« A box to put your dreams in | Main | It Came from the Twittesphere (Twittesphere?) »
June 11, 2009
What We’re Reading: Enraged Ouroussoff Eviscerates New Atlantic Yards Plan
Off the Record (Architectural Record blog)
by Bryant Rousseau
[W]here I do have a quibble with Ouroussoff’s piece is his utter avoidance of one of the critical questions with the Atlantic Yards project: the use of eminent domain to condemn private property in a fully functioning, if not vibrant neighborhood—for a fully private project. (For the record, I am adamantly opposed to this practice and believe it’s clearly unconstitutional, despite the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. City of New London.)
For me, the sheer brilliance of Gehry’s plan made this eminent-domain play a lot more palatable. If, instead, all we’re going to get is a conventional stadium design—and as someone who works literally on top of Madison Square Garden, I experience firsthand everyday the blight that arises around poorly designed arenas—then I hope the people and public officials of New York will rise up to kill this deal outright.
NoLandGrab: We're not quite sure how Frank Gehry's design would make Atlantic Yards "more palatable" to someone "adamantly opposed" to the "clearly unconstitutional" use of eminent domain for a private project, but we're down with sending the project to the great beyond.
Posted by eric at June 11, 2009 11:52 AM