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August 16, 2008
Brooklyn Broadside: David Walentas: Pioneer Of the New Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Dennis Holt
When the last 30 years of Brooklyn history is written, it will dawn on someone to make note that Walentas was in Brooklyn before anyone had ever heard of Bruce Ratner, or Joshua Muss of Downtown fame to come, or Greg O’Connell of Red Hook.Now, those who are contributing to the creation of the new Brooklyn bear corporate names that don’t have the same ring, and there’s no one answering the phone personally like Ratner and Muss used to do in the old days when almost everyone else thought these guys were nuts.
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There aren’t many individuals around who can legitimately claim that they created a whole new neighborhood. Ratner, Muss and O’Connell can, but not quite in the way Walentas did. In effect, Walentas took what was already there, changed the innards, and people flocked there.
article
NoLandGrab: Ratner took what was already there, destroyed it, built something unpleasant, and the government bailed him out. Are we sure that it was only in the "old days" that everyone thought he was nuts?
Posted by amy at August 16, 2008 3:05 PM