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February 4, 2011
Markowitz uses new Strategic Policy Statement for tendentious, erroneous defense of his Atlantic Yards advocacy
Atlantic Yards Report
Does anyone know how to start the impeachment process?
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's new 2011 STRATEGIC POLICY STATEMENT [PDF] contains, among other things, a vigorous, tendentious, and erroneous defense of his Atlantic Yards advocacy, suggesting that the project would make use of an "abandoned rail-yard" and knit together neighborhoods rather than divide them.
It deserves several footnotes.
It starts:
I’m sometimes called a cheerleader or even a pitch-man for Brooklyn. One idea that I pitched on behalf of our borough was a long-held dream of mine that I’m thrilled is now definitely coming to fruition—my promise to bring major league sports back to Brooklyn. As a boyhood fan whose heart was broken when the Brooklyn Dodgers left for "La-La Land" in 1958, I wanted to bring that excitement back to the kids and families of Brooklyn. Nothing brings people together like music, food, religion and sports. I approached Forest City Ratner and expressed my desire for a NBA team in Brooklyn. Now all of Brooklyn awaits the arrival of the Brooklyn Nets! The plans evolved for an arena, retail and residential housing, including, at my insistence, 2,500 affordable units, located on the City’s third-largest transit hub, making modern use of an abandoned rail-yard and knitting together previously divided neighborhoods. The Atlantic Yards project will form a new cultural center befitting the nation’s fourth largest "city" of 2.6 million.
Though surely some Brooklynites await a new team, the tepid response from an invited audience at Markowitz's annual pronouncements during his State of the Borough address undermines his hyperbole about how "all of Brooklyn" awaits the Nets.
The railyard was and remains a working railyard to store and service trains; that's why Forest City Ratner had to build a temporary railyard and is supposed to build a permanent replacement.
There would be 2250, not 2500 subsidized apartments, but a good quantity--perhaps half--wouldn't be that affordable to the "real Brooklyn," as defined by the Daily News suggested.
Nor would superblocks knit neighborhoods; rather, insertion of new streets, as in the proposed UNITY Plan, might do so.
And "plans evolved" from a promise for 10,000 office jobs in four towers around the arena. Now just one of the towers is slated for offices, and indefinitely delayed.
Posted by eric at February 4, 2011 9:51 AM