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July 22, 2007
Mau-Mau the Yuppies, Ratner!
BTHSNews
Sean Murphy
NoLandGrab: It seems harsh to skewer a high school student's work, but this kid clearly needs some fact-checking skills. Or maybe he fact-checked with Errol Louis? In any case, an article that starts off with describing Ratner as causing a racial rift where little existed turns into a misguided attack on project opponents, then turns pro-Atlantic Yards. Keep up the good work kid - you're a shoo-in for an internship at the Daily News. Just not in the sports department.
Unlike most of his ilk, Ratner was savvy enough to realize that siding with “the community” is not a foolhardy venture, as has been evidenced by the rapturous success of both Atlantic Malls.
Here's Atlantic Yards Report on the "rapturous success" of Atlantic Center:
Cleaning up in the wreckage a political deal involving former Gov. George Pataki and former Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Chairman Charles Gargano, the ESDC has closed its underutilized Brooklyn office on the lightly-trafficked third floor of the Atlantic Center mall operated by Forest City Ratner.Also, a look at the history of the Community Network Office (CNO) program offers evidence—in plain sight but not previously emphasized—that the choice of the mall for the ESDC Brooklyn office was meant as a favor to developer Forest City Ratner. The developer has had trouble filling space at the mall, which even the New York Times described in 2004 as having “dead corridors,” especially on the third floor.
Murphy goes on:
It would be extremely presumptuous in making a final statement on this issue, but it is my sincere opinion that for once in recent memory, the little guy, the lower-to-middle-class New Yorker who patronizes mom and pop record shops instead of the Virgin Megastore or Italian cappuccino bars as opposed to the latest Starbucks, has finally won.
This statement is mind-bending enough to make this article seem like a parody- perhaps it is? Ratner himself brought Starbucks, along with nearly every mall and bigbox store in America, to the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic.
Posted by amy at July 22, 2007 9:07 AM