« AY eminent domain decision "among the worst I've ever seen," says law prof; former NJ Public Advocate says NY court abdicated role in policing blight | Main | Deron Williams Will Join Nets in Brooklyn in 2012, Implies Nets Billboard »
April 6, 2011
CITYNOTES: Mod Times
The Brooklyn Rail
by Theodore Hamm
A must-read piece on the public funding of sports facilities, and the broken promises that inevitably litter their wake.
Since its inception in 2003, the Atlantic Yards project has experienced many setbacks, but never a shortage of hype. Its initial monumental Frank Gehry design promised to make Downtown Brooklyn another Bilbao; the arena and series of 16 towers would rain manna, not just on the starting squad of the Nets, but on the local black community; and the mantra of “affordable housing” spoke for itself. Such grand plans enabled the developer to rake in more than $300 million in direct public subsidies, and much more in indirect ones, including some seriously sweet deals from the MTA. Now, going on eight years later, a standard fare arena is being built, and we’re facing the frightening prospect that it will be surrounded by modular housing towers.
Whether a prefab high-rise can withstand all of the elements is a question for wind engineers. My focus instead is on what this prepackaged model, microwave-ready and recyclable, suggests about the views of the city’s future held by our leading players. For clues into the present outlook, let’s turn to the not-so-distant past.
In the early 1970s, prior to the ascension of their recently departed figurehead, the Yankees were owned by CBS, and their president was a charismatic fellow named Michael Burke. At the time, the ballclub sought to renovate Yankee Stadium, and wanted the city to help pay the cost. The Giants had already decided to move to Jersey, and there stood a real chance that the Yanks could follow suit. But Burke helped convince Mayor Lindsay, with whom he shared a stylistic affinity, to ante in $24 million in order to keep the Bombers in the Bronx.
It was the first in a series of shakedowns, but it was done with high-minded intent. As Burke told New York magazine in 1972, “What sets a baseball team apart from, say, a dry cleaning business is that because of the peculiar nature of the ball club, you’re a citizen of the city with civic responsibilities. If you have any sense of the city, you have a commitment.” By commitment, Burke was referring to the rejuvenation of the area surrounding the stadium. That same article reported that a Lindsay administration official named Paul Levine had circulated blueprints for how the neighborhood would look by the time renovations were completed in 1976. Presumably those forecasts did not include arson and the other forms of mischief that set the Bronx on fire.
Things didn’t quite go according to plan, of course.
Posted by eric at April 6, 2011 11:28 AM