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March 14, 2010
Atlantic Yards Report Sunday Extravaganza
Atlantic Yards Report
Daily News columnist Adam Lisberg casts a more-approving-than-not eye on the mayor in a column headlined Mayor Bloomberg likes the big picture, but he should keep an eye on the details, too:
Mayor Bloomberg loves to think big. The little things may need some attention.
He was in his element last week at the groundbreaking for the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn - thousands of jobs, billions of dollars (plus more than $200 million in public subsidies), shovels, hardhats, progress.
"It took a long time to get here, yes it did," Bloomberg said as protesters blew whistles outside. "But nobody's going to remember how long it took. They're only going to look and see that it was done. And we're going to make a big difference."
Well, is Atlantic Yards a "smart bet," as the caption to the accompanying photo suggests?
Clearly if the goal is to move a professional sports team to New York City. Otherwise, the New York City Independent Budget Office has warned that the arena would be a net loss for the city.
And the largest chunk of jobs would come from office space, for which, as I've pointed out time and again, there's no market. So, while Lisberg allows that projects like Atlantic Yards stomp on neighborhood haunts like Freddy's Bar & Backroom, he misses the big picture.
Just for the record: ex-Brooklyn Paper publisher notes paper's "familiar hysterical slant"
From former Brooklyn Paper publisher Ed Weintrob's Coney Media blog:
The Brooklyn Paper (my old pub) yesterday broke a story on its Website about the prevailing practice in Park Slope (a notoriously [sic] child-friendly, “socially-conscious,” uber-liberal neighborhood that is at the heart of Brooklyn Paper country), of paying nannies off-the-books.
The story originated with Park Slope Parents, a popular local blog, which produced a beautiful 73-page chart-filled study. The Brooklyn Paper did was little original reporting (beyond publishing a column attributed to an off-the-books nanny); it simply reported someone else’s findings. The story was packaged by The Brooklyn Paper with its familiar hysterical slant — the paper called the news ”earth-shattering” — and it was quickly picked up by local blogs and, this morning, by the NY Post.
(Emphasis added)
Hoops, music (The Burrow, 2010), and groundbreaking: three videos
Three videos are on this post: A commercial for the New Jersey Nets, John Pinamonti performing his composition "The Burrow", and the he official video from NBA.com of the groundbreaking ceremony. After viewing you'll understand why those fighting the Atlantic Yards development thought of this past Thursday's ground breaking for the Nets arena as burying the soul Brooklyn.
It was a front-page story in all three daily newspapers yesterday, the story (Times coverage) of cabbies ripping off passengers for a total of $8 million over two years.
It's easy to understand why it's a big story: lots of people take taxis, and uneasiness about the fare--and the trustworthiness of cab drivers--is not uncommon.
Also, $8 million sounds like a big number. And the rip-off seems easy to understand, cut-and-dried.
By contrast, the cost of taxpayers of Atlantic Yards can be complicated and contested--see the debate between the Empire State Development Corporation and the New York City Independent Budget Office.
But we've never seen a headline, say, alerting the public that the state gave away naming rights to the Atlantic Yards arena, leading to the payment by Barclays Capital of $200 million-plus to help build the Atlantic Yards arena, and reap the branding benefits of the groundbreaking extravaganza Thursday.
Posted by steve at March 14, 2010 8:57 AM