« Celebs join Ratner foes | Main | More from the blogosphere on DDDb advisory board »
May 8, 2006
Zanes not singing Ratner's tune
NY Daily News, The Score
By Eric Barrow
Bruce Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards already faces plenty of opposition in Brooklyn, but now a whole new generation is being primed to fight against his $3.5 billion development.
Dan Zanes has jumped into the fight.
Aging hipsters remember Zanes as the lead singer of the Del Fuegos, the '80s roots rock band, but these days the Cobble Hill resident speaks to a much younger audience: their kids. Zanes, a leading act on the burgeoning children's music scene, fears Ratner's monster project will destroy the neighborhoods that make Brooklyn special.
"I met more people in the first six weeks I lived in Brooklyn than I met living seven years in the West Village," says Zanes, whose latest album, "Catch That Train," includes "Wander in the Summer Wind," an ode to Kane Street, the F train and hanging out in Prospect Park. "I sit on my stoop and play my mandolin and the neighbors stop by, and I'm in paradise. That is something we can't take for granted."
Zanes will play a June 3 benefit at Brooklyn's Hanson Place Central United Methodist Church for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, the coalition of groups opposed to Ratner's development.
"He's just a developer and he's just doing what real estate developers do," Zanes says. "Developers want to build as far and wide as they can, and they want to do it without public scrutiny. The enemy is public indifference and a lack of information. So much good can come out of a community fight like this because it gets people involved."
Posted by lumi at May 8, 2006 8:35 PM