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February 10, 2010
The Op-Ed: Atlantic Yards—It Is Happening
The Commercial Observer
by MaryAnne Gilmartin
The Forest City Ratner Companies executive vp pens a misleading op-ed infomercial in the NY Observer's real estate-biz weekly.
The recession, the credit crunch and the inherent difficulty of building in the most densely settled city in America: These are just a few of the challenges that have dogged the Atlantic Yards project since its announcement, in December 2003. Add to these general obstacles a small group of litigious opponents who vowed to sue early and often to stop the project, and the six-year project inception period makes more sense.
But the wait is over. We are building Atlantic Yards. And the project is more important than ever.
NoLandGrab: By "more important than ever," Ms. Gilmartin means "more important than ever to Forest City Ratner." And we especially enjoy the way the Westchester-dwelling Gilmartin frames Atlantic Yards as a latter-day Great Society initiative.
The obfuscations, mischaracterizations and outright untruths in this "op-ed" are too numerous to catalog; The Observer, whose own Eliot Brown has done excellent reporting on the Atlantic Yards project, would have been wiser to slug it "advertisement" and at least collect a royalty.
Posted by eric at February 10, 2010 1:29 PM