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May 6, 2010
Atlantic Yards Project: Another Brooklyn Holdout Emerges
Housing Watch
by Lisa Selin Davis
Out of the rubble -- literally -- of the Atlantic Yards construction zone, another family has emerged. A woman named Aisha Ahmed, whose ex-husband bought 481 Dean St. in 1988, is asking for $170,000 more than she has been offered -- or $85,000 for each child -- to vacate her property. We don't know what the previous offer was, nor do we know if the property has been officially sold, since no records have been found.
We do know that the state, the developers, and probably even the members of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, the organization that Goldstein led (until he retired as spokesperson after receiving his settlement) were unaware of the Ahmed family's presence. They are described as "elusive" and perhaps the building is in bad enough shape that it fits the definition of blight that Forest City Ratner, AY's developer, fought so hard to establish.
NoLandGrab: The "elusive" Ahmed family ingeniously concealed themselves by being the only people on the block with a light on, which can be seen in this photo (second building to the left of Freddy's), taken last Friday night by Tracy Collins.
And as the photo (also by Collins, click to enlarge) to the right shows, 481 Dean Street, the second building from the left, is hardly in "bad enough shape" to fit any objective definition of blight (that is, one not dreamed up by the Empire State Developmenter Corporation and Forest City Ratner), which Housing News would have known had they bothered to go round and look, or had they even just Googled "481 Dean Street," like we did.
Posted by eric at May 6, 2010 12:18 PM