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June 4, 2010
New AIA Guide to New York City calls Atlantic Yards "ill-advised"
Atlantic Yards Report
The fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City has emerged, all 1088 pages worth, with some tart words for Atlantic Yards, thanks (I assume) to a new co-author who got to know Prospect Heights after playing music at the now-closed Freddy's Bar & Backroom.
...The Prospect Heights setting
The book states:
Prospect Heights, a severed pizza slice (in plan), a bite missing from its side (at Grand Army Plaza; the southern half of the slice is Institute Park), is an ethnically diverse neighborhood just north of Park Slope, featuring leafy blocks of 19th-century brownstones designed by then leading architects, including Rudolph Daus and the Parfitt Brothers. its western edge is marked by the hubbub of Flatbush Avenue; its eastern, less defined edge, blends at Washington Avenue into Crown Heights.
The Long Island Railroad yards and a swath of the neighborhood is the site of the controversial proposed Atlantic Yards project. Partial demolition of buildings in the seven blocks of that project's "footprint" has created "developer's blight," a phenomenon in which a developer declares a neighborhood "blighted" in order to justify the use of eminent domain, then, by demolishing buildings, creates the very blight that didn't exist in the first place (a self-fulfilling prophesy). The result (for now) is a thriving neighborhood with incongruous blocks of contiguous wasteland, reduced to rubble, on its northern edge.
Actually, the wasteland isn't so contiguous.
Atlantic Yards
The book, finished months ago, lists AY as "unbuilt" rather than "partly under construction." It states:
UNBUILT: Atlantic Yards (basketball arena and housing)... Ill-advised. A massive proposal by developer Forest City Ratner (of MetroTech fame: see Brooklyn Civic Center section) that, if built, would forever change the character of small-scale, tree-line Prospect Heights. The plan call for buildings over the rail yards between Atlantic Avenue and pacific Street (good idea) and demolishing blocks of homes and businesses in Prospect Heights, replacing them with modern residential towers and a basketball arena (bad idea). Frank Gehry's master plan (a swiveling cadre of towers) captivated many a City official and architecture critic, but opposition among community groups in Prospect Heights was fierce. As the downturn in the financial markets delayed the project, Gehry's designs were replaced by less flashy plans by the firms SHoP and Ellerbe-Becket. Now that Gehry isn't involved, more and more critics are coming out against the project. Where have they been?
Posted by eric at June 4, 2010 11:34 AM