« In profile of ESDC head Adams, Jeffries expresses optimism about stability and accountability; did Adams's AY testimony merit that? | Main | Packaging Public Land, The City’s Role in Private Development »
May 10, 2011
Xanadu- Governor Christie’s Ode-ious “Yes We Khan” Moment
Noticing New York
(Above: “Xanadu” from “Citizen Kane” - “cost: no man can say”- and “Xanadu” the mega-project in New Jersey, - more costs now being assumed by the New Jersey taxpayers- both from wikipedia.)
Suppose the New York Times proposed a contest for readers to write a poetic ode about a huge, over scale, garishly designed and questionably subsidized mixed-use project critically integrated with a sports complex: Do you think the readers might respond with lacerating lyricism questioning the judgement, priorities and profligacy of public officials?
Well, the New York Times did, and its readers did, only the contest was not held with respect to the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly handed out to Bruce Ratner (the Times business partner in building the new Times building). The contest was held with respect to New Jersey’s stalled Xanadu project recently rescued from financial insolvency by Governor Chris Christie.
...May 3, 2011, the Times declared a winner: Prevailing Poet Is Decreed in Meadowlands Ode Contest.
Here for reference is the opening stanza of the original Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.The declared winner was Steve Schoenwiesner of Montclair, N.J., for his two-stanza entry, one stanza of which is reproduced below:
For Xanadu did Christie-Khan
A stately subsidy decree.
While tracks below a river, planned,
Were scuttled, fundless, by this man
A blight revives tax-free.
Posted by eric at May 10, 2011 11:51 AM