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February 5, 2007
Hello, Neighbor!
Fans For Fair Play stands up to Brooklyn's new "neighbor," Barclays Bank, which sent out a strongly worded defence last week of the banks alleged ties to slavery, apartheid S. Africa and activities during WWII. FFFP lays out more details on the history of Barclays, seeks to clarify the record on one item, and explains the bank's latest hardball tactic:
Of course we're talking about Barclays Bank, who just crawled into a comfy palace four-post bed with Bruce Ratner. Barclays shelled out $400 million or so -- as per the usual secrecy from all things Ratnerian, Bruce and the bank won't exactly say how much.
New neighbors? Hey, let's do what anyone would and walk up the street, say hello, find out a little about them.
Seems that Barclays has a few skeletons in its closets...boney, scrawny evil lookin' things called Slavery, Apartheid, Anti-Semitism, Racism.
Oh...and a quick-trigger forearm to the throat of any newspaper, journalist, blogger, writer or internet site willing to write about their sordid little history.
NoLandGrab: Does anyone else get the feeling that Bruce Ratner's penchant for secrecy goes both ways? Is it possible that Bruce conveniently forgot to tell the British bank that they were about to partner up in one of today's most controversial development projects? Brooklyn's newest "neighbor" can't be happy.
Then again, as cited by Fans For Fair Play, Barclay's spokesperson Peter Truell writes, "As a good neighbor and corporate citizen, we pay close attention to the concerns of any community in which we have a presence...."
Posted by lumi at February 5, 2007 8:39 AM