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May 3, 2007
When Clowns Go Bad: Marty Markowitz Goes on a Rampage
Daily Gotham
"Mole333" reports on Good Marty...
I liked his seeming combination of liberal politics and jovial, well, clownishness.
...and Bad Marty:
Only slowly did I begin to realize that behind that jovial exterior lurked a vindictive little shit that began emerging over the past couple of years. Markowitz is now showing that nasty, vindictive side as he fires members of Community Board 6 who failed to blindly support Markowitz's master, Bruce Ratner.
I have now heard this from three sources, so I can report on it. Not one source has yet agreed to be public. But collectively they tell me that Marty Markowitz has become a raging nut case, yelling at people in public and threatening people right and left. One person has, in all seriousness, called Marty's sanity into question. Markowitz seems to have snapped.
NoLandGrab: Ditto on the conclusion.
Marty Markowitz's emotional, spit-spewing (really felt sorry for those in the first row), red-in-the-face defense of Bruce Ratner and his belly-aching about project critics is really something that every Brooklynite should witness.
Markowitz has come a long way from "people of good will can disagree" and "my mother always taught me that if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all" (link).
It's now payback time for the Fifth Avenue Committee, as Marty has been threatening to block a project in South Slope which has wide community support.
Don't forget the infamous Brooklyn Papers interview, in which Marty used the F-word (more than once) and complained that project opponents care more about Atlantic Yards than Osama bin Laden, overlooking repeated requests by neighborhood groups for a comprehensive terrorism and security review.
If Brooklyn's Clown Prince IS descending into madness, the outstanding question for local historians will be, does the political psychodrama betray a guilty conscience?
Posted by lumi at May 3, 2007 7:10 AM