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June 28, 2008
CBA Block Party Cancelled
The Community Benefits Agreement Third Anniversary Block party, expected to take place yesterday, was cancelled. Did someone forget to buy the balloons, or did it turn out that Thursday is a better party night? Three different blog entries try to figure out what happened:
The "brutally weird" block party scheduled for yesterday--on a to-be-demapped AY footprint block--by Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) signatories was canceled without public explanation yesterday. Apparently Forest City Ratner and its surrogates recognized that 1) it was bad form and 2) block parties usually involve residents celebrating their block, and there weren't any of them. (Image from DDDB.)
Well, there was some largesse distributed. As told to DDDB and to me by an eyewitness, CBA signatory BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development) and Forest City Ratner representatives "were out in front of the [homeless] shelter at 603 Dean handing out pizza, drinks and Nets tote bags to shelter residents." The shelter is on the block just below the block where the party was to be held.
The Real Deal: Ratner's Atlantic Yards block party cancelled
Three years ago today, Forest City Ratner entered into a community benefits agreement for its Atlantic Yards project, promising affordable housing and work for local and minority businesses to help build Brooklyn's biggest-ever development. A block party planned for today to celebrate the anniversary has been canceled.
The party was to be in the footprint of the struggling Atlantic Yards project, on Pacific Street between Vanderbilt and Carlton avenues. Delia Hunley-Adossa, chairwoman of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefit Agreement, said the block party had been planned for months, but was canceled after the U.S. Supreme's Court decision Monday not to hear an eminent domain petition presented by property owners and tenants challenging the government's ability to seize their homes. The ruling followed a string of legal losses for the project's opponents.
"We wanted to be sensitive to the community that the decision came down Monday," said Hunley-Adossa, who works with both the developer and the community.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn: Offensive Atlantic Yards "Block Party" Cancelled
Developer Forest City Ratner’s partners and surrogates announced last Monday afternoon that they planned to hold what they claim to be a “block party” to “celebrate” the third anniversary of what experts have called a toothless, illegitimate “Community Benefits Agreement” (CBA) for the developer’s Atlantic Yards proposal.When the time came today for the party today nobody showed up. Our eyewitness sources tell us the "block party" was cancelled. But no worries, we got this eyewitness report that: "BUILD and FCR (Forest City Ratner) were out in front of the [homeless] shelter at 603 Dean handing out pizza, drinks and Nets tote bags to shelter residents."
Posted by steve at June 28, 2008 7:34 AM