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June 28, 2011
Atlantic Yards ‘Rat Tsunami’ Plagues BroBos
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
What the hell is a Brobo?
As if the traffic and sports bars weren’t bad enough, the construction of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project has triggered an all-too-apt infestation of Rattus norvegicus in neighboring Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Observer makes fun of rat complaints, claims "hysteria has reached such epic proportions"
So, Matt Chaban of the New York Observer, who can be a decent reporter, didn't attend the meeting last Thursday about rat problems in the area around Atlantic Yards.
But he had to write about it, so today he applied a little 'tude, headlined Atlantic Yards ‘Rat Tsunami’ Plagues BroBos [Brooklyn Bourgeois Bohemians or Brownstone Brooklyn], providing a list of the complaints, ending with:
- Two stolen Bugaboos, with babies attached.
O.K., so we made that last one up, but the hysteria has reached such epic proportions, it seems possible. After all, The Brooklyn Paper is worried about the hantavirus infecting BroBos this summer if things don’t get better. Given their weak constitutions, it is bound to be a deadly epidemic.
My comment
As I commented:
Matt, this is really beneath you.
If you'd attended the meeting, or read the coverage (including mine) more carefully, you'd know that many of the people affected have been there more than 40 years, and that they represent a spectrum of ethnicity and class.
So the Bugaboo reference is not just a cheap laugh, it's way, way off.
As is making fun of people who are plagued by rats.
Posted by eric at June 28, 2011 10:17 PM