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May 25, 2007
What Would Moses Do?
The Empire Zone
By Sewell Chan
What would Moses do? Good question — for starters, he would not have located a basketball arena at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush.
When Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley wanted to build a new ballpark a few short steps from the intersection, Moses turned him down, claiming that the stadium would create "a China Wall of traffic."
(Roger Kahn, "The Boys of Summer," page 429)
Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Center Mall sits on the site coveted by O'Malley.
But we digress...
From The NY Times's political blog:
Development — and its impact on New York’s neighborhoods — was the theme of a wide-ranging discussion last night at the Museum of the City of New York. (And, as with all such events lately, the subject of Atlantic Yards, the massive Brooklyn project, came up; see below.) Kent Barwick, president of the Municipal Art Society, moderated the discussion, which included Paul Goldberger, the architecture critic of The New Yorker; Michael Kwartler, an architect, planner, urban designer and educator; and Robert B. Tierney, a lawyer and chairman of the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission.
...
Mr. Goldberger said that much of the actual or planned development in recent years — Columbus Circle; the proposed train station in the Farley Post Office Building; Governor’s Island; the West Side railyards; Atlantic Yards; and even ground zero — has been driven by the private sector.
Goldberger gave Brooklyn bloggers some props, which is an indication that he probably gets more of his information on Atlantic Yards from the blogsphere than from the developer's web site, www.atlanticyards.com:
“The nature of citizen participation is a little different today,” he said. “It doesn’t happen through public hearings. Look at the extent to which blogs about Atlantic Yards have become a part of public discourse and become a part of public opinion and slowed down the project and may redirect it to a certain extent.”
NoLandGrab: To describe Atlantic Yards as "driven by the private sector" is sort of simplistic — we weren't there and can't vouch for the context of the quote.
Goldberger is correct that Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project was conceived in the private sector. However, the unprecedented scale and density of the project is only made possible by its public sponsorship. The Atlantic Yards behemoth is a prime example of how the power of public authorities, which Moses defined and exercized so well, can be relinquished to serve politically connected private-sector corporations.
Posted by lumi at May 25, 2007 7:51 AM