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June 26, 2009
It came from the Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder must get paid by the word over at AYR, 'cause he sure is cranking out the blog posts this month — 119 this month, to date.
Crain's: blame Amanda Burden for the leaked "hangar" renderings
From Crain's Insider, under the headline Fixing Atlantic Yards:
Forest City Ratner is hoping changes to its Brooklyn basketball arena will stop people from likening it to an airplane hangar. Renderings were leaked—by Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, sources say—prompting ridicule. But the leak was early enough to allow time to amend the design. Forest City needs to break ground this year.The leak was early enough? That sounds like Joe DePlasco-esque spin. The leak was not early enough to allow time to get a new design in the revised documents issued this week by the Empire State Development Corporation.
But yes, there's always time to tweak.
NoLandGrab: And yeah, six years of "tweaking" have really made a big improvement.
Crain's also reports:
The Central Labor Council, a politically influential coalition of labor unions, left 10 Democratic City Council members off its list of endorsements this week. Thirty-three were endorsed without going through the formal interview process... [Council Member Letitia] James opposes Atlantic Yards.... [which] will create union jobs.Still, Crain's does not count James in the category of the unendorsed incumbents appearing vulnerable to defeat in September.
The Prospect Heights Historic District passes, will wrap around block designated for AY parking
Note how two fingers of row houses would bookend the southeast block of the Atlantic Yards site, slated to be a staging area for arena construction, and also a massive parking lot for workers and visitors, ultimately with 2070 spaces.
...The Atlantic Yards site, according to the Empire State Development Corporation, is blighted. I wonder how many blighted areas are abutted by historic districts.
WNYC, following the Times, gets conclusory: "basketball arena... will soon be built"
WNYC apparently read the New York Times story Wednesday about the naming rights deal signed by Barclays, but not the corrective comment posted on the online article or on my (and others') blogs.
So, just as the Times could declare "There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center," so an WNYC reporter could reference (starting at about 1:38 of the report) "the Nets basketball arena that will soon be built along Atlantic Avenue."
There are no shovels in the ground yet, and while governmental approvals this week certainly have made the arena more likely, it's conclusory to say it "will soon be built."
Here's the link to the original WNYC story.
Posted by eric at June 26, 2009 11:35 AM