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November 10, 2005
Battle of the Bronx Looms For Mom-and-Pop Crusader
NY Observer
by Matthew Scheurman
Anti-box-store crusader Richard Lipsky has gone to battle against Wal-Mart, BJ's and Pathmark and is currently fighting against the big-box stores slated for the Bronx Terminal Market for his client the Neighborhood Retail Alliance.
However, in Brooklyn, Lipsky has crossed the aisle to support Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards deal, though the developer is notorious for bringing BIG-box stores to the borough (whatdya call a "Tar-jay" in a building that looks like a toaster?).
When asked tough questions, Mr. Lipsky doesn’t get defensive, or tell the reporter such and such is not important. He just answers in the sort of dry monotone one might use when ordering lunch at a drive-in, and lets the ideas, and inconsistencies, speak for themselves.
He supports Forest City Ratner’s proposed live-work-play complex in central Brooklyn, for instance, and in fact is getting paid to organize an amateur sports league there as well as to lobby for other Ratner projects around town. And yet the complex will almost certainly require the state to use eminent domain to acquire private property—a practice that his Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog has consistently labeled harmful to small business.
Lipsky calls Atlantic Yards opponents, "ideological purists." Obviously Lipksy is not an ideologue, since he's taken Ratner on as a client.
Posted by lumi at November 10, 2005 6:32 AM