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March 21, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Gowanus Lounge, Ratner Beats Steinbrenner: He's Third in '06 Lobbying Spending
GL's observation on Ratner's outstanding ranking in the 2006 lobbyist report:
No. 3, however, turned out to be Bruce Ratner, who spent $2.11 million. Meanwhile, No. 8 was the New York Yankees Partnership, which was looking for state assistance to build a new baseball stadium. Mr. Steinbrenner spent $1.1 million on lobbying, one of the rare instances when he was outspent by another team.
KINETIC CARNIVAL, The 'Mix-Use' of Rides and Condos
[Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter Sarah] Ryley also elaborates on the disclosure of Lola Staar's Dianna Carlin as the originator of the newly emerged group "Save Coney Island"
In a limited way, her newly formed group is Coney Island’s version of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), the more established group that has recently offered Carlin its expertise from years of fighting the approved Atlantic Yards project.
eOculus, Balancing Great American Cities: Its Form AND Content
[Jane] Jacobs’s observations are increasingly lost as her ideas are appropriated “to sell large, top-down projects,” explained Ronald Shiffman, FAICP, Hon. AIA, Professor of Urban Planning at Pratt Institute. He cited the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and Columbia University’s Manhattanville expansion as examples of this.
The Daily Gotham, We Give Ratner the Atlantic Yards Land for Free
If you wanted to buy some land to develop for your own profit, would you expect taxpayers to pay the entire bill for you? Well, if you are a law school buddy of Pataki, that is exactly the sweet deal you could get while Pataki was Governor...and the exact deal Bruce Ratner seems to have gotten with you and me footing the bill.
...
Ratner's $100 million bid was finally accepted, part of the controversy where the low bid of a friend of then Governor Pataki was accepted over a higher bid. Now we learn that the city is planning to pay for the entirety of this land purchase?Corruption runs deep in New York.
The Knickerblogger, Architect of the Idiocracy
We know [Ratner] has a penchant for choosing bad designs, and in an added twist he's chosen fashionable but impractical Frank Gehry - one of the most environmentally unsound architects practicing today.
Free Republic, Barclays Bank Boycott To Protest Eminent Domain Abuse
From comments on the NY Libertarian Party's press release declaring a boycott of Barclays Bank (the bank must be used to it by now):
Huh? WHAT "eminent abuse scheme of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards."? Is this explained above? My aging eyes and inability to stay focused must be failing me again! My apologies, but is it there? If not, are we supposed to know what that was all about?
Sugar Hill Harlem Inn, "All the news that is unfit to print"
A blogger suggests that The NY Times cover itself and the Times Tower, built and co-owned by Bruce Ratner. Details from the lease on file with the SEC bars nearly all uses of a populist or middle-class nature, making one wonder how they managed to justify the taking of private property as a public use.
Knickerblogger, Banana Republic, It Ain't Just A Clothing Label
On Ratner's big tab spent on lobbyists:
I am sure glad Bruce Ratner assured us that he doesn't contribute to politicians to avoid the appearance of impropriety, otherwise we might think something was amiss.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner's projects are probably so great that they would be approved on their own merit, but in a "banana republic," this is just the cost of doing business... and speaking of Banana Republic...
Other retailers signing leases for space at [Bruce Ratner's] Ridge Hill Village include apparel chains Banana Republic and New York & Company.
Posted by lumi at March 21, 2007 6:47 AM