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September 6, 2009
AY Report For Sunday
The $30,000 brownstone: Pete Hamill on "Brooklyn: The Sane Alternative" (1969)
Instead of trying to get to the bottom of the latest doings of the ESDC, Norman Oder turns to an old New York Magazine article to better understand Brooklyn history. Read the entry for yourself to see what has and hasn't changed over the last few decades. This quote gives some of the flavor of what was, and still is, attractive about Brooklyn:
The money quote for the Brownstoner crowd:
It is still possible in Park Slope, for example, to rent a duplex with a garden for $200 a month, a half-block from the subway; still possible to buy a brownstone in reasonably good condition for $30,000, with a number of fairly good houses available for less, if you are willing to invest in reconditioning them. Hundreds of people are discovering that Brooklyn has become the Sane Alternative: a part of New York where you can live a decent urban life without going broke, where you can educate your children without having the income of an Onassis, a place where it is still possible to see the sky, and all of it only 15 minutes from Wall Street. The Sane Alternative is Brooklyn.
Deconstructing an Evan Thies mailer on Atlantic Yards
Below is one side of a campaign mailer I received from 33rd District candidate Evan Thies...
The main quote comes from Ethan Pettit: "Evan Thies has not only taken the lead in the fight to stop Atlantic Yards, his 360° Planning Initiative will stop the next irresponsible megadevelopment from getting off the ground."
Pettit may believe that, but that doesn't make him an authority. A search on ("Ethan Pettit" AND "Atlantic Yards") shows he's had no public presence on AY other than signing a petition on Thies's web site.
Thies has expressed strong opposition to AY, but I wouldn't say he's taken the lead. For example, he didn't testify at: 1) the public hearing held in July by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC); 2) the state Senate oversight hearing held in May; 3) the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's two public meetings in June; and 4) the ESDC's public meeting in June.
The bottom of the mailer quotes this blog: "Thies has probably the most extensive set of suggestions" regarding development. That comes from a piece in April in which I noted that, while Thies was expressing strong opposition, he hadn't aligned himself with Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which has taken the lead in opposing Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: Maybe some small comfort can be had that Thies' opposition to the proposed Atlantic Yards project, while not active, at least implies that common wisdom holds the development to be a bad idea.
Posted by steve at September 6, 2009 10:28 PM