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August 24, 2006
Roaring Over Ratner
Power Plays, political blog of The Village Voice
Neil DeMause posted a colorful report of yesterday's public hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement:
Inside, unity was decidedly not the flavor of the day. As a sea of orange carpenters-union t-shirts faced off against an ocean of yellow "We Are Not Blighted" placards, nearly every speaker was all but drowned out by a chorus of cheers and boos, or boos and cheers, depending on their particular proclivities. (Councilmember and wannabe Congressman David Yassky declared himself in favor of the project, but demanded it be scaled down, earning boos from both sides.) With speakers limited to three minutes and the ambient noise in the room at top volume, sound bites were the order of the day: "Our youth need jobs!" did battle with "Our youth are dying of asthma!"; by the scheduled midway point, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade had all been name-checked. Trying to follow the proceedings became like standing outside a Mets-Yanks game and judging from the crowd noise who was winning—all that was missing was Fran Healy doing color commentary: "They're not booing Councilman Fidler, they're shouting 'Lewwwwwwwwwww!'"
Though the hearing was called to a close - despite the fact that many people were still waiting to speak - "some pesky questions remain:" * Who exactly is going to be living in those 6,860 units of new housing—2,250 of them "affordable," in the Ratnerian calculus that deems affordability to be as high as $3084 a month? * What would the economic impact be, anyway? * How much of a public subsidy is Ratner getting?
Posted by lumi at August 24, 2006 8:20 PM