03.11.2010 | 10:12 PM •
In two years, we will have this glorious building
down the street from us. This afternoon, Bruce
Ratner’s ratpack of politicians, Paterson, Bloomberg,
Schumer, Markowitz, etc. pushed their ceremonial
shovels into some ceremonial dirt.
Thanks to taxpayer subsidies, Ratner’s pockets are
very deep, deep enough to buy almost everyone out.
Most likely there will be a few eminent domain fights
before Forest City Ratner can claim the last few
pockets of privately owned land, but the Supreme
Court has already spoken about that. Like the
Republican Convention held in NYC in 2004, protestors
were forced a block away from the ceremony. The Times
reported
this, but the story was
mostly buried, strange given the scale of the
Atlantic Yards project. (Could it have something
to do with the NYT’s
cozy relationship with Forest
City Ratner?).
While I’m all for jobs and the expansion of
affordable housing, this plan will do little good for
the borough except help the construction industry and
possibly build some borough pride with the Nets.
Aside from real estate speculators, I do not know a
single person who is in favor of this enormous
project. It is totally out of character with the
neighborhood, in scale and design. The traffic will
be a nightmare. There aren’t enough schools, the
subway and LIRR will be overburdened. And then there
will be the loss of neighborhood businesses as
anonymous mall life invades the borough. We live in
Brooklyn because we like the brownstone scale of
life. We like trees and parks and peace and quiet. We
like owner-occupied small structures. There’s a
reason we didn’t want to live in Manhattan. This is a
very sad day for Brooklyn.