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September 25, 2009
Write all about it
Two mailbags, three letters, one topic: Atlantic Yards.
The Architect's Newspaper, Letters, It's Not About the Arena
For the last six years, architects and planners have sat idly as our craft has been reduced to window-dressing for Forest City Ratner’s (FCR) Atlantic Yards urban renewal scheme. We have watched silently as design has been used as bait by Mr. Ratner, who has wrought physical destruction and sown false social divisions among the great neighborhoods of Brooklyn.
For the last half-decade, most of us have confused cynicism with realpolitik as we have accepted FCR’s collusion with certain public officials. We sat still as they circumvented the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, thus effectively disenfranchising every New Yorker. And our continued silence equals complicity in their ongoing attempt to abuse eminent domain laws for their undeniably private benefit.
For the last week, we have spent too much time debating aesthetics, when the important Atlantic Yards issues have always been questions of urbanism. There is real tragedy in the fact that some of our best design talent, first Frank Gehry and now SHoP Architects, have been enlisted by FCR in its efforts to run roughshod over the people of New York. At a time when so many architects are already struggling to survive, we can barely afford to sacrifice our standing as a profession on the altars of shortsightedness and narrow ambitions. While SHoP is best known for pursuing a “third way” in architecture, sadly, with this commission the firm has chosen the wrong way.
...For architects, Atlantic Yards is about leadership, accountability, responsibility, and societal obligations.
Atlantic Yards is not, and has never been, about the arena.
Marshall Brown
Director of the Yards Development WorkShopRonald Shiffman
Professor
Pratt Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment
The Brooklyn Paper, And from the mailbag...
Insecurity
I attended the presentation of the new Atlantic Yards arena given by architects Bill Crockett of Ellerbe Becket and Gregg Pasquarelli of SHoP (“Rendered Useless,” Sept. 18).
While the new design is an improvement, once again security is little beyond assurances that all is well. During the question-and-answer session, Crockett said there would be bollards to keep vehicles from crashing over the curb. Afterwards, asked a more direct question, he said that bollards were being considered.
We all know that the arena’s 20-foot setback from the curb is inadequate under both federal and city guidelines.
...That beautiful cantilevered mass hovering over the open plaza may not so safe. In an explosive event, it’s guaranteed to reflect any blast wave back down onto pedestrians and even into the new entrance that leads down to the Atlantic Avenue station.
And those floating, wrap around metal bands made up of hundreds of separate iron panels could quite easily beak away from the main structure to add to the flying glass and debris.
Alan Rosner, Prospect Heights
Repent, Paper!
So explain to me why a $20-million bailout for CityPoint benefiting “a team of private, for-profit developers who made a bad investment” is bad, but much more bailout money for Bruce Ratner, who made an even worse investment in a pro basketball team, is not (“Feds’ CityPoint bailout is a bad use of taxpayer dollars,” Aug. 21)?
I don’t disagree with you about CityPoint — it’s a waste of money for a bad project which could instead be used to help spur small-business growth Downtown.
But even you have to see that opposing stimulus funds for CityPoint while championing the same for Ratner’s white elephant of an arena (“Build the arena — with fed money,” Feb. 5) — a money-losing arena that would be a net fiscal loser for city taxpayers, according to the city’s Independent Budget Office — is just plain dopey.
Eric McClure, Park Slope
Posted by eric at September 25, 2009 10:18 AM