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November 19, 2011
Shocker: Brooklyn Jobs And Housing The Old-Fashioned Way
Huffington Post
By Steve Ettlinger
We need more Red Apples and fewer Barclays Centers.
The Brooklyn Paper just reported that the new Red Apple supermarket that just opened on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene hired over 70 workers, many of whom are from the public housing projects sitting across from it. In fact, the human resources director for the chain says, "Almost all the jobs have gone to people from the area."
Wouldn't we love it if more major construction could generate that kind of result!
In light of the all the subsidies given to major corporations to create jobs, like Chase and Forest City Ratner, it stands out. After all, Chase, the original downtown Brooklyn subsidy magnet for job creation, has either eliminated or moved most of its jobs.
However, because only the arena is being built at this time, there are few regular jobs being created; an arena is not the same job-generator as an office building, of course. Nor is a residential building going to create that many jobs, and only one is likely to rise next year.
FCR's subsidies for its Atlantic Yards/Barclays Center will total almost $2 billion. Well, Red Apple says they only got this: a job fair and training sessions at the Ingersoll Community Center put together by Councilmember Letitia James and District Leader Lincoln Ressler, among others. The city did re-zone the area, but that was a planned re-zoning for a larger area, not a special exception for a well-connected developer like FCR.
Posted by steve at November 19, 2011 11:03 PM