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October 5, 2008
"Sitt"ing Not So Pretty
Noticing New York takes on the missing parts of the NY Times article "Failed Deals Replace Boom in New York Real Estate":
Not mentioned in the Times list of large-scale ambitious projects that are surely going to take longer to start and to complete than expected is the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment. This unnecessarily huge project already assails the community with an inordinately protracted development schedule. The schedule will be more protracted still. Unless the megadevelopment is replaced by something more appropriately designed and scaled, decades of blight will befall the adjoining communities. Again, as with nearly all eminent domain-abusing projects, it is an example of blight of our own making.If the Atlantic Yards project had never been undertaken, the newly renovated and expensive co-ops and condominiums within its speculative footprint would be fully and productively occupied just like the adjacent Newswalk development. In contrast to the lumbering Atlantic Yards besetting the community during these many recent boom years, without Atlantic Yards, the example of these successful cooperatives and condominiums developments would have been followed by other developments. Propelled by the boom of these past years the elegant white terra cotta Ward Bakery building, also within the speculative footprint, would no doubt have been landmarked: It would be well on it way to exciting the community with creative adaptative reuse.
Posted by amy at October 5, 2008 9:57 AM