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January 15, 2009
Bait and switch
The Brooklyn Paper Editorial
Borough President Markowitz’s call for Bruce Ratner to cut costs at Atlantic Yards is a shameless attempt to provide cover for his political patron.
Markowitz, of course, is Atlantic Yards’ single greatest cheerleader — and, as such, has done nothing but salute Ratner every step of the way, even as the project’s cost to taxpayers has grown, even as Ratner’s own studies revealed huge environmental and traffic flaws and, yes, even as the cost of the publicly financed basketball arena has gone from a then-unthinkable $450 million in 2003 to the positively obscene $950 million today.
Last week, Ratner said that he would scale back the grandeur of the Frank Gehry-crafted arena — whose design was a main selling point for the entire $4-billion white elephant that is Atlantic Yards.
Predictably, this week, Markowitz put out his own press release, calling Gehry’s design no longer “economically feasible.”
And there you have it, folks: the Atlantic Yards bait-and-switch is complete.
Posted by eric at January 15, 2009 10:15 PM