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February 3, 2011
Please give us all the facts next time, Lizzie
The Sports ITeam Blog [NYDailyNews.com]
by Michael O'Keeffe
There's a good story - "Boom Town and Bust City: A Tale of Two New Yorks" - in The Nation's Feb. 14 edition that examines how the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer thanks to the Great Recession.
But author Lizzie Ratner fails to note that her family has been one of the winners in the economically anxious times.
Ratner's father is Bruce Ratner, the Nets minority owner and Atlantic Yards developer who has received hundreds of millions of dollars in state and city subsidies and tax breaks. And let's not forget that the MTA sold Bruce Ratner prime real estate in central Brooklyn for the Barclays Center for a bargain-basement price - $150 million for land that was appraised at almost $215 million.
Lizzie Ratner, by the way, has been listed as an officer in Forest City Ratner-related companies involved with Atlantic Yards. So has her uncle, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ratner has been a hero to many people who care about civil and human rights, but you have to wonder why he's opposed to throwing Palestinians out of the West Bank but does’t seem to care when Brooklyn residents are thrown out of their homes for a basketball arena.
So when you're standing on a dirty, overcrowded subway car, when you have to pay yet even more money for your Metrocard, when you read that Gov. Cuomo is hacking education and Medicaid funding, it may be some consolation that Lizzie Ratner of The Nation knows the score.
NoLandGrab: Michael O'Keeffe is being too generous — Papa Bruce is paying only $100 million for the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard. And when paying in one lump sum became a little onerous for Ratner, the MTA sweetened his already syrupy deal by allowing him 22 years (at a below-market interest rate) in which to pay it off.
Posted by eric at February 3, 2011 10:51 PM