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June 20, 2008
What we talk about when we talk about Atlantic Yards (& eminent domain)
Atlantic Yards Report
Ha! Jeremiah Moss, Norman Oder will see your paltry 693-word report on Wednesday's New York Public Library panel discussion on eminent domain, and raise you 2,351 words! All in!
It’s hard to talk about Atlantic Yards in public. Relatively few people know enough of the facts. Debates among opponents and proponents are rare, most recently non-existent. So a panel discussion at the New York Public Library Wednesday night, which contained its share of AY criticism, might be seen as one flip side of some of the public meetings managed well by project proponents.
It wasn’t only about Atlantic Yards, but when we talk about Atlantic Yards the topic extends to questions of gentrification, neighborhood change, and the proper parameters of public debate. And it led at least one audience member to wonder about the absence of a devil’s advocate. (Other accounts of the evening from Jeremiah's Vanishing New York and Lithuania-based curator Simon Rees.)
The program and the exhibit
First, some background. The blurb for the program, titled EMINENT DOMAIN: THE AMERICAN DREAM ON SALE, suggested an idea torn in different directions, about urban renewal and the power of social bonds:
The current exhibition at The New York Public Library, Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City, features the work of five contemporary New York–based photographers... whose works intersect and resonate with current concerns about the reorganization of urban space, and its public use, in New York City. Artist Glenn Ligon offers the literal narrative of his own housing in the city. In addition to proposed regulations that threaten First Amendment rights to photograph in public places thus becoming a form of privatization of public space, questions also arise with the current private/public arrangements that characterize much of modern urban development, particularly the legal power of eminent domain, or the taking of private property for public use.Ok, so the exhibition is called “Eminent Domain” but isn’t really about it. But the panel was assigned to “discuss the use of eminent domain and how urban renewal is changing the cityscape of New York City” and “Atlantic Yards, a hotly contested developer driven project in Brooklyn, will serve as a focus through which the evening will begin.”
NoLandGrab: "Brokeland2003" raises a good question in a comment appended to Oder's post, in response to a question raised at the event by someone wondering why there was no "devil's advocate" on the panel:
"Why must the NYPL have a so-called "balanced" panel (whatever that is) but nobody complains when Crain's holds panel after panel with Doctoroff clones?"
Posted by eric at June 20, 2008 8:45 AM