« The Serious and Not So | Main | Dust for workers and possibly the community from work in the railyard today »
July 12, 2011
UNITY: A desperate plea for adult supervision
The Brooklyn Rail
by Brian J. Carreira
In New York City nothing symbolizes the hangover experienced from the real estate frenzy of the aughts better than the debacle that is the Atlantic Yards. Critics have long believed that Forest City Ratner Chairman and CEO Bruce Ratner’s high-flying promises of jobs, starchitecuture, affordable housing, high-rises, and sports were cynically calculated to sell his intention to control the rail yards at Atlantic Avenue. And they were, but it would seem that Atlantic Yards is faltering not because Ratner never believed his promises, but because he blindly believed too many of them.
Over the last eight years, the promises evaporated. The community groups supporting the project were largely astro-turf, not grassroots. (Recently bankrupt ACORN was a notable exception.) The community benefits agreement—promising jobs and affordable housing—that these groups signed onto with the developer was a public relations ploy and had no real structures of oversight or enforcement. Original project architect Frank Gehry, brought in to allay understandable fears that Forest City Ratner would continue to build ugly in Brooklyn, was dumped in favor of cheaper styling.
On June 15, a group of about 100 Brooklynites concerned about the progress—or non-progress—of the Atlantic Yards project gathered at the Commons in Boerum Hill to reconsider the community-driven UNITY plan.
...The new UNITY plan—which will come out of the recommendations of the various committees formed at the meeting—will differ from its predecessors since it comes after the evictions and demolitions and will need to contend with the reality of a basketball arena next door. But it will likely inherit not only the values of the earlier plans, but also many of the original features.
Posted by eric at July 12, 2011 10:20 AM