« NETS' RATNER GETTING INTO NAMING GAME | Main | Changes Afoot at Grand Army Plaza »
October 4, 2007
Walk On
Brooklyn Based
The organizer of the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Walkathon talks about how he got involved in the fight against Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaproject:
“I had an inkling the Nets might be coming to Brooklyn,” says [Scott] Turner, who was psyched until he learned the full extent of Bruce Ratner’s plan, and how it would destroy his old haunt, Freddy’s. “I played a lot of music at Freddy’s, and that was my Mother’s Against Drunk Driving moment, the moment I got involved.”
Recruits to the Atlantic Yards opposition are filled with regular Joes who signed on because the project would wreck their lives – if it happens as Ratner has planned. Two lawsuits have delayed substantial work on the 22-acre footprint, costing the developer $4.15 million a month.
“I think a lot of us thought it was going to come down to court cases anyway,” says Turner, a member of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s steering committee, and the organizer of the third annual DDDB walk-a-thon to help fund the legal battle against Forest City Ratner. The first year they raised $50,000, then doubled the amount last year, and are hoping to do the same this Oct. 14, when participants will walk, “New Orleans, Second Line march” style from Freddy’s to Soda Bar, where there will be prizes for “most money raised, best costume, best festooned dog and whatever else we come up with along the walk.”
NoLandGrab: It's TEN DAYS until the Walkathon. REGISTER HERE or SPONSOR SCOTT.
Posted by lumi at October 4, 2007 8:36 AM