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January 18, 2007
Barclays Arena Online
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Curbed, Destroyer Gets a Name
As if New York City needs another bank...
By the by, we think it's a safe bet that we know which bank Daniel Goldstein won't be opening a checking account at. The Post also reports that the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking could happen "as early as in a few weeks," you know, if it's actually allowed to get built.
NY Mag: Daily Intelligencer, The British Are Coming to Brooklyn, Thanks to Bruce Ratner
But at least the Mets' new ballpark — Citi Field, they'll be calling it — will be shilling for a New York company. Bruce Ratner, on the other hand, has sold naming rights to his proposed Brooklyn basketball arena to the London bank Barclays, as the Post reports today. And in some ways that's not surprising. It underlines the methods Ratner has used throughout his campaign to build Atlantic Yards: Beat your chest about how the project is all about Brooklyn pride, but don't let that stand in the way of maximizing profits.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Barclays Bank Supports Eminent Domain Abuse
According to The Post article on Barclays Bank paying Bruce Ratner a lot of money to stick their logo on his arena, "the Nets deal allows Barclays to put a major flag in the ground in its U.S. operations and could be viewed as part of grand expansion plan."
"Grand expansion plan": Sounds like Ratner's "Atlantic Yards" land grab.
DDDB's message to Barclays:
Eminent Domain or Compulsory Purchase. When Abused, It's All the Same: UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Barclays.com, Spaces for Sports
Find out more about our £30 million 3-year investment in grassroots sport.
Fans For Fair Play, Bruce Ratner -- Collaborationist
And what of Barclays Bank? For the most unsavory of starters, it was founded in 1756 on profits made in the slave trade. In more recent times, Barclays has been:
- a major funder of South Africa's apartheid regime;
- a rotten place for women to work through the 1970s;
- sued by French Jewish holocaust survivors for working with French Nazi collaborators during World War II;
- funding exploitive mining operations in Congo;
- criticized by the World Bank for not supporting more environmentally-positive energy consortiums and initiatives;
- sued by defrauded Enron shareholders and employees for collaborating with Enron execs during the company's meltdown.
This is the company whose name Bruce Ratner wants to put on his arena for all of Brooklyn to see.
We're curious to see how ACORN's Bertha Lewis, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, former State Assemblymember Roger Green and newspaper columnist Errol Louis -- all outspoken Ratner supporters and, except for Louis, known recipients of Ratner money in return for supporting the project -- feel about Ratner's arena being named for a company founded with profits earned on the backs of African slaves.
Village Voice, Power Plays, Nothing Says "Brooklyn Basketball" Like... A British Banking Conglomerate
While I don’t still don’t like corporate stadium names, it’s hard to begrudge the Nets a cash influx; the team has been gushing money, despite their recent playoff runs. Of course, I still don't like the Atlantic Yards project itself, either... but that's another story.
The [London] Times, The secret of comedy: timing
Barclays Bank will today announce it is paying hundreds of millions of dollars for the right to append its name for 20 years to the above, admittedly rather splendid, basketball stadium. The arena, the future home of Brooklyn-based Nets and part of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards development, will be called the Barclays Center, and it is hoped that the whole area will be identified with the bank. “We were hoping to get Brooklyn renamed Barclays,” jokes an insider. Could always ask David Beckham, then.
Gothamist, Barclays Bets on Brooklyn Nets
Why is Barclays buying naming rights when they don't even have any locations in New York? According to The Post, "the Nets deal allows Barclays to put a major flag in the ground in its U.S. operations and could be viewed as part of grand expansion plan." It's a good thing that they don't have any operations in New York, because with the amount of opposition to the Atlantic Yards project, they would certainly be subject to boycott.
Gumby Fresh, Goslings-On-Gowanus
I could say I'm absolutely disgusted with this move, and threaten to withdraw my money from said institution, much as I also attempted to bring the hurt to the Brooklyn Brewery over its support for the project (they're bearing up, I hear, as am I, with the help of copious amounts of Six Points and Anchor Steam). But alas, while I was a customer of Barclays between the years of 12 and 18, I discarded it in disgust at some transgression or another over ten years ago. I cannot even urge my relatives to do likewise, since I believe my sainted grandmother gave them the boot as well fairly recently.
Posted by lumi at January 18, 2007 8:24 AM