« Atlantic Yards ground-breaking event marked by politicians, pop star and protests | Main | Bad Day for Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards Groundbreaking »
March 11, 2010
Snapshots from the Atlantic Yards "Groundtaking" Ceremony
Reason Hit & Run
by Damon Root
Reason's Damon Root has a good rundown of the day's protesting, with photos, a couple of which we've reproduced below. Click through for more.
A small and feisty group of protesters had already established themselves in front of Freddy’s Bar in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn when I arrived shortly after noon to witness today’s big groundbreaking—or “groundtaking” as the protesters put it—ceremony for the Atlantic Yards project, a 22-acre eminent domain boondoggle that will bulldoze homes and businesses in order to make way for a basketball stadium and some office and apartment towers. Despite the fact that Atlantic Yards is a classic case of eminent domain abuse, New York’s courts have shamefully abdicated their judicial responsibility and allowed this blatant land grab to proceed. So today was something of a last hurrah for the opposition, many of whom have been fighting this outrage for the past seven years. I’d estimate that a few hundred protesters had joined in by the time the crowd made its way from Freddy’s to the heavily-secured tent where Ratner and his buddies in big government gathered to celebrate their chance to demolish a neighborhood and begin “building the community from the ground-up.”
 |
Finally, a shot of the heroic eminent domain resister and tireless activist Daniel Goldstein, who has fought the good fight for seven years and is now living like a prisoner in his own home. He’s the reason most people even heard of this outrageous government abuse in the first place. Like Susette Kelo did on a national scale, Goldstein’s greatest accomplishment may be to spark a lasting movement to reform New York’s atrocious eminent domain abuse. Here he is marshalling a massive street crossing by the protestors in order to outfox the police.
 |
Posted by eric at March 11, 2010 8:01 PM