« Would there be no way to rebuild Carlton Avenue Bridge? FCR says no | Main | Atlantic Yards Camera Club Meets [today!] @3pm »
February 10, 2008
Connecting the dots between a politician and AY
Atlantic Yards Report
A little digging turns up the identity of the Brooklyn machine politician who wanted something from Forest City Ratner in exchange for his support: former State Sen. Carl Andrews.Nicole Brydson of the New York Observer wrote Thursday about working in "central Brooklyn politics, commuting south every morning from my apartment in Greenpoint to a state senator's office on Flatbush Avenue near Lincoln Place. The district "includes Flatbush, Park Slope, Crown Heights and Prospect Heights."
While Brydson doesn't mention Andrews by name, he held the seat in the 20th District when the Atlantic Yards plan was announced. (Others have confirmed that she worked for Andrews.) She writes:
Then the first inklings of Bruce Ratner's stadium came up. His representative paid a visit to my office. “What are you going to do for my support?” my boss asked. I sat there, my stomach in knots. I quit soon after.
...
Under Spitzer, everything changes?Andrews, despite having been flayed by the Village Voice's Wayne Barrett for his ties to disgraced and convicted Brooklyn Democratic Chairman Clarence Norman, receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign fees and leading the borough in patronage court appointments in the 1990s, has landed on his feet--or, rather, in a comfortable chair.
He's now "Director of NYC Intergovernmental Office" for Gov. Eliot Spitzer, whose reformist tendencies could go only so far.
Posted by amy at February 10, 2008 11:25 AM