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March 26, 2010
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Cross Pollinator, Mayor Bloomberg Always Chooses His Rich Friends To Develop With
Blogger Steven Walcott doesn't have a very high opinion of the Mayor, but compared to his feelings about Atlantic Yards, it's a downright lovefest.
Mayor Bloomberg (aka the rich turtle or the shrimpmeister) was on the news last night to announce how he’s saving the construction at Ground Zero by throwing $600mm of NYC taxpayer money into that big hole to replace the smart investors who won’t loan to the project.
When a reporter asked about how can you commit this money when you’re cutting cops and teachers he retorted that all taxpayer monies come from economic development.
Apparently, one needn't know anything about economics to become a billionaire. Or a politician.
While I agree that economic development is really important for New York City, I don’t think we need to further develop the cancerous real estate development industry. We could use some development besides building yuppie boxes for Wall Street douchebags that may never (please God) return to NYC.
The point is the mayor continues to champion the industry that played a key role in our present bucket of shit. Doesn’t the Shrimp have any other ideas besides the one that already hasn’t worked.
I’ve been really opposed to the big piece of shit called Atlantic Yards, because it’s the same move. This is the best economic development we can come up with?
Shaping the Future of the City, Community Voices #2: Development
Hunter College student Daniel Robinson hasn't been around as long as we have, so his b.s. detector isn't fully formed. Then again, his professors aren't exactly giving him both ends of the spectrum in their speaker invitations.
For tonight’s topic about development, Maria Torres spoke on behalf of the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC), and Lisa Kersavage for the Municipal Arts Society of New York (MASNYC).
...Both Ms. Torres and Ms. Kersavage spoke about community-level involvement and its importance. Ms. Torres encouraged us to be involved in our communities and stressed the community feedback NYCEDC always sought in its activities. Ms. Kersavage’s presentation, though, conveyed MASNYC’s community involvement more effectively.
When your competition is Seth Pinsky & Co., that's not saying much.
The presentation was replete with video clips and montages of community-level work. In Coney Island, MASNYC conducted community level workshops for Coney Island residents to express their ideas for how to improve the area. In the Atlantic Yards project, the organization worked with community members of nearby Prospect Heights and produced an application on residents’ behalf, focusing and drawing out the community’ energies to resist interference in their neighborhood from the Atlantic Yards project. One of the community’s goals was to have the neighborhood given a protected designation as an historic district. The effort, fortunately, was a success.
NoLandGrab: When the chips were down, however, MAS declined to join the BrooklynSpeaks lawsuit challenging Atlantic Yards, despite having played a key role in forming the group. And lo and behold, a couple months later, the organization's chairman, David Childs, emerged as the likely architect for additional Atlantic Yards buildings — should anything more than an arena ever get built.
Posted by eric at March 26, 2010 9:42 PM