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July 23, 2012
B’klyn revival’s ringmaster
NY Post
by Andrea Peyser
Guess who's off her meds (again).
Bruce Ratner doesn’t walk. He bounces. In a hard hat, rumpled suit and never a tie, Ratner vibrates giddily amid buzzing saws and deafening drills, before leaping amid never-sat-in seats covered in dusty plastic.
We’re in the brand-new crux of the known universe, Barclays Center, now under construction, talking about the rise of Brooklyn.
“It’s incredible!’’ enthused Ratner, 67, the hyperactive developer and CEO of Forest City Ratner.
...When Barclays is christened this fall as home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, Ratner will have pulled off the seemingly impossible. Almost single-handedly, he’ll have brought the Borough of Kings, long neglected and overshadowed by Manhattan, back to buzzworthy health.
Yes, Andrea, Brooklyn was nowhere without Bruce's basketball arena. Once it's open, real estate values should start to take off, and maybe people will want to live here.
“It was crazy. A lot of newcomers from outside New York’’ fought the arena. He tries not to be bitter.
That's right, we were busing in protesters from Wisconsin.
NoLandGrab: The circus motif is actually spot on.
Paul Martinka/Post Photo Composite
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Absurdist Post columnist Peyser: "Almost single-handedly, [Ratner]'’ll have brought the Borough of Kings... back to buzzworthy health"
Giddy, fact-challenged New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser, having completely forgotten the 10,000 Atlantic Yards jobs she once promoted, but maintaining her dada take from 12/1/09, writes a valentine today to Bruce Ratner, headlined B’klyn revival’s ringmaster.
So, Ratner gets credit for Brooklyn's revival? Puh-leeze.
...Peyser writes:
When I toured this site in 2004, it was a disgrace. It was scarred with toxic rail yards that had squatted on this spot, like a disease, for decades. Then I spied a pile of hypodermic needles. It was long past time to breathe air back into Brooklyn. Or shut the lights and get the hell out.
Rail yards that "squatted," or functioned? They still "squat," by the way. As for the needles, and the weeds, well, that was a clean-up problem that neither the city nor the LIRR wanted to grapple with.
Even Roger Green, the Assemblyman who supported the project, said the neighborhood wasn't blighted.
Job fictions
Peyser writes:
The arena will pump 2,000 sorely needed jobs into the economy, putting a dent into Brooklyn’s unemployment, which stood at an unconscionable 10.3 percent in May, compared to 8.2 percent in Manhattan. Half the job applicants live in public housing. Plus, 6,400 “awesome’’ housing units are going up next year, about a third of them classified as “affordable.’’
"2,000 sorely needed jobs"? Even Forest City claims the full-time equivalent figure is 1,240, which seems vastly exaggerated. So much for the dent.
The promised 6,430 apartments aren't going up next year, just--maybe--the first tower, with 363 units.
True News, NYP Peyser Kisses Developer's Ratner Ass
NLG: That'd explain Andrea's constant prune face.
Posted by eric at July 23, 2012 10:14 AM