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November 11, 2008
Representing Central Brooklyn: Mark Winston Griffith with Nicholas Jahr
The Brooklyn Rail
by Nicholas Jahr
Mark Winston Griffith, an activist, co-founder with Errol Louis of the Central Brooklyn Federal Credit Union, and now a candidate for City Council, talks with The Brooklyn Rail about a number of hot topics — including Atlantic Yards.
Rail: I’m wondering what you think of the Atlantic Yards project. The site is just outside your district and I know you’ve written a bit on the subject.
Griffith: What I don’t like about Atlantic Yards is that it didn’t start with a conversation. No one said, “We’ve got this land here that’s been underutilized, how do we fulfill its greatest potential? How do we build on it and develop it in a way that’s going to build the surrounding community, that is going to be respectful of the surrounding community, and is going to be healthy environmentally, physically, economically, and that’s going to include a lot of different people in the revitalization of this area?”
...Now what you have here in Brooklyn is almost a lose-lose situation, in the sense that if Ratner is successful in realizing his vision, I think it’s going to have a serious negative effect on the area. If he’s not, and he goes through financial troubles and he ends up not building, and that area becomes even more blighted…I don’t think it necessarily was fully blighted before, but after he gets done knocking down everything, and making way for the development, if he doesn’t actually get to build, then it actually will be a blighted neighborhood.
Posted by eric at November 11, 2008 2:15 PM