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September 8, 2008

It came from the Blogosphere...

POLITICS
Brooklynian, News flash: We have a primary Tues. 9/9

"Raulism" updates Prospect Heights netizens about tomorrow's primary election, including the skinny on Atlantic Yards:

We don't have many races in our district, but most of Prospect Heights is in the 57th AD. The one contested race we do have is for District Leader (male). This is a Democratic Party position, and it doesn't have much power, but it is our voice in the official Democratic Party decision making process.

As most people should know, most of the decisions in New York State are done behind closed doors, so this position is our choice for who to put in those hidden negotiations. Believe it or not, our incumbent, Bill Saunders, has been a strong independent voice. He is active in the African-American community in Fort Greene, and he has been a consistent, strong voice for our community and against the Ratner Atlantic Yards proposal.

FINANCE
Nets Daily, Nets Arena Bonds to Launch in November

Goldman Sachs is close to launching an $800 million bond issue for the Barclays Center, says Project Finance magazine. Quoting ”sources close to the financing”, the magazine reports Goldman is in the process of having the bonds rated, and expects financing to be in place by the end of November 2008. The new arena will be part of Atlantic Yards. The Nets say they intend to break ground on the arena in November.

Commenters, like Norman Oder, are skeptical, including "brooklyn bob" who sez:

Anonymous sources … yeah, that’s REAL reliable.

Probably the same sources that spouted a thousand previous lies for ratner.

EVENT
NY Protest Calendar, 10/18 SAT: "Stop Ratnerville" walkathon Atlantic Yards

POSTER PROJECT!
Noticing New York, “Yeah, sure. Bad for the glass.” (Inartful Clues to New York City Government?) Since many trees along the Brooklyn waterfront are suffering from "salt-shock," Noticing New York asks an important question. The answer will sound familiar to many Atlantic Yards watchdogs:

Could the damaging effect of the art-concept salt-waterfalls have been foreseen? The Brooklyn Eagle tells us that an environmental impact assessment preceded the art project: "‘An Environmental Assessment Study was done, and it was concluded that there would be no lasting impact from the project,” said Rochelle Steiner, director of the Public Art Fund.
...
City Hall issued a June 15, 2008 press release of the Mayor’s statements about the coming art project on WINS 1010: Mayor Bloomberg Discusses the Waterfalls Project in Weekly Radio Address. The Mayor promised “the Waterfalls will have little impact on the environment.”
...
Whether you want to view them as a large scale project or a small one, the Waterfalls are temporary. They might even be viewed as just an experiment and as we see, when they failed environmentally and fell short of expectations they can be turned off early. But we have much more major projects like the Atlantic Yards megdevelopments being propelled along by similar impulses and much less competence. Though the Gehry-branded megadevelopment is being treated cavalierly by the Bloomberg administration almost as if it were just another piece of concept art (Building #1 is currently to take the shape of a stack of discarded pizza boxes), it won’t be temporary and remediation won’t be as simple as turning off a spigot.

Sullivan County CBA Blog, Concord Secures Equity Financing
Though this post is off-topic, the ability to secure financing for large projects is being compared to the region's poster-project:

Even the long-heralded Atlantic Yards mega-project in Brooklyn has been delayed.

Curbed, Columbia's Manhattanville Show, Day 2: 'Diabolical Plan'
And the award for poster-project tied up in years of litigation goes to Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject, though West Harlem property owner Nick Sprayragen vows to take his fight against eminent domain all the way to the top:

The storage facility owner says he will fight the use of eminent domain to take his property all the way to the Supreme Court, a process that could hold up the Manhattanville expansion--not unlike the litigation that has tied up the Atlantic Yards plan in Brooklyn--for years.

Posted by lumi at September 8, 2008 4:10 AM