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February 23, 2007
Lights, cameras, Ratner!
The Brooklyn Paper
By Gersh Kuntzman
Bruce Ratner wants to hear your complaints — and watch you make them.
The developer, who famously skirted the city’s rigorous public-review process in favor of expedited state oversight, just opened a “community liaison office” within the 22-acre Atlantic Yards footprint so that area residents can express their “questions or concerns” during the 10-year construction.
The office, in the old Spalding ball factory at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street, has a welcoming sign and two not-so-welcoming surveillance cameras trained on the door.
The Brooklyn Paper received an auto-reply message when a reporter emailed the office, but a veteran Prospect Heights activist just walked right in.
Longtime Atlantic Yards opponent Patti Hagan visited the office this week said the worker there was “very friendly, though he didn’t have any answers.”
“I asked him about how the company plans to deal with all the traffic from all the construction workers’ cars,” said Hagan. “He wrote down my questions — and my name — and told me he’d get back to me in a day or so.”
Forest City Ratner’s spokesperson did not return calls.
Posted by lumi at February 23, 2007 8:34 AM