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June 24, 2008
NYC Donut Report's Got Beef with SCOTUS
NYC Donut Report!!
The "International donut reporter" takes a break from chronicling the world of tasty deep-fried dough to mourn the Supreme Court's refusal to hear Goldstein v. Pataki and what it could mean for the future of everything that makes New York City — and especially Brooklyn — great.
If you love the quirky independent donut shops that we cover on this Web site, then you ought to detest the Supreme Court's refusal on Monday to take up the case of Brooklynites who are being forcibly evicted from their homes and businesses to make way for tacky high-rise condos. The court has now cleared the way for real-estate developers all over the city -- and indeed across the country -- to use the power of eminent domain not to build roads and other works that serve the public good, but instead to build condos, malls and office towers to make money.
The power of eminent domain, now used just to turn a profit. This ruling gives the developers yet another incredibly powerful weapon in their campaign to literally demolish all the homegrown donut shops, dive bars, corner bodegas, independent bookstores, hole-in-the-wall burger joints, art-house theaters, Chinese apothecaries, junk shops, wig emporiums, dumpling houses, Bulgarian discos, peep shows, Gray's Papaya hot dog joints, word-of-mouth supper clubs, cutthroat Korean ping-pong gyms, stinky fishmongers, brownstone stoops, rent-stabilized apartment buildings, chrome diners, kebob carts, basement barber shops, cramped jazz clubs, wholesalers of obscure items and taxidermy shops -- in short, to destroy all the things that make New York distinctive -- and replace them with condo developments and "festival marketplaces" you could just as easily find in Denver or Scottsdale.
The trends in Brooklyn are especially not good. The Coney Island that you and I know as one of the great symbols of Americana is about to be utterly sterilized. Acres and acres of gross condo towers are going up in the Atlantic Yards project that Antonin Scalia and his cronies are so enthused over. And what's the third big project going on in the borough? Why, it's funny you should ask. They're going to reopen -- and double the size of -- the Brooklyn House of Detention.
Shopping malls, million-dollar condos, overblown arenas for the New Jersey Nets to suck in, a massive prision smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood -- it's all the same to the developers. They all make money, and they all have no purpose but to make money.
Posted by eric at June 24, 2008 10:01 AM