September 2, 2010
Law review article: "Urban Redevelopment Policy, Judicial Deference to Unaccountable Agencies, and Reality in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project"
Atlantic Yard Report
Atlantic Yards has survived all court challenges, but some of the wins have been ugly, leaving significant doubts about the capacity of the legal system to oversee such projects. So let the revisionism begin. (Cf. a line from the New York Times on Atlantic Yards.)
In the same issue of The Urban Lawyer that contains a revisionist article on the seminal Berman v. Parker eminent domain case, the author of that article, Amy Lavine, a staff attorney at Albany Law School's Government Law Center, and I collaborate on an article titled "Urban Redevelopment Policy, Judicial Deference to Unaccountable Agencies, and Reality in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project."
The article is embedded at bottom. Lavine did the first draft, and offered me credit because she relied so much on my work. I collaborated significantly on revisions. (Note Lavine's disclosure--unknown to me until this article--that she "provided limited research for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s state eminent domain and MTA lawsuits.")
(The quarterly journal is published by the American Bar Association Section of State and Local Government Law, and edited by professors and students at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law.)
Below I offer some choice excerpts.
Click through for those excerpts, as well as access to the full paper.
Posted by eric at 10:27 AM
September 1, 2010
The Civilians Presents Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards At Joe's Pub 9/10
Broadway.com
The Civilians (Steven Cosson, Artistic Director), the award-winning Brooklyn-based theatre company known for projects investigating real life topics, presents Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards, part of an ongoing series of cabaret performance at Joe's Pub. The September 10th performance at 9:30 PM is dedicated to The Civilians' multi-year investigation into the controversial Atlantic Yards development project and will include highlights from the previously announced In the Footprint coming in November.
...In the Footprint will premiere at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene from November 12th - December 11th. The full creative team and casting to be announced.
Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards, September 10th, 2010 at 9:30 PM
Joe's Pub at The Public Theater at 425 Lafayette St.TICKETS
Online at joespub.com,
Phone 212-967-7555,
In Person At The Public Theater Box Office (1 PM to 6 PM), or at the Joe's Pub Box Office from (6 PM to 10 PM) both located at 425 Lafayette Street, NYC
For table reservations please call 212-539-8778. Purchase of tickets does NOT guarantee a table reservation; you must call to reserve seats.
Posted by eric at 10:14 AM
August 28, 2010
Want to Help Name These Two Cute Baboon Babies?
Gawker
For many, there's only one thing they'd like to say to Bruce Ratner, and will use any available opportunity to say it.
Want to Help Name These Two Cute Baboon Babies?Want to Help Name These Two Cute Baboon Babies?Oh my god! The Prospect Park Zoo in Brooklyn has two baby baboons, and they are so cute. They also don't have names, and the zoo is holding a contest to name them. Do you want to watch them play?
...
Currently, the babies are known as "#1" and "#2" (which is what my parents called my brother and me!), but the zoo is asking people to submit names at its website for a contest that will be decided Sept. 24. Help us think of some good ones! Here's what we have so far:
- Bedford and Stuyvesant
- Brown and Stone
- Tom and Di Fara
- Marty and Markowitz
- Hipster and Hasid
- Gowanus and Barfing Noise
- Fuck You and Bruce Ratner
Posted by steve at 8:55 AM
August 26, 2010
Filing Deadline for Atlantic Yards
Condemnation Law
As many of you already know, there is a filing deadline of September 1st for property owners on the Atlantic Yards Project who wish to pursue an additional damages claim.
New York Eminent Domain Law states that a property owner has 2 years to file a claim for additional damages if a property owner signs the offer for advanced payment. However, a court order was issued requiring claimants for the Atlantic Yards project to file their claim by September 1st, 2010.
If you signed the offer for advanced payment, or if you have yet to receive an offer and wish to pursue an additional damages claim, we advise you act quickly.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee shuns Montgomery (among few incumbents); could Sampson's Atlantic Yards support be the reason?
Atlantic Yards Report
Sleazeball NY Senate Democrats brook no dissent against the Party's unofficial chairman, Bruce C. Ratner (who also happens to be unofficial chairman of the state's Republican Party, too).
There was a unexplored angle to a City Hall News article yesterday headlined DSCC Spends On Consultants, WFP, But Not Espada.
The main news was that the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee was not helping scandal-tinged Majority Leader Pedro Espada but helping incumbents with safe seats as well as incumbents faced with primaries but in districts that will remain in Democratic hands. (Shouldn't the DSCC be stressing seats that could be lost to the Republicans? Not in New York.)
However, if Senate Democrats are spending on "nearly every incumbent facing a primary," it was notable that Espada was joined on a very short list of the "outs" by his Bronx ally Rev. Ruben Diaz Sr. and 18th District Senator Velmanette Montgomery, who represents Central Brooklyn.
The AY connection
I haven't been able to learn why Montgomery got the short end of the stick--there could be internal political dynamics at work--but it's worth noting that Senate Democratic Conference Leader John Sampson, some major contributors, and the Senate Democratic Conference's prime strategist are supporters of Atlantic Yards or have ties to Forest City Ratner.
Sampson, notably, was the beneficiary of a fundraiser held at Forest City Ratner offices and signed a letter to Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov calling Atlantic Yards "a major economic development venture that is vital to the economy and the future of Brooklyn."
He didn't attend the arena groundbreaking in March but sent his regrets.
NoLandGrab: We sent our regrets, too, after being held back by some 200 police officers, including the counter-terrorism squad.
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
August 25, 2010
A clarification on "The Battle Over Atlantic Yards," a look back at The Civilians' first AY performance (with video), and a look forward
Atlantic Yards Report
Some more coverage of The Civilians' upcoming (and updated) show about Atlantic Yards left me confused as to whether TheaterMania and the Times got it wrong in calling it "In the Footprint: The Battle Over the Atlantic Yards," rather than the more precise "In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards," as noted in the bottom document from The Civilians' web site.
Answer, according to a Civilians rep: the press got it wrong. And that makes a difference, because "Atlantic Yards" is a project, and a marketing term, not a place.
Flashback
I also went to the group's YouTube channel to watch a segment from the 2008 show, "Brooklyn at Eye Level." However imperfect, it's riveting stuff.
...Looking forward
When I reviewed the earlier show, I observed it was lacking perspective from Forest City Ratner. I'll add that it mostly ignored the role of the Empire State Development Corporation.
So the danger of a play about neighborhood people and community passions is that it misses those who more quietly wield the levers of power. We'll see in November how much more complicated the show gets.
Posted by eric at 12:07 PM
August 24, 2010
Following up (or not) on the ESDC and Arana Hankin; former CBN co-chair recalls getting stonewalled by Hankin
Atlantic Yards Report
So, after I yesterday broke the (anonymously sourced) news that Arana Hankin would be named the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) Atlantic Yards project manager after, a job that apparently wasn't advertised, did anyone follow up?
Nah.
Yes, the story was linked yesterday by the New York Observer, The Real Deal, and Curbed.
But the ESDC issued no statement, and no one chose to follow up. Perhaps, they think, the Atlantic Yards story is ovah. Except it's not.
Hankin's AY history
It turns out that Hankin has intersected with Atlantic Yards, though not in a way that gave assurance to project critics and opponents.
After David Paterson became governor in early 2008, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) and other groups pressed to meet with him, Terry Urban, former CBN co-chair, told me.
Paterson promised that Tim Gilchrist, who was in charge of economic development for his office, would attend that August 2008 meeting. "[Architect] Marshall Brown flew in from Chicago to present the UNITY plan, and several representatives from the larger community groups were there to show the extent of support for it, and to put a reasonable face on our suggestions for changing the proposed project, and demonstrate our willingness to work with the new leadership," Urban recounted.
"Gilchrist was a no-show. Ms. Hankin, as a Paterson aide, explained that she worked in the city office, and so chaired the meeting in his absence," Urban stated. "With the low-level staff on hand, she listened politely, and said she'd re-schedule with Gilchrist. She never did. Unfortunately for us, it was a competent stonewalling maneuver, merely another of many to which we were accustomed."
Posted by eric at 11:00 AM
Atlantic Yards: And Now, the Musical
In the Footprint Scheduled For Irondale in Fort Greene
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Civilians, a theater company that describes itself as a center for investigative theater, plans to present In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, a new play with music, at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene from Nov. 12 to Dec. 11.
The site of the future Atlantic Yards Project, including the Barclays basketball arena, is located two blocks away from the theater, where In the Footprint will chronicle the conflicts surrounding the largest land development project in Brooklyn’s history.
...In the Footprint is written and directed by Steven Cosson (Gone Missing, This Beautiful City), co-written by Jocelyn Clarke, with music and lyrics by Michael Friedman (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, This Beautiful City).
In the Footprint is part of Exchange NYC 2010-11, a city wide season of new work by America’s most innovative theatre companies. Tickets for In the Footprint are available as part of the X-Pass, Exchange NYC’s flexible season pass. For more information and to purchase the X-Pass: www.exchangenyc.org.
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
August 19, 2010
The End of Freddy's - August 17, 2010
Tracy Collins has posted photos and video of the final destruction of Freddy's, the prohibition-era watering hole that served several generations of Brooklynites. What's going up in its place? A monument to the bank that just agreed to pay the United States Government $298 million for violating U.S. sanctions against "trading with the enemy."
485 Dean Street at 6th Avenue
former location of Freddy's Bar & Backroom
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkShot on the morning of August 17, 2010. The block of buildings bounded by Dean Street, 6th Avenue, Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue is being demolished for the Barclays Center Arena of the Atlantic Yards project from developer Forest City Ratner.
Freddy's Bar was located on the corner of Dean & 6th.
Other coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Tracy Collins: time-lapse videos of demolition on Dean, including the end of Freddy's
Photographer Tracy Collins has been keeping track of Forest City Ratner's demolition of some sturdy buildings for the arena block.
Posted by eric at 9:20 AM
August 17, 2010
Atlantic Yards Nexus of Scandals
mole333's blog via The Daily Gotham
Look at what Marty Markowitz, Bruce Ratner, Bill de Blasio, Michael Bloomberg and Bertha Lewis, to name a few, have brought to Brooklyn. Atlantic Yards seems to be bringing some real sleaze to our city, though not much in the way of real, long-term jobs or affordable housing.
Barclay's, the company that bought naming rights to Bruce Ratner's arena, has just been fined for more than a decade of illegally doing business with the likes of Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma. From BBC News:
Barclays Bank is to pay $298m (£190m) to settle criminal charges that it violated US sanctions in dealings with Cuba, Iran, Libya, Sudan and Burma.
The bank was charged with breaching the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act in dealings between 1995 and 2006...
Barclays has agreed to pay $149m to the US government and a separate $149m in a deferred prosecution agreement with the district attorney in New York.
Yep...Marty Markowitz, Michael Bloomberg, Bill de Blasio, Bruce Ratner, Bertha Lewish and all those other Atlantic Yards shills have given prominent place in our community with a company that was guilty of "Trading with the Enemy." Will these people look with pride at the "Barclay's Arena" knowing that Barclay's broke the law to do business with the brutal dictators of Libya, Sudan and Burma and the religious zealots of Iran? Is that what we want here in Brooklyn?
...Of course not all the corruption that surrounds Bruce Ratner and Atlantic Yards was imported. Ratner did plenty of sweetening the pot for local politicians. Remember how RIGHT after Ratner's brother donated to Brooklyn Party Boss Vito Lopez we saw Vito Lopez introduce a bill offering Ratner $300 million MORE taxpayer money?
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
August 16, 2010
New Trailer
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
The folks at Rumur have cut a must-see new trailer for Battle of Brooklyn.
We have been hard at work on the cut and are extremely happy with how the film is coming together. in the meantime we have put together a trailer to start building interest in the film.
We hope to launch the film early in the new year.
If you want to follow the progress of the film please become a fan of rumur on facebook.
Posted by eric at 10:01 PM
Flashback: the ad in the Wall Street Journal pitching "Gehry's Newest Masterpiece, Building One at Atlantic Yards"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes a stroll down memory lane, recalling Frank Gehry's homage to haphazardly stacked milk crates.
Let's recall the May 2008 emergence of new Frank Gehry designs (first via a Daily News exclusive) of the arena block, including a new flagship tower, simply designed as B1 rather than Miss Brooklyn.
The article quoted the dutiful Gehry:
"My enthusiasm for Atlantic Yards has grown and grown until arriving at our current design, which works better with the surrounding area than it ever had before," said Gehry of new designs obtained exclusively by the Daily News.
NoLandGrab: Yup, that just blends right in with Prospect Heights, Fort Greene and Park Slope brownstones, doesn't it?
Posted by eric at 11:36 AM
August 12, 2010
Freddy's Fall 8/12/10
raulistic via flickr
The bastards are knocking down Freddy's. And all Marty Markowitz cares about is that the basketball team is called the Brooklyn Somethings. Nice.
Related content...
raulism via YouTube, Freddy's Bar gets destroyed to make a Russian-owned sports facility
NoLandGrab: Thank goodness A. Russo Wrecking put up that big, garish sign. Now we know whom to call next time we want to lay waste to a neighborhood.
Posted by eric at 9:54 PM
Petition to Reform Atlantic Yards Oversight
CNU New York
The New York State Chapter of the Congress for New Urbanism links to the BrooklynSpeaks petition supporting an Atlantic Yards governance bill in the State Legislature.
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
August 11, 2010
Surreal morning in court: finally, belatedly, a wholesale assault on the Atlantic Yards project, but before a detached judge
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's Norman Oder's must-read coverage of yesterday's Atlantic Yards hearing in Brooklyn Supreme Court.
It was, actually, a little surreal.
Yesterday in Kings County Supreme Court emerged the most complete—and, to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), completely off-base—assault on the Atlantic Yards project ever heard in any courtroom, but it occurred before a handful of spectators and a single, not-so-engaged judge, well after most people, officials, and editors had relegated Atlantic Yards to the status of old news.
The case involves only three plaintiffs (two of whom are corporate entities owned by longtime footprint property owner Henry Weinstein), none of whom were in the courtroom. However, in challenging the ESDC to issue a new Determination & Findings because the justifications for eminent domain had changed markedly since 2006, it was essentially a challenge to the project itself. Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges faced dueling motions to both dismiss the case and expand the record.
With charges that the project timetable is “a complete fantasy” and the project is “a betrayal of the public trust” and “an embarrassment to democracy,” it was, perhaps, the argument that attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff should’ve made last October before the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, in a stately setting before engaged judges and a packed house. But, rather than get to the fundamentals of the sweetheart deal, that oral argument ran aground on debates about the contours of the state’s public use clause and whether the case should have gone to the high court in the first place.
Also, as Brinckerhoff stressed yesterday in court, some of the key elements of the ESDC’s behavior came to light only after the Court of Appeals’s decision in November, as well as the previous, seemingly dispositive appellate ruling: “They timed their disclosures in order to avoid judicial review.”
ESDC attorney Philip Karmel, unbowed, responded forcefully and sometimes dismissively to Brinckerhoff’s kitchen-sink arguments, some of which were not exactly on point. Curiously enough, however, Karmel never explained why the crucial Development Agreement, released in January weeks after it was publicly promised, was withheld for so long.
...Starting off
Brinckerhoff began by thanking Gerges for giving him the time to argue and “for taking this matter seriously,” a statement that seemed a bit aspirational, aiming to goad Gerges into doing exactly that.
Brinckerhoff said he was acting for his clients, for all those affected by the project, and “frankly, for the public at large,” who’ve suffered “a really profound betrayal of the public trust by the respondent Urban Development Corporation [aka ESDC] in league with the developer.”
...“Let me be clear about what I’m attempting to do,” declared Brinckerhoff, whose pepper-and-salt beard and sometimes unruly curls give him somewhat more of a professorial than corporate air, though his boutique law firm does quite well. “There’s a whole set of facts found in the document,” and none of such new information was disclosed until after the petition in this case was filed in January. Such facts, “put the nail in the coffin on what’s been going on for years.”
And that, he said, is why his clients should be granted, at a minimum, leave to amend the record to add such facts “deliberately concealed from us."
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, In Court Argument Atlantic Yards Called An Embarrassment Of Democracy
DDDB attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff took roughly on hour in court yesterday to lay out the "highlights" of the whole sordid Atlantic Yards partnership between Ratner and the ESDC. As Brinckerhoff said, if he was to cover all of the history, which he called an "embarrassment of democracy," it would have taken days.
Posted by eric at 9:58 AM
Symbols of Brooklyn Resistance Face Wrecking Ball
NetsDaily
Demolition is close for the two best-known symbols of Brooklyn critics' resistance to the Atlantic Yards project: Daniel Goldstein's condominium building and Freddy's Bar. Demolition crews have been inching closer to the building that housed Freddy's and are now only a few doors away. The interior has already been cleared.
Meanwhile, scaffolding has been erected around Goldstein's condo, the first sign that work is about to begin there. Forest City Ratner has said taking down the nine-story building could take months. It's the more critical of the two since Goldstein's condo unit sits over what will be center court at Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
August 9, 2010
479 Dean Street
raulistic via flickr
Home Improvement, Ratner-style: Bruce and the boys removing some "blight" from Dean Street near 6th Avenue.
Special bonus! Home (demolition) movies:
raulism via YouTube, demolition of historic home
raulism via YouTube, Workers pause during filming of this video
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
In court Tuesday, a continuation of the lawsuit charging that AY benefits have changed so much the eminent domain findings should be reissued
Atlantic Yards Report
It looks like not one but two judges will have to grapple with a fundamental charge regarding Atlantic Yards: that the project has changed so much since its approval in 2006 that the findings at that time--regarding both the environmental impact of the project and its expected benefits--are no longer valid.
That doesn't mean the judges will rule in favor of those challenging the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC). That, we've learned, is not exactly how courts in New York State work.
But it does mean they have to think about it. And tomorrow, in state Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Justice Abraham Gerges--however distracted and uninterested he was during the first part of the case on August 6--should not think the issues were resolved in similar case he dismissed in March.
(The hearing will be at Kings County State Supreme Court, IAS Part 74, 320 Jay Street, Room 17.21, Brooklyn. Here's the map.)*
NoLandGrab: Is it really too much to ask that Judge Gerges pay attention to the arguments?
* The hearing is scheduled to commence at 10 a.m.
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
Featured New Gallery-Atlantic Rail Yards
Michael Alan Photos
 |
As Brooklyn prepares for the massive makeover that is the construction of the Barclays Center for the Brooklyn Nets as well as a stretch of new residential and commercial high rises, the status-quo of the stretch along Atlantic Avenue between Flatbush and Vanderbilt Avenues and the surrounding neighborhoods is somber. The last remaining businesses and residents have been bought out and have left. These photos reflect both the dying and the newly born. Things will never be quite the same here, as progress simply has no patience….
Photo: Michael Alan Photos
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
August 6, 2010
In court today, likely the last oral arguments in the remaining Atlantic Yards legal cases (new Determination & Findings; air rights easement)
Atlantic Yards Report
Likely the last oral arguments in any of the latest round of Atlantic Yards legal cases will be held this morning before Kings County Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges, at 9:30 a.m.
The location is Kings County State Supreme Court, IAS Part 74, 320 Jay Street, Room 17.21, Brooklyn. Here's the map.
Both cases are distinct longshots for those challenging the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), but still could provoke some interesting volleys. Both cases are named for property owner Peter Williams, but he actually doesn't remain a party in the first case.
New Determination & Findings?
In June, as I wrote, in a brief, five-page decision in the case known as Peter Williams Enterprises, et al., vs. New York State Urban Development Corporation (aka ESDC), state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman essentially rejected a challenge by property owners that the Atlantic Yards project has changed so much that the ESDC should be forced to issue a new Determination & Findings to proceed with eminent domain.
Friedman did not formally reject the case, because she didn't examine the Development Agreement or get to the merits.
Instead, she moved it from New York County (Manhattan) to Kings County, as the ESDC had requested. In Kings County, Justice Abraham Gerges, who handles condemnations, already rejected similar arguments when rejecting a direct challenge from property owners to the condemnations.
...The remaining petitioners are two entities owned by Henry Weinstein, a longtime owner of property near the corner of Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street, and The Gelin Group, occupants of a house on Dean Street east of Sixth Avenue, slated for condemnation in a later phase of the project.
Friedman is still considering a separate case, brought by coalitions organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks, challenging the legitimacy of the ESDC's ten-year timeframe and requesting a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to evaluate project impacts over a longer period.
In that case, she did consider the belatedly-released Development Agreement.
Posted by eric at 9:28 AM
Friday, August 6, 9:30AM. Atlantic Yards Oral Argument
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Friday, August 6.
PLEASE NOTE: Time has changed to 9:30 AM, not 10AM.Kings County State Supreme Court
IAS Part 74
320 Jay Street, Room 17.21
Brooklyn
[ MAP ]Oral argument on: Peter Williams Enterprises, Inc et al. v. Empire State Development Corporation
Article 78 Petition to Compel the ESDC to Issue New Determinations and Findings Under the New York State Eminent Domain Procedure Law
(Filed January 19, 2010 in Manhattan State Supreme Court)
Posted by eric at 9:05 AM
August 5, 2010
Senator Webb's critique of affirmative action, agreement in Our Time Press, Russo Wrecking, and the disconnect with the Atlantic Yards CBA
Atlantic Yards Report
What does the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) have to do with Virginia Senator Jim Webb and Our Time Press Editor/Publisher David Mark Greaves?
Well, it serves as an example (in part) of the kind of affirmative action that doesn't address the inequities that prompted the policy.
Webb's argument
In a Wall Street Journal essay headlined “Diversity and the Myth of White Privilege”, Webb recently argued:
Beyond our continuing obligation to assist those African-Americans still in need, government-directed diversity programs should end.
And Greaves, whose Bed-Stuy-based newspaper is aimed at black Brooklynites, agrees with Webb, in an essay headlined View From Here: Jim Webb is Right – Diversity Programs Are Too Diverse.
The AY CBA
While Greaves doesn't connect the dots, I'd argue, as I did in March 2007, that the Atlantic Yards CBA, negotiated mainly by black leaders representing (mostly new) groups in Central Brooklyn, has little connection with some of the beneficiaries. (And, of course, Atlantic Yards remains as an illustration of the difficulty of defining who represents the "community.")
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
August 4, 2010
Gilmartin in The Real Deal: personal tidbits and endurance of "the friction and the tension in a public setting"
Atlantic Yards Report
Maryanne Gilmartin, Forest City Ratner's point person on Atlantic Yards, mostly sounds authoritative, confident, and charismatic in a Q&A yesterday with The Real Deal.
Among the tidbits: she has a driver to bring her from her Westchester estate to Brooklyn--so much for transit-oriented developers--and she says she sleeps just five hours a night, which is edging toward Brett Yormark territory.
The AY opposition
Here's the most interesting segment:
What has been challenging for you personally about the opposition to Atlantic Yards?
It's a complicated project with lots of dimensions. And that's just hard work and I love that. I can't say I love the friction and the tension in a public setting. But it comes with the territory. I knew that and I accept that.
Well, the friction and tension in a public setting is often caused by FCR's allies, which is why I had Gilmartin last in July 2009 send an imaginary open letter apologizing for such conduct.
That event referenced, in fact, was Gilmartin's only public appearance before a (partly) unfriendly audience.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Atlantic Yards Head Honcho Gilmartin Profiled in The Real Deal
What do we learn?
She works very hard, but when she can she enjoys relaxing in her backyard in Westchester rather than in the massive parking lots she is preparing to create in Prospect Heights. Also, like her predecessor Jim Stuckey and her boss Bruce Ratner, she is the product of the revolving door of the city's Economic Development Corporation.
Posted by eric at 1:32 PM
Bloomberg staffer owns stock in company building B'klyn arena
NY Post
by Rich Calder
One of Mayor Bloomberg’s top staffers owns stock in a company whose subsidiary is getting city funding and tax breaks to build a Brooklyn arena for the NBA’s Nets — a revelation that’s raising eyebrows among opponents of the controversial project.
Former Hillary Clinton political strategist Howard Wolfson, who joined the Bloomberg administration in March as deputy mayor for governmental affairs, listed investments totaling $250,000 to $935,000 — including stock in Forest City Enterprises worth $5,000 to $39,999 – in a city financial disclosure report made public today.
"This project has never had any real oversight or accountability or full public transparency, so it shouldn’t come as a shock that a member of the Bloomberg administration has money invested in it," said Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes the 22-acre project footprint within Prospect Heights.
A city spokesman said Wolfson bought the stock in 2007 – three years before he took the post – and that the investment amount was "close to $5,000" and, therefore, "far below the threshold that raises potential conflict of interest issues" for city employees.
James, however, said Wolfson should sell the stock or put it in trust until he leaves City Hall.
The project is getting more than $200 million in city money for land acquisition and infrastructure repairs, plus tax exemptions and city-owned property at no cost.
Related coverage...
NY Daily News, Bloomberg administration disclosures: Ethics issues for Howard Wolfson, Raymond Kelly and others
A deputy mayor owns stock in the company building the controversial Atlantic Yards stadium - and the police commissioner takes rides on the mayor's plane.
Those are two of the eyebrow-raising disclosures in the annual ethics forms released Tuesday for top officials in Mayor Bloomberg's administration.
Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson reported owning $5,000 to $40,000 worth of stock in Forest City Enterprises, the parent company of the firm developing a stadium and apartments over former railyards in Brooklyn with up to $205 million in city subsidies.
"He doesn't have any responsibilities that affect Forest City," Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser said. "He's not an economic development person."
NoLandGrab: Let's hope Wolfson is a better Deputy Mayor than he is an investor. The low for Forest City stock in 2007, when Wolfson bought it, was about $44 per share; today it trades below $13.
Posted by eric at 12:45 PM
August 3, 2010
If FCR doesn't build over the railyard, would "the vast majority" of benefits be realized, as the developer claimed last year to the ESDC? Not at all
Atlantic Yards Report
What happens if Forest City Ratner doesn't build a platform over the Vanderbilt Yard and build out the full Atlantic Yards project?
That's a possibility, given the renegotiation of the railyard deal last June with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which allows FCR bow out of railyard development after Phase 1 by paying out less than the cost of building a new permanent railyard.
Astonishingly, FCR in March 2009 told the Empire State Development Corporation that "the vast majority" of benefits for the community would be "entirely realized in the remote circumstance of MTA's default scenario."
As I explain below, that's not true in the slightest, given vast differences in the amount of jobs and affordable housing, and the complete absence of any analysis of tax revenues.
FCR, as a "show of good faith" in its commitment to the full project, said it would ensure that $2 million of $3 million planned for local parks and public spaces would be available in the first phase.
But that's hardly a guarantee that Phase 2, which would cost a few billion dollars, would be built.
Posted by eric at 2:04 PM
ATLANTIC YARDS: DEATH AND LIFE OF AN AMERICAN NEIGHBORHOOD
November 12, 2010 – December 11, 2010
Irondale Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Brooklyn at Eye Level
The Civilians have a new Atlantic Yards-themed production on tap.
The Civilians presents the next phase of its Atlantic Yards investigation, Atlantic Yards: Death and Life of an American Neighborhood, which is a new play with music and the culmination of this long-term exploration of development in Brooklyn and its effect on neighborhood and community. This lively presentation of theater, dance and music takes its inspiration from interviews with the real life players in the story of Brooklyn and the Atlantic Yards: residents, business owners, politicians, students, youth groups, civic organizations, and many more.
Related coverage...
Theater Mania, B.H. Barry, The Civilians, et al. Set for Irondale's 2010-2011 Season
Posted by eric at 1:45 PM
The closing: MaryAnne Gilmartin
The Real Deal
by Candace Taylor
The Real Deal profiles Atlantic Yards honcho MaryAnne Gilmartin.
MaryAnne Gilmartin is the executive vice president of commercial and residential development at Forest City Ratner Companies, where she's been since 1994. She's overseeing the controversial $4 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards development, one of the most significant developments in Brooklyn's history.
...How do you get from your house in Westchester to Forest City's headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn every day?
I have a driver … I used to laugh with Bruce [Ratner] when I was pregnant with each of my children that I would go into labor on the BQE and have to name one of them after an exit.
...What has been challenging for you personally about the opposition to Atlantic Yards?
It's a complicated project with lots of dimensions. And that's just hard work and I love that. I can't say I love the friction and the tension in a public setting. But it comes with the territory. I knew that and I accept that.
What did you do to celebrate closing the deal?
We closed on Dec. 22 [2009], so I went home to my family to begin my holiday shopping. [Just before we closed] there were two lost packages with critical documents in them, letters of credit without which we couldn't close. The UPS facility was completely overwhelmed with holiday packages ... But we unearthed the documents in time for the closing.
...Do your kids understand what a big deal Atlantic Yards is?
They used to be flummoxed by what I did. They wondered … how could she leave every morning in a suit and build that building? When did she pick up her tool belt and how did she get so high up in the air? But whenever possible I include my children. For example, at the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking, both of my boys were there. I always say if I have to leave my children every day it better be good. And this has been quite good.
NoLandGrab: Rumor has it that she involved a number of her son's 4th Grade classmates a couple years back, too, telling them that "bad man" Daniel Goldstein was standing between Brooklynites and their new basketball team.
Photo: The Real Deal
Posted by eric at 1:07 PM
August 2, 2010
Brooklyn Focus: August 3rd: MEET AND SUPPORT STATE SENATOR VELMANETTE MONTGOMERY
Mole's Progressive Democrat
I urge anyone who can to go to this event and support one of the best Democrats in New York:
MEET AND SUPPORT STATE SENATOR VELMANETTE MONTGOMERY
At the home of Joan Reutershan and Meg Harper
70 South Portland Avenue (near Lafayette) 6:00 – 8:00PM
Join Council Member Letitia James along with hosts Joan Reutershan, Meg Harper, Naomi Dickerson, Charles Jarden, Lucy Koteen, Patricia Johnson, Paul Palazzo, and Steve Soblick.
Senator Montgomery, currently the Chairperson of the Children and Families Committee, has stood up for all the right issues:
- Community Supported Development
- Reforming the Juvenile Justice system
- Affordable Housing for all
- Marriage Equality
- Democratic Education
- Opposition to Atlantic Yards
...Velmanette is my state senator and she is one of the very few in Albany who is worth anything. She has led the fight against Atlantic Yards overdevelopment, led the fight to clean up the Gowanus Canal, led the fight for better and more effective sex education in our schools, and I have to say, led pretty much every fight I support in Albany.
Posted by eric at 9:40 AM
July 28, 2010
More Officials Shoving Atlantic Yards Down the Memory Hole
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
DDDB picks up on Norman Oder's latest tale of Atlantic Yards revisionism.
Hornick seems to think there was an Atlantic Yards process in which to participate and negotiate and that opponents chose not to participate.
That is utter nonsense.
The opposition studiously participated in the barely existent process (two hearings on the environmental disclosure statement), while Ratner partners and Atlantic Yards proponents studiously disrupted the meager "process" that did take place. The opposition forcfully made the case, over and over, that they wanted a meaningful, democratic process in which to participate—but there simply wasn't one.
That is the original sin of Atlantic Yards. Shame that a city planning official doesn't get that (or know that), even worse that he gets it all backwards.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
July 27, 2010
Clear and Hold
Boston Review
by Casey Walker
Though I have closely followed the Atlantic Yards scuffle for years, I barely know what the project is anymore, what it will look like, or what it will contain. My guess is you would find city officials who are similarly unsure. I doubt even the executive vice presidents of Forest City—who tout a “vibrant addition to a thriving borough”—could offer more than a guess about how many apartments and how many office buildings, let alone how many residents and businesses, eventually will be located within the project footprint.
...It is impossible not to notice that the tenor of the debate over Atlantic Yards has been right out of the mid-twentieth century street fights that pitted Moses-style “urban renewal”—demolition and rebuilding—against the Jane Jacobs model. Jacobs, author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, advocated on behalf of local, self-organizing neighborhood regeneration around what already exists. She resisted the overreach of any city planner, developer, or administrator who thought of the city as a simple machine rather than a complex ecosystem. “You can’t build the ovens and expect the loaves to jump in,” Jacobs said.
In her new book, The Battle for Gotham, activist and veteran urban critic Roberta Gratz contends that decades after the biggest clashes between Moses and Jacobs, their disagreement is still at the heart of fights over urban life.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, In the Boston Review, an Atlantic Yards-centric review of The Battle for Gotham
The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, by Roberta Brandes Gratz, is the subject of a thoughtful 2900-word review in the Boston Review, Clear and Hold, by Brooklyn resident and Princeton grad student Casey Walker.
Atlantic Yards gets a significant cameo in the book's Conclusion (its tenth chapter), but it is the focus of Walker's review, which states:
Atlantic Yards is a familiar urban story: surrounding neighborhoods are braced for upheaval; architects have come and gone; redesigns have been announced, lambasted, tweaked, disowned; lawsuits multiply like kudzu; millions of dollars are all but blowing through the air; and the likely date of actual completion is anyone’s guess (Forest City Ratner, the developer, contends the Barclays Center will be finished by 2011, but the Web site does not give a timetable for the rest of the project).
Actually, they're saying 2012, now.
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
Last Rites for The Spalding Building
Brownstoner
From Atlantic Yards Report comes the sad news that the Spalding Building at 24 6th Avenue is being prepped to meet its maker. Another clear example of an architectural eyesore that needed to be purged from the blighted neighborhood. Not. Ratner purchased the building for $2,200,000 in August 2009. As far as we can figure out, there's still that last-minute lawsuit out there involving the building's air rights too.
Related coverage...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Historic Spalding Building Bites Dust
One of Brooklyn’s notable conversions of an historic manufacturing building to condominiums is preparing to bite the dust.
First reported Monday on Brownstoner.com as “sad news,” the building set for demolition is known as the Spalding Building, at 24 Sixth Ave., corner of Pacific Street in Prospect Heights, and was once the home of the A.G. Spalding manufacturing company, where the pink rubber balls known as “spaldeens” were manufactured.
NoLandGrab: How is it that the Eagle could write "first reported by Brownstoner.com" and "Brownstoner was citing a report and photo posted on the Atlantic Yards Report" without connecting the dots that this story was first reported by Atlantic Yards Report, referencing photos and video taken by Raul Rothblatt?
Photo: forgotten-ny.com
Posted by eric at 9:10 AM
July 26, 2010
Atlantic Yards down the memory hole, again; DCP official suggests the project was an example of public participation
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder chalks it up to memory failure; we're more inclined to believe it's either outright lying or, when we're feeling charitable, perhaps the side effects of college drug use.
It was a throwaway moment, almost, at Land Use and Local Voices, a conference July 21 co-sponsored by the Municipal Art Society and Manhattan Community Board 1.
But it was another example of how Atlantic Yards may be falling down the collective memory hole, and how even a top bureaucrat at the Department of City Planning doesn't understand the project, suggesting it as an example of effective public participation for some.
Read on for City Planning Deputy Director Sandy Hornick's long, strange trip.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
July 23, 2010
In City Council hearings, Pinsky lets Atlantic Yards fall down the memory hole, claiming "certain elements" of the project have been accelerated
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards is falling down the memory hole.
In two City Council committee hearings, held in March 18 and May 25, New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) President Seth Pinsky made some questionable statements regarding Atlantic Yards, but was not called to account.
- He mischaracterized the timing and size of the city's investment
- He claimed there were new incentives to get the project done on time, but those incentives don't conform to the timetable his agency used to calculate city revenues
- He made new claims about the total of city spending on Atlantic Yards, but hasn't provided full details
- He cited, but didn't at the time provide, a new cost-benefit analysis that seems dubious under scrutiny, given that it presumes a both a full buildout and one accomplished in ten years
- He didn't point out that the city's new analysis represents a 20% decline in city revenue (though, likely, it's merely a more honest calculation than its predecessor because it incorporates certain costs)
Pinsky has a lot on his plate, so maybe he can't be expected to get everything right. But if he gets it wrong, why do all the errors come in defense of the project?
More scrutiny needed
That's an argument for an oversight hearing, as new City Council Member Brad Lander and veteran Letitia James have requested.
"It is the largest project in Brooklyn, and will have a massive impact on the neighborhoods around it," Lander said. "There are many unanswered questions, both about the project itself, and about a wide range of City services (transportation, public safety, affordable housing, public schools, open space, etc). Tish [James] and I have made repeated requests for such a hearing, and we will keep pushing for it."
Read on for a run down on Pinsky's shaky grasp of the truth.
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
July 22, 2010
NYC EDC cost-benefit analysis emerges: certain costs finally calculated, but fundamental flaws remain, as revenues based on full buildout in 10 years
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, I've finally gotten a copy of the New York City Economic Development Corporation's (NYC EDC) updated Atlantic Yards fiscal analysis (aka cost-benefit analysis) and it's very much a mixed bag.
On the one hand, it's more responsible than the analysis released in 2005, given that it acknowledges a good number of costs. (In fact, the estimated net benefit to the city over 30 years is down more than 20%, from $524 million to $411.3 million.)
But it still suffers from some fundamental flaws:
- it presumes a ten-year buildout, without assessing alternatives
- it presumes a full buildout, without assessing alternatives
- it ignores some opportunity costs and the costs of increased service provision
- it (apparently) still counts income taxes from new residents
Too short
Moreover, the document, at three pages (versus its eight-page predecessor), is quite thin. While it provides overall calculations, it does not, as per the previous document, provide supporting calculations. (I had to ask to get some of the breakdowns.)
The document does not, for example, explain the difference in fiscal impact between four office towers and one tower. It should, especially since an Empire State Development Corporation analysis drastically lowered the fiscal impact in December 2006 in response to a reduction in office space.
What about no office towers?
Document emerges
Remember, the analysis was cited by NYC EDC President Seth Pinsky at a May 2009 hearing and promised a few days later. I criticized the previous document and asked for the updated version via a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request; in December, the request was denied.
Pinsky brought it up the analysis at a March 2010 City Council hearing and again at a hearing in May. (I'll discuss that testimony tomorrow.) His agency finally provided it this week to City Council Member Brad Lander, who passed it on to me.
It's clear that the document was not, in fact, available last June.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
July 21, 2010
Enough Already
Talking Points Memo
by David Kurtz
TPM Reader MK, a New Yorker, has had enough with out-of-towners like Sarah Plain protesting the mosque near the WTC site:
I first heard about this project a month or two ago, and the thing that struck me the most about it was the overwhelming support it had from the local community board in Lower Manhattan. As you are probably familiar it is nearly impossible to have a community board agree on even the most mundane issues, so to have a community board agree 29-1 on ANY this particular issue is quite an accomplishment.
Furthermore, why is land use in New York City the business of anyone else but the citizens of New York? If so, I would really like to know Sarah Palin's opinion of the Atlantic Yards (or Hudson Yards or the expansion of Columbia University) project, an issue that is 1,000,000x more controversial than this project. That's all this is: a land use issue.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
July 19, 2010
Doctoroff, updated, with video: was there really any "citywide planning"
Atlantic Yards Report
Had there been citywide planning, then Winston Von Engel, Deputy Director of the Brooklyn office of the Department of City Planning, wouldn't have said in March 2006. "We concentrated on the Downtown Brooklyn development plan for Downtown Brooklyn. Forest City Ratner owns property across the way. And they saw the yards, and looked at those. We had not been considering the yards directly."
Had there been citywide planning, there would have been a fair bidding process for the railyard and for the project rather than one developer with an inside track.
Had there been citywide planning, some agency would have been responsible for the weeds that meant the railyard appeared blighted.
Had there been citywide planning, the project would have--as Doctoroff agrees in retrospect--gone through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure.
Had there been citywide planning, there would have been much less parking approved.
Had there been citywide planning, public transportation would be enhanced.
Had there been citywide planning, there would have been a real cost-benefit analysis.
Had there been citywide planning, Bruce Ratner would not have been able to say, as he did at the groundbreaking in March, that, when he met with Mayor Mike Bloomgerg in July 2003, some five months before the project was publicly unveiled, that the mayor declared, "Let's get this done."
Posted by eric at 11:18 PM
Citizens Union to Charter Commission: some sharing of power needed, but not fundamental change (hearing tonight)
Atlantic Yards Report
The venerable good-government group Citizens Union (CU), as I wrote in March, has played it carefully regarding Atlantic Yards, in December 2006 calling for a “limited delay” but saying it “does not align itself with those who oppose the project"--and never speaking out further.
Now the CU, which has a special role in the Charter Revision Commission's work, is also playing it carefully, proposing reforms--some of which (land use review regarding security and architectural character) could affect future Atlantic Yards-like projects, at least if they are be subject to city review.
But those reforms would not fundamentally change the power balance in the city.
CU will present its 49 recommendation to the Commission at a hearing tonight at 6 pm at Brooklyn College, the first of five hearings [PDF] in response to a preliminary staff report.
That report scanted issues of land use and concerns about local decisionmaking (as pointed out by Brooklyn representative Carlo Scissura, Borough President Marty Markowitz's Chief of Staff), but stressed term limits and instant runoff voting (IRV)--the latter of which apparently has already been dropped.
Posted by eric at 12:34 PM
July 18, 2010
Atlantic Yards Demo 7/14-16/2010
Photo set, by Raulistic, via Flickr.
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Posted by steve at 7:39 AM
July 17, 2010
Atlantic Yards Report Saturday Morning Trio
Atlantic Yards Report
Photos of demolitions on Dean Street, and a curious instance of preservation; what next?
Here's a set of photos, via Raulistic (aka Raul Rothblatt), of demolition on Dean Street from Wednesday through Friday.
And, with some annotation added by Brownstoner, note how a handsome old door disappeared, perhaps to be re-sold or to grace some demolition worker's own project. That must not have been completely kosher, because the door was temporarily replaced with an out-of-context substitute.
Check out this blog entry to see that the pictures don't lie.
In an article yesterday headlined Bringing Fun to Brooklyn, a New York Times music reporter offered rather gentle treatment of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's signature public accomplishment:
MARTY MARKOWITZ’S duties as the Brooklyn borough president include appointing community board members and overseeing a budget for capital projects. But one morning this week his platform was all about fun, which he advocated with all the vigor of a contested campaign issue.
“People have a right to have fun in this city,” Mr. Markowitz said in an interview in his office, his voice rising to a level of bombast well known to his constituents. “What are we going to do, become puritans? As long as we’re not inconveniencing in any dramatic way, we have to stay fun here.”
The Times goes on to encapsulate the history of Markowitz' summer concerts, but Norman Oder points out there's more than mere "fun" going on.
That skates over that fact that corporate and foundation contributions, such as from Forest City Ratner and its foundation, mean Markowitz might be indebted to big developers like Forest City Ratner. Also, as the New York Post has pointed out, Markowitz's separate charity, Best of Brooklyn, has a record of issuing no-bid contracts.
Also covered is the plan by Markowitz to stick a neighborhood with an amphitheater, whether it wants it or not.
But not everyone in Brooklyn is a fan of the concerts, or of Mr. Markowitz’s plan for their future. At Asser Levy Park, where the series was to open on Thursday night with a concert by Neil Sedaka and Brenda Lee, Mr. Markowitz’s proposal for a sleek $64 million amphitheater has drawn community opposition.
...
Mr. Markowitz, 65, said the amphitheater plan — designed by the international firm Grimshaw Architects — would also fix the park’s chronic drainage problems and is a necessary improvement. Most of its cost, he said, has already been allocated through the capital budget that Mr. Markowitz controls.
...
Most of its cost has already been allocated? As I reported in May 2009, some $24.6 million, more than a third of Markowitz's capital budget last year, was directed to the $64 million amphitheater.
In other words, despite the lead of the article, Markowitz's capital budget is about fun, and about his legacy.
By contrast, as City Hall reported, former Bronx BP Adolfo Carrión directed much of his capital money toward creating affordable housing.
On the LeBron James saga and a strategic, unsuccessful media leak by the Nets
It's just another day at Atlantic Yards: Dreams of greatness (Starchitect! Affordable Housing! Public Space!) followed by lowered expectations. Here is an inside look of how the Nets failed to get LeBron James on the Nets' roster.
Adrian Wojnarowski, the NBA columnist for Yahoo! Sports, offers a long recap of the LeBron James saga, headlined Inside look at LeBron’s free-agent coup.
As Wojnarowski tells it, after the 2008 Olympics, James always wanted to go to the Miami Heat, to be joined by fellow stars, but was at least intrigued by the meeting with the Nets:
The New Jersey Nets – with owner Mikhail Prokhorov and minority partner Jay-Z – were the first team to make a formal presentation to James at the offices of his LRMR marketing company in downtown Cleveland on July 1. This was the meeting that most intrigued James, because he had never been in the room with Prokhorov, the Russian billionaire and new Nets owner. This was a self-made global tycoon, different than the rest of the owners, and this surely intrigued James.
...
As it started to get back to Jay-Z that the Nets were trailing to the Heat and Bulls, a Nets official close to ownership – against the wishes of several peers – hatched a plan to leak the notes of a Prokhorov staff meeting to a media outlet. The leaked notes indicated that Prokhorov believed James’ brand would be diminished as part of a three-star team in Miami. What’s more, the notes also indicated what great respect Prokhorov had for Maverick Carter.
(Emphases added)
Prokhorov is self-made? I thought he made money, as 60 Minutes reported, "in a process that even Prokhorov's business partner admitted wasn't perfect, and probably not even legal under Western standards."
...
So, where did those notes go? Wojnarowski doesn't say, but the trail points to ESPN writer Chris Broussard, who wrote July 6, in the headline Prokhorov sounds off to inner circle:
In this historic summer of NBA uncertainty, one thing is clear to Mikhail Prokhorov: Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh will play for the Miami Heat next season.
Another of Prokhorov's beliefs is that if LeBron James joins Wade and Bosh in Miami, The King could win "two or three titles" but "diminish the LeBron brand" because he'd be winning with such a power-packed lineup.
..ESPN.com has obtained notes from the [Prokhorov conference call] from a league source, and they provide interesting insight into the perceptions of the NBA's newest, most fascinating owner -- who, above all, left his first foray into NBA free agency optimistic his Nets soon would be the home of James.
...
On the conference call, he categorized the options he believes James has before him:
• The "hometown angle" of remaining with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
• The choice to play with Wade and Bosh in Miami, where James would have a "very high chance to win two or three titles" but where he could also "diminish the LeBron brand."
• Joining the Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Clippers or New York Knicks. These teams, according to Prokhorov, are similar from a basketball standpoint and he believes none of the three clubs has a clear-cut strategy for winning championships.
• Becoming a member of the Nets, who would give James the best opportunity to build a dynasty, become a champion and emerge as a global icon.
To assure James of winning, Prokhorov said the Nets would pursue a trade for Chris Paul. He admits it could "take a year for the young roster to grow" but that after adding the right pieces around James, the Nets could win the NBA title two years from now.
Best opportunity to build a dynasty?
That plan didn't exactly work out, though media outlets like the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, as NLG points out, seem to think the team is on Plan B.
Posted by steve at 8:42 AM
July 16, 2010
AY lobbyist Lipsky flunks sustainability
Atlantic Yards Report
Lobbyist Richard Lipsky was paid $15,000 last year by the Atlantic Yards Development Group (and $10,000 by FC East River Associates, which is developing East River Plaza in East Harlem), so that may be enough to keep him writing things like this on his Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog:
The point gains additional poignancy, because it has been suggested by New York's Burden-planning commissioner Amanda-that Flushing Commons is a prime example of Mayor Bloomberg's promotion of sustainability because of its location right next to a major transit hub. Now, in our view, Atlantic Yards, located at Fulton and Atlantic Avenue, has a greater claim to this distinction because of the 18 or so interconnecting rail links in and around the site; but the claim that downtown Flushing offers a similar venue for the use of mass transit over looks the fact that the 7 Line (the only train servicing the area) is already stuffed to the gills-and the buses that run out of Main Street are filled to capacity at peak travel hours.
...Yes, the Atlantic Yards site would be adjacent to a larger transit hub than in downtown Flushing So it does have a somewhat greater claim to the distinction, but that doesn't make it sustainable.
As urban planning professor Tom Angotti wrote in the 6/5/07 Gotham Gazette, under the headline Atlantic Yards and the Sustainability Test:
Atlantic Yards is promoted as a prime example of “transit-oriented development” because it is located over the third largest transit hub in the city. Yet Forest City Ratner plans to build a parking garage with 3,670 spaces, and in the first phase, which could last 10 to 20 years, create over 2,000 spaces in open parking lots. These would attract more cars and increase traffic congestion. At the same time, the plans currently provide for no improvements to subway and train stations, which are already over-capacity, and no additional trains. Bus service, under the latest proposals, would not be expanded and could even decline.
Actually, AY would be adjacent to the hub, not over it.
NoLandGrab: Speaking of reality, Lipsky never fails to allow it to get in the way of his paycheck.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
July 15, 2010
Doctoroff posits justification for Atlantic Yards: Downtown Brooklyn “needed more of a center” (but there was no plan until FCR stepped forward)
Atlantic Yards Report
Former Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff has to be feeling pretty good. He didn't bring the Olympics to New York, and that smarts, and he couldn't get the West Side Stadium passed.
But he got most of the Bloomberg administration's ambitious land use agenda passed during his six-year tenure, which ended in 2007.
Now, in his genial, confident way, Doctoroff can look back and contend, as he has before, that he managed to thread the needle between Jane Jacobs and Robert Moses, to get projects passed with sufficient public input and without much displacement, to make omelets (in Moses's famous formulation) but without breaking eggs.
And if he's not challenged--as he was back in 2007 by Majora Carter, then of Sustainable South Bronx--he just might get away with it. Doctoroff had said, as he's said since, that he and the administration had gotten better at listening.
Carter said they hadn't done enough, that they had to "really, really listen." She added, "The interesting thing about listening is you have to do it openly and not have a predetermined idea set.”
And Doctoroff might get away with claiming, as he did last week, that Atlantic Yards was primarily a product of city guidance, rather than a project presented by a developer with good connections.
Posted by eric at 10:05 AM
July 14, 2010
A Post-Mortem: Obama and ACORN
CounterPunch
by Billy Wharton
Another review of John Atlas's paean to ACORN, Seeds of Change.
Atlas’ treatment of the great debate that ensued over ACORN New York’s controversial support of the Atlantic Yards development project is less endearing. Here, it is author turned lawyer, as he seeks to justify the group’s decision to side with a real estate magnate using eminent domain laws for personal enrichment. Atlas does not attempt to frame the conflict as part of a larger struggle over real estate in the city or to mark the political distance traveled from the radical homesteading projects of the 80s. Instead, he summarized ACORN’s stand using the phrase so often employed to justify a political sell-out, “Unlike ideologues on both ends of the political spectrum, ACORN knew that the perfect is often the enemy of the good.”
Posted by eric at 9:33 AM
July 13, 2010
The Job Development Authority, creator of BALDC (issuer of AY debt) & staffed by ESDC, fails to file annual report, budget info, mission statement
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has an interesting and eye-opening story on one of the most shadowy of New York's shadowy Public Authorities.
t sure looks like State Senator Bill Perkins' concerns about the Job Development Authority (JDA), the shadowy alter ego of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) that was used to create the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation (BALDC) to issue arena debt, deserved--and deserve--attention.
In one important official accounting, the JDA--which has no dedicated staff--appears to be a cipher.
Nearly alone among state authorities, it didn't submit a mission statement, an annual report, or a budget report, according to the first annual report by the state Authorities Budget Office (ABO).
The unusual transaction
Last December, Perkins in a letter to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo asked a question that, to my knowledge, has never been answered:
In essence, the ESDC crafted an unusual transaction whereby a nearly defunct entity, the Job Development Authority (JDA) was used to form the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards Development Corporation (BALDC) which then issued the $511 million worth of arena construction bonds.
I believe that the bond issuance was done in this manner to avoid a review by the Public Authorities Control Board (PACB) and the state Comptroller. I respectfully request that your office issue an opinion as to whether the process employed during the bond issuance was legal, as the public must have utmost confidence in the processes of government.
Such a review by the PACB might have delayed the arena bonds, possibly beyond the end-of-year deadline for a crucial tax exemption.
ESDC response
I asked the ESDC why no filing had been made by the JDA, whether it would be made, and whether the BALDC would be included.
I got the following response last week from spokeswoman Elizabeth Mitchell:
ESDC has been working towards a JDA filing, and has held discussions with ABO about filing for JDA. JDA is a legal entity distinct from ESDC without a separate staff (ESDC staff functions as JDA’s staff, although JDA has an independent board) and much of the information asked of public authorities is not applicable. Therefore we have been working to prepare a customized filing that takes into account JDA’s unique nature, and once the prior three years of filings are complete, we will immediately file this year’s report. We are currently preparing these filings and hope to submit them within the next few months. As the Brooklyn Arena Local Development Corporation is an affiliate of JDA, information regarding it will be covered in JDA’s filing.
There was no explanation for the delay.
Read on for lots more, including the news that more than a quarter of ESDC employees earn in excess of $100,000 a year. Is it any wonder that New York State is just about broke?
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
Hidden New York Byways Revealed With 80,000 Photos in the Latest AIA Guide
Bloomberg News
by James S. Russell
Fran Leadon, an authority on New York City byways, wore out four pairs of shoes tramping as much as 20 miles a day to update the classic “AIA Guide to New York City.”
“I love discovering these quiet corners of New York,” Leadon said as I joined him recently on a city walk, referring to a quiet enclave of vine-clad 19th-century row houses called Vinegar Hill. It missed out on the boom decade’s wave of gentrification that seems to have swallowed up much of Brooklyn.
...The AIA guide, sponsored by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, is a 1,055-page love letter to the city. It obsessively details the greatness of well-known neighborhoods, while luring the reader to bucolic corners of Staten Island and the hidden Art Deco grandeur of the Bronx.
Leadon, who helped update the work of the original authors, the late Norval White and Elliot Willensky, had the daunting task of reflecting the biggest explosion of development in New York since the 1950s. He says he took 80,000 photographs.
...He documents the robust renovation that has energized the neighborhoods all around the planned Atlantic Yards megadevelopment. “None of these areas were in the last edition of the guide,” he said. The riches he uncovers explode the argument that Forest City Ratner’s contentious project was needed as an antidote to blight.
Image: Oxford University Press via Bloomberg
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
July 12, 2010
Hanging w Dan Goldstein learning about the horrific Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn
baratunde’s internet scratch pad
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Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
July 10, 2010
Statutory Rapist Says He’s LeBron’s Father in Lawsuit
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Samuel Newhouse
This story about a suit brought by someone claiming to be LeBron James' biological father takes a detour to blame Atlantic Yards opponents for James' decision to play for Miami.
James disappointed New Yorkers last week when he decided to go to Miami Heat instead of to the Knicks or Nets.
Some commentators believed that James would have picked the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets if the construction of the team’s arena hadn’t been stalled for years by Atlantic Yards lawsuits opposing the use of eminent domain to seize and demolish property on the construction site at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
NoLandGrab: This commentator believes that James might have picked the New Jersey/Brooklyn Nets if the team didn't have a 12-70 record last season.
Posted by steve at 8:28 AM
July 8, 2010
Did KPMG Plagiarize Part of Its Atlantic Yards Market Study?
Going Concern
The "Accounting News for Accountants & CFOs" blog follows up on Norman Oder's story of KPMG's cribbed Atlantic Yards "market study."
But wait! There’s more! We learned today from a friend of GC that not only does AYR call out KPMG for having their pants on fire, it also says that the firm got a little carried away with the copy and pasting.
...Our messages (email, voicemail, in a bottle) to KPMG have not been returned at this time.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
July 7, 2010
Brutally weird: top lawyer at firm that represents Forest City Ratner in Atlantic Yards cases denounces Community Benefit Agreements
Atlantic Yards Report
While a few people covering the New York City Charter Revision Commission hearing on June 24 noticed the criticism of Community Benefit Agreements by invited experts, no one noticed an enormous irony.
The co-chair of Land Use department at the law firm Kramer Levin--which represents Forest City Ratner on Atlantic Yards--denounced Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs), even as a colleague has, in legal papers, praised the Atlantic Yards CBA.
And a fellow panelist, also denouncing CBAs, echoed a basic question raised by critics of the Atlantic Yards CBA: how do you define who represents a community?
The CBA critics agreed that the only mitigations should deal with project impacts rather than negotiating with groups--many of them, in the case of Atlantic Yards, with no track record--on issues like job training.
That suggests that Forest City Ratner should have negotiated with groups representing communities very close to the Atlantic Yards site regarding issues like traffic.
NoLandGrab: Oh? Is traffic a problem?
Posted by eric at 10:13 AM
July 6, 2010
JUST WRIGHT
THE PAVILION PROJECT
Queen Latifah’s name, in Arabic, means “gentle,” and so she plays a physical therapist whose godsister is chasing NBA star point-guard Common. Goldbricking montage. But when he gets injured, it’s Latifah to the rescue—physical therapy montage—she falls asleep on his shoulder one night just as he flips on the enormous flat screen and up comes Romancing the Stone. But why call forth that old, sublimated love letter to insurgency and blow? Impossible not to like these two. He loves his mother, holds doors, “hates weaves,” plays jazz piano, fixes things, gives to charity, appreciates interior design, and understands. She eases his pain, helps him believe he can do it, is a homegirl, likes soul food and sweets. It’s bad news for that rival sister when she reveals herself too well-versed in a Morimoto menu. And anyway, sushi’s suddenly a bit déclassé, right?
The camera lifts from the final kiss to show the stadium’s banner of signs: “Barclay’s.” Yes, he’s a New Jersey, soon to be Brooklyn, Net. Show me, in ten years, the low-income housing that was promised in the Atlantic Yards complex, show me the local jobs. It will be too late, but I’ll show you three vibrant neighborhoods with a clog at their navel, and around it a knot of traffic and ring of junk t-shirt shops and shitty bars.
Posted by eric at 3:41 PM
KPMG's Atlantic Yards market study: not just blatant lies but shameless plagiarism (from Corcoran)
Atlantic Yards Report
In court June 29, Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) attorney Philip Karmel said that "probably the most important factor" in the ESDC’s decision to assume a ten-year buildout for Atlantic Yards was not the Development Agreement that provides 25 years without sanction but a KPMG report that backs the timetable.
The KPMG report got very little discussion, but it contains lies--blatant, checkable lies--about condo sales.
And, as I discovered when I took another look, it contains more than two pages of shameless borrowing--plagiarism that is not diminished by a vague footnote.
Borrowing from Corcoran
The entire section on New York City Market Dynamics is cribbed from The Corcoran Report(s) for Manhattan and Brooklyn for the second quarter of 2009.
Yes, there's a footnote to the section headline that cites "The Corcoran Report--2nd Quarter 2009" as a source, but there's no indication that nearly all the text--with the slightest of changes--comes from Corcoran.
No quotation marks, no indentations, no italics.
Nor did KPMG change a line like "We estimate that sales are down," which indicates not KPMG's observation but that of Corcoran.
NoLandGrab: So let us get this straight. "Probably the most important factor" in the ESDC's assumption of a 10-year build out was a market report published by a real estate company that counts on a robust real estate market to make money? Which they copied, like test answers in high school?
Additional coverage...
Brownstoner, Busted! KPMG Blatantly Plagiarized from Corcoran In Its Yards Report
Mega-consulting firm KPMG got big bucks to prepare a market study report for ESDC that was used to justify all sorts of overly-optimistic assumptions about the future of the real estate market. Sounds like they should have kicked some of that dough Corcoran's way though, since the highly-paid execs indulged in a liberal dose of the old cut-and-paste in its preparation of the report.
Posted by eric at 7:51 AM
July 5, 2010
screening the first 20ish minutes at rooftop on friday july 9th
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kickstarterfilmfest/the-kickstarter-film-festival...
at the kickstarter film fest in conjunction with rooftop films.
hope to see you there.
NoLandGrab: The Kickstarter Film Festival needs to raise another $220 by 6 p.m. tomorrow in order to secure $2,000 in matching funds. A pledge of as little as $10 will get you a ticket. Here's the lowdown:
On Friday, July 9th, Kickstarter and Rooftop Films are hosting the first annual Kickstarter Film Festival on the roof of the OId American Can Factory in Brooklyn.
The festival will feature 90 minutes of film and video from a dozen Kickstarter projects, including feature films, stop-motion animation, documentaries, art, and dance. All of them amazing.
Posted by eric at 10:36 AM
July 1, 2010
Atlantic Yards Challenge Heard in Manhattan Supreme Court
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Mitchell Trinka
In mid-April the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, a group of neighborhood organizations concerned about local development, filed a motion that asked the New York State Supreme Court to reconsider a decision in January that maintained approval of the Atlantic Yards 2009 modified general project plan. On Tuesday lawyers from both sides had their chance to offer oral arguments in Manhattan Supreme Court.
Gib Veconi, a member of the development council board that filed the motion, said that changes in the project’s construction schedule were at the heart of the suit. The schedule expanded from ten years until completion in the original plans, to a possible 25 years. It was a time line not released to the public until after a decision came in favor of Atlantic Yards in late January, he said.
“That means a large area of the project footprint would be used as a parking lot for decades,” Mr. Veconi said.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
June 30, 2010
Is ten-year AY schedule reasonable? Judge puts ESDC on the defensive as Development Agreement is scrutinized in 75-minute reargument
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has an in-depth report on yesterday's Atlantic Yards court hearing.
In an unusual reargument of a case that was argued January 19 and decided March 10, a lawyer for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) was put on the defensive yesterday, forced to acknowledge that there are far fewer penalties for delays in completing the Atlantic Yards project as a whole than those for the first phase, which includes the arena and three towers.
Will it make a difference? It’s hard to predict a yes, given that courts generally defer to agencies like the ESDC.
But the fact of the reargument itself--and the uncomfortable facts in the belatedly-released Atlantic Yards Development Agreement--suggest that, at the least, New York County Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman will chastise the agency, if not order a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) or otherwise throw a wrench into the project.
After all, in her March 10 ruling Friedman criticized the ESDC’s “deplorable lack of transparency” and acknowledged that the ESDC’s use of a ten-year timeframe for the project buildout in the Modified General Project Plan (MGPP) was supported “only minimally.”
The MGPP, approved last September, was amplified and modified by the Development Agreement, signed in December but released in January. And yesterday Friedman steadily put ESDC lawyer Philip Karmel through a careful cross-examination.
75-minute hearing
At the outset of the hearing, Friedman said she’d allow only 40 minutes of argument, but she spent 75 minutes listening to and questioning Karmel and lawyers for two groups of community petitioners. The latter had asked her to reconsider the ruling that the project's ten-year timeline was legitimate and that an SEIS was not necessary.
Key to the motion for reargument is the Development Agreement, which was not released until about a week after the oral argument in January--despite a pledge to release it earlier--and which Friedman had refused to add to the case.
Though Atlantic Yards may seem like a done deal--eminent domain was approved months ago and (perhaps not coincidentally) Forest City Ratner announced yesterday that concrete had been poured for the Atlantic Yards arena--attorneys for the ESDC and FCR evinced some tension, a sign that the courts remain a wild card.
Posted by eric at 9:58 AM
June 29, 2010
Motion to Reconsider Atlantic Yards in Court Tuesday
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Ryan Thompson
Tuesday a Manhattan Supreme Court justice will hear oral arguments on a Motion to Reconsider the approval of the multibillion-dollar Atlantic Yards project in Downtown Brooklyn.
...Years of litigation has plagued and delayed developer Forest City Ratner from building Atlantic Yards on schedule, as lead opposition group, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, challenged the state’s controversial use of eminent domain to take the land from private homeowners and businesses in the project’s footprint. The group BrooklynSpeaks claims that the new evidence consists of a master development agreement that was allegedly executed between Forest City Ratner and other parties in the Atlantic Yards project, after the Empire State Development Corporation had already agreed to approve the Modified General Project Plan.
That agreement was withheld from public disclosure until after the hearing in the case, the petitioners claim. While several lawsuits challenging Atlantic Yards remain pending, few legal analysts believe that any pose a real threat to stopping the project, now that the eminent-domain lawsuits are over.
Posted by eric at 10:12 AM
Was there an "appeal" to the Appellate Division in the Columbia eminent domain case? The Court of Appeals gets it wrong
Atlantic Yards Report
Shhhh! Geniuses at work.
After watching the oral argument June 1 in the eminent domain case involving the Columbia University expansion, I suggested that Court of Appeals Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman was being either incredibly ignorant or faux-naive when he asked if there is "statutorily-provided discovery in this kind of situation."
The answer, of course, is no, and that's why the law favors condemnors more than in any other state.
Deference, and new law
The court's decision last week offered deference to the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) blight findings.
Also, as attorneys at ESDC co-counsel Sive, Paget & Riesel admit, it created new law by "holding that 'civic projects' under the UDC [Urban Development Corporation] Act are not limited to public institutions, and may in fact include projects proposed by private educational institutions."
(What about trade schools and Shoot the Freak?)
Actual ignorance
It also included a line that was not faux-naive but rather incredibly ignorant:
There's no appeal to the Appellate Division in eminent domain cases.
Under the Eminent Domain Procedure Law, that's where cases start, which is why there's no "statutorily-provided discovery." They should've gotten that right.
NoLandGrab: Based on the ruling by the Court of Appeals in the Columbia case, we're just curious about when it's not appropriate to use eminent domain in New York State?
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
Oral argument today in motion to reargue Atlantic Yards timetable case
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote on June 23 about the effort to get the belatedly-released Development Agreement to be considered as part of the record.
Here are the messages from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks, both of which organized petitioners.
DDDB said:
If, as the Court ruled, the ESDC's rationale was "only minimally" supported before, it would seem that that minimal support erodes entirely due to the facts subsequently revealed in the Atlantic Yards Development Agreement.
BrooklynSpeaks said:
Judge Friedman's decision to proceed with oral arguments on the sponsors' motion to reconsider represents an important opportunity to put before the court new information from the development agreement indicating the 2009 MGPP failed to address impacts of the Atlantic Yards project that ESDC knew were not only possible, but likely. Members of the community are encouraged to join us for the June 29 hearing.
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
Tuesday, June 29: Oral Argument on Thorny Atlantic Yards Legal Issue
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
While Forest City Ratner has gained control of the arena site (by abusing eminent domain and a sweetheart deal with the MTA) and started excavation for the arena, there is still a thorny legal issue concerning the timeframe of the project and the resulting environmental impacts.
Oral argument on that thorny legal issue will take place on Tuesday, June 29th at 11am on the case DDDB et al. v. ESDC. The argument is on the plaintiffs' motion asking the court to reconsider and reargue their challenge to the state's September 2009 approval of the Atlantic Yards Modified General Project Plan.
Judge Marcy Friedman had ruled for the ESDC (Empire State Development Corporation). But the plaintiffs, DDDB and 19 other community groups, as well as BrooklynSpeaks, asked the court to allow reargument in light of new, critical evidence found in the Atlantic Yards Development Agreement between ESDC and Ratner, which had been made public only after the case was argued. Put more simply—the ESDC purposely held back key documents from the legal record.
Details on the oral argument:
Tuesday, June 29. 11 AM
60 Centre Street, Room 335
ManhattanPlease take some time out of your day, if possible, to attend the hearing. (Arrive a bit early to get through security.)
Posted by eric at 9:26 AM
June 28, 2010
Flashback: Kidd, Gehry, and more on the old Atlantic Yards homepage animation
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes a stroll down memory lane.
This was the animation on the old Atlantic Yards web site, now defunct.
Can you guess how many Nets, project designers, and even buildings are no longer part of the scene?
Here's my list (but I may have missed a few):
- Jason Kidd
- Richard Jefferson
- Vince Carter
- Frank Gehry
- Laurie Olin
- Nenad Kristic
- Bostjan Nachbar
- Miss Brooklyn
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
June 26, 2010
L. Londell McMillan Receives Reginald F. Lewis Foundation Award at Third Annual Gala Luncheon in East Hampton
October Gallery
McMillan, who represents Spike Lee, was likely a factor in Spike's silence on Atlantic Yards. Spike ultimately endorsed the project by attending its groundbreaking this past March.
The prominent attorney, Mr. McMillan, will receive the Reginald F. Lewis Award, which honors African American entrepreneurs who succeeded internationally in business before the age of 50, as Lewis did. The first African American to build a billion-dollar company, Lewis led the largest leveraged buyout in the 1980s. He went on to shatter all expectations and inspire future generations of African American entrepreneurs.
Mr. McMillan, who has represented such luminaries as the late Michael Jackson, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Usher, LL Cool J, Roberta Flack and Spike Lee, joins the likes of Sean "Diddy" Combs and real estate mogul R. Donahue Peebles, past recipients. He is also one of the co-owners and partners with real-estate developer Bruce Ratner and hip-hop icon Jay-Z in the New Jersey Nets and the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, future home to the NBA team. Additionally, Mr. McMillan is owner and Group Publisher of The NorthStar Group, which publishes Jones Magazine (www.jonesmag.com) and The Source (www.thesource.com) .
Posted by steve at 7:35 AM
June 25, 2010
City provides $32.5M cash for project infrastructure, claims total subsidy to Ratner is lower than previously stated; reasons for skepticism
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes another well-worth-a-read look at Atlantic Yards's fuzzy math.
Yesterday, the Empire State Development Corporation amended the State Funding Agreement for Atlantic Yards so it could pass along an additional $32.5 million in city funding to Forest City Ratner for project-related infrastructure.
From one perspective, it seems like a significant increase in city subsidies for Atlantic Yards, given that the Forest City Ratner will have directly received $171.5 million.
That's far more than the initial $100 million pledged in 2005.
City subsidy actually down?
However, representatives of the ESDC and New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) both stated yesterday that the city's commitment to Atlantic Yards was well below the $205 million figure that has been reported for three years. (With $100 million from the state, that would be $305 million.)
I distrust that explanation, as I will explain below. After all, Forest City Ratner itself counted $205 million in city funds, as noted in the screenshot at right from the former Atlantic Yards web site.
Rather, the evidence suggests that NYC EDC is taking a very narrow view of subsidy--cash delivered directly to the developer--and excluding other infrastructure work that is related to the project but paid for directly by the city.
If so, that means that the administration of Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been willing to increase the city's commitment to a private-public project like Atlantic Yards, while proposing cuts to quintessential public services like libraries by $75 million. (The City Council just restored many of the library cuts.)
It all deserves a closer look, perhaps in an oversight hearing.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
Jeffries on Atlantic Yards governance bill: optimistic, but "significant negotiation" still required
Atlantic Yards Report
I caught up today with Brooklyn Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, lead sponsor of the new version of the Atlantic Yards governance bill, to ask what's different this year, with the Empire State Development Corporation apparently on board.
"We have been working closely together over the last several months to convince the agency of the need to create a governance structure to improve transparency and accountability related to the project moving forward," he said. "In order for ESDC to create a subsidiary, we need to legislatively authorize that action, which is why Senator [Velmanette] Montgomery and I have introduced the bill."
Negotiations coming
Why is the ESDC more receptive? "I think agencies are generally more receptive when legislation is less proscriptive, as it relates to the manner in which they are expected to conduct themselves," he said. "The bill, as written, still requires significant negotiation between elected officials, community leaders and ESDC as to the precise nature of the governance structure moving forward."
That may be an interesting discussion; the legislation last year had clear roles for local appointees, while the structure right now is vague.
"The conversations with ESDC are ongoing," Jeffries said. "I have expressed the sentiment that the framework laid out in the governance legislation should be viewed as a working document for an agreement, in the future. Similarly, the subsidiary structure that currently exists with respect to Moynihan Station, Queens West, and Brooklyn Bridge Park provides an extremely useful model."
Related coverage...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Bill Would Require More Oversight for Atlantic Yards
[Jeffries's] bill has now passed the Assembly’s Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee, according to BrooklynSpeaks, a coalition of civic organizations and advocacy groups in the areas near Atlantic Yards.
State Sen. Velmanette Montgomery has introduced a similar bill (S08193). Both bills direct the ESDC (Empire State Development Corporation) to establish a subsidiary corporation for planning and oversight of Atlantic Yards.
Jim Vogel, a spokesperson for Montgomery, told the Eagle that Atlantic Yards is the only project of that size that the ESDC is sponsoring that does not have an official entity that oversees development, construction and governance. Example of such overseeing bodies Vogel gave include the Battery Park City Authority in Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp. in Brooklyn.
...A spokesman for Forest City Ratner told the Eagle that “FCRC does not have a comment on the proposed legislation.”
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
June 24, 2010
Atlantic Yards governance bill, round two; new version aims to establish ESDC subsidiary to enhance accountability (& ESDC is supportive)
Atlantic Yard Report
A new bill establishing a different version of a governance entity to oversee Atlantic Yards and make it more accountable has been introduced in the state Assembly by Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries. It's already passed the Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee.
(A companion bill has been introduced in the state Senate by Senator Velmanette Montgomery.)
It may mean a different fate than the bill that died last year.
Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) spokesman Warner Johnston stated, "We are aware and have been working with Assemblyman Jeffries and other electeds on elements of this bill. We are extremely supportive of what this bill will mean for the future of the Atlantic Yards project. More details will be forthcoming at a later date."
I'm waiting to learn whether powerful Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver has expressed any opinion on the bill.
The rationale and the structure
The essential argument, pushed by BrooklynSpeaks in the summer of 2007, is that projects like Atlantic Yards can change enormously over decades, which is why all other major projects, from Brooklyn Bridge Park to Battery Park City, have their own governance entities and are more accountable to the public.
A lack of such a governance entity leaves more power in the staffers of the ESDC, who have multiple responsibilities and (ultimately) will leave, and thus in developer Forest City Ratner.
The entity would oversee implementation of the design guidelines, coordinate the involvement of state and city agencies responsible for the environmental impact mitigations, coordinate policies regarding transportation, and approve changes to the General Project Plan.
(Today, the Empire State Development Corporation board is expected to approve changes to the Atlantic Yards state and city funding agreements, but those changes have not been made public in anticipation of the vote.)
The big change in the new bill is that, rather than set up a new public benefit corporation, it directs the ESDC to establish a subsidiary corporation for planning and oversight of Atlantic Yards.
Also, unlike the previous Atlantic Yards Governance Act, it does not specify how members of that corporation are appointed, but leaves that to be resolved later. That may be part of why the ESDC is supportive.
NoLandGrab: Maybe it's us, but the ESDC's enthusiasm portends that this will end up being little more than lipstick on a hockey mom.
Posted by eric at 10:22 AM
Atlantic Yards reform bill clears key Assembly committee
BrooklynSpeaks
BrooklynSpeaks has learned that Assemblymember Hakeem Jeffries’ bill (A11431) reforming Atlantic Yards governance has passed the Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee.
“The BrooklynSpeaks sponsors support the new legislation and are monitoring the legislative progress closely. Today, we are beginning a public campaign to see that the legislation passes both the Assembly and the State Senate and becomes law. For the last three years, BrooklynSpeaks sponsors have advocated for transparency with respect to project governance, as well as for the involvement of the public in the decision-making process. This legislation is an important first step towards those goals,” said Jo Anne Simon, District Leader of the 52nd Assembly District. “We encourage all Brooklynites and New Yorkers concerned about accountability at Atlantic Yards to sign our online petition calling for swift passage of this legislation.”
The BrooklynSpeaks petition is available at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/reformay/petition.html.
State Senator Velmanette Montgomery has introduced a similar bill (S08193).Both bills direct the ESDC (Empire State Development Corporation) to establish a subsidiary corporation for planning and oversight of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:56 AM
June 23, 2010
Thursday June 24. Noon Press Conf and Protest of NBA's Approval of Prokhorov as Nets Owner
via Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
NEWS ADVISORY -- June 23, 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE from Brown Memorial Baptist Church Pastor, Reverend Clinton Miller
On Thursday, June 24th (NBA Draft Day)
NoonBUSLOADS OF RESIDENTS TO JOIN CLERGY AND ELECTED LEADERS TO PROTEST NBA’S DECISION TO ACCEPT MIKHAIL PROKHOROV AS MAJORITY OWNER OF THE NETS
Group cites a failure of NBA Commissioner David Stern to thoroughly investigate Prokhorov, his ownership in a questionable investment bank and disappointment in Stern and his failure to respect global human rights
NEW YORK, New York – On Thursday, June 24 at noon, busloads of Brooklyn residents will travel across the Brooklyn Bridge to Madison Square Garden with area clergy members, lead by Pastor Clinton M. Miller of Brown Memorial Baptist Church, and elected officials to protest the NBA’s decision to accept Mikhail Prokhorov as the majority owner of the Nets basketball franchise.
In a tersely worded letter signed and delivered to NBA Commissioner David Stern, more than 300 residents, community organizations and congregations have called on Commissioner Stern to open a thorough investigation of Prokhorov and Renaissance Capital, an investment bank of which he is part owner. It is alleged that Renaissance Capital violated U.S. sanctions against Zimbabwe.
Posted by eric at 3:17 PM
Justice Friedman schedules motion for reargument in case challenging ten-year timeline; Development Agreement should get its day in court
Atlantic Yards Report
The belatedly-released Atlantic Yards Development Agreement should get its day in court, after all. A hearing in the effort to reopen the case challenging the Modified General Project Plan--essentially the legitimacy of the ten-year timeline--will be held on Tuesday, June 29.
It will be held before state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman at 60 Centre Street, Room 335, at 11 am.
Chance of success
Given general judicial deference to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and other agencies, it's a long shot to expect a ruling in favor of the petitioners, community groups organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) and BrooklynSpeaks.
However, the petitioners have some inconvenient facts to air in court regarding the dubiousness of the official ten-year project timeline.
If the case is successful, it could severely slow the project--at least the non-arena portion--by requiring new analyses of the project's environmental impact.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
Atlantic Yards Court Argument Scheduled for Tues, June 29, 11am
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Oral argument has been scheduled for Tuesday, June 29th at 11am on the case DDDB et al. v. ESDC. The argument is on the motion by the petitioners asking the court to reconsider and reargue their challenge to the state's September 2009 approvlal of the Atlantic Yards Modified General Project Plan.
Judge Marcy Friedman had ruled for the ESDC. But the plaintiffs, DDDB and 19 other community groups, as well as BrooklynSpeaks, asked the court to allow reargument in light of new evidence found in the Atlantic Yards Development Agreement between ESDC and Ratner, which had been made public only after the case was argued.
Details on the oral argument:
Tuesday, June 29. 11 AM
60 Centre Street, Room 335
ManhattanThe ruling on the original case—which challenged the ESDC's September 2009 approval the Modified General Project Plan—hinged on whether or not there was a rational basis for the ESDC to claim the project would take ten years.
Posted by eric at 9:22 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Arquine, Learning Cities: An Interview with Cassim Shepard of Urban Omnibus
Cassim Shepard’s enthusiasm for cities is inspiring and wonderfully contagious. During my interview marathon last Thursday with a few of the participants from Postopolis!DF, Cassim generously shared with me the vision for Urban Omnibus and the ways it functions as a platform for fostering and giving exposure to good, optimistic ideas for making NYC a better place.
...So, one last question with regards to this idea of engaging in other places or virtually with different communities. Urban Omnibus is a site which focuses on NYC, how do you feel the site ends up relating to or impacting what happens physically in NYC and how do you think it comes to engage in a larger conversation about cities?
We don’t do news as such, so you could say that Urban Omnibus does this kind of irregular and/or clunky mapping of physical development in New York. However, there are certain recurring issues that relate to the big urban issues in New York. Another thing that I hadn’t really mentioned before was the way in which we try to focus on things that are underexposed. For example, one of the most contentious and major developments in NYC in recent times has been the Atlantic Yards, which is a basketball stadium and a series of residential towers at the intersection of downtown Brooklyn and Prospect Heights. It is contentious for a number of issues: from public-private partnerships to the amount of tax dollars used to subsidize luxury homes etc. etc. that really racially polarized the debate in a way that was really tragic.
So I wasn’t about to do a story about Atlantic Yards in itself. One: because it’s in the News everyday and two: because we try to focus on optimistic, good ideas.
Talk of the Sound, The Great IDA Hoax: Does IDA Just Apply Lipstick To NR Council's Pig?
The time has come for the [New Rochelle] City Council to commission an independent and full investigation of the practices and procedures of the New Rochelle IDA, its general membership and particular woefully conflicted members belonging to the city manager's office and the council itself, with especial attention paid to the glaring absence of candor, accountability and transparency in the gifting of tax abatements, other economic incentives and, other non-economic incentives such as rights to exclusive dealing, Memorandums-of-Understanding etc. granted to the likes of Louis Capelli, Bruce Ratner, their respective companies, and Home Depot and others since the days of Tim Idoni's operation.
If the Democrat-laden body will not act, may we leave it to the Republican-turned-Democrat County Attorney? Or do we pray for the day when some brave new State Comptroller or authentic crime-busting Attorney General, devoted to upholding traditional notions of civic virtue and public integrity, jumps into the fray?
Posted by eric at 9:01 AM
June 22, 2010
My Times op-ed: "A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder on Norman Oder.
Balancing (?) a one-source portrait of Bruce Ratner, today's New York Times Sports section offers a piece by me labeled "essay" (initially "analysis") that I'd simply call an "op-ed," headlined A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals.
OK, take a read. The conclusion:
But the arena process should have been fair, and [Prokhorov] should have paid full freight. Surely he can afford it.
Someone might've called foul
I posted an FAQ below, but first I'd like to amplify the piece slightly by restoring one line that was cut from the edit I saw three weeks ago:
All was forgotten as flashbulbs popped for Prokhorov, as was the notion that had a man worth nearly $18 billion put his hand out for subsidies, someone might have called foul.
Would it have been possible for Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson to justify helping Prokhorov's cash flow, as they did with Ratner last September?
...FAQ
Why write the piece?
I was astonished how much the sports press buffed Prokhorov, as if his purchase could be disassociated from the Atlantic Yards controversy and the public subsidies involved.
Why'd they accept the piece?
I can only speculate. But there's been overwhelmingly positive publicity about Prokhorov. And there's a very friendly article about Bruce Ratner today. So there's a hint of balance.
Where was the photo taken?
On the north side of Dean Street east of Sixth Avenue; in the background are two houses subject to eminent domain, but that "taking" has been shifted to a later phase.
Lots more FAQs via the link.
NoLandGrab: Since Oder submitted his piece several weeks ago, we can only speculate that The Times assigned Araton to interview Ratner to "balance" Oder's facts.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Norman Oder on Prokhorov, Ratner and Atlantic Yards in the NY Times
Norman Oder, who began his Atlantic Yards reporting as a critic of the NY Times faulty coverage of the controvrsial project, has an oped in today's NY Times sports section. Kudos to the paper for holding back ego and publishing one of its chief critic's columns. But shame on the paper for waiting until the Atlantic Yards horse was so far out of the barn.
Oder offers a synopsis of the Atlantic Yards rip-off, honing in on the public subsidies and government support benefitting one of the richest men in the world, Mikhail Prokhorov, and the fawning press gaggles that followed every little joke and cute remark by the oligarch during his whirlwind April visit to New York.
The question remains: would the Mayor and various governors have propelled Atlantic Yards forwards with all of its public favors if it were a project driven by and owned by Russia's wealthiest man? We doubt it, but that is what has occurred, in the end.
Brownstoner, Oder Does The Times
After years of (rightly) criticizing The New York Times for its failure to bring a critical eye and adequate resources to its coverage of the Atlantic Yards project, Norman Oder, publisher of the Atlantic Yards Report, got his own essay (that's what The Times calls it; he calls it an Op-Ed) in the paper of record. A central point of the essay, and the one that he parses further in a follow-up post on his blog, is that public officials might have thought harder about handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies if they'd known that someone with unlimited financial resources--in this case Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov--would end up being the beneficiary.
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter, Norman Oder article in the Times
Norman Oder has an op-ed (according to the Times it's an essay) in today's Times.
...In film news- We are finally digging into the final sections of footage- the ground breaking. Yesterday we viewed a long assembly of the footage and it was very powerful.
On July 9th- we will be part of a kickstarter film fest- in conjunction with our very good friends at rooftop films. At that event we will likely show the end of the film- we'll certainly send out an update as it comes closer.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals
The New York Times
by Norman Oder
We had to read that byline three times, too. Yes, Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder, voluble critic of The Times's Atlantic Yards coverage (or lack thereof), has gotten inside the Death Star.
The Russian billionaire Mikhail D. Prokhorov, the Nets’ new majority owner and the N.B.A.’s first overseas owner, magnetized members of the news media during his recent whirlwind tour of New York.
Prokhorov, a 6-foot-8 kick boxer, international playboy and shrewd businessman, did his best to make people forget the team’s performance last year at the dreary Izod Center in East Rutherford, N.J. He was droll (“America, I come in peace”), playfully evasive about changing the team’s name and confident of a championship in five years “maximum.”
As Prokhorov, Russia’s second-richest man, dangles cash for a coach, free agents and first-class facilities, let’s not forget the money that he and his business partner Bruce C. Ratner saved because of taxpayer help for the arena under construction in Brooklyn. The help includes eminent domain, major subsidies, a naming-rights giveaway and bad, undemocratic urban planning.
...“Sports entertainment corporations” (an apt term from Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York) have been quite successful at getting the public to pay for sports facilities. The financing for the nearly $1 billion Barclays Center is more subtle, but the public still pays significantly.
Consider that the state and the city each allotted $100 million, ostensibly for infrastructure like utilities. The city’s subsidy, part of which could be used for land, went solely to reimburse Ratner for property he bought from residents and businesses.
Later, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg allotted $105 million for infrastructure. That was not enough; Bloomberg agreed last year to shift $31 million from that sum to land, making it likely that future mayors will be asked to pay more for infrastructure. The New York City Independent Budget Office calls the arena a net loss for taxpayers.
A more direct gift involved arena naming rights, once reported at $400 million, now at least $200 million.
Why do the arena operators keep the naming-rights revenue for what the state calls a publicly owned arena?
...Prokhorov’s strategy, off to a flying start, is to build a dynasty, become a household name in North America and open investment opportunities.
But the arena process should have been fair, and he should have paid full freight. Surely he can afford it.
NoLandGrab: Thanks, New York Times! That's only about three years too late.
Photo: Yana Paskova for The New York Times
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
June 21, 2010
What Do BP, New York Multifamily & Atlantic Yards Have In Common?
MultiFamilyInvestor
MultiFamilyInvestor weaves together BP's corner-cutting and the absence of proper government oversight, a crooked real estate deal involving the Rev. Floyd Flake, and Atlantic Yards.
What does this remind us of?
Atlantic Yards.
Forest City Ratner got to purchase the MTA-owned property for $100 million (and he only put $20 million down). No other developer or organization had an opportunity to bid on the space, even though MTA’s bylaws required it.
The Flake quartet may operate the Jamaica apartment complex flawlessly. Forest City Ratner may construct a complex that improves downtown Brooklyn. But they both had an unfair advantage to get to that point.
They didn’t jump the line.
There was no line.
BP was supposed to have regulatory lines in the sand that it was not supposed to cross.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
The new book on ACORN, AY gaps, and full disclosure in a review
Atlantic Yards Report
I'll have a review shortly of John Atlas's new book, Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America's Most Controversial Antipoverty Community Organizing Group, published by Vanderbilt University Press.
It's a serious book, though highly sympathetic and quite sloppy. And after reading it, I can say with confidence that the headline for Peter Dreier's TPMcafe review, ACORN's Kick-Ass Activism - New Book Reveals the Whole Story, is far from accurate when it comes to Atlantic Yards.
...Indeed, the bailout by Forest City Ratner is a glaring omission.
(Note the non-advertisement for NLG on the cover of the book.)
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
June 18, 2010
Ratner YES! Rat Population Control NO!!
While New York City lavishes hundreds of millions of dollars on Bruce Ratner so he can build a basketball arena that will lose even more money for the city, it's laying off dozens of pest-control workers to scrounge up a measly $1.5 million.
Gotham Gazette, A New Tactic for the War on Rats
Natalie Hunnicutt’s first assignment as a pest control aide for the city, was, she recalls, also her most memorable: crashing a party of dozens of rodents at a Queens supermarket.
“There were rats scurrying left and right and I just thought ‘Oh my goodness,’” the Brooklyn resident said. The pests were leaping over her feet and into a mountain of trash, the result of people using the store’s parking lot as a garbage dump. By the end of the day, Hunnicutt said she and seven of her colleagues removed about 400 bags of garbage from the site.
Hunnicutt continued to clean private and public properties with rodent problems for a little more than two years until the city laid her off in May.
“It hurt,” the 28-year-old said about the pink slip. In her job, she said she was “cleaning up communities and making a difference. I was keeping New York City clean.”
The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where Pest Control Services resides, laid off Hunnicutt and 48 of her coworkers. That will save $1.5 million, according to the department. It will leave the department with 41 workers.
NoLandGrab: The added irony here is that Ratner's construction has been creating rat problems for Prospect Heights residents.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
Planner Garvin on Atlantic Yards: “A single site rezoned for a single owner with a set of towers and an arena. That's not a public realm."
Atlantic Yards Report
Architect, planner, and educator Alexander Garvin is hardly an anti-development NIMBY. He calls himself pro-development and is proud of his work steering the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) and serving as managing director of the NYC 2012 Olympics effort.
But Garvin, stubbornly enough, is a believer in the public realm--streets, parks, transit system--and thinks that’s where government investment should go, and the private development will follow.
He believes in clear rules and an even playing field, rather than a governmental attempt to pick winners.
And that means that he can’t avoid taking shots at Atlantic Yards as an example of where things went wrong, a project where the public realm was scanted in favor of a single developer and the city's land use review process was circumvented.
Last night, he discussed the major planning ventures with which he’s been involved, part of “Conversations on New York,” sponsored by the Architectural League, in conjunction with its exhibition The City We Imagined/The City We Made: New New York 2001-2010 (which will move to Governors Island next month).
...Criticizing AY
“Atlantic Yards: what kind of public realm is there? None,” he responded rhetorically. “A single site rezoned for a single owner with a set of towers and an arena. That's not a public realm. If you're going to increase what you can support on the site, you need to be able to support them with something, such as community facilities, mass transit, and streets, and I have a problem when the upzoning isn't related to that.”
Actually, Atlantic Yards is not an upzoning but an override of zoning. There might be some new facilities, but the timing of a school and a day care center is unclear, and dependent on public money. Meanwhile, streets have been subtracted, rather than added, and there’s no opportunity for multiple developers to bid on separate sites.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
June 17, 2010
ACORN's Kick-Ass Activism - New Book Reveals the Whole Story
Talking Points Memo
by Peter Dreier
That would be the "whole story" written by a sympathetic author, and reviewed by that author's "friend and occasional co-author."
Seeds of Change also recounts the "battle of Brooklyn" that pitted ACORN against one of the city's most politically-connected developers, Forest City, that planned to build a megaproject - including a new arena for an NBA basketball team, luxury housing, and high-rise offices - at Atlantic Yards. ACORN threatened to stop the project if developer Bruce Ratner didn't include a significant number of housing units affordable to poor and working class tenants. ACORN won that fight, but earned the emnity of the project's opponents, including some local residents, for whom Atlas shows great sympathy, leaving the reader to wonder who won and who lost.
"Pitted ACORN against one of the city's most politically-connected developers?" We need to check our dictionary again for the definition of "pitted against." We thought that implied an adversarial relationship.
As Atlas describes in this lively book, ACORN learned the art of playing the inside-outside game. Although it was best-known as a kick-ass activist group, it also formed alliances with sympathetic politicians and even some corporations willing to negotiate with ACORN to avoid being the target of protest.
That sounds more like the ACORN we know.
NoLandGrab: "Kick-ass activism?" More like kiss-ass activism, which helps when it comes to needing a $1.5 million bailout. Or is it kiss asses?
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
Thor’s Sitt says he was "blindsided" at Coney Island, others say challenges to be expected
The Real Deal
by Candace Taylor
The developers of three significant -- and often controversial -- Brooklyn projects commiserated about the challenges of building in the borough at a panel today, while sharing how they embrace those challenges.
The panel, part of GreenPearl's Brooklyn Real Estate Summit, was held at St. Francis College in Downtown Brooklyn. Panelists included Joseph Sitt, the chairman and CEO of Thor Equities, which owns much of the commercial real estate in Coney Island even after selling 6.9 acres to the city for $96 million last year. Also present were MaryAnne Gilmartin, an executive vice president at Forest City Ratner, the developer of the massive Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn, and Andrew Kimball, the CEO of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Development Corp.
The moderator of the panel, the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation's Joan Bartolomeo, asked the three if they ever get sick of the politics and hassles that accompany large development projects in New York City.
Perhaps Joan should've asked Brooklyn residents and property owners if they ever get sick of having their homes seized for private development fueled by massive public subsidies, or the gridlock and endless horn-honking caused by the absence of planning, or the corrupt politics that masquerade as public "process."
Sitt said he was surprised by the emotional public response to his plans to redevelop Coney Island, including removing aging buildings to make way for newer attractions.
"I admit, in the case of Coney Island, I got kind of blindsided," he said.
Ten years ago, the Brooklyn-native said, "nobody had any interest in Coney Island," adding that he got involved in the seaside amusement district "not so much for the investment," but more "as a personal hobby, to try to give back" to the community.
Joe, why didn't you say so? If we'd only known it was all about philanthropy, we would've tossed roses at you and kissed your benevolent feet.
Gilmartin said her company Forest City Ratner is prepared for the "great challenges" that come with their projects. "If you want to be an urban developer, this is what comes with the territory," she added.
Forest City Ratner's projects are often more challenging because they build from the ground up, rather than purchase properties built by others, and the company often engages in complicated public-private partnerships.
Those "complicated public-private partnerships" are well worth the billions in free taxpayer dollars and the handover of other people's properties.
Posted by eric at 9:51 AM
June 16, 2010
Atlantic Yards YES! Parks, farm land, open space, historic preservation and recycling, NO!!
What are the only kinds of parks that don't have to fear severe cuts thanks to New York State's massive budget deficit? Ball parks!
Gotham Gazette, Pitting Parks Against Open Space
Singling out the state parks and environment for symbolic belt-tightening, Gov. David Paterson last month pressured the state legislature into accepting steep and disproportionate cuts to conservation funding in exchange for reopening 55 shuttered parks and historic sites in time for the Memorial Day weekend.
With the budget two months late and negotiations stalled, the governor chose an area representing less than one quarter of a percent of the total budget to launch his strategy of forcing cuts through temporary budget extender bills needed to keep the state operating.
In a move that has troubling implications for the future of the city and state's environment, legislators were cornered into choosing between two programs that have broad public support -- the state parks and the l Environmental Protection Fund, the state's main source of capital expenditures for open space and farmland preservation, parks and recreation, historic preservation, waterfront revitalization and recycling.
"There is no free lunch," Paterson said in a press release. "If legislators want to fully fund the parks, that money must come from a real source."
Actually, there's a free all-Bruce-can-eat buffet, at breakfast, lunch and dinner — but it's only open to real estate developers and Russian oligarchs aiming to build the metropolitan area's fourth basketball arena.
One recent analysis from New Jersey found that every dollar invested in a bond measure for conservation would return $10 in economic benefits such as farm and fish products, outdoor recreation and ecosystem services such as flood prevention.
Yet the state routinely allocates an amount almost equivalent to this year's entire Environmental Protection Fund appropriation to individual brick and mortar projects whose benefits flow primarily to a few large corporations or developers, such as $104 million for infrastructure for one private sports arena at Atlantic Yards and $63 million to subsidize parking garages for the benefit of the privately owned New York Yankees.
Posted by eric at 12:19 PM
Ask Why: Enron, "the diffusion of responsibility," and the Atlantic Yards parallels (will anyone look at the Development Agreement?)
Atlantic Yards Report
What does Atlantic Yards have in common with the worst corporate scandal of the past decade? Plenty.
Alex Gibney’s 2005 documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, contains several memorable quotes, but the most apt one, at least for Atlantic Yards watchers, is not listed on the IMDB quotes page.
It comes from whistleblower Sherron Watkins, with only about five minutes left to go in the film:
“Enron should not be viewed as an aberration, something that can’t happen anywhere else. Because it’s all about the rationalization that you’re not doing anything wrong. We’ve involved [accountants] Arthur Andersen, we’ve involved the lawyers, the bankers know what we’re doing. There’s a sense--the diffusion of responsibility. Everyone was on the bandwagon. And it can happen again.”
So the message of the film is a reminder to take seriously Enron’s (ironic, in retrospect) slogan, "Ask Why."
And what about AY?
Atlantic Yards isn't Enron--right?--but who's responsible for taking responsibility and telling the truth?
Government agencies and courts have punted on numerous issues, most glaringly regarding the timetable implied in the belatedly-released Development Agreement, which contradicts earlier promises.
Remember, the release in January came six days after a hearing in a case challenging the Modified General Project Plan (MGPP) was heard in court. It was also about three weeks after the ESDC told me the documents would be made available.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
New Council Land Use Chair Leroy Comrie: "I think Atlantic Yards... should've come before the Council, definitely"
Atlantic Yards Report
It's conventional wisdom these days that Atlantic Yards should have gone through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP), and that's what we hear in a Commercial Observer interview with the chair of the City Council's Land Use Committee, Queens Council Member Leroy Comrie: The Sheriff of Land Use....
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Getting Back to the Original Sin of Atlantic Yards
The new chair of the City Council's Land Use Committee explains why, in part, it was wrong for Atlantic Yards to bypass the entire City Council and the City's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, aka ULURP. ULURP provides for multiple publich hearings on the project itself and votes by community boards, borough presidents, council committees including land use, city planning and, finally, the entire City Council. In stark contrast Atlantic Yards did not require the vote of a single elected official and only underwent a fantastical environmental impact disclosure process.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
June 15, 2010
Leroy Comrie: The Sheriff of Land Use
The Commercial Observer
by Jotham Sederstrom
In January, Leroy Comrie was appointed chairman of the City Council’s powerful Land Use Committee, taking over where Councilwoman Melinda Katz left off. The 52-year-old Queens councilman, who was first elected in 2001, spoke to The Commercial Observer about his once-frenzied, now relatively sluggish committee amid an economic downturn and hypothesized about land-use issues he would have liked to have seen come before him, like the Atlantic Yards project and the World Trade Center.
...Among the few city land-use issues that, in one way or another, managed to avoid City Council scrutiny-say, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn or aspects of ground zero-are there any that, had you been the land-use chairman at the time, you would've liked to have had come before the committee for review?
Those things happened before I was chair, but I definitely want the Council to be involved in every project. I think Atlantic Yards and ground zero should've come before the Council, definitely. I think the Council is the most transparent and open process. Those processes were not open, and I think the public is still upset about the outcome of both of those projects, only because they didn't have the full opportunity to air their grievances.
The Council is a democratic party, a transparent body. We have a responsibility to make sure that anybody who comes before the Council has an opportunity to air all of the aspects of a project so that at the end of the day the residents can know exactly the pros and cons and why we came to the decisions we've made after hearing those pros and cons.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
Modern Day Page Surfing
The Wall Street Journal
by Steven Kurutz
Jennie Egan, author and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn advisory board member, has just published a new novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad.
Ms. Egan spent her youth attending punk rock shows at San Francisco's legendary Mabuhay Gardens. She moved to New York in 1987, and has published a story collection and four novels, including the National Book Award finalist "Look at Me." In recent years, Ms. Egan has chronicled old Brooklyn (she interviewed women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II for an oral history project) and defended the current version (she publicly opposed the Atlantic Yards project and its centerpiece basketball arena).
...WSJ: Did the opposition to the Atlantic Yards project affect the final plans?
Ms. Egan: What was accomplished was a gigantic delay. I guess they're going to build this monstrous stadium, which no longer even has an interesting design or architecture. It's going to be a box.
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
June 14, 2010
Will Development Agreement get its day in court? Unlikely, as Justice Friedman moves case back to condemnation judge who already dismissed issue
Atlantic Yard Report
It looks like the belatedly-released Atlantic Yards Development Agreement--which signals significantly relaxed deadlines for the project--won't get its day in court, after all.
In a brief, five-page decision in the case known as Peter Williams Enterprises, et al., vs. New York State Urban Development Corporation (aka Empire State Development Corporation, or ESDC), state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman essentially rejected a challenge by property owners that the Atlantic Yards project has changed so much that the ESDC should be forced to issue a new Determination & Findings to proceed with eminent domain.
Friedman did not formally reject the case, because she didn't examine the Development Agreement or get to the merits.
Instead, she moved it from New York County (Manhattan) to Kings County, as the ESDC had requested. In Kings County, Justice Abraham Gerges, who handles condemnations, already rejected similar arguments when rejecting a direct challenge from property owners to the condemnations.
The decision was dated May 26 and filed June 1, but I only learned about it last week. I asked the attorney for the petitioners, Matthew Brinckerhoff, for a comment, but didn't get one.
Development Agreement still at issue in separate case
Friedman is still considering a request by two groups of petitioners--organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks--to consider the Development Agreement in revisiting her March 10 ruling that the ESDC's ten-year timeframe for Atlantic Yards was reasonable.
In her ruling, Friedman disagreed that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to reflect the burden of a 25-year project on communities was necessary. Nor would she annul the 2009 Modified General Project Plan, or MGPP.
But she refused to let the Development Agreement--released in January a week after oral argument--to be added to the case, known as Develop Don't Destroy (Brooklyn), et al., vs. Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner Companies.
She's still considering the request for reargument, but such motions, like appeals, are generally more of a long shot than new cases, as was the Williams case.
Posted by eric at 12:48 PM
Toren sales figures illustrate yet another example of KPMG's lies about condo sales (bonus: joke about LeBron James moving in cited as rumor)
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of fanciful price predictions...
KPMG's Atlantic Yards market study, conducted on request of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and dated August 31, is supposed to back up the assertion that Atlantic Yards might be completed in the announced ten years, rather than, as then-ESDC CEO Marisa Lago said in April, "decades."
But it doesn't.
I've written before about KPMG's lies about sales figures at Richard Meier's On Prospect Park and the Oro condos. (The Empire State Development Corporation calls the latter lie "trivial" as a legal matter.)
Now let's take a look at the figures regarding the Toren condos. KPMG reported (see graphic above) that it had been 98% pre-leased/sold.
However, the New York Times reports today, in a "Square Feet" interview with developer Donald A. Capoccia, that the 240-unit building is 55% sold:
We launched this project in May 2008 and probably sold about a third of the building up to September. Then we had a hiatus. The building was completed in March 2010, and we’ve basically gotten up to a point where we’re now just about 55 percent sold, and we’re moving pretty quickly toward 60 percent. We’ve done 20 contracts in the last 12 days, and that’s just gangbusters!
We’re hoping — with our fingers crossed — that we could be at 180 units sold by the end of this year, which is just about what we need to get square with the bank, in terms of the repayment of the construction financing.
Click through for the LeBron James rumor/joke. The punchline? The joke's on us.
Posted by eric at 9:12 AM
June 12, 2010
Barclays/Nets Community Alliance now supports Brooklyn Public Library
Atlantic Yards Report
After getting on the charitable map with contributions to playgrounds and to the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Barclays/Nets Community Alliance is now supporting the Brooklyn Public Library's summer reading program.
(For perspective, the donation is far, far less than what the library needs to keep its doors open if planned budget cuts go through. Supporters of the city's three library systems are having a 24-hour read-in at the Brooklyn Public Library's Central Library beginning today at 5 pm.)
The summer reading program
As stated on SummerReading.org:
Target is the lead sponsor of Brooklyn Public Library’s Summer Reading 2010 program. Barclays/Nets Community Alliance, Astoria Federal Savings, National Grid Foundation and Con Edison have also provided generous sponsorship support. Additional funding is provided by Federal Library Services and Technology Act funds awarded to the New York State Library by the Federal Institute of Museum and Library Services. In-kind support is provided by Con Edison, Scholastic, Sesame Workshop and Tops Trumps USA.
...And how much are they giving? It doesn't say, but consider that lead sponsor Target last year donated between $25,000 and $49,999, according to the library's annual report.
Presumably the Barclays/Nets Community Alliance contributed less. It's a worthy cause, of course, but, given the public subsidies for the project, and the sweet naming rights deal for the Atlantic Avenue transit hub, why not eliminate the middleman?
NoLandGrab: See if you can follow the ironic trail here.
In February 2007, the Brooklyn Public Library re-exhibited a collection of artworks that had first appeared the previous fall in Prospect Heights, entitled Footprints: Portrait of a Brooklyn Neighborhood. Only they excluded some of the works from the original exhibition, including a portrait of Daniel Goldstein, and photos of a Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn protest taken by our own Amy Greer. Among the Library's lame excuses for the exclusions was that they "didn't take positions on issues currently being decided" and were "publicly funded."
Now, however, that public funding is withering; the city's libraries are being called the "biggest losers" in the mayor's proposed budget, facing almost $75 million in cuts. That, of course, is but a fraction of the bounty that the mayor, and the state, have handed to Bruce Ratner to help him build his Brooklyn basketball palace. And now, flush with the taxpayers' hundreds of millions, he's going to give a few thousand crumbs to the Brooklyn Public Library — which was careful not to offend his eminence back in 2007.
Posted by eric at 9:13 AM
Answers From a Brooklyn Blogger, Part 3
City Room
by Emily Rueb
Following is the third and final set of responses from Louise Crawford, the founder of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, and creator of the annual Brooklyn Blogfest.
...The Brooklyn Blogfest is not a political platform, it is a celebration of a blogging as a form of free speech and self-expression. As you can imagine, we are a feisty and diverse bunch and we do have strong feelings about our politicians and the rapid development in Brooklyn we have seen in the last 10 years. However, you do not have to be a foe of the Atlantic Yards to be a blogger or to attend Blogfest. There is no party line at Blogfest, nor should there be. That would be very narrow-minded and limiting in our attempts to get bigger and more inclusive. Past Blogfests were sometimes dominated by the anti-Atlantic Yards sentiment. Many bloggers, including me, felt very strongly about that issue and that was reflected in those Blogfests. This year, one of the Blogs-of-a-Feather groups was dedicated to Political and Social Activist Bloggers.
About Borough President Marty Markowitz, I know that he gives out those proclamations to a lot of people and events in Brooklyn. I see them on my rounds of the borough. When I heard he wanted to give me one, I was fine with that. I may not agree with Marty’s viewpoints and policies about many things, but I believe that it is possible to have a civil relationship with the borough president and his excellent staff.
Related coverage...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Brooklyn Blogfest Bashed
Many took to their Twitter accounts as well to bash the event. Daniel Goldstein (@degoldstein) of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, on June 9 tweeted, "Spike has done the wrong thing when it comes to Atlantic Yards and complaining about gentrification while shilling for Absolut."
Posted by eric at 8:50 AM
June 11, 2010
Documentary on Freddy's prompts reflection on a unique Brooklyn place
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reviews the debut of the documentary about the dearly departed Prospect Heights bar.
It was a little like a wake, the first showing Wednesday of the compelling new documentary (Freddy's) on the now-closed Freddy's Bar & Backroom, a chance for some of the regulars and staff to remember a unique Brooklyn place, a product of a particular time and place, Prospect Heights preceding and riding a wave of gentrification.
And like some wakes, it was a mix of remembrance and release and raucousness, with some knowing, hearty laughs punctuating certain scenes, responses that likely wouldn't be elicited from a mostly civilian audience.
"Freddy's was a hub of wonderful people, musicians and lovely weirdos," director Vicente Rodriguez Ortega observes (as cited in Found in Brooklyn). "I only managed to scratch the surface what it was, what it is, what it will be because in many ways it's timeless."
As one regular says, "It's a precious cultural meeting place--and there's alcohol."
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
Answers From a Brooklyn Blogger, Part 2
City Room
Following is the second set of responses from Louise Crawford, the founder of Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, and creator of the annual Brooklyn Blogfest.
...Blogfest is a highly democratic and diverse event. Sometimes it’s like a see-saw that goes this way and then that.
There have been years when the Develop Don’t Destroy crowd dominated the Blogfest. Although I agree with their views on the Atlantic Yards project, there was criticism from other kinds of bloggers that Blogfest is not just for political activists.
...Sure, the inclusion of Borough President Marty Markowitz may have put some people off. He is a highly divisive figure in Brooklyn due to his support of the Atlantic Yards, but his purpose was to give me one of those proclamations, and I was happy about that.
To paraphrase what I said in my opening remarks: Brooklyn is a place where people strive to know their neighbors, their politicians, their artists, their educators, their shop owners, their developers, their social activists, and those they agree — and disagree — with.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Absolut and authenticity
So, why did the clever but heavy-handed Absolut Brooklyn marketing campaign strike such an awkward chord with some people?
I think it has to do with contested term authenticity, which got a lot of play in February, thanks to sociologist Sharon Zukin's new book Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places, and subject of a major New York Times article.
...So the Barclays Center markets "brownstone" and "loft" suites, and a canvas bag distributed at the groundbreaking places the giant arena next to the Brooklyn Bridge.
A nondescript new residential tower is dubbed The Brooklyner, and its advertising fudges the neighborhood description to encompass more amenities.
Posted by eric at 9:36 AM
June 10, 2010
The hidden history of Freddy's: real estate profits not for longtime bar operators but for the flippers--and the developer gaining a zoning override
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder explores the ownership history of 485 Dean Street — until recently, the home of Freddy's Bar & Backroom.
In the new documentary on the now-closed Freddy's Bar & Backroom--I'll have a review tomorrow before its second showing Friday at 6 pm--manager Donald O'Finn explains how the bar operators tried but failed to buy the building in which they had a lease.
"[Developer] Bruce Ratner owns the buildings that Freddy's is in," O'Finn says. "We had tried to buy it... the price kept going up and up and up. And then it was purchased suddenly by some real estate speculators who then sold it to Ratner."
Really? Yup.
While Forest City Ratner will gain an enormous increase in the land's value thanks to a state override of city zoning, the biggest beneficiary until that sale was not a longtime landowner but an ownership group that flipped the property.
That group made a deal in October 2003, two months before Atlantic Yards was officially announced on 12/10/03. (Word of the project had emerged in July 2003.)
In little more than 16 months, they turned an $850,000 purchase into a $2,825,000 sale.
That's a profit of nearly $2 million.
NoLandGrab: Let this put an end to any phony outrage about Daniel Goldstein's settlement with Forest City. These vultures got nearly as much almost five years earlier, for a building that Ratner could have actually built around.
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
the edit
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
Here's the latest news from Battle of Brooklyn filmmakers Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley.
Just wanted to give you all a quick update on where we are with the film. Over the last couple of months Suki has been working with the final 40 hours of footage. She's finished viewing it all and we are now working hard to craft an ending so that we can submit it to the Toronto Film Festival by the end of the month. The Toronto Festival takes place in September. If we don't have a strong enough cut by then it's likely that we will push forward towards getting the film into the Sundance Film Festival.
As many of you know, the story is incredibly complex. As filmmakers it is our goal to find a way to touch on that complexity without overwhelming the audience with information. It's an especially profound balancing act considering the story.
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
June 9, 2010
New book says ACORN will be back
Politico
by Ben Smith
ACORN, the community organizing group which collapsed earlier this year under the weight of a furious conservative assault, aims to reconstitute itself under a new name after the midterm elections, according to a new book on the group.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, as it is formally known, could not survive the embarrassing videos produced in 2009 by guerilla journalist James O’Keefe that appeared to show ACORN workers advising a would-be pimp and effectively dissolved into its local chapters.
But strong local ACORN chapters swiftly regrouped under new names, like the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment and New York Communities for Change. Those groups “will retain ACORN’s commitment to building national power and are beginning discussions” about relaunching a national organization some time after November, John Atlas writes in his sympathetic new history of ACORN, “Seeds of Change.”
...The book also offers a portrait of a group with a powerful reach, into, for instance, New York’s embattled Working Families Party, whose chief is a former ACORN organizer. Two ACORN organizers, Madeline Talbott and Keith Kelleher, started Project Vote, the organization that gave Obama his start in Chicago politics.
And in New York, ACORN emerged as a major player —and deal maker — in the real estate industry, playing a central role in one of the largest projects in the city’s history, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: When it comes to shilling for Bruce Ratner, the more seeds change, the more they stay the same.
Posted by eric at 10:23 PM
Freddy's Gets Filmed: The Shuttered Brooklyn Bar Is Featured in a New Documentary
Fork in the Road
by Chantal Martineau
Freddy's Bar & Backroom fought a long, hard fight against Bruce Ratner and his Atlantic Yards project. That fight came to a rowdy, bittersweet end on April 30, when the bar bid its patrons farewell. A reincarnation, Freddy's Next Bar, is expected to open this summer, but in the meantime, you can reminisce about the good times during the screening of Freddy's, a new documentary by Vicente Rodriguez Ortega, premiering at the Brooklyn International Film Festival this week.
NoLandGrab: Details on the screenings here.
Posted by eric at 12:37 PM
Brutally Weird Times Front Page Juxtaposition: Brooklyn Neighborhood Afflicted By Withdrawn Funds and Simultaneous Subsidies to Atlantic Yards
Noticing New York
Those who caught the front page of Saturday’s New York Times were witness to a brutally weird juxtaposition of stories concerning: 1.) the angst of Brooklyn neighborhoods faced by city budget cuts surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards Forest City Ratner mega-monopoly, and 2.) the frivolous focus of the Bloomberg administration on subsidizing basketball. Were the Times editors aware of the contrast they were setting up or out-of-touch with the linked import of their stories?
Brooklyn Woe: Concentrated Overlapping City Budget Cuts
One of the Times stories, the one that clearly deserved to be on the front page, began with three short truly remarkable paragraphs setting forth a tale-of-Job-style account of how a single individual Brooklynite, Christina Nieves, in the Prospect Heights vicinity, has been beset by multiple city budget cut woes:
Christina Nieves’s life revolves around a handful of blocks in Brooklyn: Drop off her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son at the Strong Place day care center. Make sure her 75-year-old grandmother, who uses a wheelchair, makes it to lunch at the Gowanus Senior Center. Then, on too many occasions to count, take her son, who is asthmatic and prone to seizures, to the Wyckoff children’s clinic.
And with warm days now here, watch her children frolic at the Douglass and DeGraw pool.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to close all four places.
(Budget Cuts Hit a Brooklyn Area Over and Over, by David W. Chen, June 4, 2010.)
Bouncing Basketball Fluff Onto the Front Page
The second story, appearing right beside this tale of woe, reveled in Bloombergian PR fluff. (See: Luring a Star: Big City Beckons; Cleveland Begs, by Alan Feuer, June 4, 2010.) It really didn’t deserve to be on the front page except that it is actually critically important for its meta-story, for the way that it stands as an example of how the Times, by preoccupying itself with the dutiful and superficial pass-along of Bloomberg and Ratner promotional materials, is missing the bigger stories in this city, including how intrinsically related the tale of budget woes was to this sillier second story about luring LeBron James to play basketball in New York. Play basketball where? Perhaps within about a half mile of all the four community facilities the Bloomberg administration will, by closing, remove from Christina Nieves’s life. Play basketball where? Perhaps in the highly, highly subsidized Prokhorov/Ratner basketball (aka “Barclays”) arena that the City Independent Budget Office calculated will be a $220 million net loss for the city.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
Is The Business of Jay-Z Bad For Brooklyn?
Atlanta Post
by R. Asmerom
Here's an interesting-if-sometimes-error-prone article on the ballad of Jay-Z and Atlantic Yards (not brought to you by ABSOLUT™ Vodka).
Every good story needs a well rendered setting. For the narrative charting his rise, the one Jay-Z’s been burnishing since his 1996 debut, this is Brooklyn. He may have deserted it for Manhattan, a place more suited to his appetite for luxury and glamour, but the frequency with which he continues to invoke the culture, lessons and aesthetics of the borough, portray a man unwilling to relinquish his status as its chief emissary.
So it made sense that when real estate tycoon and then-majority owner of the New Jersey Nets Bruce Ratner was drumming up support for Atlantic Yards, a $4.9 billion development project (to include the Barclay’s sports center) in the heart of Brooklyn, he had a sit-down with Mr. Carter.
The opportunity to not only be part of bringing professional sports back to Brooklyn, but also cement his place in its textbook history, proved too tantalizing an offer to turn down.
...Aside from the controversial use of eminent domain and the process by which the project was greenlit, concerns range from increased congestion to the dilution of the borough’s unique aesthetic and dynamism. “Brooklyn has a very specific flavor,” said Bed-Stuy native Craig Samuels, owner of restaurants Peaches in Bed-Stuy and The Smoke Joint in Fort Greene, a direct neighbor of Atlantic Yards. “People come to Brooklyn for that. They want a place where they can decompress, where they know their neighbor, where they could walk down the sidewalk and feel as though they’re in a small town.”
As a business owner in the neighborhood, Samuels should be an example of the kind of person the projects’ supporters are claiming to help; however, he’s yet to be convinced by the rhetoric around the stimulus for the local economy.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
Internets Celebrities Take On Atlantic Yards
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Liza Eckert
Do you have any idea how big 22 acres really is? The Internets Celebrities, a trio of gonzo online filmmakers, didn’t. So while they were out shooting their most recent video, “Stadium Status,” they decided to walk the perimeter of Atlantic Yards.
It took them 30 to 40 minutes to make the whole trip, said director Casimir Nozkowski, though their stroll is shown manically speeded-up in the film, above (which contains some profanity).
NoLandGrab: Based on current (and future) traffic conditions, however, walking might still be speedier than driving.
Posted by eric at 9:32 AM
June 7, 2010
Revenge Fantasies About Ratner
Photo, by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
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Students in Brooklyn College’s Performance and Interactive Media Arts MFA Program tabulated and visually represented votes from patrons of Freddy's Bar & Backroom in a poll of Ratner revenge fantasies. Click the photo for a larger view.
Disclaimer: Neither NoLandGrab.org nor Tracy Collins advocate violence in any way, shape or form against anyone, even you-know-who.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
"Freddy's", the Documentary, to Screen on June 9 and 11. Find Out What's Been Lost
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
On June 9th and June 11th the Brooklyn International Film Festival will screen the World Premiere of "Freddy's"—the documentary about the world's best bar which has been confiscated and shuttered forever by the State of New York for Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov's billion dollar arena.
Many have heard that Freddy's was taken by eminent domain but may be wondering what the big deal is about this bar, this cultural hub. This film will help you understand what has been lost.
More on the film from Norman Oder here.
Details and tickets: http://www.brooklynfilmfestival.org/films/detail.asp?fid=1079
Screenings:
Wednesday, June 9th at 7pm at Brooklyn Heights Cinema (70 Henry Street, Brooklyn)
Friday, June 11th at 6pm at indieScreen (285 Kent Avenue, Brooklyn)
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
June 5, 2010
New Tactic in Fight Against Publicly Financed Stadiums: Humor
The Sporting Blog
By Andy Hutchins
Kudos continue to roll in for the Internets Celebrities and their latest video "Stadium Status."
"Stadium Status" is the brainchild of bloggers Dallas Penn and Rafi Kam, who together with director Casimir Nozkowski are the Internets Celebrities. (They're now NYT-famous, too.) In it, they bring their lenses and pens to bear on the changes wrought in the Big Apple by Citi Field, the new Yankee Stadium, and the Atlantic Yards project that will include the future home of the Brooklyn Nets.
They capture anger, in protesters chanting "Brook-lyn is not for sale!" They get laughs, from Mets fans conceding that a day at Citi costs hundreds of dollars and from public financing watchdog Neil deMause, author of Field of Schemes and the blog of the same name, as he considers how much everything cost. And they hit a lot of the necessary melancholy notes, talking to fans who saw Babe Ruth in his coffin and telling their own stories about hearing roars after Darryl Strawberry moon shots.
Posted by steve at 8:29 AM
Atlantic Yards YES! City Services in Gowanus NO!!
The New York Times, Budget Cuts Hit a Brooklyn Area Over and Over
By David W. Chen
It's funny how a small area in Brooklyn can get hit with so many city service cuts while nearby, a single developer like Bruce Ratner can receive so much city largesse.
When Mr. Bloomberg unveiled his budget a few weeks ago, he warned that no neighborhood would be spared in his struggle to plug a $5 billion gap. But in making steep across-the-board cuts to dozens of agencies and programs, it was almost inevitable that they would fall heaviest on some neighborhoods.
And if there is one place that for sheer density and variety of affected services is the epicenter of budget pain, it is a tiny slice of Brooklyn covering six blocks by eight blocks, straddling Gowanus, Carroll Gardens and Boerum Hill, according to an analysis by The New York Times of the location of the facilities already singled out for closing.
Within a 10-minute walk, three day care centers, one senior center, one swimming pool, one after-school program and a health clinic are to close. Venture 20 minutes more, and six additional facilities — two day care centers, two after-school programs, a senior center and a health clinic — are also to shut down on July 1, the start of the new fiscal year. Making matters worse, the nearest public transit option — the B37 bus along Third Avenue — is being eliminated by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
There's no word on how much the city is saving by closing down all of these services, but you can bet it won't be anywhere near the $205 million in direct cash subsidy promised by the city to developer Bruce Ratner so that he can build a much needed ... arena???
Posted by steve at 7:51 AM
June 4, 2010
“Freddy’s” Showing Next Friday at BIFF
Videology
A documentary about Freddy’s bar in Prospect Heights; victim of the Atlantic Yards project. See the world premiere next Friday at Williamsburg’s new cinema: indieScreen (Kent & S. 2nd St.)
FREDDY’S
World PremiereDirector: Vicente Rodriguez Ortega
United States, 2010, 99min
Documentaryshowtime: 6:00 pm | Friday June 11 | indieScreen
synopsis
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom was a thriving cultural hub situated in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Open since prohibition, the bar featured a unique and colorful history. This documentary chronicles the diverse set of characters in Freddy’s community - the bartenders, the regulars, the artists and the musicians. Through their barside reflections, both hilarious and poignant, we see the true importance of this Brooklyn institution. Beyond the late nights and naked Mondays, Freddy’s was a vital part of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, it also sat in the footprint of a controversial real estate deal that has threatened to radically transform Brooklyn’s character.notes
Donald O’Finn and other members of Freddy’s staff will be available for Q&A after the screening.
Posted by eric at 12:48 PM
The Gallerina Guide to NYC's Ugliest Buildings
WNYC News Blog
by Carolina Miranda
This week, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) unveils its latest Guide to New York, the must-have architectural bible that tracks -- block by block -- the city's significant structures. To celebrate the book's release (it's been a decade since the last update!), we combed through its 1,000-plus pages to come up with our own guide...to the city's 10 homeliest buildings.
...
10. METROTECH CENTER, Downtown Brooklyn (from 1989). This 11-block development at Flatbush and Tillary is an architectural mixed bag -- some of it interesting (Davis Brody Bond's sleek Othmer Residence Hall), much of it a snore (15 Metro Tech Center). Walking through this dull morass can be soul-crushing. But the real problem here, says the AIA, is the way in which one company appropriated a vast swath of public space and made it into their own quasi-private territory, complete with battalions of security guards. The complex should serve as a lesson on letting developers and architects build monuments to themselves, with little consideration for how these projects might weave into the greater urban fabric. It may be a lesson we have yet to learn. Metrotech's developer, Forest City Ratner, is now working on another behemoth 22-acre project nearby: the highly controversial Atlantic Yards.
Photo of 15 Metrotech Center: See-Ming Lee/flickr
Posted by eric at 12:31 PM
Reader Comments
The Indypendent
HOME SWEET HOME
Responses to “Life After Atlantic Yards: An Interview with Daniel Goldstein” May 12:I thank you for your good fight, Daniel Goldstein. I did not consider you a sellout after taking that deal one bit because it was not the first offer. The fact that you stayed in your place for about seven years when others left long before you shows how you were willing to stand up to fight when others could not.
—Tal BarzilaiThere was something I neglected to say in the interview. Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and the community that opposed the Atlantic Yards development (it was not a “small army” but a large movement) did not just oppose Ratner’s project, we advocated for the fair development of the rail yards and found a developer willing to bid for the yards and propose a version of the community plan. That developer, Extell, outbid Ratner for the MTA’s rail yards $150 million to $50 million. In its infinite wisdom, the MTA chose the low bidder. The “develop” in Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn was not rhetoric. We wanted the yards developed, but with the community’s input and vision, not developed in the vision of one single developer through an undemocratic process.
—Daniel Goldstein
Posted by eric at 11:49 AM
New AIA Guide to New York City calls Atlantic Yards "ill-advised"
Atlantic Yards Report
The fifth edition of the AIA Guide to New York City has emerged, all 1088 pages worth, with some tart words for Atlantic Yards, thanks (I assume) to a new co-author who got to know Prospect Heights after playing music at the now-closed Freddy's Bar & Backroom.
...The Prospect Heights setting
The book states:
Prospect Heights, a severed pizza slice (in plan), a bite missing from its side (at Grand Army Plaza; the southern half of the slice is Institute Park), is an ethnically diverse neighborhood just north of Park Slope, featuring leafy blocks of 19th-century brownstones designed by then leading architects, including Rudolph Daus and the Parfitt Brothers. its western edge is marked by the hubbub of Flatbush Avenue; its eastern, less defined edge, blends at Washington Avenue into Crown Heights.
The Long Island Railroad yards and a swath of the neighborhood is the site of the controversial proposed Atlantic Yards project. Partial demolition of buildings in the seven blocks of that project's "footprint" has created "developer's blight," a phenomenon in which a developer declares a neighborhood "blighted" in order to justify the use of eminent domain, then, by demolishing buildings, creates the very blight that didn't exist in the first place (a self-fulfilling prophesy). The result (for now) is a thriving neighborhood with incongruous blocks of contiguous wasteland, reduced to rubble, on its northern edge.
Actually, the wasteland isn't so contiguous.
Atlantic Yards
The book, finished months ago, lists AY as "unbuilt" rather than "partly under construction." It states:
UNBUILT: Atlantic Yards (basketball arena and housing)... Ill-advised. A massive proposal by developer Forest City Ratner (of MetroTech fame: see Brooklyn Civic Center section) that, if built, would forever change the character of small-scale, tree-line Prospect Heights. The plan call for buildings over the rail yards between Atlantic Avenue and pacific Street (good idea) and demolishing blocks of homes and businesses in Prospect Heights, replacing them with modern residential towers and a basketball arena (bad idea). Frank Gehry's master plan (a swiveling cadre of towers) captivated many a City official and architecture critic, but opposition among community groups in Prospect Heights was fierce. As the downturn in the financial markets delayed the project, Gehry's designs were replaced by less flashy plans by the firms SHoP and Ellerbe-Becket. Now that Gehry isn't involved, more and more critics are coming out against the project. Where have they been?
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
June 2, 2010
2010 Brooklyn International Film Festival
Nathan Kensinger Photography
The 13th Brooklyn International Film Festival (BiFF) takes place this June 4th to 13th, 2010. This year, BiFF will present over 100 films from 26 different countries. As the Director of Programming for this year's festival, I led a team of screeners and programmers to select these films from a field of more then 2,400 submissions coming from 92 different countries.
While all of the selected films merit equal attention, several have subjects related directly to this website's themes, especially in the documentary category. Locally, Our House documents an illegal Christian Anarchist squat in an abandoned Williamsburg warehouse, while Freddy's tells the story of a historic bar in Prospect Heights that was recently closed by the controversial Atlantic Yards development.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
May 31, 2010
Price drops at On Prospect Park provide another reason to doubt KPMG report on housing market
Atlantic Yard Report
New information gives even more reason to question the KPMG report for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) on the housing market in Brooklyn, a report that asserted that there was sufficient demand for the planned Atlantic Yards luxury condos for the entire project to be completed in the announced decade.
So far, judges have deferred to the ESDC's "experts," but the expert is not very reliable.
Remember, KPMG last August 31 claimed that Richard Meier's On Prospect Park was 75% sold; however, the New York Times quoted the developers as saying half the units have been sold and that StreetEasy.com documented only 25% the units as sales.
Now, the developer counts 54 units sold, with--after the consolidation of some units to make larger apartments--42 yet unsold, according to a New York Times Real Estate section article headlined Larger Units for a Richard Meier Condo.
That's still way under 75%. (StreetEasy counts 38 recorded sales.)
Prices going down
Moreover, the prices for On Prospect Park are likely much lower than assumed in the KPMG report. The Times reports:
To get the building’s original buyers — some of whom had put down deposits in early 2008 — to close on their apartments, Mr. [Louis] Greco [of developer SDS Procida] said, he had to deduct 15 or 20 percent from the agreed-upon prices...
Mr. Greco said that 42 apartments remained to be sold, at prices starting from about $680,000 to $5 million; per square foot, the prices are about 28 percent lower than in 2008.
NoLandGrab: Long story short — Brooklyn needs a real estate bubble unlike anything we've seen over the past decade to make the Atlantic Yards numbers work.
Posted by eric at 9:24 AM
Brooklyn Paper Editor Kuntzman: "Once [arena is] built, you kind of have to focus on the positives"
Atlantic Yards Report
On the John Gambling Show last Friday, the host, after interviewing Bruce Ratner, interviewed Brooklyn Paper Editor-in-Chief Gersh Kuntzman.
One issue was Atlantic Yards and Kuntzman, who's a smart fellow, sounded dismayingly like the editor of the Pyongyang Paper.
...JG: New Yorkers... everybody, it's a human condition, is resistant to change, because we like what we know and we're worried about things we don't know. But I think, like so much in New York, after that thing is built, and I know all of the sort of grunts and groans that have taken place... I think Brooklynites are going to go, 'Wow, this is great, why didn't they do it sooner?'
Only if they ignore the surface parking that could linger for more than a decade and a project that could take 25 years to complete.
GK: Well, the sooner thing, definitely... You're absolutely right about the fact that people typically resist change. I would argue that New Yorkers do it less than other people. The only real constant in New York City is change. And I think that's one of the things that makes New York great.
Focusing on the positives
GK: As far as Atlantic Yards goes, I do believe that once it is actually built, people will have to start seeing its advantages rather than focusing on the more balanced picture: 'well, do the positives outweigh the negatives?'
Once it's built, you kind of have to focus on the positives. And there will be some positives to it. You've got a basketball team that potentially could put Brooklyn on some people's maps. You have a venue where you can have the Ringling Brothers Circus, we haven't had that in decades.
NoLandGrab: Toss in a little bread, and everything will be hunky-dory.
Posted by eric at 8:47 AM
Wizards Pre-Draft Workouts: The Path of Derrick Caracter
TruthAboutIt.net
A tale about the sleazy world of U.S. amateur basketball and the toll it takes on young men's lives passes through — you guessed it — Atlantic Yards.
The connections [Eddie Lau] made boosted him to one of the most well-known runners (or “street agents”) in the New York City area, serving as a recruiter for the Long Island Panthers, the AAU team of Caracter. Tom Sicignano, who has been associated with AAU team Brooklyn USA, a rival of the Panthers, claimed that Lau once gave one of his players a pager, which was later confiscated by that player’s high school coach. Sicignano, also known as “Ziggy” was, of course, a former manager of the famed Gold Club in Atlanta. He was the one who spilled the beans on the crimes of former Gold Club owner Steve Kaplan and all the NBA players who received “services” at the famed strip club trial in 2001. Ziggy also admitted that he paid players with prostitutes, transported prostitutes across state lines and bribed police officers, along with having connections to the Gambino crime family.
Ironically, when Ziggy felt that the rival Long Island Panthers and coach Gary Charles, along with Eddie Lau, were trying to steal Sebastian Telfair from his program, he said, “I’m not a priest, but compared to these other guys, I’m Cardinal Ziggy O’Connor.” Good one, buddy. Sicignano was more recently seen as a supporter of New Jersey Nets minority owner Bruce Ratner and his efforts to procure Atlantic Yards, where the new home of the Nets, the Barclays Center, is currently being built. Ratner gave Sicignano and Brooklyn USA $10,000 in 2005.
So many back room connections, so much seediness.
NoLandGrab: Not sure if that last line is meant for amateur hoops or Atlantic Yards, but it's certainly befitting for both.
Posted by eric at 8:38 AM
May 29, 2010
Coney Island's Grand Past and Grim Future
Requiem for a dreamland
Village Voice
by Kevin Baker
An epic and well-worth-reading piece on the Joe Sitt/Mike Bloomberg/Dominic Recchia/Amanda Burden destruction of the incredibly resilient-but-teetering American playground, Coney Island, wouldn't be complete without a mention of the epitome of the modern "razzle" — Atlantic Yards.
Coney Island today is a place where you can drink beer, "shoot a freak," see a geek, see a burlesque show, see fish, catch fish, eat fish, ride the Cyclone, ride the waves, win a kewpie doll, play Skee-Ball, go to a ballgame, see a band, lie on the sand. It is the last stand of the demimonde, the last place where you can feel the openness and the energy of 1970s New York, stripped of the accompanying dread of crime and decay.
The city and the developers they favor now propose to rescue us from all that, just as, in the past, they "rescued" a unique, prosperous community of 100,000 people by turning it into a bereft, isolated slum of 50,000 people. Where, 50 years ago, an unaccountable, unelected city authority tore down much of Coney Island under "Title 1," now an unaccountable, unelected city authority endorses tearing it down again under "Phase 1." And once again, anyone who objects is accused of championing "the nostalgic fables of the past."
It's not just Coney. Much like Thor Equities, Michael Bloomberg's administration has forwarded its development schemes everywhere with "renderings of some fantastic building." On and on it goes, from the Olympics and the West Side Stadium, to the gargantuan "airport village" in Jamaica, to the wall of condos planned for the Queens and Brooklyn waterfront along the East River, to the Hudson Yards project on the West Side, newly revived—an endless carny game of bait-and-switch, sold on the promise of one amazing, futuristic building after another, none of which ever seem to get built.
A veritable catalog of such swindles—past, present, and future—can be found in a triumphalist 2006 copy of New York magazine on "Tomorrowland"—the Oz-like New York it imagined would exist by 2016.
Therein can be found a headline that reads, "Brooklyn (Like It or Not) Will Get a Shimmering Frank Gehry Crown."
It refers, of course, to the Atlantic Yards project, where somehow no shimmering crowns ever appeared—only plans for a cheesy, college-style fieldhouse, built to house a bad basketball team owned by a mysterious Russian oligarch. In the process, the city—which currently claims to be unable to afford to let schoolchildren ride the subway at half-price—may well have squandered nearly $200 million for the cash-strapped MTA, money it left on the table in its rush to hand the site over to a single mega-developer that ended up flipping the whole project.
Actually, Bruce Ratner has only flipped the Nets, and 45% of the arena, which he had to do to keep the project solvent. Of course, he's also flipped the bird to Brooklynites.
Just down the page, in the same New York article, is a mention of another coming attraction in Tomorrowland: the Thor Galleries Tower, in Albee Square.
The real problem here, though, isn't Joe Sitt, or even Mayor Mike, the developers' buddy, but the driving force behind them and so many other mayors and developers over the years. It's a mentality, a secular religion, a form of warped corporate progressivism that insists order and sterility and profit can always be imposed upon the vast creative anarchy of this city.
Down on Coney Island, they know better.
..."I think the island is both welcoming and malicious. I think it'll thwart them in some way," says Richard Snow, who remembers seeing the remnants of the foundation holes dug for the great Friede Globe Tower, still visible into the 1970s. "I think I know enough about Coney to say that it won't work out the way anybody's saying it will."
Posted by eric at 1:46 PM
Touchstone For Whether There Will Be Change In Albany: Attorney General Candidates on Atlantic Yards and Eminent Domain
Noticing New York
Might we get actual, honest-to-God change in Albany this November? Who needs tea leaves when we have Atlantic Yards.
Are things in Albany about to change? We are in the middle of an election cycle where we will see turnover in all the important offices. Notwithstanding that all the candidates will be talking about reform, is change and reform what we will get in the end or will we just get be more of the same, a continuing lack of transparency, pay-to-play political contributions, and the same old mire of tangled political relationships that separate us form proceeding directly to the reforms that need to implemented?
Do we really need to remind our readers that in the last election cycle, just four years ago, the candidates Eliot Spitzer, Alan Hevesi, David Paterson, also all ran on the platform of reform? Because of scandal one of those candidates, Alan Hevesi, never took office as state Comptroller, Eliot Spitzer soon resigned from the governorship in scandal and David Paterson who succeeded Spitzer is now enmeshed in is own crippling scandals that would likely remove him from office were he not so close to the end of his term and were the public not already so utterly exhausted by the scandal-driven midterm turnovers to date.
Touchstones and Stepping Stones
Are things in Albany about to change? We think we can furnish some insight. We arrive at the perceptions we can offer by use of the singular touchstone reference which we think cuts through obfuscation and the political posture and pretense like a hot knife through butter: Atlantic Yards. We apply our test to a race for a state office which itself can serve as a touchstone, the race for New York State Attorney General. That race is a touchstone not only because of how key the office is itself, but also because it is now being vacated by Andrew Cuomo, the perceived front runner in the race for Governor, the highest office in the state, who like his predecessor, the disgraced Eliot Spitzer, has been able to use the AG’s office as the penultimate stepping stone to the highest state office.
...Think of anything going on the state that is objectionable to reformers and Atlantic Yards trumps it by several shades of darkness.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
May 28, 2010
Tracy Collins offers time-lapse photos from outside arena site, near FCR's malls, despite official discouragement
Atlantic Yards Report
Photographer Tracy Collins did some filming yesterday, and workers at Forest City Ratner's arena site as well at the developer's mall complex didn't want him getting too close.
The documentation doesn't bring up anything unusual, but there's a value to consistent documentation. Surely Forest City Ratner is trying to control the visuals, such as with these shots of new Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
Arena construction
Flatbush Avenue at Pacific Street
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New York
May 27, 2010
2:30pmCollins writes:
Site of the Barclays Center Arena of the Atlantic Yards development by Forest City Ratner. Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center Mall is in the background.
I was told by the construction workers (who eventually covered the gap in the fence thru which I was shooting) that I should "move along" and that "I couldn't photograph here." I told them that I could and I would as I was on a public sidewalk.
Barclays Center Arena construction, Flatbush at Pacific from tracy collins on Vimeo.
NoLandGrab: Classic! Watch the short video for Forest City Ratner's censoring of its proprietary dirt-moving technology — this from the company that swears that "when it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much."
And for good measure, they kicked Tracy Collins off the "private" street between Bruce Ratner's malls, too.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
Things That Make You Say WTF:Jay Z has breakfast with Mayor Michael Bloomberg,Mikhail Prokhorov & Bruce Ratner
Global Fusion Productions
This whole super hype about Jay Z being coowner & poster child for the Nets & their soon to be Brooklyn based arena makes me say WTF. For those of us who live in New York City, we all know that our Mayor is punch drunk with power & the pursuit of more of it with his countless deal making which often do not benefit the average New Yorker, but rather only benefits his fellow business cohorts while giving him more global exposure & raises his Bloomberg brand. Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, Mayor Bloomberg & Real Estate developer/former majority owner of the Nets- Bruce Ratner all have a mutually beneficial relationship in their global business circles, so where exactly does Jay Z from Marcy Projects fit into this circle?
...Jay Z really is a little to nothing stake holder in the Nets, but because he’s from Brooklyn & looks like many of the people in the the Brooklyn neighborhood that developers through their government influences & “shut out the people” deal making have successfully taken from the people thru eminent domain in the glory of capitalism & gentrification, he has become the face of the Brooklyn arena project to make the people of Brooklyn feel & think one of their own has their back & best interests at heart. This is all nothing new in deal making & using commonalty to attain public sympathy & trust, but come on Brooklyn are any of you buying this?
Posted by eric at 9:20 AM
May 27, 2010
A walk along the Dean Street project border, the path from parking to the arena block; see how the sidewalk narrows, so the state's numbers are off
Atlantic Yards Report
Today I show two videos, shot on May 22 and May 23, that cover the same ground.
My aim was to show the transition between thriving Vanderbilt Avenue just southeast of the Atlantic Yards site, and the blighted northern border of Dean Street, where Forest City Ratner is using land cleared by demolitions (notable the Ward Bakery) for construction staging and surface parking.
Most notably, the path to the arena block from parking on Dean Street relies on a sidewalk that is very narrow in several segments, far from the "approximately 18 feet" claimed by the Empire State Development Corporation.
...The effective sidewalk width on Dean Street between Sixth Avenue and Carlton Avenue is supposed to be 10.5 feet. Not so.
The sidewalk narrowed considerably in the segments flanking row houses, leading to the likelihood of a bottleneck as people approach the arena block, especially where there are trees.
As noted in the table at bottom, the ESDC estimates the second-lightest impact--LOS B--from pedestrians on Dean between Sixth and Carlton. That seems questionable.
Members of the Dean Street Block Association have installed tree guards to protect trees and nurture flowers in the tree beds.
How long will they survive?
Posted by steve at 8:56 AM
so I don't forget
Photo, by horseycraze, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
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Posted by lumi at 6:23 AM
May 25, 2010
A partial walk through and around the eastern end of the footprint, and an encounter with a security guard unmindful of rules on photography
Atlantic Yards Report
Continuing the trip I took May 20 up Vanderbilt Avenue to look for blight near the eastern edge of the Atlantic Yards footprint, in the video below I walk from Vanderbilt Avenue and Atlantic Avenue south to Pacific Street, west to Carlton Avenue, and south to Dean Street.
The walk traverses part of Block 1129, which is being used for construction staging and interim surface parking. The demolition of the Ward Bakery led to the provision of significant surface space.
(Note that in the beginning of the video I identify the starting place as Vanderbilt Avenue and Pacific Street, whereas it's actually Atlantic Avenue.)
Private street?
Even though there are signs professing that the street is closed, the street remains unblocked, at least during off-hours, and I saw a few bicyclists and cars passing through. There was no guard at either end of the street, but there was a guard outside one of the buildings, presumably protecting it from any incursion.
I turned off the camera before I got to the building and chatted briefly with the guard as I passed.
When I got to the corner of Carlton and Pacific, I turned the camera back on and looked east, pointing out that the street was still open.
I walked south to Dean, capturing the block of row houses on Carlton between Pacific and Dean, a finger of the Prospect Heights Historic District. As I note on the video, blight is supposed to cause deterioration of surroundings--though that's not the case.
An encounter with a guard
Curiously enough, after shooting the wall that once was full of graffiti ("Gehry, thy name is eminent domain," by the Prospect Heights Action Coalition), I got to Carlton and Dean.
Then, oddly enough, the security guard from Pacific Street followed me and confronted me, telling me I shouldn't be taking pictures. He threatened to call the cops. I told him the cops said it was OK.
NoLandGrab: If you see something, say something.
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
NEW YORK'S FAILED SPORTS BIDS
ESPN.com
by Jane McManus
A sidebar to a story on New Jersey's pitch for a Super Bowl reveals that, though we've been correcting the record on the precise location of the site Walter O'Malley was eying for a new Ebbets Field for going on six years now, some media outlets just can't get it straight.
Dodgers in Atlantic Yards
Walter O'Malley was looking to build a new baseball stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers at the very Atlantic Yards site that is now slated to be the future home of the New Jersey Nets. Thanks to powerful New York City planner Robert Moses' lack of cooperation, O'Malley didn't get his stadium, and the Dodgers moved to L.A. after the 1957 season.
Had he succeeded, O'Malley would've built the ballpark across the way, roughly where Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Center mall stands today.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
Dellaverson, ex-MTA CFO, joins a law firm, and the Times discreetly ignores the Vanderbilt Yard deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Gary Dellaverson, former Chief Financial Officer at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, lands at the law firm Proskauer Rose, and gets some positive words from the Times:
In 19 years at the transportation authority, the mustachioed, cigarillo-smoking Mr. Dellaverson took on some of the toughest assignments at a notoriously tough agency. As chief labor negotiator, he did battle with the Transport Workers Union during the 2005 transit strike. The headache-inducing complexity of the Hudson Yards development deal was his doing (after the first developer fell through, he nailed down another in five days).
...Selling "Atlantic Yards"
Reuters reports:
PROSKAUER ROSE LLP
The law firm hired Gary Dellaverson as special counsel in its labor and employment department. Dellaverson joins from the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, where he was most recently chief financial officer. He was previously the MTA's chief labor negotiator, overseeing such matters as the 2005 transit strike and efforts to sell the West Side Rail Yards and Atlantic Yards.I don't know whether that summary came from a law firm press release or Reuters shorthand, but nobody sold the "Atlantic Yards." It's a project, not a place.
Posted by eric at 9:23 AM
May 23, 2010
AY Report: Pics of Prokhorov's Domain, Would Cuomo Rein In ESDC?, Vodka for Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Photos: Prokhorov at Ratner's mall, looking down at his domain, with Bruce and Marty
Click through to see the images for this blog entry.
This past week, new Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov ventured boldly... to the top of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center mall to look down on his--well, the state's, his, and Ratner's--(eminent) domain.
...
The first photo, with Bruce Ratner, seems to suggest that the arena block is almost completely a blank slate. Not quite, as Tracy Collins has shown. Then again, Forest City Ratner has done funny things with photos before.
Do you think Ratner explained how he got $131 million in public funds to purchase land for the arena site? (That's separate from the discounted price on the railyard.)
The second photo is a meet-and-greet with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who's more than a foot shorter at 5'5". Markowitz didn't issue a press release.
What--is he not certain that Prokhorov has Brooklyn's best interests at heart, ready to deliver "affordable houses and jobs"? Did Markowitz tell Prokhorov how few Brooklyn elected officials attended the groundbreaking in March?
From Andrew Cuomo's announcement yesterday, launching his long-gestating gubernatorial campaign:
I also propose reorganization of our economic development efforts. We have spent billions in tax benefits and grants through dozens of programs and a myriad of uncoordinated state agencies. Once again, we are just not getting our money’s worth. We must restructure our approach into coordinated regional strategies investing in cluster economies. That’s what works. I will create a State infrastructure bank to help fund and better coordinate public works investment in our State. I will orient our health care institutions and academic institutions to be high tech job generators in this exciting, new innovation economy. And we will make New York more competitive by reducing the high costs of doing business in New York. The essential job of government is to facilitate, not frustrate, job development.
Does that mean Cuomo will rein in agencies like the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), partner and enabler of developers like Forest City Ratner?
If Cuomo had given back Bruce Ratner's campaign contribution, that might hint toward a yes. But he didn't.
A Vodka for Brooklyn? Absolut, assisted by Spike Lee, jumps on the brownstone brandwagon
Hot on the heels of the "brownstone" and "loft" suites promised for the Barclays Center, Absolut Vodka is about to launch "Absolut Brooklyn," in collaboration with filmmaker and advertising guru Spike Lee.
(The Brooklyn native is apparently expanding his ad business into Brooklyn. Note that Lee also attended the Barclays Center groundbreaking in March.)
There's a stoop, which is, of course, the iconic vodka image, and a line from a Lemon Andersen spoken word poem. The number on the brownstone is a homage to Lee's Brooklyn roots.
Absolut will ease the way with a $50,000 donation to Habitat for Humanity and sponsorship of this year's Brooklyn Blogfest.
Posted by steve at 9:36 AM
No Cheers in Brooklyn for Replacing Freddy's Bar
AolNews
By Dana Chivvis
This article recounts some of the story of the Atlantic Yards fight as seen from the now defunct neighborhood bar, Freddy's.
Mikhail Prokhorov, the new owner of the New Jersey Nets, blitzed the media earlier this week, entertaining the press with an artillery of one-liners. In some ways, the story of Prokhorov's latest purchase does seem like a joke: A 44-year-old Russian billionaire, known for being a playboy, buys the NBA's worst team and then moves it from New Jersey to New York, where it's renamed "the Nyets."
But New Yorkers displaced by plans to build a new arena for the team -- the crown jewel in a 22-acre development project in Brooklyn -- feel as if the joke is on them. To make way for the new commercial space, office buildings, condos and arena, the state used eminent domain to seize homes and evict iconic neighborhood businesses, like Freddy's Bar and Backroom, located in the project's footprint. Opponents complain that city's gritty, patchwork neighborhoods are being replaced with a shiny, plastic megalopolis.
...
The state's ability to seize private land for public use is a constitutionally granted power. The Supreme Court affirmed its legality in a landmark case in 2005, Kelo v. New London, leading 43 states to amend their laws to restrict eminent domain powers. New York was not one of those states.
"You can say anything is for the public good. A basketball stadium is for the public good, houses are for the public good," said Dana Berliner, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which argued on behalf of Susette Kelo. "New York is the worst state in terms of the abuse of eminent domain."
Posted by steve at 9:19 AM
May 22, 2010
Final "Atlantic Yards" Homeowner Agrees to $3 Million Settlement in Eminent Domain Dispute with State of New York
PRWeb
Here is a press release promoting the law firm that negotiated a settlement for former DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein.
Attorneys from the New York law firm of Goldstein, Rikon & Rikon, the only law firm in New York practicing exclusively in the area of eminent domain and condemnation law, successfully negotiated a settlement on behalf of the last homeowner to agree to vacate his condominium on the property that is to be used for Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards development, which will include the New Jersey Nets' new arena.
Daniel Goldstein, an outspoken opponent of the Atlantic Yards project and the only remaining resident of a 31-unit condominium building at 636 Pacific Street in Brooklyn, agreed to a $3 million settlement with the New York State Urban Development Corporation, which had taken title to his property by eminent domain on March 1, 2010. Goldstein was represented in the negotiations by Michael Rikon, an experienced eminent domain attorney and partner at Goldstein, Rikon & Rikon. The settlement was reached in court before the Hon. Abraham Gerges, Justice of the Supreme Court for Kings County, N.Y.
"We're delighted to achieve this outcome for our client so that he can get this entire matter behind him and use the compensation he will receive from the settlement to relocate his family to a new home in New York," said Rikon. "Our client never wanted to leave his home and does not believe it was right for him to be forced out, but we're gratified that we were able to achieve a reasonable resolution for him."
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Firm representing Goldstein in eminent domain proceedings touts $3 million settlement
After what they presumably considered a discreet amount of time--one month--the law firm representing Daniel Goldstein in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain proceedings issued a triumphant press release about the settlement.
The press release is not aimed at people interested in the Atlantic Yards fight or the nitty-gritty of the settlement figure, which was driven by Forest City Ratner's interest in vacant possession in time for the NBA lottery (and the entrance of new Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov), a lowball offer from the state which pushed Goldstein to settlement, and a judge very interested in getting a deal done in one day.
Not to mention a delay in negotiations caused by the developer's interest in a full gag order. The aftermath? Forest City Ratner's spurious claim that the sticking point was money.
Rather, the release from Goldstein, Rikon & Rikon (disclosure) doesn't offer such context. It seems aimed at generating professional acclaim and business leads. That's what businesses do, but it's not the full story.
Posted by steve at 8:57 AM
May 19, 2010
It came from the Blogosphere...
Noticing New York, Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman Yesterday: Presenting an Image of Justice Respecting Atlantic Yards?
Yesterday, Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman held a hearing in one of the litigations pertaining to Atlantic Yards, known as Peter Williams Enterprises, et al., vs. New York State Urban Development Corporation (aka Empire State Development Corporation, or ESDC). This particular hearing was confined to the technical issue of whether it would be proper to switch the venue of the case from Justice Friedman’s court in Manhattan to Justice Abraham Gerges’ court in Kings County. ESDC, the state agency being sued, asked for the transfer of venue after Justice Gerges decided issues with respect to title in the separate condemnation case in ESDC’s favor. That is something that the attorney for the plaintiff, Matthew Brinckerhoff, said would make a belated transfer such as this look bad. (It would look like forum shopping for a soft judge.)
...Noticing New York’s principal contribution here is to provide our court artist’s sketch of Justice Friedman. We think justice ought to be as transparent as possible. Shouldn’t photographs of what goes on in the court room be allowed? Until they are we will have to suffice with this "sketchiness."
Brooklyn Based, Tip Sheet: May 19-May 25
Atlantic Yards Art
Students in Brooklyn College’s Performance and Interactive Media Arts MFA Program have spent the past semester creating visual interpretations of the Atlantic Yards controversy. Now they’re inviting the community to participate in their art-based conversation as they present their work in “A Question of Domain: Art About Atlantic Yards.” The exhibition begins at 6:30pm in the playground located on 6th Avenue between Dean and Bergen Streets (look for the U-Haul parked on Bergen) and then moves indoors to the lower level of Southpaw at 8pm.
Gothamist, Do The Nets Have The Worst Luck Or What?
This morning, Prokhorov had lunch with fellow billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg—as well as Nets investor Jay-Z and Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner—at Gracie Mansion. NY1 reports that "bagels were on the menu." And, FWIW, Shaquille O'Neal weighed in on the Nets' arena drama: "I think [the Prudential Center is] better than most arenas, I think it's one of the best arenas in the country. Hopefully they can stay there forever. I don't know what's going on with the Brooklyn situation, but it says a lot for the city of Newark."
Posted by eric at 11:17 PM
Mayor Has Breakfast With Atlantic Yards Leaders
NY1
We think they meant "Mayor Has Breakfast With Atlantic Yards 'Leaders'."
We've dutifully repaired some additional errors below.
The mayor had a power-packed breakfast this morning, hosting the major
players&$$#@!%s behind the Atlantic Yards development project at Gracie Mansion.Bagels were on the menu for this morning's breakfast meeting between Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov, arena developer Bruce Ratner and Nets co-owner Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter.
Prokhorov is in the city this week to take park in the NBA draft, after closing on a deal last week to buy 80 percent of the Nets and
4045 percent of the arena, which will be called theBarclayBarclays Center. The arena is now under construction at theformerfuture site of the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 2:06 PM
May 18, 2010
Justice Friedman limits oral argument to issue of whether case involving Development Agreement should be transferred to Gerges in Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, I asked: will the Atlantic Yards Development Agreement--which gives far longer deadlines than officially proclaimed when the project was approved--get its day in court?
Well, it didn't happen today and it's looking less likely (though not impossible).
In a hearing that lasted little more than 20 minutes, Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman limited argument in the case, known as Peter Williams Enterprises, et al., vs. New York State Urban Development Corporation (aka Empire State Development Corporation, or ESDC), to questions of venue--whether the case even belonged in her court.
Her announcement at the start perked up ESDC attorney Philip Karmel and left the 15 or so project opponents in the audience somewhat frustrated. (Also in the audience, a few attorneys for Forest City Ratner, the meter ticking.)
Should she agree that it does, rather than move the case to a condemnation judge in Brooklyn who has ruled without question in the ESDC's favor, she'll then entertain arguments on the merits of the case.
Posted by eric at 11:16 PM
Atlantic Yards Was Not the Way to Do a CBA
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Ratner touted the Atlantic Yards "Community Benefits Agreement" (CBA) as a gem centerpiece of his project. But the CBA establishment understands that the Atlantic Yards CBA is bogus and does not compare favorable to legitimate CBAs. In other words, the CBA was a publicity stunt, rather than the historic agreement Ratner claims. (Note: When legitimate CBAs are struck, community opposition disappears, rather than builds over 7 years as it did with Atlantic Yards.)
Last night the Bar Association of the City of New York hosted a panel discussion titled Community Benefits Agreements: Time for Reform? One thing coming out of that panel is absolutely clear: if New York is going to have CBAs, the way they are done needs to be reformed entirely.
Related coverage...
Noticing New York, New York City Bar Association Program on Community Benefits Agreement Reform: Atlantic Yards Mega-monopoly as Unsurpassable Example of Abuse
Yes, in some respects Atlantic Yards tactics reflect a typical divide-and-conquer-the-community strategy like other CBA situations, but Atlantic Yards itself provides a textbook worth of material to show how Community Benefits Agreements can be manipulated and abused. And it’s likely unenforceable to boot!
Posted by eric at 10:49 PM
Atlantic Yards Hits Air-Rights Turbulence
ArtInfo
Does real estate have a memory? New York City has seen its share of bungled, back-and-forth construction projects that, once completed, become part of the urban fabric, their birth pangs forgotten. The Guggenheim, for instance, was once the target of the wrath of artists, who refused to display art in a building they considered a monstrosity; after the instant landmark opened, all was forgiven.
But while public sentiment seems to be swinging in favor of the World Trade Center rebuilding project, it's less certain whether the turmoil can ever burn off of another convoluted endeavor across the river: Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. Just as Forrest [sic] City Ratner seemed to win over the last of the neighborhood's anti-construction holdouts, another canny local has slapped the developer with an arcane "air rights" lawsuit.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Panel discusses CBA reforms; in successful West Coast CBAs, signatories don't take developer cash; developer pays upfront for affordable housing
Atlantic Yards Report
Even if experts disagree on some aspects of reforming Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) in New York City, they pretty much agree on several factors that, in their absence, detract from the legitimacy of the Atlantic Yards CBA:
- signatories shouldn't take money from the developer
- the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP) shouldn't be circumvented
- the CBA should have real teeth in it
The panel discussion last night at the Bar Association of the City of New York was titled Community Benefits Agreements: Time for Reform? (Audio is here.)
Beyond debate about whether the city should establish rules on CBAs--a recommendation in a Bar Association report issued in March--panelists also agreed that policies on issues like local hiring and living wages should be institutionalized citywide rather than subject to project-by-project negotiations.
The presence of such policies would vitiate the appeal of CBAs like the one for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:35 AM
May 17, 2010
Tuesday at 2:30 pm: will Development Agreement get its day in court?
Atlantic Yard Report
My preview, redux:
The last Atlantic Yards case to reach oral argument will be heard tomorrow, May 18; the issues include whether the belatedly-released Development Agreement can be formally added to the case and whether the case remains before a Manhattan judge already critical of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) or moved to a Brooklyn judge who has ruled without question in the ESDC's favor.
The case, known as Peter Williams Enterprises, et al., vs. New York State Urban Development Corporation (aka ESDC), will be heard at 2:30 pm at 60 Centre Street, room 335, before Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman.
Posted by eric at 11:28 PM
Atlantic Yards math! A minimum from one perspective is a maximum from another (arena community events, parking spaces)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder peers through the looking glass at Atlantic Yards, where one plus one usually adds up to anything but two.
Sometimes the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner talk out of both sides of their collective mouth, thus challenging the spirit, if not the letter, of agreements regarding both surface parking and community events at the arena.
The minimum number of community events promised is also the maximum allowed.
The maximum number of surface parking spaces permitted is also the minimum required.
It's Atlantic Yards math!
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
Tues, May 18. Oral Argument on Eminent Domain Related Atlantic Yards Case
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Legal arguments in the following lawsuit will take place Tuesday, May 18th, at 2:30 PM in Manhattan. Keep in mind, when timing your arrival, that there is a security check to go through.
Details:
PETER WILLIAMS vs. NYS URBAN DEVELOPMENT CORP
Tuesday, May 18.
2:30 PM
New York County Supreme Court
60 Centre Street [Map]
Room 335
ManhattanOral argument on Article 78 lawsuit seeking to compel the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) to make new Eminent Domain Procedure Law (204) findings and determinations.
A number of property owners and tenants in the footprint brought this lawsuit in January 2010 arguing that the eminent domain takings were based on a 2006 approved plan that no longer exists. If the property seizures are going to occur, they must be for the drastically altered current plan—a basketball arena and one building—not for the project originally conceived with the promise of 2,250 affordable housing units, 16 towers and 10,000 jobs. The case argues that the ESDC must make new findings and determinations under the States's Eminent Domain Procedure Law.
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
May 16, 2010
AY Report: Daily News Fails to Clarify Prokhorov, Prokhrov Should Move to Brooklyn, Development Follows Economic Growth
Atlantic Yards Report
Here is a critical look at a piece appearing in today's Daily News.
David Stern says that the firm the NBA hired to investigate Prokhorov's business background could find no reason why he shouldn't be an owner. He wouldn't name the firm because he worries that identifying it might compromise the firm's ability to conduct future investigations. Stern did say it was not a law firm, and that the league has used the group's services in the past.
"We retained a firm that has important investigative assets and contacts on a global basis," says Stern. "We made additional discrete inquiries of various agencies and departments that are not at liberty to talk to us on the record. We made a complete round of inquiries."
Well, it's a little more complicated, isn't it? Is Renaissance Capital's only presence in Zimbabwe stock research, as a spokesman for the firm, owned in significant part by Prokhorov, told the Times?
The Times whiffed, but the Zimbabwe government newspaper stated that Renaissance Capital was among several companies that "have confirmed their participation" in an investment summit in February.
Wishful op-ed from the Daily News: "Nets' owner Mikhail Prokhorov should move to Brooklyn"
The New York Daily News, fresh from a wishful editorial urging Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov should help build affordable housing, now publishes a wishful op-ed that urges Prokhorov to move to the borough:
By committing to live in Brooklyn, Prokhorov can signal that he intends for the communities around the Barclays Center to remain livable.
Um, if he moves to the area Dean Street and Carlton Avenue, where thousands of people will walk to and from a massive surface parking lot, it'll be a bit of a challenge.
...
And what to make of this, from the op-ed:
The more Prokhorov incorporates Brooklyn into his plans, the more thoroughly we will embrace him. I hope that the Barclays Center forgoes bland, corporate and instead offers the beloved Latin American cuisine sold at the Red Hook ball fields, along with sublime stromboli from the Bari Pork Store in Gravesend and, of course, hearty Russian fare from Brighton Beach. All beer should come from locals like Brooklyn Brewery and Sixpoint Craft Ales.
(Emphasis added)
That's not how it works. A look at the Barclays Center web site tells us:
A partnership with the Barclays Center consists of a limited list of elite, category leaders known as our Founding Partners and Sponsors. These partners form the foundation that will have a direct connection to the evolution of a community, award-winning architecture and entertainment.
They include:
Bud Light Established in 1852, Anheuser-Busch Companies is one of the world's largest brewers; best known for Budweiser and Bud Light, as well as such labels as Busch and Michelob. In addition to beer, Anheuser-Busch produces energy drinks and non-alcoholic malt beverages.
Anheuser-Busch has several operations outside of brewing as well, including its Busch Entertainment theme-park business. Anheuser-Busch has taken large strides in recent years to become an industry leader in recycling, supporting renewable energy, and environmental efficiency.
Which comes first, economic growth or real estate development?
Remember how Gov. David Paterson claimed Atlantic Yards would "have job creation the likes of which Brooklyn has never seen?"
Consider this quote: Real estate development doesn't create economic growth, it follows it.
(Italics in original)
The source is The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, by Roberta Brandes Gratz.
I'll write more about the book shortly, but suffice it to say, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, with a "never-ending waiting list for production businesses wishing to get in," comes off far better than does Atlantic Yards.
As it should. Remember the $6 billion lie?
Posted by steve at 8:10 AM
May 15, 2010
BYE Freddy's
Photo, by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
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485 Dean Street at 6th Avenue
formerly Freddy's Bar and Backroom
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkFreddy's has closed, hoping to reopen nearby. This building is now vacant and will be demolished for the Barclays Center of Atlantic Yards.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Tracy Collins: more images of 481 Dean and Freddy's, as demolition approaches
Photographer Tracy Collins, who's steadily chronicled the Atlantic Yards site (and more), has just posted photos of 481 Dean Street (the first two) and its nearby neighbor Freddy's Bar & Backroom, empty and awaiting demolition after a fence is installed.
Posted by steve at 7:29 AM
Dean St. Block Assoc. Meeting Monday, May 17, 7:30-9pm
Included on the agenda for this meeting:
Atlantic Yards: Are you struggling to understand what is going on? Come with your questions and concerns. Among other things, we will discuss the recent approval of mechanical demolitions for the arena block, the locations of construction staging, the problems caused by increased traffic, and continue laying plans for the future.
Posted by steve at 6:59 AM
May 14, 2010
NBA: NETS CEO Brett Yormark Tells It Like It Really Is!
The Huffington Post
by Steve Ettlinger
At last we agree on something.
After years of hyperbole from developer and Nets' owner Bruce Ratner and his Nets chief, Brett Yormark, concerning the Nets' intended move to Brooklyn, CEO Yormark finally said something that is both entirely believable and astounding in an interview with Julian Garcia on DailyNews.com Wednesday:
"There was an incredible amount of uncertainty with Brooklyn, and through Bruce's incredible efforts, (it got done)," Yormark said. "And he deserves all the credit in the world. No one thought he was going to get it done."
Either he's lying, or he's very confused. I dunno, but the CEO who's been involved in all the planning and worries and effort to make this thing happen should know the score if anyone does. And he's the guy who kept saying it could and would and will happen. Phew.
Posted by eric at 1:12 PM
May 13, 2010
Life After Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein led the fight against the Atlantic Yards mega-project for years. Days before moving out of his home, he spoke with The Indypendent about why he fought so long and what he learned.
The Indypendent
by John Tarleton
Here's a must-read interview with last-man-standing Daniel Goldstein. We've excerpted some of the highlights.
[Daniel] Goldstein had hoped to put down roots in Prospect Heights, then an increasingly vibrant low-rise neighborhood near where Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues converge and within walking distance of Boerum Hill, Clinton Hill, Park Slope and Fort Greene. Instead, Bruce Ratner moved into the neighborhood too, and in a big way.
The billionaire developer whose giant Forest City Ratner real estate firm bears his name, announced his plan to purchase the New Jersey Nets basketball team and move it to Brooklyn. With the support of powerful political allies, Ratner was promised 22 acres of prime real estate around the Atlantic Yards rail terminal (including the block on which Goldstein lives) to build a basketball arena and 16 luxury condominium towers, a $4.9 billion dollar project that would eventually receive almost $2 billion in direct and indirect government subsidies.
Ratner’s allies hailed the project as a jobs and affordable housing panacea. A small army of opponents, including Goldstein, cried foul, saying the project was a billiondollar boondoggle that would wreck several Brooklyn neighborhoods while failing to deliver its promised benefits. And they did more than that. They got organized in a major way, forming a tenacious organization called Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which battled Ratner and his cronies in the courts of law and public opinion for years.
Goldstein emerged as the leader of the group, through which he met his wife Shabnam Merchant, who was also organizing against Ratner’s mega-project. The last property owner holding out against the project, Goldstein folded in April, taking a $3 million settlement from Ratner after all his legal options were finally exhausted. Days before he and his family were slated to move out of their home, Goldstein took a break from the chaos of packing to speak with The Indypendent about why he had stuck it out so long, the wisdom of fighting City Hall and what he might pursue next, including a possible future in politics.
...JT: What will be the long-term impact of the fight over the Atlantic Yards project on other projects like it in the city?
DG: There’s been some impact as far as the Columbia [University] expansion and the victory that property owners there had in court over eminent domain. I think many community organizations will learn from the fight we waged. If there is an attempt to ram a project like this down the throat of a community again, it will be fought in a similar fashion.
...JT: Why did you make the deal with Ratner?
DG: On March 1, I became a tenant of New York State after the state took ownership of my apartment, from which it was preparing to evict me. Had I gone all the way to being evicted, I would have had to leave my home and then go back to court just to get maybe fair-market value for my home. Whether or not I accepted a settlement, it would not have impacted the fight against the project.
There was a four-hour back-and-forth separately between attorneys on each side and the sticking point wasn’t money, it was they wanted a complete gag order on me that I refused to accept. If I had, I wouldn’t be talking to you now or say anything ever again about the project. It was gut-wrenching. I wish it had never come to that. I would give back all of the settlement money if none of this had ever happened, if the neighborhood could be restored and grow in the way that it had been growing.
...JT: If somebody came up to you and asked if is it really worth it to fight City Hall, what would you say to them?
DG: Absolutely. I think it’s worth it. Everyone should fight City Hall when they think there is an abuse of power. There’s a lot to resist and fight against and expose and try to reform certainly when it comes to eminent domain and how development proceeds in the city.
Posted by eric at 11:50 PM
Ratner, Prokhorov: A Winning Combination
GlobeSt.com
by Alyson Grala
Yes, nearly as impressive a combination as eminent domain abuse and massive corporate welfare.
Prokhorov’s agreement to buy the Nets, and take a stake in the arena that will house them, pulled the entire $4-billion Atlantic Yards project from the brink of a collapse brought on by a slack economy, lawsuits and cost-overruns associated with Frank Gehry’s initial design.
...But not everyone was as fired up about Prokhorov coming to Brooklyn. Several lawmakers called for a delay to the approval due to allegations that Prokhorov earned his billions in part through shady business dealings with Zimbabwe, a country under US sanction. One of the more vocal, New Jersey Congressman Bill Pascrell Jr. (D) said in a statement, "Mr. Stern has refused to confirm or deny to me whether the league's vetting operation looked at Mr. Prokhorov's businesses in Zimbabwe and his investment bank's ties to a massive public corruption scheme." Pascrell, who's district is based in Paterson, NJ, added, "This is simply unacceptable to me and the millions of basketball fans across the country who hold the NBA to a higher standard.
NoLandGrab: Higher standard? It's pretty clear by now that the NBA doesn't have any standards.
Posted by eric at 11:15 PM
In Daily News, Yormark defends Ratner; wishful editorial urges Prokhorov to build subsidized housing planned for AY project
Atlantic Yards Report
Prokhorov, with ownership interests in the team and arena, has an option for 20% of the rest of the project, but no role in it. He has no obligation to build the subsidized housing nor has he made a commitment to do so. He got involved in Atlantic Yards as a platform for business expansion in the United States.
The affordable housing will be built if the city and state administrations assign enough scarce subsidy dollars to do so. What no one's analyzed is whether more such housing could be built elsewhere with the same dollars.
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
Netsky prospect: Russian mogul brings pro basketball closer to Brooklyn
NY Daily News, Editorial
Another in a long line of nonsensical Daily News editorials fluffing Atlantic Yards.
There are two ways Prokhorov, a 6-foot-7 Russian playboy who made most of his rubles in the metal business, can play his role as 80% owner of the Nets and 45% owner of a new arena under construction at Flatbush and Atlantic Aves.
He can sit back as the Nets - currently ranked 26th of 30 NBA teams in total value - see their stock soar upon relocating to the new Barclays Center. Then he could sell the team for a pretty penny and let that be that.
Or, he could put a full-court press on Brooklyn - investing time, attention and money in one of the greatest places on the planet while building what's now a JV squad into a championship-caliber franchise.
Brooklyn, denied a pro sports franchise since the team that shall not be named went West in 1957, deserves the full-court press.
Hand in hand with partner Bruce Ratner, Prokhorov must ensure swift construction of a first-class sports and concert venue. He must work to ensure that the rest of the promise of developer Ratner's Atlantic Yards is fulfilled, complete with thousands of units of affordable housing.
He must make good on Ratner's commitment of thousands of affordable seats for Brooklynites.
NoLandGrab: Yeah, Proko will be in it for the good of Brooklyn — just like Bruce is.
Posted by eric at 11:44 AM
Wall Street Journal on Atlantic Yards
Future Of Capitali$m
On its New York sports page, the Wall Street Journal covers a Reverse Robin-Hood: Mikhail Prokhorov, whose fortune has been estimated at $17 billion, gets to build a new basketball stadium in Brooklyn for the Nets in partnership with Bruce Ratner with $511 million in tax-free bonds. The article is headlined "Bruce Ratner Looks Back on His Ownership of the New Jersey Nets," but it might have been headlined, "American taxpayers, many of whom are struggling to raise capital to invest in their businesses without tax-exempt financing, pay to subsidize stadium for a man who could have afforded to build it with his own money."
NoLandGrab: That pretty much nails it.
Additional coverage...
Bergen Record, Nets: Ready, set, rebuild
The Nets have undergone a change in ownership and philosophy.
The sale from Bruce Ratner to Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, which was finalized Wednesday, means the Nets will make winning basketball games a priority again and not have to worry about shedding salaries and costs.
...When Ratner purchased the Nets six years ago for $300 million, he bought a team that had been to two straight NBA Finals. But Ratner wanted the Nets for real estate reasons, to move them to Brooklyn, which will be a reality because of Prokhorov.
Under Ratner and his ownership group, winning became secondary and cutting costs the norm. It led to Kenyon Martin’s trade in 2004 and Jason Kidd’s forced exit in 2007, and contributed to the Nets going from a 52-win squad during the 2001-02 season to a 12-win team this campaign.
NY Post, Nyet gain for Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Done Deal: New Nets Owner Prokhorov Approved By NBA’s Board of Governors
NBC New York, Russian Basketball Comes to Brooklyn
NY Post, Nets new owner Prokhorov gets good reviews
"The happiest man in all this has to be Bruce Ratner," said one opposing executive who, like many NBA execs, coaches and assistants, yesterday saw approval of Prokhorov as a positive for the league but asked for anonymity because he didn't want to publicly address another team's dealings. "Ratner got in it for the real estate and got screwed but only after he screwed the Nets."
One coach called Prokhorov the "Russian Mark Cuban who is going to do whatever it takes to win." He was alluding to the Dallas owner's vast wealth and competitive drive to win.
The real Mark Cuban welcomed Prokhorov into the NBA's ownership ranks.
"I think it's great," Cuban said via e-mail. "His desire to win, and his personality are a huge positive for the NBA."
NLG: The value of a ringing endorsement from Cuban, however, may be somewhat negligible, like the financial health of Cuban's own team...
The New York Times, Minority Owner Sues Cuban, Calls Mavericks ‘Insolvent’
Mark Cuban’s financial management of the Dallas Mavericks was described as reckless in a lawsuit filed Monday in Texas by a minority investor in the team who accused Cuban of amassing net losses of $273 million and debt of more than $200 million.
Ross Perot Jr., who sold Cuban control of the team in 2000 but retained a small stake, said in the state court filing that the team was essentially insolvent and lacked the revenue to pay its debts.
The NBA appears to have about as much interest investigating the Mavericks' alleged insolvency as it did Prokhorov's ties to international pariah Zimbabwe:
The N.B.A. does not seem to be worried by Perot’s accusations.
Adam Silver, the deputy commissioner of the N.B.A., said the league had “absolutely no concern” about Cuban’s financial situation.
NLG: The league, however, might one day have to reckon with its being one big house of cards.
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
Salute Daniel!
The Brooklyn Paper, Letters
To the editor,
I was outraged to learn in December, 2003, that Forest City Ratner was going to build a huge urban center between our neighborhood and Fort Greene. None of us had heard anything about such a plan.
At the time, it was reported as an accomplished fact, even though there had been no consultation through community groups. We also felt betrayed that Borough President Markowitz and Mayor Bloomberg were advocating by-passing the usual Uniform Land Use Review Process.
Daniel Goldstein quickly mobilized an opposition and came to many community meetings to see who else felt as indignant as he did (“The $3M man,” April 23). Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn was forming, and Daniel began to assume responsibility for organizing the group based on his democratic ideals and desire to preserve the diversity of the neighborhood. Also, his apartment in the footprint was something to defend.
...The $3 million Daniel got from Ratner for his apartment after seven years of struggle is barely sufficient. A significant portion will go to legal fees. His family will be able to find another place to live among us in the community to which they have shown such a fierce commitment. And they will get modest back pay for the sacrifice of living in a nearly abandoned building and receiving for more than full-time work the modest amount that we were able to raise so that Daniel could speak eloquently and honestly on our behalf.
Susan Metz, Prospect Heights
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
May 11, 2010
Oral argument postponed in case regarding call for new eminent domain findings; ESDC wants case moved to Brooklyn, says Gerges already decided issues
Atlantic Yards Report
Update: The case has been rescheduled for Tuesday, May 18 at 2:30 pm.
The last Atlantic Yards case to reach oral argument will be heard
tomorrowMay 18th; the issues include whether the belatedly-released Development Agreement can be formally added to the case and whether the case remains before a Manhattan judge already critical of the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) or moved to a Brooklyn judge who has ruled without question in the ESDC's favor.The case, known as Peter Williams Enterprises, et al., vs. New York State Urban Development Corporation (aka ESDC), will be heard [on May 18th] at
11 am2:30 pm at 60 Centre Street, room 335, before Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman.The Development Agreement
The plaintiffs argue that the ESDC should not have relied on the 2006 Determination and Findings (D&F) to exercise eminent domain but instead should have issued a new D&F describing the public use to be served by the project as of 2010, given that the Development Agreement, among other documents, points to a much longer buildout.
I previewed the arguments on 4/9/10 and covered the brief hearing on 4/12/10; as noted below, a major pending issue is whether the case should be moved to Kings County Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges, who already ruled against similar arguments in the effort to block condemnation, but didn't evaluate the Development Agreement.
As for the Development Agreement, Friedman is already considering it in motions to reopen a separate case challenging the legitimacy of the claimed ten-year buildout. She had ruled against the petitioners, two coalitions of community groups, but had refused to open the record to the Development Agreement, released in late January.
Even as construction proceeds on the arena, the fundamental question, to attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff (who represents petitioners in the D&F case), is whether the ESDC will succeed in its "bad faith attempt to conceal the true nature of the Atlantic Yards Project from Petitioners and the public at large until after the time to challenge it has expired."
Posted by eric at 12:34 PM
May 10, 2010
In Safdie's New Satire, Architecture Has Tragic Consequences
Architectural Record
by Rachel Somerstein
Not much rankles like large-scale urban development. Take, for instance, some of the more extreme claims regarding the plan for a sports arena at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards: ill-conceived, a waste of taxpayer money, a circumvention of the democratic process. But would anyone go so far as to indict it, or any other development, as a cause of death?
"More extreme claims?" Those seem pretty straightforward to us.
That’s the central accusation in Los Angeles writer Oren Safdie’s play, The Bilbao Effect. The new work is a tragicomic satire in which a Staten Island resident takes an architect to a court of sorts—a hearing in front of fellow American Institute of Architects members—because he blames the aggressive form and metallic skin of a project by the designer for the circumstances leading up to his wife’s suicide.
...Despite parallels between Safdie’s play and the real Atlantic Yards—it contains explicit references to Frank Gehry, the project’s original architect (he stepped down in 2009)—the writer says he doesn’t intend to mirror a specific situation or designer.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Are criticisms of Atlantic Yards "extreme claims"? Only to a reviewer uninformed of some rather mainstream critiques
As I commented, why exactly are "ill-conceived, a waste of taxpayer money, a circumvention of the democratic process" deemed "some of the more extreme claims regarding the plan for a sports arena at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards"?
After all, the New York City Independent Budget Office called the arena a money-loser for the city and Municipal Art Society then-President Kent Barwick, not exactly a radical, suggested, “Maybe the absurdity with which that proceeded will awaken the desire for a more rational process.”
Posted by eric at 11:20 PM
The filming is done
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
On Wednesday Dan and Shabnam moved all of their possessions out of their home. On Thursday they had a party to say goodbye to their apartment with many of the people that they fought alongside over the last half dozen years. On Friday they cleaned up and moved on.
We shot all of these events and are beginning to go through the materials. While the struggle to amend the project continues, our filming is done.
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
Pro Bono Barrister: Will Plaintiff Weiss Follow Plaintiff Goldstein?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Charles F. Otey, Esq.
The Atlantic Yards saga makes a cameo appearance in the Eagle's "weekly column dedicated to telling about the good that lawyers do," which defends upstanding citizens Marty Markowitz and Greg Atkins against claims of sexual harassment, calling the former Brooklyn's most "respected spokesman."
As we all discovered — some to their dismay and chagrin — even so determined a crusader as Daniel Goldstein, who inveighed for years against the “injustices” inherent in the construction of the huge Atlantic Yards project, ultimately had a “price.” He took $3 million for an apartment that cost him under $600,000. A nifty profit. And he earned it.
...As for Daniel Goldstein, long a media favorite as spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, weaving a drama in which he was cast as David against ‘Goliath Bruce Ratner, he is not a “sellout.” His ($3 million) settlement was totally foreseeable by anyone who’s been around long enough to have witnessed a number of such ‘crusades.’
Interestingly the settlement, reached before Justice Abraham Gerges, was achieved off the record, which gives both parties the right to “spin” it any way they want. A former city councilman and Interim Administrative Judge, Justice Gerges’ reported suggestion of the off-the-record settlement played a key role in bringing this matter to a conclusion.
Posted by eric at 10:45 AM
Does belatedly-released Development Agreement change nothing? So claims FCR; Justice Friedman faces motions to reopen case regarding AY timeline
Atlantic Yards Report
"The Development Agreement changes nothing."
So declares Forest City Ratner in a blistering and brazen defense of the ambiguous document, kept under wraps until late January, that sets an outside date to complete Atlantic Yards in 25 years but also seems to obligate the developer to build the project, as promised, in a decade.
(The obligation involves penalties, by my calculation, that are only about $5.5 million for a 15-year delay, on top of $5 million for each of three Phase 1 towers if they're late and $10 million for a late arena.)
The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) is a bit more circumspect, stating the agreement's "terms are consistent with the information that was in the administrative record reviewed by this Court." The ESDC blames "petitioners' coordinated scorched-earth litigation strategy of filing multiple motions against the Atlantic Yards Project."
FCR and the ESDC point to clauses in the Development Agreement that point to daily fines for delays of $1000 or $10,000--more likely the former, as noted below--and say those are not trumped by larger penalties for delays in three towers.
Pending legal battle and judicial skepticism
The statements come in legal papers filed before State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman, asked to revisit her March 10 ruling that the ESDC's ten-year timeframe for Atlantic Yards was reasonable, thus not requiring a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement to reflect the burden of a 25-year project on communities or an annulment of the 2009 M0dified General Project Plan (MGPP).
Friedman already has reason to be skeptical of the developer and the ESDC, given that she previously wrote that the latter's rationale was "marginally sufficient to survive judicial scrutiny" and that its consideration last year of plan modifications "lacked the candor that the public was entitled to expect."
And she didn't consider the Development Agreement, signed in December 2009, three months after the project was approved, but released publicly only in January, a week after oral argument in this case.
Posted by eric at 9:18 AM
May 9, 2010
Messages from Freddy's after departure: "We are not blighted" and "No excuse for eminent domain abuse"
Atlantic Yards Report
When the operators of Freddy's Bar & Backroom vacated this premises this past week after closing, they left a few messages in the front window.
Posted by steve at 9:05 AM
Deputy Mayor hedging bets on whether AY arena will open in 2012; if so, haste to clear arena block more connected to Prokhorov deal than arena opening
Atlantic Yards Report
Will the Atlantic Yards arena open in October 2012, Forest City Ratner's goal, as stated in an affidavit by executive MaryAnne Gilmartin?
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported that Robert Lieber, deputy mayor for economic development, told the Brooklyn Real Estate Roundtable luncheon May 4 at the Brooklyn Historical Society, "You will see the first game played at the new arena at the end of 2012 or no later than 2013."
Well, maybe he was speaking casually, but October is not exactly the end of 2012.
And "no later than 2013" could mean February, midway through the basketball season, or it could mean the 2013-14 season, which begins in October.
Why the haste?
If so, it casts doubt on Gilmartin's claim that "it is essential to now vacate the buildings required for phase 1 of the Project, because the critical path to completion of the arena on schedule requires prompt realization of vacant possession of those properties."
Rather, it buttresses the argument made by condemnee (and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn co-founder/former longtime spokesman) Daniel Goldstein that the developer's haste to achieve vacant possession of the arena block--backed by the Empire State Development Corporation--was connected more to the desire to consummate the transaction involving the team/arena to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov before the NBA draft.
NoLandGrab: It looks like certified aerobics instructor Gilmartin is bending over backwards to accommodate Prokhorov.
Posted by steve at 8:47 AM
May 8, 2010
Vetting the Nets’ Suitor Is No Easy Task
The New York Times
By Richard Sandomir
The New York Times looks to see how well Mikhail Prokhorov, expected to become the new owner of the New Jersey Nets, might have been vetted by the NBA. What's discovered is that news reporting can be a lot of work.
Leagues generally do not say much about the details of vetting prospective owners. It is a sensitive personnel process most often involving very wealthy people. But Prokhorov is a special case.
First, a foreign owner of a major league United States team is a rarity (the only other one is the Nintendo money that went into acquiring the Seattle Mariners). Second, no American league has vetted anyone like Prokhorov, who has benefited mightily from Russia’s frenetic transformation to capitalism.
Last month, The New York Post reported that Prokhorov was doing business in violation of American and European economic sanctions against Zimbabwe and its dictator, Robert Mugabe.
The league and Prokhorov said he was not violating any sanctions. But the report was seized on by Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, who demanded that the Treasury Department, which administers the sanctions first imposed by President Bush in 2003, investigate Prokhorov. Pascrell, who has parochial interests in opposing the team’s move from New Jersey, said the real issue was who the N.B.A. did business with.
...
Mike Bass, a league spokesman, said, “We have no further comment on the congressman’s factually unsupported allegations."
Pascrell’s larger concern is whether the vetting of Prokhorov was thorough enough.
Last fall, Stern said the investigation into Prokhorov would be “very extensive, stringent, some would say, invasive.” On Friday, Bass said that generally, “it is fair to say that we do not routinely investigate the business operations of every company in which a prospective owner has invested.”
It makes you wonder what the league did not investigate about Prokhorov.
NoLandGrab: I thought that understanding the NBA's investigation was why we read this Times article.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, In shallow look at charges against Prokhorov, the Times can't verify claims that his company is active in Zimbabwe
The New York Times, which pursued "the journalism of verification" when in came to the murky saga of Megan and Jeff, authors of a publicity-seeking (seeming) stunt in Madison Square Park, today throws up its investigatory hands when it comes to expected Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
The article, headlined Vetting the Nets’ Suitor Is No Easy Task, is written by New York-based sports business reporter Richard Sandomir, with no cited help from Times staffers in Russia or in Africa, despite the expertise and assistance they might provide.
While the article leaves lingering questions about both Prokhorov and the NBA's vetting process, it also fails to evaluate some information that would raise even further questions about the alleged Prokhorov connection to sanctions-busting in Zimbabwe.
...
Sandomir notes that vetting a foreign owner is rare, and Prokhorov is the first "who has benefited mightily from Russia’s frenetic transformation to capitalism."
The Times does not ask the Treasury Department whether it has followed up on Pascrell's call for an investigation of sanctions-busting.
Sandomir concludes:
Last fall, Stern said the investigation into Prokhorov would be “very extensive, stringent, some would say, invasive.” On Friday, [league spokesman Mike] Bass said that generally, “it is fair to say that we do not routinely investigate the business operations of every company in which a prospective owner has invested.”
It makes you wonder what the league did not investigate about Prokhorov.
Rather than end with a reporter-as-columnist's lingering question, why can't the Times do some investigation of its own? It worked with Megan and Jeff.
Posted by steve at 8:15 AM
'Real' last holdouts to Nets’ Brooklyn arena project move out
New York Post
This is somewhat strange coverage of the Ahmed family moving from their Dean Street home.
As the Post first reported Tuesday, the Ahmeds nearly threw the $4.9 billion project for a loop after they emerged from their residence at 481 Dean Street days earlier and demanded more money to leave before the block could be razed.
Here is a claim that the ESDC, tool of developer Bruce Ratner, somehow didn't know the Ahmeds were still in residence.
Neither developer Forest City Ratner, nor the state – which had previously seized other private land for the controversial plan to build the Nets’ arena and 16 residential/commercial space towers – had been aware anyone was still living there.
The article ends with an odd statement about the Atlantic Yards project:
The timetable for the rest of Atlantic Yards, however, remains unclear because of the national credit crunch.
NoLandGrab: The timetable really isn't that unclear. The development agreement allows for a 20-year buildout. Maybe the credit crunch makes things uncertain, but so does the lack of need for any new condos or office space anytime soon.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Post: "Real last holdouts" move out; "sources" leak details on settlement; details, explanation still murky
Norman Oder finds the Post coverage puzzling.
The New York Post's Rich Calder quotes "sources close to the project" that the Ahmed family of 481 Dean Street (described as "worn-out" but looking pretty sturdy) finally left yesterday:
And complicating matters was a document that recently surfaced showing Aisha [Ahmed] became the true property owner through a divorce settlement, sources said. Because of that, she is expected to receive a sweet settlement worth "several million dollars" for vacating by today, instead of holding up the long-delayed project through eviction proceedings, a source said.
The family is also expected to get more than $250,000 in relocation costs. The developer has provided tenants within the 22-acre project footprint $85,000 per family to relocate, but Aisha was able to squeeze out three times that by demanding her two children also be considered leaseholders, sources said.
Given that no source is identified, all the details should be taken with a grain of salt. The $85,000 payment, for example, was for renters, so if Aisha Ahmed's the owner she wouldn't get it.
...
Calder writes:
Neither developer Forest City Ratner, nor the state – which had previously seized other private land for the controversial plan to build the Nets’ arena and 16 residential/commercial space towers – had been aware anyone was still living there.
In fact, state officials and the developer were under the impression that Aisha’s ex-husband, Naseer Ahmed, who is listed in city records as the building’s owner, agreed to sell so the project could proceed. But that never happened.
Again, this is confusing. It wasn't hard to notice the Ahmed family on Dean Street when attending, for example, a rally outside Freddy's Bar & Backroom nearby.
And it wasn't that the state "seized other private land," the Ahmed home at 481 Dean Street was part of the condemnation petition.
There's more to the story.
Posted by steve at 7:43 AM
From Tracy Collins: time-lapse photos, day and night, from 636 Pacific Street looking northwest at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues
Atlantic Yards Report
Photographer Tracy Collins visited Daniel Goldstein's building at 636 Pacific Street during both the day (May 4) and evening (May 6, the last night Goldstein and family were residents--to take two series of time-lapse photos.
As the photos show, the closing and demapping of Fifth Avenue, to the west of Goldstein's building, has made it much easier for Forest City Ratner to proceed with utility work and other site preparation on the arena block.
Also, as the photos show, the northwest end of the Atlantic Yards site truly is a borderland, with broad Atlantic Avenue to the north, a tower over the Atlantic Terminal mall, and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower (aka One Hanson) just to the west.
What's not shown is the southern border of Goldstein's building and the southern border of the site, lined by much narrower Dean Street and the row-house scale of Prospect Heights (as shown in the video I took).
Posted by steve at 5:08 AM
May 7, 2010
From Sixth Avenue to Dean Street and Pacific Street, a route no longer; Goldstein's exit interview with the Daily News; more debate on the settlement
Atlantic Yards Report
On Monday night, I filmed my walk from the north part of Park Slope, where I live, up to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn co-founder Daniel Goldstein's apartment in the Atlantic Yard footprint.
Flatbush Avenue is obviously a significant barrier between Park Slope and Prospect Heights, and the mostly residential character of Sixth Avenue changes to significantly commercial. The scale of the block, albeit with fewer trees, remains fairly consistent, although the handsome four-story 78th Precinct headquarters at Bergen Street does stand out.
There are row houses along the west side of Sixth up to Dean Street. Cross Dean into the footprint and there's Freddy's, being dismantled, and other buildings empty or emptying.
The walk goes onto private Pacific Street, divided by a jersey barrier and blue fence, leaving Goldstein isolated, and into his building, which boasted a new doorman of sorts, a guy in the entrance passageway keeping tabs.
The exit interview
I interviewed Goldstein for background to be used at a later date. Meanwhile, the New York Daily News, eschewing the ambush style of the New York Post, asked Goldstein for an interview and he agreed to help them fill their space.
Here's the close:
"We were living basically under uncertainty every day," he said. "The ups and downs are a drain ... and it causes tension in a family and stress in a family."
The uncertainty ended March 1, when the state took ownership of his home through eminent domain. Facing eviction, he accepted the $3 million settlement to leave by today.
Though his building will soon be demolished and the Atlantic Yards project will go forward, he said it was all worth it.
"I looked for years for a place to live and I ended up in this one. ... I don't necessarily believe in fate, but this was a calling for me," he said. "We don't regret any of it."
Posted by eric at 9:28 AM
Daniel Goldstein, $3 million Atlantic Yards holdout, packs his bags
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
It's moving day for Daniel Goldstein.
He'll leave his Pacific St. home for the last time today after fighting a losing battle to save his apartment, which sits at what will be center court in Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards arena.
"I feel proud about this fight," said Goldstein, who was inspired to fight the mega-project by his mother's death.
"But as far as the moment, I'm walking out the door and we can't come back in here again. I have to turn over keys, and leave a street I know we can never walk down again. I know I will feel sad about that."
Goldstein, 40, whose $3 million settlement two weeks ago drew both praise and criticism, spoke to the Daily News from his seventh-floor apartment in a living room piled high with moving boxes.
For nearly five years, he and his family have been the only residents living in the nine-story former warehouse.
He and his wife, Shabnam Merchant, 43, who he met as a fellow anti-Yards activist, and their baby daughter, Sita, will move to a rental a few blocks away while they search for a permanent place - and try to steer clear of Ratner's mega-project.
"We sometimes feel we never want to walk past this street," said Merchant.
Goldstein said 18-month-old Sita learned to sleep peacefully through the "building-shaking" 4 a.m. jackhammering that often kept him and his wife up at night.
"She's happily oblivious to pretty much anything," he said, adding there is at least one thing he wants to make sure Sita knows about.
"I have had some people say they'll make sure she knows what her parents did," he said. "I would hope ... she would be pleased to know that we did this."
Posted by eric at 9:21 AM
May 6, 2010
In coverage of Goldstein move, the New York Post lies and Forest City Ratner (apparently) displays its vindictiveness
Atlantic Yards Report
Evidence suggests that Forest City Ratner is still trying to be vindictive to Daniel Goldstein, and the tabloid press is a happy partner. The New York Post's Rich Calder, diminishing his integrity, wrote, in a blog post yesterday headlined It's game over for Nets Arena holdout Goldstein:
Here’s Brooklyn’s new $3 million man packing up his belongings and fleeing his longtime hood to pave way for Nets basketball.
Two lies, one sentence. He's not close to being a "$3 million man," given the cost of legal fees, taxes, and a replacement apartment. (Forest City Ratner's gained far more value from the override of zoning.)
And Goldstein, who's moving a short distance away, could hardly be said to be fleeing, after living alone in his building with his family for more than five years.
Who let the photographer in?
...Well, it is a private street, so why was photographer Benny J. Stumbo allowed? Did FCR tell the guard to let the photographer in? Does the Post really think that a picture of someone's baby is fair game?
Goldstein's response
I asked Goldstein for comment and he responded:
"The photographer was shooting right out on my street and shooting me. I do not know how he knew I was moving at that precise moment, but I have my guesses. When I told him to leave me alone and he wouldn't, we had a heated exchange (one in which I explained to him the street was private and residents and their visitors were only allowed, and he did not want to believe me despite a big sign saying so at the entrance to the street), ending with him telling me 'Put down your baby, take off your glasses and I will beat your ass.' It was an idle threat, but out of proportion to anything I did. I certainly did not threaten him in any way.
...Some perspective
Why was this more important news than any analysis of, say, the Development Agreement that sets 25 years as a deadline to finish the project?
Because the Post, like so many in the media, doesn't think its job is to hold public agencies accountable. Its job is to grab a few eyeballs, at whatever the cost to its reputation.
Posted by eric at 1:12 PM
It's game over for Nets Arena holdout Goldstein
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com]
by Rich Calder
A Post photog ambushed Daniel Goldstein and his daughter yesterday, on their allegedly "residents only" private street.
Daniel Goldstein, the longtime Atlantic Yards project holdout who last month accepted a $3 million settlement from developer Bruce Ratner that allows an NBA arena to be built, freaked out today outside his now-former Prospect Heights home after the Post photographed him watching movers pack his belongings into two large vans.
Goldstein, while holding his young daughter Sita in a baby carrier, got so furious that he yelled, "It’s a private street! Get off, or I’ll call the cops," said photographer Benny Stumbo. However, Stumbo said he had already gotten permission to shoot in front of the soon-to-be demolished condo complex at 636 Pacific Street from a security guard watching the fenced-up block for Ratner.
Alleged "security" guard.
Meanwhile, Ratner may have a new main nemisis.
As the Post web site first reported yesterday, real estate mogul Peter Williams says he owns air rights above part of the site of the planned Nets arena and that the project can’t be completed until the issue is settled.
He filed a suit accusing the state of failing to address his air rights when condemning property for the project, but says he’s ready to sell to Ratner or anyone for the right price.
Williams told the Post he was contacted by project opponents who are in the process of raising money to buy the air rights before Ratner can. He declined to give his asking price but said he’d "prefer" to sell to the opponents because he considers Ratner a "bully."
The opponents, he said, could then take over the court challege. If the court sides with Williams or the opponents, it could take up to two years for the state to be able to condemn the air rights and clear the way for the project -- time that Ratner doesn’t have.
Posted by eric at 12:54 PM
MOVING TRUCKS PACK UP THE LAST REMAINS OF ATLANTIC YARDS
The Brooklyn Ink
by Todd Stone
While the headline is all wrong — "Atlantic Yards" is still just a trade name, as well as a euphemism for "worst land-grabbing, subsidy-bloated, mega-development boondoggle ever" — this article captures the essence of footprint moving day.
At the intersection of Dean Street and 6th Avenue yesterday, a U-Haul truck was parked outside of what used to be Freddy’s, a legendary Prospect Heights bar that served its last round of drinks over the weekend, after more than 70 years in business.
Freddy’s is among the last of the tenants of Atlantic Yards to pack up and leave – to make way for the much-protested construction of a basketball stadium for the New Jersey Nets, made possible by state laws of eminent domain.
It was moving day yesterday, and with an air of acceptance, mixed with nostalgia, a group of about six – mostly former employees of the bar – removed large pieces of furniture from inside. One former employee named Michael walked out of the bar and into the heavy midday heat with a large monkey on his back made of wood.
“We’ve got to keep that,” one of the guys said to Michael as he passed.
Michael used to live just three doors down from Freddy’s on Dean Street, in a brownstone building also condemned for the Atlantic Yards project. He moved out in February, but his next-door neighbors, at 481 Dean Street, stayed on until they were discovered still living there on Monday, as reported by the the NY Post.
“I’ve seen them going in and out [of the their home] all along,” he said, as if to convey that it was no secret to him that they were still living there. The fact that they were still there certainly didn’t seem to bother him; if anything, he seemed impressed.
...While talking outside, a security man told [Forest City Ratner Community Liaison Bill] Murphy that there are people on the roof, gesturing to the building where Goldstein still lives. Realizing it was Goldstein’s building, Murphy said, “Don’t worry. It’s probably just Daniel Goldstein and his friends documenting the place.”
NoLandGrab: All the commotion must've distracted the security man, allowing the NY Post to sneak in and ambush Goldstein on Forest City Ratner's allegedly private street.
Posted by eric at 12:46 PM
Atlantic Yards Project: Another Brooklyn Holdout Emerges
Housing Watch
by Lisa Selin Davis
Out of the rubble -- literally -- of the Atlantic Yards construction zone, another family has emerged. A woman named Aisha Ahmed, whose ex-husband bought 481 Dean St. in 1988, is asking for $170,000 more than she has been offered -- or $85,000 for each child -- to vacate her property. We don't know what the previous offer was, nor do we know if the property has been officially sold, since no records have been found.
We do know that the state, the developers, and probably even the members of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, the organization that Goldstein led (until he retired as spokesperson after receiving his settlement) were unaware of the Ahmed family's presence. They are described as "elusive" and perhaps the building is in bad enough shape that it fits the definition of blight that Forest City Ratner, AY's developer, fought so hard to establish.
NoLandGrab: The "elusive" Ahmed family ingeniously concealed themselves by being the only people on the block with a light on, which can be seen in this photo (second building to the left of Freddy's), taken last Friday night by Tracy Collins.
And as the photo (also by Collins, click to enlarge) to the right shows, 481 Dean Street, the second building from the left, is hardly in "bad enough shape" to fit any objective definition of blight (that is, one not dreamed up by the Empire State Developmenter Corporation and Forest City Ratner), which Housing News would have known had they bothered to go round and look, or had they even just Googled "481 Dean Street," like we did.
Posted by eric at 12:18 PM
Starchitect on trial for creating monstrous ‘toaster on steroids’ Safdie delivers ‘shrewd, intelligent’ examination of the WOW! factor
The Villager
by Jerry Tallmer
The Villager reviews Oren Safdie's play, "The Bilbao Effect."
What Oren Safdie has here given us is a shrewd, clear-eyed up-to-the-minute exegesis on the hubris of a profession more sacrosanct in some ways than the medical; and more vulnerable — as when what seemed like all of Brooklyn rose up against the Atlantic Yards. Not to mention the ongoing nine-year fiasco of what was supposed to rise like the Phoenix from Ground Zero.
The Bilbao Effect in reverse, so to speak.
Posted by eric at 12:03 PM
ESDC, Have you No Shame (Or Fear) For the Irony of it All? Asking for a Court Comparison of Atlantic Yards to Battery Park City?
Noticing New York
With apparently no compunction or sense of the appalling irony of it all, ESDC has gone into court swearing that they have given the time and thought necessary to compare the inexcusable Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards project they endorse with that exemplar of large-scale development projects, Battery Park City.
For years we have been holding Battery Park City side-by-side with Atlantic Yards in order to stress by comparison what a bad large-scale project Atlantic Yards is. Even as recently as a few weeks ago we invoked the Battery Park City model when speaking with Senator Charles E. Schumer to make explicit why his continuing support for Atlantic Yards is misguided and sanctions unprecedented favoritism for a single developer mega-monopoly.
Atlantic Yards Report carried the story Monday that ESDC was attempting to invoke the inestimable good grace in which Battery Park City is held to counter the dismay provoked by Atlantic Yards documents that provide for the potential (some would say extreme likelihood ) that Atlantic Yards will involve “25 years of construction in Prospect Heights rather than the announced and promised ten years.” ESDC pointed to Battery Park City to argue that this wouldn’t be so bad and that presumably the promised 10 years should be considered no different from current 25 years provided for. Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder pointed out that this embarrassingly little feint was despite the fact that there were some “key contrasts” between the projects.
Posted by eric at 10:48 AM
Another look at the Peter Williams case: did easement come with building and could it be sold to opponents?
Atlantic Yards Report
WNYC reports on the case brought by Peter Williams Enterprises (PWE):
He says the state took his property by eminent domain but forgot about air rights he acquired above an adjacent building nine years ago.
...Forest City Ratner says Williams never owned the air rights but instead a light and view easement that he forfeited when he gave up his building.The lawsuit says that PWE was conveyed "certain property above the plane" of 24 Sixth Avenue, including, as noted in the underlying document, "the right and interest of light and air."
So that's property, but it isn't "air rights" in the sense of the right to build.
Does easement go with building?
It's plausible that a property owner would lose the benefit of an easement when that property is sold; as described in FindLaw, some easements typically remain with the property while others do not.
With the former, the "easement essentially becomes part of the legal description." However, as Williams's lawsuit states, the easement was never described in eminent domain proceeding.
And another twist
The New York Post reports:
Williams told the Post he was contacted by project opponents who are in the process of raising money to buy the air rights before Ratner can. He declined to give his asking price but said he’d "prefer" to sell to the opponents because he considers Ratner a "bully."
Related coverage...
WNYC Radio, Atlantic Yards Project Hit With Another Legal Challenge
A former Prospect Heights property owner says he still owns air rights over a small parcel where the Atlantic Yards arena is being built.
AP, Air-rights lawsuit seeks to derail Nets arena
Another lawsuit has been filed aimed at halting the Brooklyn development that includes a new arena for basketball's Nets.
Gothamist, Atlantic Yards Faces "Air Rights" Hurdle
Bruce Ratner must have exhaled a sigh of relief when outspoken nemesis Daniel Goldstein finally agreed to vacate the last apartment in the footprint of his multi-billion dollar Atlantic Yards site last month, giving way for the humongous project to begin construction. But just because no one is physically in his way anymore doesn't mean Ratner doesn't have to contend with more ethereal concerns!
Can't Stop The Bleeding, Final Atlantic Yard Holdout To Ratner : You Paid For The Ground, Now Cough Up For The Air
While Bruce Ratner was finally successfully in paying Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s Daniel Goldstein to leave his Brooklyn home, another local resident is presenting a separate challenge to plans to build a new Nets arena.
Posted by eric at 10:36 AM
May 5, 2010
Atlantic Yards holdout Peter Williams claims developer Bruce Ratner doesn't own air rights
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Just when developer Bruce Ratner thought he'd grabbed all the land he needed for his Atlantic Yards project, a property owner is staking one last claim - to the air above the site.
Peter Williams insists he still owns the air rights over a Sixth Ave. lot - and says the state forgot to condemn it when they used eminent domain to seize the rest of the site.
He sued the state Tuesday, charging the Empire State Development Corp. is trying to "steal" his property and "intends to proceed as if it owns property it plainly does not.
"They screwed up," Williams said.
...The state took possession of the Sixth Ave. building where Williams' grown children lived on March 1 - but never filed to condemn the air rights he owns over the former condo building next door.
"I have something of value that they're not paying me for," he said. "They're trying to run me over with a steamroller."
Williams came to own the air rights over the building next door in 2001, in return for letting the owner route an emergency exit through his property.
But other property owners at the project site can't follow Williams into court looking for a payday: Their air rights were taken by the state along with their land.
Without Williams' air rights, Ratner can't build anything taller than four stories at the site. He also can't claim the "vacant possession" of the project site he needs before turning over ownership of the NBA's New Jersey Nets to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. The Nets are slated to move into the Barclays Center arena in 2012.
Related coverage...
The Real Deal, AY air rights the latest hurdle for Ratner
A former Prospect Heights property owner is claiming to own the air rights to a part of the site where Bruce Ratner plans to build his new Nets arena and is suing the state for trying to "steal" it.
...If the court rules in Williams' favor, a state condemnation of his air rights could take up to two years -- time that could devastate the project.
Curbed, The Last Last Holdouts
Bruce Ratner thought he had cleared out the last Atlantic Yards holdout when he struck a $3 million deal with Daniel Goldstein, but it turns out Goldstein has competition for the "last holdout" title.
NY Post, Air-rights suit hits Nets plan
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
Noticing New York on the Goldstein settlement: the bargain the state enabled Ratner, bad public policy on free speech, and the ongoing battle
Atlantic Yards Report
Michael D.D. White has written a must-read on his Noticing New York blog, arguing that Forest City Ratner received a huge bargain (given the enormous development rights enabled by the state) when it settled with Daniel Goldstein for $3 million, that the developer will seek continuing advantage in the Atlantic Yards fight, that the state inappropriately assited Forest City Ratner in trying to muzzle Goldstein, and that the reporting on the settlement disserved the public.
I mostly agree, with a few amendments. As I wrote 4/30/08, regarding Ratner's purchases of other apartments in Goldstein's building:
While it looks like the developer was being generous, the enormous increase in development rights made it worthwhile--even if he had to pay, which he doesn’t.
In that case, Ratner was directly reimbursed by city taxpayers for the land purchases. In Goldstein's case, there's no more money in that specific kitty--but the developer has since found new ways to gain public concessions, and surely will continue to do so.
Posted by eric at 9:25 AM
May 4, 2010
In last-minute lawsuit, owner of easement in arena block seeks to preclude claim of vacant possession; his goal is money, not to stop arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Peter Williams, who owned an industrial building-turned-home (occupied by his two adult children, and a third person) in the Atlantic Yards arena block, settled weeks ago with Forest City Ratner.
Now he's brought an unusual lawsuit claiming that the state made a "colossal mistake" in not pursuing eminent domain for the easement bordering and above the Spalding Building at Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street. He acquired the easement in 2001 and owned adjacent 38 Sixth Avenue.
This could stop the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner from claiming they have achieved "vacant possession" of the arena block when current occupants leave by Saturday.
The easement prevents anything more than four stories from being built at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street--presumably precluding an arena.
Doh! Stupid easements!
Though the lawsuit raises the spectre of requiring a whole new process under the Eminent Domain Procedure Law (EDPL), Williams, a former plaintiff in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain cases, has not displayed a particular ideological bent. Rather, he's publicly said he's in it for the money.
NoLandGrab: What's a few million when you could be a hero to millions? Don't forget, Ratner had your son thrown in jail — for taking one of Ratner's spycams off your own building!
Posted by eric at 10:55 PM
Bklyn arena opponent sues state for allegedly screwing up condemnation proceedings
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com]
by Rich Calder
Hold the shovels. Again.
A real-estate mogul says he owns some "air rights" above the site of the planned Nets arena in Brooklyn — and that the billion-dollar project can’t be completed until he settles the issue with the developer.
Peter Williams — who has already received a money settlement from developer Bruce Ratner for handing over property he owned at the arena site — today filed a scathing lawsuit accusing the state of fowling up the project’s controversial condemnation process and trying to "steal" his air rights.
Or as Bruce Ratner and his lackeys at the ESDC like to call them, "err rights."
It alleges the state colossally blundered by never condemning air rights Williams has owned since 2001 above and around 24 Sixth Avenue in Prospect Heights when it previously condemned other land owned by project holdouts.
...If the court sides with Williams, it could take up to two years for the state to be able to "condemn" the air rights and clear the way for the project — time that Ratner doesn’t have.
The project nearly fell apart over earlier legal delays, and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov’s anticipated purchase of the Nets from Ratner is contingent on all the property being free and clear of any hurdles.
Wlliams said he filed the suit because he believes the state "screwed up" and he considers Ratner "a bully." He declined to say how much of a settlement he’s seeking but is open to one.
"I’m not a martyr like Daniel Goldstein," he said, referring to the leader of the project opposition group who last month ended a six-year holdout on his condo by agreeing to a $3 million settlement.
The suit raises the issue of whether air rights should be considered a separate property lot.
NoLandGrab: While Governor Paterson is threatening to furlough state employees, it sounds like ESDC attorneys will be working overtime.
Queens Crap, "New York State's Colossal Mistake"
This is the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project (in yellow).
The red outline shows a large piece of property that, according to opponents, the state forgot to condemn, which means the entire project is now in really serious jeopardy, if not dead.
And that payment that Bruce Ratner is making to Daniel Goldstein to get him out by Friday is really just a lot of money down the toilet now from Ratner's perspective, because Goldstein really was never the last obstacle. Actually, the last obstacle is the state's own stupidity.
How wonderfully ironic yet completely appropriate is this?
NoLandGrab: It's a actually a tiny lot adjacent to that red parcel (and air space above it), but it might well be large enough to cause Bruce Ratner and the ESDC a monumental (and, might we add, well deserved) headache.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Forgotten Land & People at Atlantic Yards?
Small blunders could be causing some big problems for the Atlantic Yards project.
Two unexpected events have recently arisen inside the footprint of Forest City Ratner’s proposed $4.9 billion development near Downtown Brooklyn, which project shall feature a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets.
Forgotten Parcel Not Codemned?
A piece of property about the size of a standard one-bedroom apartment in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards site was never officially condemned, says attorney Matthew Brinckheroff in an action filed in Kings County Supreme Court on behalf of the property’s owner.
...“Last week we wrote them and said, ‘You made a mistake,’” Brinckerhoff told the Eagle Tuesday. “ESDC [the state’s Empire State Development Corporation] said, ‘That’s not a piece of property; we already condemned it, even though we didn’t,’ and basically told us to go jump in a lake. So instead of jumping in a lake, we sued.”
...Brinckerhoff pointed out that in the UDC’s 2006 documents, they clearly state that in the “event of any inconsistency between the street addresses and the tax blocks and lots, the block and lot information shall control.”
He said that under state law, UDC must now hold a public hearing to consider condemnation of this lot and issue its results.
Posted by eric at 8:21 PM
Atlantic Yards: Property Owner Files Legal Action Based on New York State’s "Colossal Mistake"
Seeks to Prevent New York State From Claiming Right to Property It Forgot to Condemn for Forest City Ratner’s Basketball Arena
New York State Does Not Own All The Real Estate Interests In the Arena Block Of The Atlantic Yards Project
Peter Williams Enterprises, Inc. Press Release via Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
New York, NY— On Tuesday, Peter Williams Enterprises, Inc. (“PWE”), a company owned by Peter Williams, filed an action in New York State Court seeking a declaration of its ownership of a tax lot on the block where Forest City Ratner plans to build an arena for its professional basketball team.
PWE owns the property located at 24 Sixth Avenue, Brooklyn, New York, specifically, the entirety of Block 1127, Lot 7501 (“Lot 7501”). Unlike the other lots located at 24 Sixth Avenue (Lots 1001-1021), which were condemned by the New York State Urban Development Corp (the “UDC”), and recently leased to a Forest City Ratner affiliate, the UDC did not condemn Lot 7501.
Indeed, the UDC did not identify Lot 7501 in either its Notice of Public Hearing, pursuant to Article 2 of the EDPL, dated July 24, 2006 (the “Notice”), or its Determination and Findings, pursuant to EDPL § 204, dated December 8, 2006 (the “Determination”). Both the Notice and the Determination identified the property subject to acquisition by condemnation by block and lot. Both listed Lots 1001-1021as the only lots UDC sought to acquire located at 24 Sixth Avenue. Both expressly provided that the “street addresses are included for ease of reference only,” and that in the “event of any inconsistency between the street addresses and the tax blocks and lots, the block and lot information shall control.” Because Lot 7501 was never identified, it cannot be, and has not been, taken eminent domain.
In the Complaint, PWE’s attorney, Matthew Brinckerhoff of Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady, explained that: “If defendants want to acquire title to Lot 7501, they must do so through legal means. The UDC must follow the procedures set forth in the EDPL; it must hold a public hearing to consider condemnation of Lot 7501 and thereafter issue the predicate findings and determination. It cannot simply take that which it does not own.”
The Complaint and other documents establishing PWE’s claim can be obtained on request from mbrinckerhoff@ecbalaw.com.
NoLandGrab: Oops?
Posted by eric at 8:06 PM
“$hhh!” A Thieving Developer Wants Daniel Goldstein Quiet About Its Misdeeds, Meaning the Atlantic Yards Fight Ain’t Over
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White examines Forest City Ratner's headlong attempt to muzzle Daniel Goldstein.
After nearly seven years of fighting to stay in his home Mr. Goldstein, already stripped of his home ownership and facing imminent eviction as eminent domain was being wielded against him to build the basketball arena that is proposed to be owned by Forest City Ratner and a Russian close-to-the-Kremlin oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov, agreed to the compensation figure he would receive. That compensation turns out to amount to far less than that value of his property’s development rights and therefore far less than the value of what was taken from him, far less than the value of what we think he should have been entitled to. More on this further in.
The thing that was so odd in this process and about which the media yet failed to report is how important it was to Forest City Ratner to attempt to deprive Daniel Goldstein of his right to speak out against the project. Because of the way it was negotiated, with Daniel Goldstein stoutly refusing to give up his free speech rights, we will never know the exact dollar value Forest City Ratner put on his unrelinquished rights. We would have been thrilled if Mr. Goldstein had played the negotiations in a way that teased out that precise figure before he rejected it but had he been so clever he could have run the risk of appearing unprincipled and insincere to the judge.* Nevertheless, the fact that Forest City Ratner pressed hard to deprive him of his rights, enlisting the weight of the state and Judge Gerges in the negotiations to do so, has to be viewed as highly significant and startling.
(* Mr. Goldstein did find himself in a bit of an ironic PR box: It seems the more principled one is, the more altruistically principled people want you to be. Some thought Mr. Goldstein should have taken none of the compensation that was offered late in the game and should have been led out of his apartment in chain gang-style with the rest of his family.)
NoLandGrab: If Daniel Goldstein was in it for the money, then Forest City must've been in it for the stupidity. Claiming losses of $6.7 million per month while unable to take vacant possession, wouldn't it have made sense for them to offer him $6 million or $7 million on March 1st, the day that Justice Abe Gerges handed title over to New York State.
Posted by eric at 7:49 PM
Final Hold-Outs Emerge At Atlantic Yards
Brownstoner
This 'blighted' house at 481 Dean Street has emerged at the last minute as the final barrier to the bulldozers at Atlantic Yards. According to The Post, the Ahmed family is still living there and, despite having already accepted the standard $85,000 relocation fee Ratner was offering renters to move, refusing to budge.
...It turns out that neither Forest City Ratner for ESDC even knew people were still living in the house.
NoLandGrab: With all the spycams Ratner has trained on the neighborhood, no one noticed their comings and goings? The bloody lights were on Friday night during Freddy's almost-last-night party. And the ESDC can find micro-fissures in the sidewalks in their search for blight, but not an entire living, breathing family?
Related coverage...
The Brooklyn Ink, HOLDOUTS EMERGE IN ATLANTIC YARDS
After Prospect Heights resident Daniel Goldstein relented and took a $3 million buyout to vacate his condo, Forest City Ratner thought they were in the clear to begin razing properties to make way for their sprawling Atlantic Yards project. But a family has emerged from a property at 481 Dean St. and demanded $170,000 in relocation fees to leave.
Posted by eric at 12:36 PM
KPMG's lies about condo sales? ESDC calls "alleged inaccuracy" trivial and belied by current "robust demand," but ignores the deep discounts
Atlantic Yards Report
So what do the attorneys for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) say when faced with legal papers calling attention to a blatant lie from consultant KPMG regarding condo sales in Brooklyn?
They question the conclusion, call it trivial, and say it's belied by other evidence.
It's quite a strained performance, given that current prices at the Oro development are less than half the prices Forest City Ratner expects for condos coming on line in five years.
Timetable issues
The statement comes in a motion (below) arguing that Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman should not reopen the case in which she dismissed a challenge to the ESDC's 2009 approval of the Modified General Project Plan, though she criticized the ESDC’s “deplorable lack of transparency."
One of the key issues is whether it was reasonable for the ESDC to assume a ten-year timetable for the project and thus evaluate environmental impacts based on that scenario, an issue seemingly belied by the Development Agreement that sets 25 years as an outside date.
The condo market
But another key issue concerns the current condo market in Brooklyn.
The KPMG market study concluded that the market could absorb the projected market-rate units by 2019. In her 3/10/10 decision, Friedman wrote, on p. 9:
KPMG concluded that FCRC's residential absorption rate estimates were supported by current market data for condominiums...
(Emphasis added)
Current market data?
But they weren't supported by current market data, because the market data was a lie.
As I wrote 3/30/10, while KPMG said that as of last August the Oro condo development had sold 75% of its units, a 3/29/10 press release indicated that the development had finally reached the halfway mark. And a New York Times article demolished KPMG's claims regarding sales of Richard Meier's One Prospect Park.
NoLandGrab: The ESDC — liars or morons? You decide!
Posted by eric at 12:06 PM
Raze the stakes
New 'last' holdouts vs. Nets arena
NY Post
by Jeane MacIntosh and Rich Calder
And everyone thought Daniel Goldstein was the last holdout.
Developers of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project were thrown for a loop after a family emerged from a worn-down Brooklyn building last week -- and demanded more money to get out of the way of bulldozers ready to raze the block, several sources close to the project said.
The holdouts, who lease apartments at 481 Dean St. in Prospect Heights, are asking for at least $170,000 more to move out of the footprint of the Nets' new basketball arena.
"They saw that man got all that money last week and thought, why should they leave?" said a relative of Aisha Ahmed, whose ex-husband bought the building in 1988.
Posted by eric at 7:34 AM
May 3, 2010
Freddy's RIP
Today is a sad day for a lot of people who live close to Flatbush Ave. Fort Greene, Park Slope and further. In fact for a lot of Brooklyn. It is sad because Freddy's is closing. It's closing because greedy, glutinous rich people think they know what's best for this neighborhood & are erecting some god awful monstrosity that is going to turn this Neighborhood in to a Manhattan-esque commercial nightmare.
The Barclay's Arena.
NYDrinker, Freddy’s Bar and Backroom: Closes for good with a bang
Though there were rumors that the negotiations to reopen on 4th Avenue and Union Street have fallen through, everyone was sure Freddy’s would be back somewhere, at some time. For those who frequent its notorious Dean Street location, the night was more of a going away party for a good friend who was leaving for a long trip, as well as providing a bit of closure for a street corner that will never be the same. In the end, an angry sit in didn’t happen and the recently installed chains of justice remain unused. Turns out partying is just more fun, and seems like a more fitting way to say goodbye.
Brownstoner, Closing Bell: Freddy's Last Call
Friday was supposed to be the last night for Freddy's bar, the anti-Atlantic Yards stronghold which had been forced to close via eminent domain. They tacked on an extra night at the last minute, however, and photog Tracy Collins was there to document it in a Flickr photo set.
Gothamist, Freddy's Bar Closes Amid Relocation Rumors
Saturday night was the last night of revelry at the beloved Prospect Heights dive Freddy's Bar & Backroom, which had become an unofficial headquarters for the anti-Atlantic Yards protests.
Brooklyn Vegan, Freddy's Bar & Backroom stayed open one extra night
Freddy's Bar & Backroom, the Prospect Heights bar forced out by the Atlantic Yards project, had its final nights on Friday and Saturday. Friday was supposed to be the last hurrah, but the bar was open for business on Saturday too...
Posted by eric at 11:04 PM
2010 Freddy's Last Night, Really - May 1
Slideshow, by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
Freddy's Bar and Backroom
485 Dean Street at 6th Avenue
Prospect Heights
Brooklyn, New YorkMay 1, 2010 was really the last night for Freddy's at its Dean Street location. The entire block will be demolished for the Barclays Center Arena of Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Photos by Tracy Collins from Freddy's last last night
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, I visited the last last night for Freddy's Bar & Backroom from about 8:30 to 10:30 pm.
Photographer Tracy Collins arrived later and captured the scene at the bar, the Backroom, and the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue, slated to change significantly.
Here's his set; several examples are below.
The top chants of the night, I'm told:
- "Fuck the Nets. We Want the Funk"
- "We all Live at Sixth Avenue and Dean" (to the tune of "Yellow Submarine")
Posted by eric at 11:49 AM
The slow buildout at Battery Park City, according to the ESDC, serves as an acceptable example for Atlantic Yards. Except it doesn't.
Atlantic Yards Report
So what do the attorneys for the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) say when faced with legal papers expressing dismay about potential 25 years of construction in Prospect Heights rather than the announced and promised ten years?
They say it would be unimportant, and point to the example of Battery Park City--even though the latter is more than four times as large, with several other key contrasts.
The statement comes in a motion arguing that Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman should not reopen the case in which she dismissed a challenge to the ESDC's 2009 approval of the Modified General Project Plan, though she criticized the ESDC’s “deplorable lack of transparency."
...The truth about Battery Park City
Battery Park City is 92 acres, more than four time the 22-acre Atlantic Yards site, so the impact of staged development has been more attenuated.
It was built on a landfill, with no established neighborhood and longstanding street grid.
At Battery Park City, large portions of the 36 acres of open space were built first, while with Atlantic Yards, the buildings would come first.
Battery Park City involves multiple developers and multiple parcels, rather than a single developer controlling one site, choosing to move forward as it sees fit, with light penalties and many excuses for delay.
Posted by eric at 10:05 AM
the spunk lads played a final set at Freddy's on May 1st
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
Battle of Brooklyn filmmaker Michael Galinsky shot some video of one of the last songs ever played at Freddy's by Backroom legends The Spunk Lads. Click through for the vid.
This is one of the last songs The Spunk Lads Played. It was riotous.
I have been trying to find a way to write about the last couple of weeks of shooting, but it's difficult because there is so much going on with both the cut and the story.
After nearly 7 years of shooting it isn't so hard to figure out what the story is, but it is hard to let go of so many explosive threads of it. We watched the cut last night and it is definitely getting stronger all the time.
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
Having a lovely time, wish I was here
Raulism via YouTube
Scenes from the final final night at Freddy's, which might have been more aptly titled, "Having a lovely time, wish I could stay here."
The last night at Freddy's, before NY State takes possession to give it to a couple billionaires.
Posted by eric at 9:52 AM
May 2, 2010
AY Report: Last Last Night For Freddy's, Observer Editorial
At the last last night for Freddy's on Dean Street, Bruce Ratner says "obey"
Yes, the official final night at Freddy's Bar & Backroom was Friday, but managers knew it would be mobbed, so they scheduled a second, unofficial closing night last night.
In the Backroom, 26 musical acts--a good number sharing a musician or two--played short sets. Many photos and videos were taken (and should surface soon enough). The bar was full, but people could move--at least during the earlier part of the evening when I stopped by.
There was frustration and emotion, but also, of course, cameraderie. For many people, Freddy's has been that "third place," the not-work, not-home space where you meet your friends or simply where you are known.
This image of developers Bruce Ratner was distributed last night on postcard-sized stickers.
Freddy's is not about logos, other than some neon beer signs in the window. The sponsor-heavy successor structure near the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue will be plastered with logos.
Observer editorial declares "Progress in Brooklyn"
Norman Oder takes a look at an Observer editorial and finds it ignores the facts to make its point.
The Observer opines:
The saga of Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn may be about to reach a satisfying denouement. One of the most vocal opponents of developer Bruce Ratner’s plans for the site, Daniel Goldstein, has agreed to accept a $3 million payment for his apartment, despite having promised that he would stand his ground.
Wait a sec--he no longer owned his condo; it was owned by the state. Yes, he might have fought until the end, but that also would've exposed him to the risk of a lowball settlement.
The editorial continues:
There are no more residential holdouts on the 22-acre site, and the project’s opponents have lost one of their key allies in their long and loud opposition to Mr. Ratner’s project. The $4.9 billion plan should now move forward after languishing for far too long.
Actually, there are still several residents on the site, and they don't have to decide whether to be holdouts, because their homes would be subject to condemnation in the second phase of the project.
...
The editorial continues:
Mr. Ratner already has begun construction of a new basketball arena, the future home of the New Jersey Nets. But his plan to build as many as 6,000 apartments—30 percent of which are designed for moderate-income tenants—has stalled while opponents like Mr. Goldstein have stood in the way, insisting that Mr. Ratner’s plan was too ambitious.
Actually, Goldstein was in the way of the arena, and the sale of the team to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov. Ratner can't build the affordable housing until there are plans for towers, and subsidies.
The editorial continues:
It surely is ambitious, and not least because Mr. Ratner has set aside so many apartments for people of modest means, at least by New York standards Mr. Ratner has tried to do the right thing, as some tenant advocates have acknowledged. But in some circles in New York, it is a capital crime to speak well of a real estate developer or to suggest that a new project might be good for any given neighborhood.
The "tenant advocates" are led by ACORN, which is contractually required to support the project, was bailed out by Forest City Ratner, and stands to benefit--via successor New York Communities for Change--from managing the subsidized housing.
Unmentioned are the clauses in the Development Agreement that allow for delays in affordable housing.
...
The editorial closes:
Mr. Ratner has persevered, to his credit. Downtown Brooklyn will be a better place when the Atlantic Yards project is finished. If there is any justice, Mr. Ratner’s critics will concede the point when the time comes.
Well, Atlantic Yards would be in Prospect Heights. As for when it would be finished, in April 2009, then-CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation Marisa Lago said would take "decades."
Posted by steve at 8:02 AM
Fire Ceremony At Freddy's Last Last Night
Although Friday was billed as Freddy's last night at its current location, there were more amazing goings-on Saturday night.
Posted by steve at 7:56 AM
Freddy's RIP
Metromix
This article includes an extensive slide show of Freddy's from Friday night.
After a long fight over Ratner's Atlantic Yards and "eminent domain," Prospect Heights dive bar Freddy's closed its Dean Street doors for good. Not to go out without a bang, Freddy's threw a last call bash "for the little people" and to rally morale for Freddy's planned relocation (rumors have them bar eyeing Fourth Avenue and Union). Metromix swung by to toast the final call and capture the bacchanalian spirit the bar's been generating for decades.
Posted by steve at 7:52 AM
May 1, 2010
A Toast To Freddy's
Photo by Tracy Collins, via flickr Atlantic Yards Photo Pool.
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Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The last night at Freddy's: photos from outside and inside
I never made it into Freddy's Bar and Backroom for its closing night on Dean Street last. Neither did a lot of people. But Tracy Collins did, and his photos (set) capture a flavor of the evening.
On a balmy spring night, the party spilled outside and the crowd grew. The music could be heard from the sidewalk--the bands exited and entered via the door to the Backroom.
There was a lot of talk but virtually no overt protest. One guy from Park Slope--who told me he'd never previously protested--hung around with a sign saying "Welcome to Rat City."
The row houses next door--one of them still occupied by a family that will leave by May 7--looked pretty sturdy. Further down the block were buildings, long empty, yet to be demolished.
It raised the question not answered in the legal proceedings: why were Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation in such a hurry?
Posted by steve at 9:26 AM
AY Report: PlaNYC Sans Nabes, Bond Rating Agencies Slam
Atlantic Yards Report
PlaNYC after three years: neighborhoods are still missing, according to Angotti
In a Gotham Gazette essay headlined PlaNYC at Three: Time to Include the Neighborhoods, urban planning professor Tom Angotti, director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning & Development and author of "New York For Sale" (MIT Press, 2008), writes about how the city's land use processes generally ignore neighborhoods.
Unmentioned--likely because it represents an even more egregious example of excluding input--is Atlantic Yards, a project on which Angotti has consulted for the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods
...
Angotti writes:
April 22 -- will mark the third anniversary of PlaNYC2030, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's self-proclaimed "long-term sustainability plan." While the city has taken many steps toward the plan's goal of "a greener greater New York," particularly in energy conservation, one gaping hole remains in the plan.
PlaNYC2030 left out any role for the city's hundreds of neighborhoods, 59 community boards, and the countless civic, community and environmental groups that care about the future of the city. It was a top-down plan, conceived at City Hall with minimal input, and it was never approved as an official plan. In the long term this will only undermine the ability to sustain the plan itself, and both implement and improve it.
A slam at the bond rating agencies
Remember how bond ratings agency Moody's made the questionable assumption that there would be 225 events a year at the Barclays Center? There's no effective oversight regarding rating agencies like Moody's, Standard and Poor's, and Fitch.
In Ratings Agencies Are Overrated, Hugo Dixon (editor of Reuters Breakingviews, the commentary arm of Reuters) and Christopher Swan write in the Times:
Why do markets still pay attention to what rating agencies have to say? After their appalling record predicting the subprime mortgage crisis, it is astonishing and sad that investors still seem to quake when Standard & Poor’s reduces Greece’s rating to junk status and downgrades Spain’s.
A Martian would find it hard to understand why anybody gives any credence at all to S.& P. and its rivals. It’s not just that they were pumping up the subprime market. For example, the agencies gave a AAA rating to Abacus, Goldman Sachs’s synthetic collateralized debt obligation, after smart investors saw trouble in the market.
They point to other miscues and then explain how the ratings agencies remain embedded in the current system. Still, they conclude:
It is high time regulators and investors dethroned them from their privileged status.
Posted by steve at 8:28 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brooklyn the Borough, This Weekend Only! Freddy’s Last Hurrah
By Nicole Brydson
On Thursday night at Freddy's Bar, small magnetic LCD lights ascended rapidly from the hands of patrons, fixing themselves to the historic tin ceiling – a glowing, colorful metaphor for how this 70 year old establishment might soon be moving on.
The reality, however, is that the patrons and the staff are not willing to write the bar's obituary just yet. In fact, some don't even believe that despite the bar's eviction, Bruce Ratner's Nets arena will ever come to fruition. The Times, always ahead of the curve, did their obit today, and surely this weekend's last hurrah will bring a barrage of reporters and gawkers to the Prospect Heights bar, keen to experience the end of something – anything – authentic.
A Jaded Girl's Guide to NYC, paved paradise and put up a parking lot.
If you’ve never been to Freddy’s it’s hard to explain the vibe. Pictures won’t do it justice, it looks like a dive bar and essentially is. But the people, the music, the art, the culture of the bar in general, I don’t know that I’ve found anywhere comparable in the city. It’s the type of bar that immediately makes you feel at home. My theatre company has done a few shows there, and are looking forward to further cultivating our relationship with them at their new location, but in the meantime, a wonderful, supportive place is closing to be torn down and replaced by the Nets stadium and high-rises and God knows what else that goes against what the bar, and the neighborhood stands for. What I stand for, really. In high school, it always angered me that the jocks got preferential treatment to the artists. It angers me to see this consistently occurring in the real world as well, especially in such a seemingly cultural mecca.
Prepare for CrossCheck, Another Classic NYC Hangout Bites the Dust
We have the Atlantic Yards project to thank for this latest closure. Sure, the owners are looking to relocate on Fourth Avenue, the increasingly popular corridor between Gowanus and Park Slope, but just like when Siberia Bar vacated its 50th Street subway haunt for bigger digs off Ninth Avenue, it won’t be the same.
The bar’s website says today is the final day for paying respects to this Dean Street holdout, however I have it on good word that there will still be some drinking, dancing and memorializing going on tomorrow night, with a special appearance by The Spunk Lads—as close to a house band as you’ll get for Freddy’s. They take the stage at midnight.
I know I’ll be there, in my Docs, kicking back the chairs and several Jameson’s, one last time.
Gideon's Trumpet, Freddy’s Bar — R.I.P.
The closing of Freddy’s Bar appears to be the kind of rending of the social fabric of a neighborhood that Jane Jacobs deplored in her famous book, “The Death and Life of American Cities.”
Posted by steve at 7:53 AM
April 30, 2010
Public radio show State of the Re:Union visits Brooklyn and AY in broadcasts this weekend
Atlantic Yards Report
WNYC this weekend will focus on Brooklyn, including Atlantic Yards, in its mini-series State of the Re:Union. It be broadcast Saturday May 1 at 2 pm and Sunday May 2 at 8 pm on AM820 and streamed live on www.wnyc.org.
The promo:
State of the Re:Union visits New York City's most populated borough to examine how this diverse collection of communities handles the friction of change, the pull of tradition, and discovers that special something that makes this neighborhood so celebrated.
New York's most populous borough, Brooklyn, is ever-evolving. Brooklyn has been celebrated as everything from a bastion of industry to a refuge for immigrants from around the world. This episode of SOTRU charts Brooklyn's evolution, celebrates the diverse communities and explores both sides of the dilemma that high-rise condos and gentrification has brought.
Segments include:
ATLANTIC YARDS IS__: Atlantic Yards is the biggest development project in the history of Brooklyn. With 17 high-rise buildings for housing and commerce, and a new basketball arena, it would be the densest residential community in the country. The development, though not built yet, has already, and will continue to, profoundly alter the chemistry of the neighborhood in which it's being built.
Posted by eric at 2:28 PM
Freddy’s- Last Days
Not Another F*cking Blog
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, a neighborhood watering hole for decades, and more recently, a center of Atlantic Yards opposition, will close its 485 Dean Street location for good tonight. Although the bar will relocate several blocks away into Park Slope, I don’t think it will ever be the same.
...I shot this time lapse video on April 29, 2010 just before sunset. In the hour I stood watch over my camera, as it recorded buildings in their last days, some seized via eminent domain and all soon to be demolished for a basketball arena, I was treated to local history lessons from some who were born on the block and have lived in the neighborhood their entire lives. Stories from a time when the neighborhood would not have been considered “a great piece of real estate,” in the words of Forest City Ratner CEO Chuck Ratner.
- Stories about the social club at 487 Dean Street, across 6th Avenue from Freddy’s, where kids waited in line to play Donkey Kong, the hot, new video game. That building has been demolished.
- Stories from a man who rented the apartment directly above Freddy’s, as well as several other apartments in the footprint, some of which have already been demolished.
- Stories about fresh-baked treats from Pechter’s Bakery, which used to operate in the now demolished Ward Bread Bakery.
- Stories about the Chunky candy factory, about the Fort Greene Meat Market at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues.
- Stories about playing stick ball behind the 78th Precinct building, probably using Spaldeens (those famous pink rubber balls), which used to be manufactured at the Spalding Building (the large brick building on the right in the video).
- Stories about other local spots in the hood like The Hut and Winner’s Circle, now long gone.
So, this is your last chance to enjoy a pint or three at Freddy’s and take a glimpse back into a small corner of Brooklyn history before it’s gone. See you tonight.
Posted by eric at 2:15 PM
Last Call Looms at Freddy’s, in the Path of Atlantic Yards
The New York Times
by Kareem Fahim
Sometime next week, workers will start digging under the floor of a bar where a bartender known as Johnny Seatcovers poured an ocean’s worth of whisky, where police officers and anarchists alike shouted to be heard above the music, where young bands got their start and Blue Oyster Cult played a late-career gig.
For more than 70 years, the bar has stood at the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn.
By Sunday, the patrons will have to drink elsewhere, as workers begin to hunt for asbestos, prior to demolition, and within a few months, all traces of the bar that was called Freddy’s will be gone, brought down to make way for the Atlantic Yards development project.
...At different times and depending on whom you ask, the bar now called Freddy’s was a neighborhood haven for working-class drinkers, the CBGB’s of Brooklyn or a fountainhead of activism, creativity and dissent. In a cigar box kept behind the bar, locals stashed their house keys, and the bartender would cash regulars’ checks, according to David Sheets, 49, Freddy’s resident historian, who worked at the bar for a few years in the late 1990s.
On Sunday afternoons, the old-timers argued about politics, and on holidays, the owner let Mr. Sheets cook five-course meals, the tables decorated with flowers from his backyard.
“This was an extension of my house,” said Mr. Sheets, who lived a few doors away, and has also been forced to move by Forest City Ratner, the developer of Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: While all too happy to sentimentalize Freddy's now, The Times a) fails to disclose that it's the paper's development partner that's about to bulldoze the place, and b) that the paper has editorialized in favor of exactly that.
Related coverage...
The New York Times, Freddy's Bar & Backroom Slide Show
WNYC's Brian Lehrer Show, Open Phones: Farewell To Freddy's
After 70 years, Freddy's Bar in Prospect Heights is closing -- a casualty of the Atlantic Yards project. Listeners call in with their toasts to the neighborhood institution.
Will you miss Freddy's? Post your salute to Freddy's (not your rant) here! Start it with "I'd like to propose a toast..."
Atlantic Yards Report, Freddy's final night, the lost "patina that the patrons created," and the music/voices of Pinamonti ("The Burrow") and RebelMart ("Brooklyn Is Dying")
For a long time, I wasn't much of a fan of Freddy's Bar & Backroom, which closes its Dean Street location tonight, having taken a settlement in the wake of eminent domain.
Until the mayor banned smoking in bars and restaurants, I wasn't a fan of any bars, actually; they were just too smoky. And I'm not a big bar-goer.
But a lot of people who live in walking distance have their own Freddy's story, and here's what I'll remember most: Freddy's is where I discovered John Pinamonti.
The Brooklyn Ink, FREDDY’S LAST FRIDAY
Today, patrons of Freddy’s Bar will raise their beers one last time. In the past few years Freddy’s has been the epicenter of the Atlantic Yards Barclay’s Center controversy.
NY Examiner, Fred's Bar to close in Prospect Heights on Friday, April 30
Oh, God, not Fred's, too!
Fred's Bar, a real loon of a good time jukebox and live musician drag is having its last day at its Atlantic Yards Location on Friday April 30, 2010.
New York Kills Me!, because it razes places that matter to people
A final fuck you Forest City, Atlantic Yards and, while we're at it, fuck you too Goldstein.
NLG: "Goldstein?" Surely they mean "Goldman Sachs" or "Marty Golden," since Freddy's would've likely been razed long ago if not for the efforts of Daniel Goldstein.
Kath and Alex in Brooklyn, Last Call at Freddy's
We hung out a lot at this Prohibition-era bar when we first moved to Brooklyn (some might say too much). Alex has played many gigs here in their Backroom. I gave him a surprise 30th birthday party there, and we regularly brought Cameron with us as we had a beer or two. We have so much personal history here, it's tragic to us that this wonderful old bar has fallen victim to a heinous abuse of eminent domain.
The L Magazine, Sad Things: Freddy's Bar to Serve its Last Beer on Friday
We knew it was coming, but still, every now and then you have Capra-esque dreams of the little guy pulling one out against the implacable greed of the big, rich dickhead. Not this time, though, as Freddy's Bar will be serving its last beer this Friday, before Bruce Ratner and his Atlantic Yards project comes in with the condos and what-not.
Posted by eric at 1:29 PM
April 29, 2010
It came from the Blogosphere...
A Good American Wife, Nutritional Values
We picked up a Twix and headed to the Atlantic Yards, a horrifying construction project that is kicking people out of their homes but has the up side of entertaining toddlers with large moving trucks. Once we were done watching Eminent Domain in progress, we headed to the Atlantic Center, where we ended up in the toy aisle of Target. How did that happen? I'm not sure. I was buzzing off an influx of chocolate-cookie-caramel.
Brownstoner, Freddy's: Where's It Gonna Be?
As previously mentioned, the owners of Freddy's have accepted a small payment from Forest City Ratner to move to a new space at 4th Avenue and Union Street. We scoped out the intersection and there only seem to be two possible spaces for Freddy's to move into. One is 4th Avenue entrance of Maria's Mexican Bistro (which is now only operating out of 669 Union Street, around the corner). The other is the grated space at 228 4th Avenue, which is located between two delis and definitely had some lights on inside when we snapped this photo. Any thoughts on which of these places (or perhaps another nearby space) is the bar's most likely new home?
Brooklyn Vegan, Freddy's is closing on Friday, but opening somewhere else
Oxygen Rich Environment, Government and Property Rights
Now, a man in the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn, who was the only holdout in an eminent domain case, has finally acquiesced. You can read about it on Volokh.
...The man was bullied and forced out when his property was seized under eminent domain. Why? A politically connected developer wanted the property.
The Volokh Conspiracy, Last Atlantic Yards Property Owner Agrees to Sell His Land Under Threat of Condemnation
On the plus side, Goldstein’s dogged resistance to these condemnations helped focus public attention on the problem of eminent domain abuse. The state court decision upholding it is an important setback for property rights. However, many other state courts have gone the other way over the last 15 years. During that time, numerous state supreme courts have invalidated Kelo-like “economic development” takings under their state constitutions — including Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, and South Carolina (see this article for cites to these cases). Only the Atlantic Yards case and the Connecticut Supreme Court’s narrow 4–3 decision in Kelo itself have gone the other way.
Brownstoner, Closing Bell: Barclays on Message
A tipster spotted this mobile outdoor advertisement for a certain small development project coming soon to a blighted area near you.
Images: Brownstoner
Posted by eric at 1:25 PM
Gut Instinct: So Long, Fred
JOSH BERNSTEIN blows a goodbye kiss to Freddy’s
New York Press
by Joshua M. Bernstein
BY THE TIME many of you read this, the end will have come for Prospect Heights dive Freddy’s. Its destruction has been destined for seven years, ever since developer Bruce Ratner announced plans to bulldoze swaths of the central Brooklyn neighborhood and build luxury skyscrapers and a stadium housing the New Jersey Nets, which, happily, just completed one of the losingest campaigns in NBA history.
Sure, the lawsuits, rallies and hamfisted eminent domain gave residents and businesses dwelling in the Atlantic Yards footprint a kernel of David-versus-Goliath hope, but really: Ratner had billions of reasons to shoehorn this project into the neighborhood, doling out political donations like Halloween candy, soliciting sweetheart tax breaks and and enlisting the slobbering boosterism of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. “Please, come on out and support your Nets, Brooklyn,” I can hear him beg, as local interest flags after another 12–70 season.
But the pleasure I’ll take in watching Marty drown his sorrows in Junior’s cheesecake is trumped by the sadness I feel at Freddy’s closure. This quirky, curios-strewn tavern, where you could catch a banjo player one night, before building dioramas the next and participating in a spelling bee, will serve its final pint on April 30. After seven years of fighting, and staring down the wrecking ball, Freddy’s owners’ resignedly accepted a settlement from Ratner.
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
Fixing Community Benefits Agreements
The Huffington Post
by John Petro
But there is widespread agreement that the CBA process, if you can call it a process, is broken in New York City. Today's New York Times highlights a recent report that outlines some of the problems with how CBA's are negotiated, implemented, and enforced in New York City.
After all, the Atlantic Yards development had a CBA attached to it. But there were questions about whether the community was truly involved in the negotiation process. Clearly the resistance and lawsuits did not stop after the CBA was signed. Clearly some communities felt left out of the process.
There are questions of accountability, especially when grant payments are made by the developer to community groups. And what if a developer does not deliver on the promised benefits? Who has the power to enforce the CBA? Remember that CBAs are private agreements between the developer and the community--the city is not officially involved in these negotiations--and that CBA's do not carry the power of law.
NoLandGrab: We don't think it's a stretch to say that the Atlantic Yards CBA bears primary responsibility for the huge and growing concern over CBAs.
Related coverage...
City Limits, Strong Feelings About Yankee Stadium Deal? Too Bad.
City comptroller John Liu in February blasted what he said was "a string of broken promises to communities and questionable involvement by some government officials" in development deals from "Atlantic Yards to Yankee Stadium to the Columbia University expansion." Liu announced a task force to "establish standards…that ensure benefits for the public when private developers receive benefits from the public."
That task force is now meeting. But its meetings are closed to the public.
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
BrooklynSpeaks: Promises Broken!
mylittleO
Over the past few weeks, representatives of BrooklynSpeaks have been reaching out to the media, government officials and community organizations, in an effort to highlight the significant reduction in affordable housing, jobs, open space and other public benefits included in the final 2009 Atlantic Yards proposal, versus what was promised in the original 2006 proposal. Three representatives from the organization, Michelle de la Uz, Jo Anne Simon and Gib Verconi attended Monday night’s Community Board 2 (CB2) Executive Committee meeting to discuss these differences, and to propose the creation of a Stakeholder Council to oversee the Development going forward.
Some of the major differences (2009 vs. 2006):
• Buildings: Arena + 3 building by 2022; from, arena +16 buildings by 2016
• Affordable Units: 300 units by 2022; from, 2250 units by 2016
• Open Space: 1 acre of open space + 7 acres of parking; from, 8 acres open space
• Jobs Created: 3,600 annual average first 30 years; from, 10,000 permanent, 15,000 construction
• Construction Duration: 25 years, with extensions possible; from, 10 years
• Arena Economic Benefit: Loss of $8 million over 30 years, from, $25 million gain over 30 years
Posted by eric at 10:41 AM
New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner's $3M payout speeds billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov's take over
NY Daily News
by Mitch Lawrence and Michael O'Keeffe
When Nets owner Bruce Ratner agreed last week to pay $3 million to last Atlantic Yards holdout Daniel Goldstein to move from his Brooklyn apartment by May 7, most press accounts noted that the payout made sense because delays in construction of the Barclays Center were costing the developer $6.7 million a month.
But there was another reason why Ratner was willing to pay Goldstein far more than other residents who stood in the way of his wrecking balls: The sooner Goldstein moved, the sooner Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov could take over the Nets and start rebuilding a laughingstock team that won just 12 games this season.
"The state's rush to push me out was to serve Prokhorov's interests and the Nets' interests and not the public interest," Goldstein told the Daily News. "It had everything to do with Prokhorov and ownership of Nets. It didn't have anything to do with housing or jobs."
Goldstein's attorney Michael Rikon, an expert in condemnation law, said people pushed from their homes by state officials exercising eminent domain authority are typically given six months to move after the state takes control of their property. Ownership of Goldstein's apartment was transferred to the Empire State Development Corp. on March 1, and on April 9, ESDC filed documents requesting that a court evict Goldstein and his wife and daughter by May 17 - the day before the draft lottery, in which the Nets are favored to land the No. 1 pick.
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
Urbanism, authenticity, and the suburban lives of several people running Atlantic Yards (AKA a "major zoning exception")
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards may be a public-private project, according to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), but developer Bruce Ratner famously said, "This isn't a public project."
That means the single most influential person regarding Brooklyn's biggest project is Forest City Ratner Executive VP MaryAnne Gilmartin, who lives in the Westchester suburb of Edgemont.
As depicted in a cropped Google satellite photo, her home looks more like an estate than a house. Would Gilmartin lie to maintain her privileged lifestyle?
On authenticity
Why make a big deal of the contested term authenticity? Well, it's prompted new discussion, thanks to Sharon Zukin's book Naked City: The Death and Life of Authentic Urban Places.
And some of those overseeing Atlantic Yards have taken pains to establish their (somewhat tenuous) Brooklyn bona fides; remember how former Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) CEO Marisa Lago testified she'd gone to the dentist at the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building and claimed to enjoy bicycling in Brooklyn?
Or how Metropolitan Transportation Authority Acting Executive Director Helena Williams reminded the audience at an oversight hearing that the Long Island Rail Road was born in Brooklyn?
Posted by eric at 10:17 AM
April 28, 2010
Goldstein's attorney responds to Gilmartin's quote that sticking point in settlement was money: "This is an absolute untruth."
Atlantic Yards Report
Eminent domain attorney Michael Rikon wrote a letter to Stephen Brown of the Brooklyn Paper regarding the article (misleadingly) headlined Ratner exec: Goldstein was in it for the money! Gilmartin: 'He was in it for the money!'.
I read your story in which you quote Forest City executive [MaryAnne] Gilmartin saying "the sticking point was how much money he wanted." This is an absolute untruth.
I know that you were in court. After the argument, ESDC’s attorney asked for a conference. The reason was simple: its papers were defective as a matter of law. It could never obtain an eviction order on the Order to Show Cause it presented for a Writ of Assistance. We had a conference before the Court, first together and then individually. At this point is was only me. My son Joshua joined me much later as he was finalizing an Order to Show cause for Judge Gerges’ signature on another case.
The amount of money was calculated based on what our appraiser had indicated would be the fair market value of the Goldstein Condo, it also included amounts representing the estimated cost for temporary housing, moving storage and moving the stored items back to a final location together with relocation benefits as required under the Uniform Relocation Assistance Act. It also included my firm’s legal fees and an amount representing the two-week factor to vacate.
ESDC and Forest City had three law firms in Court that day with about 20 other employees, executives, in-house counsel and consultants. When it went into the Judge’s robing room, there were at least six lawyers.
After each session as negotiations progressed, we each conferred with our client. It is impossible for Ms. Gilmartin not to have known what was happening step by step.
The money never really changed. The amount was agreed to early in the process, perhaps within the first half hour.
What took six hours was Forest City’s insistence that Daniel Goldstein agree never to say a word about the project. His response was that he would never agree to waive his First Amendment rights for ten million [dollars] and would leave if that was a condition.
I report that to the Judge and he spoke to Daniel. When the Judge realized the caliber of the man in front of him, he agreed that it would be wrong to condition a settlement on such a waiver. Thereafter, the language which was made part of the settlement was drafted by the judge and agreed to.
In short, Forest City should be ashamed of itself for planting statements it knows were false. It is unseemly for a large developer to act in such a mean and vindictive manner. This conduct does not reflect well on it and tarnishes the fine reputation it once had for dealing fairly with condemnees.
When we left the Court, I told Daniel that I was proud to represent him. I still am.
Michael Rikon
(I've cleaned up a few typos in the note from Rikon and link to my Rikon disclosure.)
Posted by eric at 12:12 PM
Greetings from Scott Turner: Let’s Start Not Forgetting
via Only The Blog Knows Brooklyn
Scott Turner is flying from Seattle (where he recently moved) for Friday night’s closing party for Freddy’s. It’s like meeting someone at a funeral: great to see you, sorry it had to be for this.
Hi, all…
I’m a long way away — in a land where the daytime high in the mid-50s was swell in February and a drag in mid April. A land where bike riders think they’re Lance Armstrong, where it doesn’t rain as much as New York. A land where I can see and hear freight trains, cargo ships and landing planes out my front window. A land where here, too, a dumb-ass government has spent years shoving a rich-person’s development project down everyone’s throats.
…a land not too far to grieve over the passing of Freddy’s Bar & Backroom.
That would be this Friday, April 30, at the corner of Dean Street and Sixth Avenue — the future site of not a school, not a health clinic, not an AIDS or cancer research center, not a job-training facility, not an emerging small business, not an artists’ colony, not a community center, not one stitch of affordable housing, not open space or green space or free space or peoples’ space. The future site of some ancillary structure connected to a Russian oligarch’s basketball team’s arena.
Posted by eric at 11:22 AM
Farewell to Freddy's! Beloved watering hole near Yards closes for good on Friday
Courier-Life Publications
by Stephen Brown
Follow the link for some interesting Freddy's history.
Hipsters, old-timers, and barflies will raise their glasses at Freddy’s Bar for the last time on Friday — making a final toast to a Prohibition-era watering hole, but one man won’t be there: the man whose name is on the awning.
Freddy Chadderton, who sold the bar to its current owner in 1996, lives on Long Island — but at age 82, he isn’t looking back at his salad days.
“I had a good run,” he told us this week.
But Chadderton is one of the few people connected with this bar that isn’t crying at least a bit in his beer this week, recalling a neighborhood joint that apparently has to be torn down so that Bruce Ratner can build a basketball arena.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
ACORN & Chuck Schumer beat hipsters & firemen
Washington Examiner
by Timothy P. Carney
I’ve written in the past about the development of the Nets (basketball) new arena in Brooklyn — a development that has involved eminent domain, subsidies, and race-baiting. This week, we get the news that the final holdout, and the loudest voice against the development, has accepted the theft of his house and his eviction, pocketed a $3 million settlement, and moved out.
The story intrigued me because it was big intramural battle on the Left. On the winning side are Chuck Schumer, developer Bruce Ratner, and ACORN. On the losing side are liberal, ill-shaven, bespectacled hipsters (including some of my friends).
The dividing line isn’t color or political affiliation. It’s people with access to government might vs. people without access to government might.
NoLandGrab: Carney has the big picture right, but he sells a diverse Atlantic Yards opposition short by describing opponents primarily as "hipsters."
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
April 27, 2010
The Future of Arts Funding
WNYC Radio
Atlantic Yards, poster child for colossal wastes of taxpayer money, makes a cameo appearance in today's Soundcheck Smackdown over public funding of the Arts, around the 28-minute mark.
Joel Meyer: "Tom writes, 'as an arts lover, as long as governments continue to spend my tax money on sports stadia, I welcome the help for the arts.'"
Nick Gillespie: "That's a strong argument against funding for sports stadiums. New York, the Atlantic Yards project, currently undergoing a destruction of a thriving neighborhood in Brooklyn."
John Schaefer: "That's a whole 'nother Smackdown."
Nick Gillespie: "Absolutely, it's all of a piece, it's all corporate welfare."
Posted by eric at 10:37 PM
Ratner exec: Goldstein was in it for the money!
Courier-Life Newspapers via NYPost.com
by Stephen Brown
Forest City Ratner, the company that turned prevarication into an art form, would have you believe that Daniel Goldstein was only in it for the pay day, while Atlantic Yards is a, um, civic project.
Forest City Ratner officials abandoned their diplomatic talk on Tuesday to explicitly portray Daniel Goldstein, who ended his long holdout in the Atlantic Yards footprint for $3 million last week, as an opportunist looking to make as much money as possible.
Countering Goldstein’s own spin that his fight against Atlantic Yards was a principled stand against eminent domain abuse, Forest City Ratner Executive Vice President MaryAnne Gilmartin told us that last week’s final negotiations did not bog down due to Goldstein’s insistence that he be allowed to continue criticizing the project, but simply over how much money he could get out of developer Bruce Ratner.
"Spin?" Does anyone think it's remotely plausible that Daniel Goldstein held out for six years so he could squeeze a few more bucks out of Bruce Ratner?
“The sticking point was how much money he wanted,” Gilmartin said.
When pressed for more details, Gilmartin, who was touring the Atlantic Yards site with two others, shifted back to the immortal language of the press release.
“We’re glad to have vacant possession and are moving forward,” Gilmartin said. “This is a great moment for the project.”
Later, Goldstein called Gilmartin’s assessment simply false.
“The money amount was settled pretty quickly,” he said. “The sticking point that led to nearly four hours of discussions was Ratner’s insistent desire to bind me to some sort of gag order.
“Apparently, taking my home and razing my neighborhood wasn’t enough for them,” he added.
NoLandGrab: Classy, MaryAnne, very classy.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Courier-Life: (unreliable) Gilmartin says sticking point for Goldstein was money; Goldstein says it was the gag order
Um, how is it that Goldstein has a "spin" but the Scarsdale-dwelling Gilmartin has an "assessment"?
Given that the developer has consistently wrung additional subsidies and concessions out of public bodies, it's fair to say that Forest City Ratner always been the "opportunist looking to make as much money as possible."
Posted by eric at 10:01 PM
Public Advocate de Blasio criticizes Bertha Lewis's comments about Daniel Goldstein (not)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder imagines what NYC Public Advocate would (and should) say about Bertha Lewis's crass criticism of Daniel Goldstein.
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, who issues a stream of public statements and comments on issues local and national, failed to say anything about the Atlantic Yards arena groundbreaking last month. And this is what he didn't say about his longtime ally Bertha Lewis of ACORN.
Posted by eric at 2:23 PM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Gideon's Trumpet, Was the Decision to Use Eminent Domain for the Atlantic Yards Project a Part of the Democratic Process? Don’t Be Silly.
The familiar reason offered by the U.S. Supreme Court (most recently in the Kelo case) why judges are so supinely deferential to what they characterize as “legislative” decisions to use eminent domain, is that aggrieved citizens have recourse to the democratic process, and are free to elect other “legislative” officials, more in harmony with their views. But if you think about it, that’s nonsense. The decision to condemn a particular property for a particular “public use” — whether genuine or feigned — is at best made by unelected government functionariers, such as highway commissions or redevelopment agencies.
For an insight into just how insulated from the democratic process was the decision to implement the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, read Norman Oder’s discussion of this topic at http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2010/04/greg-david-of-crains-gets-it-very-wrong.html. A good read, that.
So when the Supreme Court says that the “legislative” decision to condemn is “well nigh conclusive,” it only surrenders its traditional function of interpreting the constitution and its duty to do so under the checks and balances doctrine. After all, we are endlessly told that it is the courts in general and the Supreme Court in particular who are the interpreters of constitutional provisions. So how come they abruptly lose their ability to perform that function when it comes to the “public use” clause of the Fifth Amendment?
The Cross Pollinator, Understanding Bloomberg’s Love Of Atlantic Yards
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/nyregion/26bermuda.html?pagewanted=2&hp
"Mr. Bloomberg bought an estate in Bermuda, called Stokes Bay, by 1998. He demolished the 2,620-square-foot house and commissioned a local architect to replace it with a $10 million home nearly three times its size in Tucker’s Town.
"Even by Bermudan standards, it was flashy: five balconies, four bedrooms, seven bathrooms, an in-ground pool and space for four cars, all hidden by a gated driveway, according to documents on file with the Bermuda Department of Planning."
Me:
What are the odds that the 2620 square foot house he demolished was blighted? Pretty slim.
Do rich powerful men like to rip perfectly fine buildings down to build a monument to their egos? Looks that way.
Does Mayor Turtleburg understand Bruce Ratner’s desire to rip down an entire neighborhood so he can build an airplane hangar stadium so the worst team in the NBA can stink up Brooklyn? Looks that way.
Posted by eric at 12:32 PM
Daniel Goldstein, last Yards holdout, speaks!
The Brooklyn Paper, Op Ed
by Daniel Goldstein
For nearly seven years, at considerable personal risk, I used my home to fight the abuse of eminent domain and Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project. Without my home, the misguided project — opposed by a fierce community movement I came to lead — could not happen. With no democratic political process available to the community, the not-so-simple act of keeping my home was the best way I could affect what was clearly a fixed deal.
But I never promised to be an ineffectual martyr.
On March 1, the state took title to my home, effectively ending the possibility of winning the fight on eminent domain grounds. Those who wish to deem me a “sellout” are flatly wrong. After condemnation, I had nothing meaningful left to sell that might affect the fight or achieve a single one of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s goals.
The state sought a court order to evict me on May 17. Facing that — and a judge who wanted the parties to resolve the eviction — I agreed to leave on May 7 rather than the 17. Ratner also demanded a gag order and complete disassociation from DDDB. I refused both demands, affirming my First Amendment rights.
The media, agape at the settlement figures — though never agape at the size of Ratner’s public subsidy — missed some key things last week:
In the past six years, Ratner’s representatives approached me four times, offering to buy me out in exchange for my abandoning key eminent domain litigation, which threatened their project. Each time, they knew that the opposition to Atlantic Yards would suffer a huge blow if I sold my home.
...I rejected a settlement every time I met with Ratner’s people, instead offering to help facilitate a negotiation with the community about the project. That, however, was of no interest to them.
The Brooklyn Paper also invited ACORN's Bertha Lewis to pen her own op-ed. Given the chance to temper her crazy talk from last week, she submitted the very same rant.
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
April 26, 2010
Last Atlantic Yards holdout agrees to leave
ABC 7
Darla Miles reporting
Here's a local TV news story from last week that eluded our normally trusty search efforts.
Posted by eric at 4:46 PM
Atlantic Yards for College Credit
From The New School's summer Continuing Education catalogue:
The Politics of Urban Megadevelopment NPOL3184
A 15 session(s). Tues. & Thurs., 4:00 PM-5:50 PM, beg. June 8. $595.00
Register: Non-Credit General Credit
Petra TodorovichThis course explores the politics and the process of implementing complex urban development projects in the New York metropolitan region, focusing on several recent case studies: the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site; the proposed Olympic Stadium/Jets football stadium on Manhattan's far west side; the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn; and the MTA financing package that passed the New York state legislature in spring 2009. Taught by an urban planner who has been centrally or peripherally involved in all of the cases mentioned, students learn about the complex forces and the diverse interests affecting the physical landscape of New York City and its surroundings. Topics include the challenges of building political support, financing large projects, gaining community consensus, navigating the environmental review process, shaping public opinion and media coverage, defining public interest, and the roles of the civic community and advocates. (3 credits)
Additional coverage...
Curbed, Development Battles Become Homework
Some of the city's most controversial megaprojects have wound up in the curriculum for a New School summer course on urban planning. Atlantic Yards, the World Trade Center rebuilding and the Jets Stadium/Hudson Yards fiasco will all be examined and explained over 15 sessions, earning the young planners of tomorrow a hard-fought three credits. The class costs $595, but at the end each student gets a $3 million buyout.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
Sweet Spot
Metropolis POV
by Mason Currey
Rafael Viñoly, architect of Williamsburg's controversial New Domino project, is selling that project as the anti-Atlantic Yards.
Viñoly, at least, seemed confident that his firm’s plan was better than Brooklyn’s other long-drawn-out and highly controversial redevelopment project, Atlantic Yards. “If you recall—with all due respect to Frank—the Yards were a design and, you know, you had to buy it,” he said. “We think we have achieved a middle ground, this attempt to bridge between the limits of urban design and some suggestions to the betterment of architectural design.”
Posted by eric at 12:07 PM
Despite FCR's announced demolition plans, building at 752 Pacific may become developer's construction headquarters
Atlantic Yards Report
Though Forest City Ratner executive Maryanne Gilmartin has said in court papers that the developer plans to demolish the building long owned by Henry Weinstein at 752 Pacific Street for parking, another court document suggests that the six-story building, renovated into office space, more likely will serve as offices during the construction phase of the arena.
That makes sense on two levels. First, it would be an expensive and lengthy process to demolish such a staunch building.
(Gilmartin, in paragraph 37 of the affidavit below that's part of the Order to Show Cause, says it would take "several months to perform the work necessary to prepare for an actual demolition" of 636 Pacific Street, the taller but much narrower warehouse-turned-condo building where Daniel Goldstein lives, and approximately five months for the actual demolition.)
Second, Forest City Ratner will be demolishing the similarly staunch Spalding Building, now home to project offices, at Sixth Avenue and Pacific Street, thus leaving a significant gap.
(Photo taken December 2008 by Tracy Collins)
Posted by eric at 10:49 AM
The denunciation of the ESDC's condemnation push that was never resolved, but surely influenced the Goldstein settlement
Atlantic Yards Report
Why did Forest City Ratner settle with Daniel Goldstein last Wednesday for $3 million? The most obvious reasons were to save the alleged $6.7 million monthly cost of delay it alleged, and to pave the way for Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov's purchase of the Nets, which was depending on vacant possession of the site.
Another reason--and a reason for Goldstein to settle--was that Kings County Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges pushed for a settlement. He didn't want to adjudicate the case, nor preside over an eviction that could easily have become a media event.
Given the Empire State Developmeny Corporation's initial and ridiculous lowball appraisal of his apartment, Goldstein had to calculate his vulnerability to pursuing the case and getting a check that was worth far less than a replacement apartment.
That said, it would have been of significant interest had the case continued, because, at least according to a response from Goldstein's attorney, the ESDC was way out of line.
Click through to learn why.
Posted by eric at 10:36 AM
Greg David of Crain's gets it very wrong: "New Yorkers, through their political process" decided "Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city"
Atlantic Yards Report
In a column headlined An eminent name in domain debate, Crain's New York Business editorial director Greg David defends eminent domain for Atlantic Yards while, astonishingly, neglecting to acknowledge how local elected officials were ignored.
...I always tell that story to my class on the New York City economy when we study commercial development issues. Then I explain how the indomitable Brooklyn gadfly Daniel Goldstein—who last week finally gave up his long fight to stop the Atlantic Yards project—convinced me the mayor was right.
Historically, eminent domain allowed governments to seize land for public purposes such as roads, schools, parks and airports. In Kelo, the Supreme Court said it was constitutional for states and cities to take private property on behalf of private interests for a public purpose such as improving the economy.
The complications are obvious. The government is putting the interests of one private party, in this case Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, above those of another, in this case some existing Brooklyn residents and businesses.
Critics of the Kelo decision say that the doctrine is unfair and creates opportunities for abuse by powerful interests and that developers like Forest City can and should use their resources to buy out the other parties.
But Mr. Goldstein wasn't interested in the money. He grudgingly sold his condo last week only because his choice was to accept a $3 million offer today and move out in two weeks or wait two months for a court to evict him and award him less money. He could have gotten much more months ago, maybe years ago.
He didn't do that because his mission was to impose his vision of what was best for Brooklyn, even though New Yorkers, through their political process, had decided that Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city.
Without eminent domain, he would have succeeded.
Hold on. Goldstein was reacting to the developer's vision, one the city supported from the start. There was no political process, no role for the City Council, no role for any local elected officials. In fact, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff told the New York Observer in December 2007:
“I am a huge believer in the ULURP process. I think it makes sense. It allows the issues to be aired in an appropriate way. If it happened again, and the state were to ask if I would encourage them to take Atlantic Yards through the ULURP process, I would say yes.”
The project was approved by the board of the unelected ESDC and the state funding was upheld by the Public Authorities Control Board--the "three men in a room": the governor, Assembly Speaker, and Senate Majority Leader.
Goldstein's comment
Goldstein wrote in response:
Mr. David, your argument almost made some sense until the very end. I wasn't trying to "impose my vision on what was best for Brooklyn even though New Yorkers, through their political process, had decided that Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city."
There WAS no political process. Not a single elected official ever voted on Atlantic Yards. ULURP and NYC's zoning laws were overridden, and the unaccountable, unelected ESDC and MTA made all the key decisions. New Yorkers had no political process to make any decisions about Atlantic Yards.
That is the fundamental problem with Atlantic Yards that so many have been shouting and fighting about all this time.
Furthermore, all of the benefits of Atlantic Yards, including the arena and the housing, could have been built without using eminent domain, without taking my home. All of them. But that wouldn't have been the huge gift to Forest City Ratner that the use of eminent domain has been.
So while I and many others certainly have ideas of what would be good for Brooklyn and what urban planning ideas could work and wouldn't work, I didn't impose my vision on some publicly and politically approved project. I resisted, along with thousands of others and numerous politicians, the imposed vision of one developer.
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
An eminent name in domain debate
Crain's NY Business
by Greg David
The former Crain's editor swings and misses — yet again — at the use (and abuse) of eminent domain.
In the aftermath of the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision on eminent domain—the famous Kelo v. City of New London case—I tried to explain my uncertain views on the topic in a Dec. 5 column:
“The once-esoteric legal doctrine of eminent domain has put me in the middle of an unusual lobbying blitz. On one side are people who support important development projects like Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn or the expansion of Columbia University, both of which will need to involve eminent domain. On the other is my daughter, who has taken up the issue as part of her American government class and is sure eminent domain needs to be outlawed. More and more, I think my daughter is right.”
At 9:30 that Monday morning, my phone rang. “Hold for Mayor Bloomberg.” Then came the voice, unmistakable and firm. “I couldn't disagree with you more,'' the mayor said. “Without eminent domain, we will get nothing accomplished in this city!”
I always tell that story to my class on the New York City economy when we study commercial development issues. Then I explain how the indomitable Brooklyn gadfly Daniel Goldstein—who last week finally gave up his long fight to stop the Atlantic Yards project—convinced me the mayor was right.
NoLandGrab: We'll leave it to Norman Oder to dissect this column and its one giant factual error. However, we've written before about how Mr. David never really questioned the abuse of eminent domain, only pretending to do so to avoid a family squabble. In fact, we challenge Mr. David to produce one example of his wrestling with the issue since that December 5, 2005 column.
Historically, eminent domain allowed governments to seize land for public purposes such as roads, schools, parks and airports. In Kelo, the Supreme Court said it was constitutional for states and cities to take private property on behalf of private interests for a public purpose such as improving the economy.
The complications are obvious. The government is putting the interests of one private party, in this case Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, above those of another, in this case some existing Brooklyn residents and businesses.
Critics of the Kelo decision say that the doctrine is unfair and creates opportunities for abuse by powerful interests and that developers like Forest City can and should use their resources to buy out the other parties.
But Mr. Goldstein wasn't interested in the money. He grudgingly sold his condo last week only because his choice was to accept a $3 million offer today and move out in two weeks or wait two months for a court to evict him and award him less money. He could have gotten much more months ago, maybe years ago.
He didn't do that because his mission was to impose his vision of what was best for Brooklyn, even though New Yorkers, through their political process, had decided that Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city.
Without eminent domain, he would have succeeded.
Posted by eric at 9:30 AM
April 25, 2010
The Holdout
New York Times
From the "Week in Review:"
|
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Parsing the Times's misleading summary of the Atlantic Yards settlement
From the New York Times's Week in Review today:
THE HOLDOUT
The News Daniel Goldstein, above, the last holdout standing in the way of the giant Atlantic Yards redevelopment in Brooklyn, agreed to accept $3 million in return for surrendering his apartment and ending his active opposition.
Behind the News Mr. Goldstein, who paid $590,000 for his condominium in 2003, became the standard-bearer for opponents of the $4.9 billion mixed-use project when he refused to move. If he had not reached a deal with the developer, Forest City Ratner, he faced eviction by the state government, which had lost patience with the delays and had condemned his property.
The annotations
He was the last residential holdout.
Atlantic Yards isn't redevelopment.
He agreed to accept $3 million in return for surrendering his apartment in about two weeks, and because a judge pressured both sides to make a deal that day, thus leaving Goldstein vulnerable to a lowball payout and a fairly swift eviction date anyway.
It's not at all clear what active opposition means, given that Goldstein (who was likely to step back in some way) has continued to slam the project.
Forest City Ratner had ample reason to make a deal, given that it claimed delays were costing $6.7 million a month. It had received $131 million in taxpayer money for (until then) $280 million in land purchases.
It wasn't that the state government "had lost patience with the delays and had condemned his property." It was that the state government had already condemned properties for Atlantic Yards--via a dubious blight finding--and the judge had lost patience with delays.
Actually, the state government has enabled delays by signing a Development Agreement that gives Forest City Ratner 25 years, rather than the officially promised ten years, to complete the project.
The Times has not reported on this Development Agreement.
Nor did the Times, in this brief summary, disclose its business relationship with "the developer, Forest City Ratner," in building the Times Tower.
Posted by steve at 10:13 AM
Lupica on Goldstein: "the guy didn't get into this to get rich, he got into this to fight for his neighborhood"
Atlantic Yards Report
Unlike the nasty New York Daily News editorial board, sports columnist Mike Lupica joins metro columnist Juan Gonzalez in taking a sympathetic view of the settlement to which Daniel Goldstein agreed this week:
Daniel Goldstein, of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, held out against the Atlantic Yards project, and Caring Bruce Ratner, longer than you believed anyone ever would.
He was the last guy in the building and the last guy on the block, and it was like being behind enemy lines.
So I'm glad he got his $3 million from Ratner.
I wish it had been more, because the guy didn't get into this to get rich, he got into this to fight for his neighborhood, and that doesn't make you a hustler like Ratner, it makes you a good, tough New Yorker.
(Of course, as noted, after lawyers fees and a finding a replacement apartment, it wasn't close to $3 million.)
Posted by steve at 8:45 AM
Fight Worth Fighting Is a Fight Worth Fighting Untill the Very End
The Cleveland Leader
The powerful Cleveland Ratner family has finally pushed the Daniel Goldstein family out of its Brooklyn, N. Y. home. But they haven’t shut him up.
And it cost them $3 million, not the $500,000 deal first offered.
Goldstein says that he took the offer without a pledge to keep quiet about it. Although he had to step aside as chief spokesperson of the citizen organization – Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) – he didn’t sign on, as usually happens, to retreat from speaking about the project.
“Contrary to press reports I have not given up my First Amendment rights or my involvement in Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn,” said Goldstein.
Bruce Ratner, head of the development firm called Forest City Ratner, is building the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn – a housing, retail and arena development.
Goldstein has led a vigorous citizen’s revolt against the project. It seems to me a model of opposition nationally for citizen’s groups fighting rapacious development that destroys communities.
Posted by steve at 8:44 AM
April 24, 2010
AY Report: Tabloid Mindset, Condemnation Hearing, Post Acts As Doofus,
Not long ago, I got a call from a tabloid reporter about a non-Atlantic Yards matter about which I had some expertise.
I told the reporter that the information they sought maybe wasn't the appropriate approach, that they should pursue a more complicated but incisive take on the case. I was ignored. The story line had already been set by an editor.
...
Not dissimilarly, both the New York Daily News and the New York Post thought the proper way to contextualize the settlement reached by Atlantic Yards condemnee Daniel Goldstein and Developer Forest City Ratner was to compare that settlement to ones made by Goldstein's neighbors in 2004.
(It was unmentioned that those settlements, unlike that of Goldstein, included full gag orders.)
If anyone going to the hearing last Wednesday in Kings County Supreme Court thought Justice Abraham Gerges was going to look incisively into the Atlantic Yards condemnation case, there was a small but telling reason for doubt even before the hearing started.
Gerges referred to the case not as Atlantic Yards but Atlantic Terminal, just as he had at a 1/29/10 hearing in which those facing condemnation attempted to block it.
Atlantic Terminal refers to (take your pick) a longstanding urban renewal area (of which the Atlantic Yards site contains a part), a train terminal, and a mall, not a complicated and controversial development project.
Gerges's goal, apparently, was to ensure that the condemnation case was resolved that day, with no more expenditure of judicial resources nor the bad publicity of an actual eviction.
Of all the doofus coverage of the judge-pushed settlement in the condemnation case involving Daniel Goldstein, Adam Bonislawski's post in the New York Post real estate blog, headlined New York State not such a great negotiator actually tops the Times's CityRoom post about how Goldstein might move to places like New London, CT.
Wrote Bonislawski:
We were actually all set to write a sympathetic post about how Atlantic Yards holdout Daniel Goldstein was getting screwed by the state , which was lowballing him with a $510,000 offer on the 1,290-square-foot Prospect Heights condo he bought for $590,000 in 2003.
And, well, then this happened -- the state upped its offer to $3 million, an offer that Goldstein, not being insane, quickly agreed to. And while we're happy to see the whole business resolved, it does make us wonder if maybe the state is not so good at the whole bargaining thing, and if maybe this is part of why we pay so much in taxes. Seriously, how did those negotiations go?
State officials: We can offer you $510,000 for the apartment.
Goldstein: That's too low.
State officials: Ok. How about $3 million then?
Goldstein: Done!
State officials: Fantastic! [High-five]
...
My comment:
Forest City Ratner funded the settlement, not the state. The developer has gotten $131 million already from taxpayers to buy $280 million worth of land. The developer claims it's losing $6.7 million a month from delays. So there was certainly some logic to paying $3 million, especially since it includes weakening the leading opposition group.
Posted by steve at 8:55 AM
The Goldstein Legacy: Man of principle or sellout?
The Brooklyn Paper
By Stephen Brown
This article includes achievements of Atlantic Yards opponents.
“We’ve done a lot of what the media should have been doing — what well established good-government groups should have done,” Goldstein said. “Watchdogging minute details of an attenuated process. Every false statement, exaggeration and broken promise has been exposed.”
So, what concrete accomplishments can Goldstein and his Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn actually point to?
“We have convinced nearly all good people of good will that the project is a sham and a poster child for the wrong way to develop cities,” Goldstein said. “We shined a bright light on the way eminent domain is abused in New York State to the point where there is now a legislative effort … to reform the state’s laws.
“We’ve exposed the way eminent domain is used and abused in New York as a tool for the most powerful interests in the state,” he added. “It’s on everyone’s radar. … I don’t think any developer will try to things this way again.”
Posted by steve at 8:13 AM
A great big sellout: Atlantic Yards opponent made out like a bandit
Daily News
This editorial tries to tarnish Daniel Goldstein's reputation just as it ignores the real bandit of Atlantic Yards: Corporate-welfare swilling Bruce Ratner.
After all of Goldstein's costly obstructionism, it is a wonder builder Bruce Ratner agreed to give him a penny more than Goldstein would be legally due on eviction from the condo he bought in 2003 for $595,000.
Since Ratner is in a rush to receive hundreds of millions in state and city subsidies, it's no wonder at all that Ratner was willing to negotiation with Goldstein.
Here's a hilarious try to paint Ratner as a giver of "warm fuzzies" even as, with the help of his tool, the ESDC, he holds the threat of eminent domain over residents and businesses:
Ratner's payoff to Goldstein illustrates one of the little-told stories about the Atlantic Yards project. While some residents and owners, such as Goldstein, were railing that they were losing homes and businesses to eminent domain, Ratner was quietly reaching very generous accommodations with hundreds of others.
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News editorial slams Goldstein for "personal jackpot," lauds "generous" Ratner; will he contribute some of his settlement to the ongoing fight?
The New York Daily News, which has supported Atlantic Yards to the hilt (remember A super design for a great project, touting the now-phantom "green roof,") today slams former Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) spokesman Daniel Goldstein in an editorial headlined A great big sellout: Atlantic Yards opponent made out like a bandit:
Posted by steve at 7:48 AM
The Eagle's Holt: bad math and blind spot regarding ULURP
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes aim at faulty analysis in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle by Dennis Holt.
The Brooklyn Eagle's Dennis Holt, in a Brooklyn Broadside headlined In Atlantic Yards Delays, State, City, Community Were the Losers, offers some very shallow analysis:
I have been asked if I begrudge the project’s lead opponent, Daniel Goldstein, netting $3 million from a final deal with Forest City Ratner.
No, I don’t. If you assume a seven-year time span for this project to date — 84 months – and subtract what he paid for his home — $590,000 — from the $3 million he is receiving, that comes out to about $28,000 per month.
No, that's not even close. First, subtract more than $600,000 in legal fees. Then double the value of his home, at least, to find a comparable place.
...
Holt observes:
And it’s not so much that Goldstein is a big winner, there are two losers. One is the city and the state, the other is the community.
The latter first. The approach followed by the project’s opponents was a take-no-prisoners one, winner take all. The opponents did not attempt to bargain with the developers on anything — number of buildings, where they will be located, building heights, the size of the open space, schools and other public amenities ... nothing.
The opponents didn't bargain because the only bargain--the allegedly arm's-length bargain--was between the state and the developer.
There was no place for the community to bargain. Such bargaining typically occurs when projects go through the city's Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, or ULURP, and the local City Council Member has a voice. Atlantic Yards avoided ULURP.
...
Holt writes:
The city and state lose. Had the original time frame been honored, both governments would by now be getting taxes, fees, licenses, concessions and the like. People would be earning a living, a fair number by now.
There would a domino effect of new businesses in the area by now, not directly related to the project but in place because it’s there.
I have in no way the ability to calculate the sums of all these losses, but I wish someone would try to. These are the kinds of things no one thinks about when developments are planned or announced.
Yeah, I wish someone would try to, as well. I can say that any calculations of benefits by the developer and the government agencies backing the project are full of holes.
Posted by steve at 7:33 AM
Atlantic Yards’ Final Foe Falls
New York Restorations
Here's another reaction to Bertha Lewis' over-the-top criticism of Daniel Goldstein.
So, wait. ACORN was bailed out by the Ratner group, and now she’s claiming that these new buildings will provide housing to New York’s poor and low-income families? Are you kidding me? How “affordable” will these new apartments be? (I’m actually sorta not snarking here – I’m honestly curious what “affordable” really means to these folk.)
How is this not amongst the most despicable of conflict of interests? Regardless of how much low-income housing the Atlantic Yards provides, this just smacks of croneyism and nasty back-scratching.
Look, I’ve no real problems with ACORN. They were exonerated of wrong-doing, whatever. But what on God’s Green Earth is this woman doing, gloating over the creation of a stadium and condos on a piece of public property offered to Ratner at below-market-value? My head is exploding right now.
Posted by steve at 7:24 AM
Two More On Daniel Goldstein
Two quick items on the deal made with Daniel Goldstein.
The BrooklynInk, New Yorkers Still Fuming Over Goldstein’s Surrender
The headline for this item implies anger at Daniel Goldstein, but it appears that the anger is directed at developer Bruce Ratner, Michael Bloomberg and their dependence on eminent domain and corporate welfare.
Local news and blog sites reporting on Daniel Goldstein’s decision to accept $3 million for his home on the Atlantic Yards site have found that New Yorkers are fuming.
One reader on the Daily News voiced her abhorrence for Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s decision to allow Bruce Ratner to build the new Nets stadium. “Now MADOFF Gloomberg can say he has created jobs by hiring hot dog and beer vendors to sell hot dogs and beer at the New Nets Arena,” said the reader.
Another reader does not think the building up of New York City universities is making it better. “I am sickened by all the eminent domain abuse under the tsunami of community crushing development under Bloomberg; the mass displacement. Please don’t forget Manhattanville, Columbia U.’s abuse of eminent domain as just one example. NYU and Cooper Union, NY Law, SVA, The New School all confused the E. Village with dorm fodder and sent a message — history destroyed and community not welcome.”
Atlantic Yards opponents are feeling conflicted this week as Daniel Goldstein, founder and now-former-spokesperson of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, agreed to sell his apartment to Forest City Ratner for $3 million. City Room reports that with Daniel Goldstein’s agreement to sell his condo in Prospect heights, the “last man standing in front of the Atlantic Yards bulldozer has stepped aside.” This a few days after another headlining hold-out, Freddy’s Bar and Backroom, announced plans to close up their Dean St. digs and move to a new location.
NoLandGrab: No conflict here. Nothing has happened that changes Atlantic Yards to anything but a cover for a land grab for a politically-connected developer.
Posted by steve at 7:06 AM
April 23, 2010
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn on Future of Organization and Daniel Goldstein's Settlement
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
The following is a statement from Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn's...
Board of Directors:
Reverend Dennis Dillon
Ruth Goldstein
Jezra Kaye
Bob Law
Ron ShiffmanSteering Committee:
Candace Carponter
Lucy Koteen
Gloria Mattera
Eric Reschke
Scott TurnerAs many of you know, our colleague, Daniel Goldstein, co-founder and spokesperson for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, reached an agreement on Wednesday with New York State and Forest City Ratner to vacate his home by May 7th. With little leverage - a state Supreme Court judge had already allowed the state to take title to his home on March 1st - Daniel was forced to relinquish his role as spokesperson for DDDB in order to secure a reasonable settlement for his family. While we are saddened to lose him as a spokesperson, we wholly and unequivocally support his decision.
As Daniel made clear in the statement he issued yesterday, however, he will continue to play a key role with DDDB as we fight on against the Atlantic Yards project, and he refused - at the risk of scuttling the settlement entirely - to agree to the gag order that Forest City Ratner so badly wanted him to accept. And most of you will not know this: over the past 6 years Daniel rejected four attempts by Ratner to get him to drop the two key eminent domain lawsuits on which he was lead plaintiff.
It is impossible for us to adequately express our admiration for, and our gratitude to, Daniel for the incredible work he's done over the past six-and-a-half years on behalf of DDDB and the broad coalition of property owners, tenants and community groups fighting Atlantic Yards. While he has certainly not been alone in this fight, he was the only one among us who owned a home on the spot on which Bruce Ratner wanted to build center court. Without Daniel and his principled desire to stay in his home, this fight would likely have been over long ago. Thanks in large part to Daniel's steadfastness, and to your efforts and financial support, our battle for justice goes on.
While Daniel has played a critical and tireless role, he'd be the first to say that the fight against Atlantic Yards is much, much bigger than Daniel Goldstein, and about so much more than one man trying to save his home. It's about putting a stop to eminent domain abuse, backroom deals, the squandering of public assets, transparency in government and the workings of democracy - and making sure something like Atlantic Yards never, ever happens again, anywhere. The thousands of you who have donated your hard-earned money and your time to DDDB to fight Atlantic Yards have done so to save a neighborhood, and a borough, a city, and a state, from eminent domain abuse and the ugly corruption of public process.
That's why we will continue to press the fight in court, pursuing the Article 78 lawsuit seeking to compel the Empire State Development Corporation to issue new Determinations and Findings for the Atlantic Yards project, along with the suit seeking to overturn state approval of the Modified General Project Plan, for which we filed a motion to reconsider on April 8th based on clear evidence that the state intentionally omitted critical evidence from the public record. And it's why we will continue to push state and city officials to find the political will to stop or alter the project. And why we'll continue to work with elected leaders like state Senator Bill Perkins to pass legislation that fundamentally protects the rights of home and business owners in New York State from eminent domain abuse.
DDDB and Daniel have stood for, and continue to stand for responsible development. We continue to stand by our principles. We have never opposed development and never opposed affordable housing. We have advocated for responsibly developing the rail yards—through a democratic process with real community input—with affordable housing and truly accessible open space. We have fought against the abuse of power that subverted the City's democratic land use review processes, and misused the power of eminent domain that resulted in the taking of Daniel's home and the homes and businesses of many others. It was a misuse of a power that in the past—and in this instance—victimized many, especially people not as fortunate as Daniel to have had the ability to wage a fight against the abuse of that power.
All of us are sick and tired of Bruce Ratner and the ESDC and Atlantic Yards, with good reason. It's never been a fair fight, and the deck has been stacked in Ratner's favor from the very start. But fights worth fighting are worth fighting to the end. Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is not giving up the fight, Daniel Goldstein isn't giving up the fight, and we know that you're not willing to give up the fight, either. As Daniel wrote yesterday: see you at the next meeting.
Posted by eric at 11:44 AM
On the radio, Goldstein says judge pushed for deal and FCR wanted to accelerate Prokhorov takeover of the Nets
Atlantic Yards Report
The John Gambling Show on WOR/710, home to Mayor Mike Bloomberg's weekly softball radio interview, was not going to be a terribly sympathetic forum this morning for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Daniel Goldstein, given this summary:
The founder of the anti-Atlantic Yards group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn and plaintiff in numerous unsuccessful suits against the $4.9 billion project — has reached an agreement to move out of his condo on Pacific Street in Prospect Heights. Why?
But Goldstein made a lot of points in just six minutes.
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
After 6 years against Atlantic Yards, Daniel Goldstein takes the money and leaves
NY Daily News
by Juan Gonzalez
A must-read from a Daily News columnist who gets it.
Back in 2005, Jim Stuckey, a top aide to real estate mogul Bruce Ratner, gave me a tour of the Atlantic Yards site.
Stuckey proudly pointed to the architectural model in his office, to the new Nets arena, to the 16 high-rise housing towers - most of them market-rate - and to the retail shopping complex.
"Where is Dan Goldstein's apartment on your site?" I asked.
Stuckey placed his finger in the middle of the arena's footprint.
"Then you have a problem," I said. "Until you get Goldstein out, you can't build - and that won't be easy."
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News columnist Gonzalez: DDDB "ignited a much-needed public debate over what kind of city New York wants to become"
New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, in a sympathetic column headlined After 6 years against Atlantic Yards, Daniel Goldstein takes the money and leaves, connects Daniel Goldstein to Jane Jacobs:
Goldstein, a Web designer, was refusing to move. Only two years earlier, he had bought a new condo in the neighborhood for $590,000. He had this wild-eyed idea that the people of a community should be consulted before the government condemns their property to make a rich developer even richer.
Goldstein was a tireless organizer of his neighbors in Prospect Heights. He urged them to resist Ratner and his powerful backers, Mayor Bloomberg, former Govs. George Pataki and Eliot Spitzer and Gov. Paterson.
The group those neighbors founded, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, became an amazing grassroots movement.
Back in the 1960s, a little old lady named Jane Jacobs fought Robert Moses, when the legendary masterbuilder sought to bulldoze the Lower Manhattan Expressway through the heart of our city. Now a computer nerd named Goldstein and his group waged their own David-and-Goliath battle against the new masterbuilders.
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
Last shot $cores
7th-floor arena holdout beat penthouse deal
NY Post
by Rich Calder and Dan Mangan
Interesting idea by the Post to talk to some of Daniel Goldstein's former neighbors, all of whom, unlike Goldstein, were unwilling to put ideology first.
The owner of the penthouse in the last building standing in the way of the planned Nets arena in Brooklyn accepted $1.88 million to go away, but the occupant of a much less desirable apartment scored a real slam-dunk payday -- a sky-high $3 million.
Actually, that "much less desirable apartment" was incredibly desirable — to Bruce Ratner.
Daniel Goldstein's deal for his seventh-floor apartment not only makes way for the controversial project, but it stunned his former upstairs neighbor -- who sold her penthouse for $1.12 million less nearly six years ago.
"Wow," Holly Tingley, 40, said yesterday when told of Goldstein's windfall for his condo at 636 Pacific St. in Prospect Heights, where he and his family were the last people remaining. "He held on a long time.
"I had the penthouse apartment and he still did better," said Tingley, a mom of two.
NoLandGrab: No offense to Ms. Tingley, since we don't know what we would have done being in her, or Daniel Goldstein's, shoes, but if it were about money, Goldstein wouldn't have fought the project until he was the last man standing.
Related coverage...
Raw Cotton Blog, A tree dies in Brooklyn
So, the last holdout in the Atlantic Yards dispute reached agreement to sell his condo for 3 mil and give up running the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn group that has been actively opposing Ratner and co. They subject to the laws of capitalism just like we are. The state used eminent domain to take over his property in the interests of big capitalists. Downtown is gonna be a mess. It's already crazy over there. It is just a sign of the times as they move in and push us out.
...Soon, the poor and working folk won't be able to afford Brooklyn, maybe they won't be able afford New York at all. It is the laws of capitalism, there is nowhere left to "develop" in Manhattan, so now they want to export their capital to Brooklyn and in a couple years Brooklyn won't be Brooklyn. Brooklyn Stand Up!!!
NLG: If more of Brooklyn had stood up like Daniel Goldstein, maybe the outcome would have been different.
Epoch Times, Forest City Ratner Settles With NYC Residents Over Atlantic Yards
One main opponent of the Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn came to an agreement with the company.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
ACORN’s Bertha Lewis Goes a Little Nuts on Last Atlantic Yards Holdout
Daily Intel [NYMag.com]
Yesterday, the last man yet to be evicted from his home to make way for the Atlantic Yards development, David Goldstein, agreed to move out for $3 million. Can you blame the guy? Goldstein, the spokesman for the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn group that had been fighting Atlantic Yards, was going to be evicted anyway, but was given millions of dollars to leave early.
...But ACORN's Bertha Lewis — we thought ACORN had shut down, but okay — doesn't see the logic of Goldstein's decision, according to an absolutely savage e-mail she sent out to reporters last night.
...Yeesh. The irony of it all is that ACORN got its own payoff from Bruce Ratner to support and provide political cover to the Atlantic Yards project. Granted, in exchange, ACORN solidified the promise of affordable housing in the development — but it was also set to make millions off of marketing the housing and deciding who gets to live there, according to a former employee. ACORN was also saved in 2008 by a $1.5 million loan provided by Ratner when it was embroiled in financial trouble. Maybe Lewis is just jealous it wasn't $3 million.
Related coverage...
Queens Crap, ACORN leader sends out frightening e-mail
It's sad that Bertha Lewis and ACORN took the side of the developer when the population they serve has historically been the biggest victim of eminent domain abuse. She has no right pointing fingers at Goldstein for accepting money from Ratner when she did the same damn thing years ago.
SWGA Politics.com, ACORN: Gone, but not forgotten
Now, maybe it’s just me, but where the hell does this woman get off expecting to have a right to someone else’s property? Yes, Goldstein settled and got more than he would have gotten purely with eminent domain. So what? I don’t blame him. The authorities would have taken the property and given him fair market value for it…fair market value in 1982 that is. So he negotiated for more than that. Good for him.
Reason Hit & Run, More Classy Commentary from ACORN's Bertha Lewis
I received the email reproduced below from an anonymous source. I just contacted Bertha Lewis and she verified for me that she is indeed the author. What a class act.
Posted by eric at 9:36 AM
April 22, 2010
Last Atlantic Yards Holdout Agrees to Move
Fox 5 New York
Carolyn Gusoff reporting
Daniel Goldstein sure doesn't sound like a man who's been gagged.
Daniel Goldstein waged an epic battle against the huge Atlantic yards project that will swallow up his Prospect Heights home. The battle ended Wednesday with a settlement. He'll get nearly $2.5 million more than he paid for his condo.
But he doesn't sound like man who will be cashing a check for $3 million.
"I have to be thankful that I'm not being completely screwed," he said Thursday. He said his lawyers will get a lot of that money.
Posted by eric at 11:14 PM
Last Night's Winner: The Almighty Dollar
Deadspin
Why is it always the sports blogs and writers who see through the hype? We reprint Deadspin's incisive analysis in full.
In sports, everyone is a winner—some people just win better than others. Like Daniel Goldstein, the last man standing between the Nets and their shiny Brooklyn arena, who just got $3 million to sit down. That stinks.
Goldstein is the founder of "Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn," a rag-tag band of community organizers who opposed the idea of dropping an ugly basketball arena on top of the busiest intersection in Brooklyn. His house also sits on the land that New Jersey Nets owner/scummy real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner needs to fulfill his terrible, terrible dream. Goldstein bought his condo for $590,000. The developer offered him $510,000 to get lost. He sued everyone he could to stay put. Ratner, the mayor, the city, the state, they guy who invented concrete. He became a major thorn in their side—but he lost. A lot.
So with his house seized under eminent domain and the state making plans to evict him, Goldstein is taking the money and packing it in. For $3 million, he is moving out, stepping down as DDDB's spokesman and agreeing in writing to not "actively oppose the project." He had no choice really—his lost cause was truly lost—but at least his fight to stop this swindle wasn't a total negative for him.
And this is an awful, awful swindle. Ratner convinced those in power that a downtown basketball arena was a good idea by hiring Frank Gehry to design a massive complex of offices, apartments, and shops that would rise and glitter above the court. Then Gehry was fired and most—perhaps all—of the buildings except for the arena will never be constructed. (The only thing Brooklyn needs less than a new arena is more empty condos.) The construction will clog one of the most highly-congested areas of New York City, with a giant eyesore that will distort already troubled traffic patterns. Worst of all, it is being paid for by tax-free government bonds—a nice assist for the billionaire Ratner—and built on land seized by the state to give to a private real estate developer. Even George Will (not exactly a well-known defender of the little guy) agrees that this is a terrible abuse of eminent domain that takes from the public to benefit private wealth. Nothing about the Atlantic Yards project can be considered a good thing, unless you're one of business people or politicians who will profit from it.
Nobody wants this. Yet it can't be stopped, because the rich always win.
Goldstein wins too, because at least he will be able buy a new house and hopefully erase most of his legal bills. (He also met his wife while protesting the project, so that's nice.) Ratner wins because that's one less bump to steamroll on his road to dumping this sorry idea on the lap of Mikhail Prokhorov. Mayor Mike Bloomberg wins because he'll get to stand at the ribbon cuttings and brag about the handful of "jobs" he created, although I'm sure he would never leave Manhattan just to watch a basketball game. Jay-Z wins because he's still Jay-Z and now he doesn't have to try and convince his buddy LeBron to move to Newark.
Everyone wins ... except Brooklyn. More traffic, more crowds, more noise, more corruption ... and they now have to root for the Nets. That may be the saddest part of all.
Posted by eric at 11:06 PM
Daniel Goldstein, Shabnam Merchant and The Fight Against Corrupt Development
COUNTDOWN TO MAIN STREET
Daniel Goldstein and Shabnam Merchant, leaders of the fight against the corrupt development proposed by Forest City Ratner at the Atlantic Yards, negotiated a settlement to leave their apartment quickly. This has been reported in the press as "selling their home." They did not sell their apartment: it was seized by eminent domain. They were able to negotiate the terms of their leaving. They have been leaders in an historic fight, which has helped many of us to understand how developers pull off these deals to steal people's homes and change our cities without our consent. The Development Don't Destroy Brooklyn website has helped to expose every detail of how the process unfolded. This is a great contribution to all of us.
Related coverage...
Reason Hit & Run, Eminent Domain Abuse Finally Forces Daniel Goldstein Out
Much like the news that Freddy's Bar is closing at the end of the month, this is sad but not really shocking. These folks were up against an atrocious Supreme Court precedent, the state and city of New York, and a corrupt and politically-connected real estate tycoon. Thanks to their long battle, this shameless case of eminent domain abuse got some of the scrutiny that it deserves.
Field of Schemes, Atlantic Yards opponent takes $3m to vacate site
That whole Zimbabwe sanctions thing notwithstanding, the path to construction of the Nets' new arena in Brooklyn seems to be getting smoother of late. First, Freddy's Bar, which has been a main gathering point for arena opponents and even installed chains last year so patrons could help it resist eviction, announced it was moving to a new location, though owners promised to continue to fight the project. And then yesterday, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn leader Dan Goldstein agreed to take $3 million from developer Forest City Ratner in exchange for vacating his condo apartment by May 7.
Gothamist, Goldstein: "I Refused to Accept Any Kind of Gag Order"
Despite accepting $3 million in exchange for moving out of the Atlantic Yards, longtime Bruce Ratner enemy and last Atlantic Yards holdout Daniel Goldstein insists he is not giving up the fight. "I've not been silenced, and I am not leaving DDDB as it transitions into a new phase of fighting Atlantic Yards," he said in a press release sent out this morning. He claims that at yesterday's hearing with the Empire State Development Corporation, he had no idea he would be offered a settlement, and did not have a press statement ready. However, "Forest City Ratner saw it as a big press event and sent out a press release immediately," which Goldstein says led to biased reporting.
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Forest City reaches settlement with vocal opponent of Atlantic Yards project
The most vocal opponent of a Forest City Ratner Cos. project in Brooklyn has settled with the developer, the New York arm of Cleveland's Forest City Enterprises Inc.
WCBS-TV, B'klyn Arena Holdout: 'I Don't Feel Like A Winner'
Activist Daniel Goldstein isn't popping any champagne corks Thursday even though, as the last holdout, he's getting $3 million to move out of his Brooklyn condo to make way for the controversial Atlantic Yards project.
...Goldstein fought a five-year battle to stop the project. But since it's going forward he says he's doesn't feel like a winner.
"Ratner's a winner. He's got control of 22 acres in the heart of Brooklyn that he got cheaply on a no-bid deal that makes him a winner," added Ratner. "It's abuse of eminent domain. It's abuse of billions in tax subsidies."
Gideon's Trumpet, The Atlantic Yards Settlement - Lowball Thwarted, or a Big Score Made?
The moral also seems to be that sometimes it may be cheaper to pay off a determined holdout, than to go to the mat with him. It would be interesting to learn what this caper has cost both the city and the redeveloper, considering the cost of litigation and delay.
NJ.com, Come May, will prospective Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov be playing the lotto?
There’s a rumor circulating that Daniel Goldstein’s phone rang as soon as he received his lovely ($3M) parting gift from Ratner Inc. On the line was Brett Yormark, asking him if he wanted to buy a suite. We can officially confirm this rumor as “not necessarily true, but sounds really plausible.”
The Brooklyn Ink, VARYING OPINIONS ON GOLDSTEIN’S HOLDOUT AND PAYOUT
Websites and blogs dedicated to opposing the Atlantic Yards project have published myriad opinions on Daniel Goldstein’s $3 million payout to vacate his apartment.
The following items, which we include solely as part of the Atlantic Yards record, fall into the following categories: Daniel Goldstein was in it for the money (patently absurd); OMG, Daniel Goldstein made a mint (not really, and let's remember how much it was worth to Ratner to settle); Daniel Goldstein shouldn't have settled (moronic — the state already owned his home); Daniel Goldstein should move to another neighborhood threatened by eminent domain (just plain dopey). Proceed at your own risk.
BOCOCA Land, $3 Million? When Do You Want Us Out?
Housing Watch, Brooklyn Development: Atlantic Yards' Last Holdout Gets Monster Settlement
NetsAreScorching, BARCLAYS CENTER FINALLY WITHIN REACH…I HOPE…
Culture Monster [LA Times blog], Yet another chapter in the Atlantic Yards saga
NY Post.com Real Estate blog, New York State not such a great negotiator
Cobble HIll Blog, Open Thread – Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn or What Would You Do with the Money?
City Room, For Developers’ Foe, Suggestions for the Next Battleground
Posted by eric at 10:05 PM
Still early in the fight for Atlantic Yards accountability
BrooklynSpeaks
Daniel Goldstein has made a tremendous contribution to public awareness of the issues of process, transparency and equity associated with the Atlantic Yards project. It is regrettable that he and many others have been forced to leave their homes.
The struggle for reform of Atlantic Yards oversight, however, is just beginning. Before the project even broke ground, the Empire State Development Corporation had negotiated away most of the public benefits promised at the time of Atlantic Yards’ approval in 2006. And the agency agreed to allow the developer 25 years to build the project, tremendously magnifying the impact of its construction on the surrounding communities.
Decisions made about how the modified plan is implemented will have a huge effect on the project's neighbors and the people of Brooklyn. It's also unlikely that the 2009 modified plan will be the last time Forest City or its successors seek changes to what's been approved for Atlantic Yards. That’s why the sponsors of BrooklynSpeaks continue to advocate for accountability in decision-making on Atlantic Yards, and the meaningful involvement of the community in the future of development at the site, using all the means at our disposal. Over the last several months, we’ve heard this call joined by elected officials, journalists and even in the written decisions of our courts. This fight goes on for all concerned Brooklynites and New Yorkers.
NoLandGrab: BrooklynSpeaks last week asked the NY State Supreme Court to rehear its lawsuit challenging the ESDC's 2009 approval of the Atlantic Yards Modified General Project Plan.
Additional coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, BrooklynSpeaks salutes Goldstein, says it's "still early in the fight for Atlantic Yards accountability"
Posted by eric at 9:31 PM
Atlantic Yards bitterness, take 2: the Bertha Lewis diatribe against DDDB's Goldstein
Atlantic Yards Report
Bertha Lewis, Forest City Ratner's partner in the Atlantic Yards affordable housing agreement, on Wednesday night "unleashed a vitriolic diatribe against Mr. [Daniel] Goldstein, the public face of opposition group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, painting him as an obstructionist who masked self-interest with local activism," to quote Eliot Brown in the Observer.
It's a far cry from the tame excerpt quoted in the New York Times today.
There's a thread of logic--Goldstein will continue to be asked, even by some Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn supporters, whether he'll contribute some of his seemingly generous settlement to the larger cause he has represented. And until he does that, he'll be vulnerable to criticism that he was representing only himself. (Others, of course, don't question his decision.)
Daniel Goldstein has dedicated himself to fighting Atlantic Yards for the past six-plus years, and has made as much of a contribution as anyone to the "larger cause." Anyone who criticizes his settlement — made with a wrecking ball hanging over the heads of his family — should try to imagine what it would be like to have one's home taken by the state for a corrupt corporate land grab. Count us among those who don't question his decision.
Credibility questions
But Lewis is hardly credible in claiming she represents "low and moderate income people" (perhaps 40% of the subsidized AY housing would be market-rate) or that DDDB's opposition obstructed affordable housing (affordable housing depends on subsidies, and there were long problems with volume cap).
She's silent on the Development Agreement, which provides ample opportunity for delays in subsidized housing, thanks to an Affordable Housing Subsidy Unavailability.
She doesn't acknowledge that she's contractually obligated to support the project.
And she doesn't acknowledge that, when ACORN was reeling from an embezzlement scandal, Forest City Ratner bailed it out with a $1.5 million grant/loan.
NoLandGrab: Bertha's just sore that she took Ratner's money but didn't retain her First Amendment rights — she has to fluff Atlantic Yards and do Ratner's bidding so long as she's on the payroll.
Related coverage...
Gothamist, ACORN CEO Flames Atlantic Yards' New Millionaire Gadfly
ACORN has all but dissolved in the wake of the hidden camera "pimp" scandal, which was followed by Congress cutting off funding for the organization. In New York, the group has reformed as New York Communities for Change. Lewis is not involved, and she told the AP on Tuesday that ACORN was "on life support." Last month a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled that it was unconstitutional for Congress to cut funds for ACORN without conducting a formal investigation, but earlier this week a federal appeals court temporarily blocked the ruling. With little money coming in, Lewis probably has more time to send nasty e-mails about enemies to reporters.
Curbed, Atlantic Yards' War of Words
Guess who's not happy about Daniel Goldstein's $3 million agreement to leave the Atlantic Yards footprint after a years-long fight? ACORN's Bertha Lewis, an, ah, acquaintance of developer Bruce Ratner.
Brownstoner, Bertha Lewis Celebrates
Posted by eric at 7:37 PM
Atlantic Yards bitterness, take 1: an eavesdropper from Forest City Ratner outside the court room
Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner and its employees continue to impress with their classy actions — and their political ties.
From John Brennan's coverage in the Record, headlined Holdouts' deal clears way for Nets arena in Brooklyn, of the scene outside the courtroom yesterday.
Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn was describing the settlement he'd reached with Forest City Ratner:
During the interview, Goldstein’s attorney, Michael Rikon, asked for the identity of a man lurking nearby and who appeared to be taking notes electro