« NBA COMMISSIONER: LEAGUE DOESN'T NEED LEBRON IN NEW YORK | Main | DOT says Ratner may be trying to stretch deadline past three years for completion of Carlton Avenue bridge »
June 3, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Lightning Round
It's dismaying to me that none of New York City's daily newspaper columnists thought to show up at the state Senate oversight hearing Friday on Atlantic Yards.
As with the similarly-ignored (by columnists and editorialists) 8/23/06 public hearing on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, it was a remarkable piece of street theater, and the fodder for much potential commentary about, as i wrote nearly three years ago, "democracy versus demagoguery."
Indeed, there's a curious story line generating just from the New York Daily News. Columnist Errol Louis denounced the hearing ahead of time but didn't bother to show up. Would he have been proud that the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, the single most disruptive individual during the 4.5-hour hearing, invoked his column?
Yes, the good Reverend seems to have forgotten the Golden Rule.
Indeed, there's a column to be written about the fundamental category error displayed last Friday: this was an oversight hearing, more akin to a courtroom trial than to a public hearing. The aim was to solicit information from and about the performance of government agencies, not to seek public input about the merits of the project.
I've been to state oversight hearings held on the 19th floor of 250 Broadway near City Hall. They're sober affairs, with no disruptions. That should've been the case Friday. And people other than O'Keeffe and a couple of online journalists should've pointed it out.
ESDC Construction Update emerges, late and inaccurate
Looks like there is slightly more going on at the Vanderbilt Yards than we and the ESDC reported yesterday — and we accept responsibility, since inaccuracy appears the norm for the Atlantic Yards sponsor.
Work in the past two days has been going on in Blocks 1120 and 1121, the railyard blocks to the east, bounded by Sixth Avenue to the west, Vanderbilt to the east, and Atlantic and Pacific.
I'll be on CUNY-TV's Brian Lehrer Live tonight
Not content with keeping NoLandGrab from even taking a bathroom break, the ubiquitous Norman Oder will be on TV tonight, too.
I'll be on CUNY-TV's Brian Lehrer Live tonight talking about--what else--Atlantic Yards. The hour-long show starts at 7:30 pm and the segment in which I'll appear should be in the first half of the show.
CUNY TV can be viewed on most cable systems in the New York metropolitan area on Channel 75* as part of the NYC TV, the City's cable television network. (Check the web site for explanation of the asterisk.)
Posted by eric at June 3, 2009 10:32 AM