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December 19, 2010
Brooklyn the Brand: from indie culture to the Marcy projects (and the Barclays Center)
Atlantic Yards Report
This blog post reminds us that Brooklyn has become a brand that can be seen as promoting the borough and its enterprises, but can also be easily glommed onto by corporate interests, as in the case where a two-page New Yorker spread featuring the e-mail newsletter Brooklyn Based was an advertisement for the Ford Edge, a crossover S.U.V. Another example is the attempt to market Atlantic Yards as being authentically Brooklyn.
The Voice captured the tension:
On the one hand, great! Who doesn't want independent businesses to gain exposure and introduce their high-quality products to a wider audience? On the other: An entire borough (to say nothing of a "movement") is now so neatly and reductively defined that it can be packaged in a car ad and used, albeit indirectly, to sell hoodies made in China. Which is, well, sad.
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The AY angle
As I commented on the Times article:
Let's not forget that the branding of Brooklyn extends well beyond food to such things as the under-construction Barclays Center arena. (The state gave away naming rights to developer Forest City Ratner.)
While occupying land formerly home to row houses and loft apartments, the arena will offer to high-rollers "Brownstone" and "Loft" suites.
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Many Brooklyns
Fact is, there are many versions of Brooklyn, perhaps even "Four Brooklyns," as in the song in The Civilians' IN THE FOOTPRINT: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards.
Remember how, at that 8/23/06 hearing on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement, a man named Umar Jordan asserted, "If you never been in the Marcy projects, you’re not from Brooklyn."
Well, it's highly unlikely that Atlantic Yards condo buyers paying $1,217 per square foot in 2015 will be taking a detour to Marcy, which as many know, birthed rapper, entrepreneur, Nets part-owner, and former drug dealer Jay-Z.
Posted by steve at December 19, 2010 10:07 AM