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April 5, 2006
The Bad News Nets
Naparstek.com
Aaron Naparstek, a frequent critic of the Atlantic Yards plan and proponent of working to convince the "developer, state and city to come to their senses," is aghast at the latest details of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal, released Friday in the Environmental Impact Statement Final Scope.
Bad news according to Naparstek [emphasis added]: * "The new plan is significantly bigger than what was originally announced in December 2003." * "It is also even more Towers-in-the-Park-ish than the old plan." * It's a throwback to 1960's-era housing projects. ["This new design only means more big gaps in the street-wall, a less healthy and viable pedestrian environment, fewer opportunities for street level retail and, almost certainly, more dead, semi-useless “open spaces” on the interior."] * "The announcement of an interim surface parking lot of unspecified vastness on the eastern end of the project footprint." [Naparstek explains how "interim" becomes fixed with a simple downturn in the market.] * Widening of Flatbush, Atlantic and Sixth Avenues. ["New York may very well be the last major city in the Western World that is trying to solve urban transportation problems by widening roads and creating vast new parking lots in its urban core."]
Posted by lumi at April 5, 2006 9:25 AM