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February 8, 2008
At overstuffed State of the Borough address, AY gets mention but not applause
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday evening, Norman Oder sat through Marty's 70-minute address for a tiny mention of the Borough President's pet project, but that didn't stop "The Mad Overkiller" from filing a full state-of-the-State-of-the-Borough report:
The State of the Borough Address delivered last night by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was another marathon extravaganza, invoking a rich mix of issues and places and people contributing to "The Brooklyn Story," and lasting some 70 minutes.
Though Markowitz mentioned Atlantic Yards twice, the project generated not a smidgen of applause from the 2000-plus attendees at the Brooklyn Cruise Ship Terminal in Red Hook.
Not the Barclays Center arena. Not the affordable housing. (In fact, had some Atlantic Yards opponents been in the audience, the BP would've been heckled for falsely claiming that half the housing would be affordable.)
Do Brooklynites--most of them Markowitz fans, given the ovation he got--not care much about the project he's so fervently promoted?
It's hard to be certain. The crowd was certainly worn out by the time Atlantic Yards was mentioned, well into a speech that clocked at nearly 70 minutes, itself following an hour-long reception and a 75-minute series of introductory announcements and performances. And Markowitz didn't offer any particular verbal flourishes to hasten applause.
Posted by lumi at February 8, 2008 5:38 AM