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November 20, 2008
The Voice's Barrett on Bloomberg's transformation (with a blind spot)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reviews a Village Voice cover story on the Mayor's pursuit of a third term through the prism of Atlantic Yards.
I think [Voice reporter Wayne] Barrett is a bit too generous about Bloomberg's first term. After all, there were already signs of the mayor's edifice complex and his unquestioning willingness to back a developer's plan.
Remember, this is the mayor who said, in a 1/23/04 radio interview six weeks after Atlantic Yards was announced:
Then, we’ve got to find a find a ways--Bruce Ratner’s got to find a ways--to build this complex in Brooklyn. Like everything else, it’s controversial, I’m sympathetic to people who don’t like something like this moving in to their neighborhood. People whose apartments are going to be replaced, or houses taken away, generally speaking, this guy Ratner is a very responsible developer. If you go back and look at his track record when he developed MetroTech, which made an enormous difference in the city, he treated people very well.As I pointed out, Bloomberg essentially said that the city and the developer were on the same team, nearly a year and a half before the Metropolitan Transportation Authority put the Vanderbilt Yard--some 40% of the proposed site--out for bid.
Posted by eric at November 20, 2008 8:12 AM