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April 26, 2008
‘Room’ doomed?
The Brooklyn Paper, Letter to the Editor from Alan Rosner, Park Slope
To the editor,We have just learned that the iconic Frank Gehry skyscraper, Miss Brooklyn, has no anchor tenant, and that without one no financing is available (“Atlantic Yards Dead,” March 29). That being the case, the basketball arena may get built long before Miss Brooklyn construction begins.
Meanwhile, no one seems to have asked if the “Urban Room” — a six-story, all-glass entry to Miss Brooklyn, the arena and the Atlantic Avenue station — will be built or abandoned.
There are problems either way. If it is to be built, Bruce Ratner will have some major redesign costs, especially if the distance between the “Urban Room” and the arena is to be hidden rather than left a gaping open wound.
Ratner’s less-costly alternative is to wait until Miss Brooklyn eventually goes ahead. But the “Urban Room,” a promised amenity, also served to mitigate the expected hoards of pedestrians crossing Atlantic Avenue by connecting the MTA’s Atlantic Avenue station with the arena. The silence suggests that neither the ESDC nor Ratner are concerned.
I’d like to think The Brooklyn Paper could find out what a delayed Miss Brooklyn means, but unfortunately control of what happens to neighborhoods is happening behind closed doors among connected, corporate developers who have money to buy their way through the system.
I guess the real question is how much longer this swindle will be allowed to drag on?
Alan Rosner, Park Slope
Posted by amy at April 26, 2008 10:55 AM