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November 27, 2011
Denis Hamill tells why there is so much union pride in building Barclays Center in Brooklyn
Daily News
The reason for building Atlantic Yards isn't to benefit billionaire developer Bruce Ratner. No, we're doing this for the kids. It's funny how all the tangible benefits go to Ratner.
As a sports-crazed kid who grew up 11/2 miles from here, I know this new arena will have a profound effect on Brooklyn kids, their parents and new immigrants who will unite behind a true home team, the way the Brooklyn Dodgers made my immigrant father more of a true American than his citizenship papers did.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy, Denis Hamill's Love Letter to Forest City Ratner's Very Own NIMBY Bob Sanna"
Denis Hamill's Daily News column, "Denis Hamill tells why there is so much union pride in building Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Construction boss Bob Sanna is behind the Nets new basketball arena," is a really sweet love letter to Forest City Ratner's head of construction Bob Sanna who is overseeing the Atlantic Yards construction.
Hamill asks Sanna, "What was the first thing he had to do to erect this 18,000 seat arena?" Hamill allows Sanna to blithely respond, without challenge, "Demolish 52 buildings. We did that in sections, starting at Atlantic Ave, as politics played out and tenants vacated. Then we start carving away at the land."
Spoken like a true tin pot dictator. Politics didn't "play out," it was a fixed political deal. And tenants weren't "vacated," they were removed by eminent domain condemnation.
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News columnist Denis Hamill rhapsodizes about arena construction
Daily News columnist Denis Hamill, who thinks the Brooklyn Nets can give Brooklyn a soul and who swallows Forest City Ratner promotional spin, today salutes Forest City's head of construction, Bob Sanna, "Park Slope native, also the son of a Local 3 worker."
The online headline: Denis Hamill tells why there is so much union pride in building Barclays Center in Brooklyn: Construction boss Bob Sanna is behind the Nets new basketball arena.
Sanna, to Hamill, credits developer Bruce Ratner for having the event level level "25 feet below grade," and describes the role of union workers:
“Then comes a parade of 40 trades,” Sanna says. “Local 20 guys pour concrete on the 250 steel footings, held together with metal straps, making foundation walls, forming a big fat concrete pontoon if you will, that keeps our main foundation from penetrating into the ground. The whole arena sits on this structure.”
...Under which will perform an urban symphony of plumbers, steamfitters, painters, carpenters, electricians and all the rest of the 40 trades that Brooklyn-born Bob Sanna oversees in the construction of the first major professional sports venue in Brooklyn in 55 years.
OK, it's parade, or a symphony, but shouldn't Hamill have mentioned Forest City's hardball treatment of construction unions regarding its modular plans? Or maybe that Sanna's statement that "politics played out" to clear the site is a euphemism (as per DDDB) for a political fix.
Or maybe that Sanna's not a Brooklyn resident any more, but is fiercely defending his New Jersey home town from... overdevelopment.
Posted by steve at November 27, 2011 11:00 PM