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September 26, 2012
Barclays Center Developer Bruce Ratner Talks Brooklyn, Jay-Z, And New Arena's Cultural Impact
Billboard.biz
by Ray Waddell
Not content with assaulting us with an interview with Brett Yormark, Billboard now brings us a equally fawning sit-down with Bruce Ratner.
Brooklyn has also become important in contemporary culture, and the Barclays Center will add a lot of juice to that process.
Yes. The arena is kind of the heart and soul of this tremendous culture that has, frankly, been in Brooklyn for 150 years. It's the right exact time for it. The arena will have the Nets, shows for children, boxing, cultural events, tennis, college basketball, amazing artists from Jay-Z to Barbra Streisand, from Brooklyn to all over this country. The amazing thing is we've already booked 200 of our 220 dates. This is the place to play.
Nothing says culture like Disney on Ice or Loverboy.
But it gets better.
I've seldom seen a building with a design so integrated into the community. Clearly that was important to you.
It was very important. This could have been built in a very different way. There were originally railroad tracks there, which had to be moved at a tremendous cost, and a rail yard relocated. The Garden in Manhattan makes sense-it's the right height-but in Brooklyn, it's pretty much low-rise. We made an intentional decision to move the rail yards and basically sink [the arena] so that when you enter you're on the main concourse, half the seats are above grade and half are below grade. When you live in an urban environment, you want to have beautiful surroundings-it really makes the experience that much better. We really paid attention to the architecture and we had an architectural firm in SHoP, which did an amazing job. It's got the steel on the outside, which gives a certain grittiness much like Brooklyn. The colors blend in with Brooklyn, yet it's so contemporary. It has that sleek look that says, "I'm taking off into the 21st century."
Egad.
Posted by eric at September 26, 2012 10:47 AM