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September 24, 2012
In Brooklyn, Bracing for Hurricane Barclays
The New York Times
by Liz Robbins
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They talk about it as if it were a force of nature.
“We’re bracing ourselves, almost like hurricane preparedness, where you go out and tape the windows and buy the candles and you are not sure if it’s going to come — and if it does, if it’s ever going to get back to normal,” said Susan Doban, an architect who lives with her family on Bergen Street in Park Slope.
“It’s like a volcano,” said Lenny Goodstein, taking a break from renovating his brownstone in Prospect Heights. “We don’t know where the lava is going to land.”
For some, the uncertainty is almost apocalyptic. “It’s the end of the community as we know it,” said Michelle de la Uz, the director of a nonprofit housing organization in Brooklyn, “and the beginning of something new. What that ‘new’ is, we don’t yet understand.”
On Friday, the Barclays Center arena, wedged into the borough’s busiest intersection like a giant, rusty bread basket, will open after nine years of operatic disputation and delays: community lawsuits over New York State’s ability to seize private land and over the developer’s obligations; the collapse of the real estate market; the replacement of a star architect; the rescue from a Russian oligarch; racial friction; rats; traffic; and unfulfilled promises.
Into this den of contention move the Brooklyn Nets, a professional basketball team (with its own pockmarked past) that once again gives the borough a reason to cheer.
Amid the festivities, though, the arena stands as an island, a reminder of what is missing. The 16 surrounding towers — primarily residential — that were originally planned by the developer, Forest City Ratner Companies, for the 22-acre, $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project have yet to be built. The 10,000 or so jobs promised have not materialized. Of the 2,250 affordable housing units pledged out of 6,300, only 181 are planned for a first tower, and ground for the building has yet to be broken.
Photo: Victor J. Blue/The New York Times
Related coverage...
The New York Times, Ready or Not
Prospect Heights Patch, Barclays Center Opens With Pride and Protests
NY Daily News, Brooklyn’s new Barclays Center opens for business with a ribbon-cutting ceremony
Crain's NY Business, Mayor: With Barclays, Brooklyn has 'arrived'
NoLandGrab: Huh? Sure, Mike, Brooklyn didn't earn the "tres" label until we got this rusty hunk of boondoggle.
NY Daily News, Brooklyn Nets finally feel at home as Bruce Ratner cuts ribbon and Mikhail Prokhorov basks in opening of Barclays Center
Meadowlands Matters [NorthJersey.com], Musings on the Barclays Center ribbon-cutting ceremony, inside and out
Grantland, Brooklyn's Barclays Center Opens for Business (and Basketball)
Architizer, It Really Got Built! A Grand Opening For Brooklyn’s Barclays Center
Can't Stop The Bleeding, Monument To Bruce Ratner’s Avarice & Greed, Stil Not Universally Embraced
Gideon's Trumpet, The Atlantic Yards Redevelopment — An Arena for the Nets But Not Much for Anybody Else
The Atlantic Yards redevelopment project thus bids fair to join the list of other manifestly private projects that were poorly disguised as “public uses” for which private land was taken by eminent domain, only to fail either altogether or by producing something different than what the cities and the redeveloper-clients promised the voters and sold to judges.
Reason Hit & Run, Reason TV Replay: Billionaires vs. Brooklyn's Best Bar: Eminent Domain Abuse & The Atlantic Yards Project
After nine years, numerous lawsuits, and one egregious case of eminent domain abuse, Brooklyn's Barclays Center officially opened on Friday. Two years ago Reason TV covered the neighborhood's fight against the stadium and talked with the owners of Freddy's bar about their efforts to save their business.
amNewYork, Barclays center expected to have huge opening despite polarizing boro
New York Amsterdam News, An arena's grown in Brooklyn
Gib Veconi, treasurer of the Prospect Heights Development Council, spoke with the AmNews after the protesters held a news conference of their own. He had something to say to those who file Ratner's baby under the label of capitalism.
"It's not capitalism when the public money is being spent," said Veconi. "Capitalism is using my money to build something. Not using your money. The public put $300 million of direct aid into this project...Not only that, but the value of the tax-exempt bonds, the value of the zoning overrides, the value of the other tax breaks that the project has received, it runs into billions of dollars." Veconi said that money could've been better used to help with job creation or housing.
"The people have a right to be outraged," Veconi said.
The Brooklyn Paper, It’s open! Ceremonial ribbon-cutting marks Barclays Center debut
“Brooklyn has arrived,” Bloomberg said. “It’s a great day.”
Posted by eric at September 24, 2012 11:29 AM