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April 10, 2008
Ouroussoff on Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards: The Gray Lady's Guide to Contemporary Civics
CultureGrrl [ArtsJournal.com]
by Martin Filler
Cultural and architectural critic Martin Filler takes a guest turn at Lee Rosenbaum's CultureGrrl blog, and takes The New York Times to task for the way it dances around its Atlantic Yards conflict of interest.
A large part of the blame for the electorate's cynicism about this and other related issues lies squarely with the establishment press, which is not immune to the corruptions of cronyism. Although there are worse things to worry about now, The NY Times' coverage--or non-coverage--of the controversial redevelopment of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards is symptomatic of how conflicts of interest have undermined once-respected institutions.
On Mar. 21, the Times ran two pieces about cutbacks to the Atlantic Yards scheme due to the weakening economy, by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, and by Metropolitan Desk reporter Charles V. Bagli. Ouroussoff's critique made no mention of the somewhat pertinent fact that the project's prime mover, Bruce Ratner, was also developer of the new New York Times Building. To learn that, you needed to read Bagli, who, in a classic example of "bury the lede," got around to that disclosure only near the end of his 1,400-word piece.
Since he succeeded Herbert Muschamp in 2003, nothing Ouroussoff has written (with the possible exception of his calling Yoshio Taniguchi's MoMA expansion "exquisite") has incensed me more than his claim that anticipated contraction of the monstrously overloaded Atlantic Yards complex "feels like a betrayal of the public trust." I could hardly stop sputtering "Betrayal!...Public Trust!"
Let's talk for a moment about public trust and the Times, forgetting Judith Miller's compromised WMD reportage and a few other postmillennial lapses. Ratner's ties to the Times's majority shareholders, the Sulzberger dynasty, long predate their recent collaboration. In 1996 Ratner was made a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the behest of its then board chairman, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, father of the current Times publisher. Can it be mere coincidence that the Newspaper of Record has done its best to ignore the considerable public resistance to Ratner's Atlantic Yards?
Posted by eric at April 10, 2008 1:01 PM