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March 12, 2010
Ratner breaks ground! Jay-Z celebrates! Others protest!
The Brooklyn Paper
by Stephen Brown
The builder got a standing ovation from the 1,000 invited guests — a strange bedfellows of supporters from organized labor, the community group ACORN, sports fans, black leaders, and elected officials — gathered in a tent on the sprawling project site, which covers a 22-acre area between Flatbush and Vanderbilt avenues, from Dean Street to Atlantic Avenue.
...Ratner singled out Markowitz for praise — indeed, the Beep was the person who persuaded the builder to buy the Nets and build their new home.
“Marty, you pestered me every day,” Ratner said. “It took seven years, but we got there together.”
Later, Ratner praised his lawyers — all 150 of them — whom he jokingly called “New York’s Finest.”
“Thank you, all you brilliant litigators,” he said, referring to the cases that they won. “You’re amazing.”
...The event — complete with lobster rolls and other fancy canapes — had a “to the victor belong the spoils” atmosphere, but a block away from the festivities, the roughly 100 protesters blew whistles and chanted, “Shame on you!” from Atlantic Avenue.
The protesters decried the project as an unneeded, traffic-choking eyesore that could not have been built without massive public subsidies.
“It’s horrifying,” said Sarah Edkins. “Buildings made just for profit to create a few temporary jobs erode local community.”
At the Prohibition-era Freddy’s Bar, some were solemn as they acknowledged that the final months are at hand for the watering hole that will be torn down. Other activists mocked the “villains” of the Atlantic Yards — Markowitz, Ratner and Bloomberg among them — by wearing huge masks and delivering satirical speeches.
“Who ever though that a former tenant activist — me! — could preside over eminent domain to kick tenants out of their homes?” said a man dressed as Markowitz. “What a country! What a borough!”
Posted by eric at March 12, 2010 12:52 AM