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December 2, 2009
Unfair Substitution of Fiction For Fact in the Atlantic Yards Dialogue
Noticing New York
A prevailing hallmark of the promotion for Forest City Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards Brooklyn real estate mega-monopoly is the extremely unfair way that fiction has been routinely substituted for and intermingled with what are theoretically the actual facts. Not only have the fictions enlisted to support this abusive eminent domain taking been patently false factwise; they have for the most part not even been believable.
Things That Are Not True About Atlantic Yards
One supreme work of fiction in the mix has been the AKRF “blight” study. With high-end condominiums recently developed and built within and immediately outside of the megadevelopment’s footprint it is clear that there was no blight. Another unfortunate way that the intrusion of fiction has been amplified is that for the Court of Appeals decision its official “record” of non-facts was closed as of late 2006 by which choice the court ignored all sorts of conspicuous subsequent events that contradicted the fictions on the record.
Here is a list of other significant fictions that Forest City Ratner and the state officials servicing that firm have unfairly intruded into the public discussion. The list is not exhaustive. To make it so would be a difficult challenge.
Click through for the lengthy list of fictions, and for a very interesting tale of overheard dialogue at the meeting approving the issuance of tax-exempt bonds for Baron Bruce's basketball barn.
Also...
Atlantic Yards Report, AY facts and fiction, from Noticing New York
Some of the fictions are more debatable than others--after all, the Atlantic Yards site likely would have an arena, thus different from the infamous site in New London.
But White and other critics/opponents have a lot of ammo, starting with incontrovertible deceptions like the crime analysis in the Blight Study.
Posted by eric at December 2, 2009 9:53 AM