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July 18, 2012
The Brains Behind Brooklyn’s Boom
Next American City
by Brian Browdie
When Jay-Z takes the stage to open the Barclays Center in downtown Brooklyn this September, the show will be more than a homecoming for the hip-hop superstar from the borough’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood.
The christening of the arena, part of the Atlantic Yards complex under construction between Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, will mark a milestone in a transformation of downtown that began eight years ago, when the Bloomberg administration instituted a series of zoning changes with the goal of spurring development. The city also invested nearly $300 million in local streetscapes and other improvements, including teaming with the state to build Brooklyn Bridge Park, a necklace of green along the East River that opened two years ago.
...But while Brooklyn’s boom has everything to do with national trends (including those pertaining to a certain h-word that will not be used here) and changing economic realities, there is another less-visible force that for the past nearly seven years has helped guide everything from which stores get new awnings to how many gleaming new towers rise in the once-desolate area surrounding the Manhattan Bridge.
Its name? The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.
NoLandGrab: That praise seems a bit overstated, no?
Posted by eric at July 18, 2012 10:59 AM