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July 27, 2011
'A Broken Promise' Over Atlantic Yards Jobs
Workers rally in the shadow of the still-rising Barclays Center to express outrage over a lack of construction positions for Brooklyn residents.
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
It pains us to say we told you so, because we're talking about peoples lives and livelihoods, but good God, we've been telling you so for more than seven years and some 17,000 or so posts.
Community activists once supportive of the Atlantic Yards mega-project today angrily denounced developer Forest City Ratner over what they called a lack of available construction positions for Brooklyn residents.
"We feel like suckers because you made us tell our people something that wasn't true," yelled Martin Allen, a community organizer for People for Political and Economic Empowerment, into a bullhorn just outside the gates to the Barclays Center worksite on Sixth and Atlantic avenues. "Because none of the people are inside this project that supported this project."
Allen helped rally around 100 community activists and workers, many of whom, like Victor Richardson of Crown Heights, have been unemployed for over a year or more.
"They promised us work before they even started and we got nothing yet," said Richardson, a non-union worker who said his last job was at a construction site in The Bronx.
Related coverage...
Prospect Heights Patch, VIDEO: 'A Broken Promise' Over Atlantic Yards Jobs
Brownstoner, Protesters Call for More Jobs at AY, Downtown Projects
“We’re fighting because we’ve been lied to,” [People for Political and Economic Empowerment President Martin] Allen told the crowd. “We were promised jobs and they never came.” He also yelled toward the construction site, addressing developer Bruce Ratner: “You’re shameful… you’re a monster to Brooklyn.”
Posted by eric at July 27, 2011 10:02 PM