy but any thinking person would look at it and say, come on!
Proportion, eh? Dropping a mini-Manhattan skyline filled with 15,000 people and thousands of motor vehicles — in addition to a Nets arena attracting another 20,000 people and a bunch more vehicular traffic — is all out of proportion with the neighborhood in which this monstrosity will squat.
The other plans offered a higher PROPORTION of their housing as affordable, but Ratner’s plan offers a higher NUMBER of affordable units. When ever affordable apartment counts in a city as expensive as NYC, then numbers are more important than proportion.
“If the AY plan is so great why does forest city keep it from the public? hmmm got an answer Raternites?”
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“Each one hides the true scope of the project. Instead they feature the coziness and neighborliness of the brownstones this mammoth project will displace. And never a peep about Frank Gehry or “Miss Brooklyn.””
if the AY plan is so great why does forest city keep it from the public? hmmm got an answer Raternites?
yeah forest city cheerleaders, because Daniel Goldstien said one stupid thing, everything else he says is invalid. He should be forced to give his home to a billionaire developer, the state should float forest city four billion in low interest loans and ignore competing bids that offered more for the yards and more affordable housing.
and yeah, everytime a greedy, corrupt developer wants your home he should be able to take it.
pretty shameless attempt to race bait and exacerbate racial tensions…Forest City is about as low as yo can get. IF affordable housing IS the issue then why do Forest City cheerleaders avoid the fact that bids from UNity and Extel offered MORE affordable housing and were rejected out of hand by the ESDC?
Roger Green and Herbert Daughtry have been taken to task. The anti-Ratner folks have critcized them ad naseam for just about everything they’ve done or said.
Don’t worry, I’m sure that your letter to FCR will be ignored and that the mailings will continue.
Lastly, to suggest that Dan Goldstein’s comments were made out of “weariness” equates to excusing it, despite your denials of doing so. Was Dan’s support of Charles Barron, who approves of Zimabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, also done out of weariness?
I’m not defending Daniel Goldstein’s comment. I”m suspect it was born out of weariness at this whole convoluted mess, but that certainly doesn’t excuse him. But while everyone is quick to condemn his comments, no one takes Roger Green or Herbert Daughtry to task for comments just as racist as Goldstein’s, just couched in more palatable language.
Regarding the FCR mailing, I recommend that all fo you who are against this development do what I did with the last one that came to my house. I sent it back to them in an envelope with a strogly worded letter stating how I felt about the AY development and asking them to please not send any more literature to me. I’ll be curious to see I no longer receive mailings from them. It probably won’t do any good, but it sure made me feel better!