February 6, 2012
New commercial to follow "Jay-Z's rise from selling CDs out of the trunk of a car "
Atlantic Yards Report
Relying on a behind-the-paywall WWD article, New York Magazine reports:
Jay-Z's forthcoming commercial will be called "From Marcy to Madison Square," and show black-and-white footage that follows Jay-Z's rise from selling CDs out of the trunk of a car in Marcy Projects in Bedford-Stuyvesant to headlining concerts at Madison Square Garden. It'll reportedly air on MTV, BET, and TNT during NBA basketball games.
Um, I thought Jay-Z's rise relied less on selling CDs than other product.
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
February 1, 2012
February 14: a day of reckoning for Forest City Ratner? Cases involving Atlantic Yards timetable and Ridge Hill corruption charges go to court
Atlantic Yards Report
Tuesday, February 14, may be a day of reckoning for developer Forest City Ratner, as two key court cases proceed in Manhattan.
Sometime after 2 pm, there will be oral argument in the appeal filed by FCR and Empire State Development in the case challenging the state's finding that there was no need for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to analyze the impacts of a 25-year buildout.
In a victory for community petitioners, a judge ruled that such an SEIS was needed.
The case will be heard in the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court, 27 Madison Avenue. I've already written about the first two legal exchanges: the appeal brief from ESDC/FCR and the reply from the petitioners. The appellants get the last word, so I will write shortly about their reply.
The Ridge Hill case in Yonkers
On February 14, jury selection begins in federal court regarding the Ridge Hill corruption case, which touches on Forest City Ratner, though the developer was not charged. The case, which could take a month to try, will be heard by U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in courtroom 14C of the federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street.
...Will Forest City staffers or lobbyists be called to testify?
I'll have a preview article about the case in the next week or so.
Posted by eric at 1:17 PM
Markowitz will promote Barclays Center hockey (exhibition game!) in State of the Borough, won't close door on mayoral run, but seems resigned to sitting it out; not sure "son" (gray parrot) understands his legacy
Atlantic Yards Report
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who gives his invitation-only State of the Borough address tonight, apparently will be promoting future events at the Barclays Center.
As Newsday first reported yesterday, the Islanders will play the New Jersey Devils in a preseason game on October 2; it's the first NHL game in Brooklyn.
(Would you believe the New York Times devoted a Metro section article to the game, Testing the Ice Where Hockey Was an Afterthought, with credits to four reporters? The Times sure didn't cover the failure to provide the promised Transportation Demand Management plan, or the failure to provide promised larger affordable housing units.)
According to a Courier Life report issued before the official announcement, he indicated he'd be pushing for NHL hockey. Markowitz was appearing at the Bay Ridge Community Council's Presidents' Luncheon, held, not coincidentally, at the Bay Ridge Manor, long owned by state Senator Marty Golden and his family.
Posted by eric at 12:35 PM
Did an "emergency situation" really preclude alerting neighbors to overnight work last Saturday? Permit for crane was issued 11 days in advance
Atlantic Yard Report
Let's take another look at the explanation given for the disruptive overnight work beginning last Saturday at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, Empire State Development, stated:
The work that was occurring this weekend was being done by the LIRR and had nothing to do with Atlantic Yards. The LIRR is typically very good at notifying us of work that they need to do after hours so that we can inform the community, especially when it relates to Atlantic Yards. But apparently there was an emergency situation in the yard this weekend and they had to get in there very quickly.
Well, maybe it had "nothing to do with Atlantic Yards," but, given that reconfiguration of the LIRR's Vanderbilt Yard is part of the project, it seems like there's some connection, even if not formally part of the Forest City Ratner-led work.
"Emergency situation"?
It's even more doubtful there was an "emergency situation." After all, it's hard to get cranes on short notice.
And, it turns out, the (almost surely) related Department of Transportation permits were issued January 17, eleven days earlier. The permits were for work on Atlantic between Sixth Avenue and the block immediately to the east, South Oxford Street,beginning Saturday, January 28.
Three sequential permits, listed below, were issued the same day.
Given that the announced purpose purpose was "Mobile Crane to Lift Electrical Equipment," and that's what happened, I trust that the permits applied to the work indicated in the photo above. I've asked Hankin for any further explanation, and will update this post if I learn more.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
January 31, 2012
planners + Atlantic Yards: community advocates or development cheerleaders?
“The planning debate of the decade: Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn. The argument isn’t just about Atlantic Yards, however: it’s about what we want our country to look like next.”
Landscape Urbanism
by Peter Chomko
Over the past couple weeks, the Penn School of Design and Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts have teamed up to get the Philadelphia intelligentsia talking about, of all things, an out-of-town city planning dispute. Not just any planning dispute, of course, the planning dispute. You know one: Brooklyn, the Nets, Russian oligarchy and organized crime, Jay-Z. Atlantic Yards.
Um, what planning?
You’ll notice that the words “Atlantic Yards” aren’t linked to anything. That’s deliberate: Given the heated debate those two words frequently give rise to, I’m avoiding taking anything that even looks like a position on the issue. Because this particular post isn’t actually about Atlantic Yards. At this point, “Atlantic Yards” (the cause it’s become, not the physical space) isn’t actually about Atlantic Yards anymore. It’s about a country emerging, e-v-e-r–s-o–s-l-o-w-l-y, from a long and deep recession, and what we want the country that emerges to look like.
NoLandGrab: No, we're pretty sure everything is about Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
January 30, 2012
Bowing to Change
Brooklyn's Triangle Sports Feels the Pressure From All Sides
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
There goes the neighborhood — courtesy of Bruce C. Ratner.
A family-owned sporting-goods and apparel store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is calling it quits after 96 years in business, another sign of changes sparked by the coming of the nearby Barclays Center arena complex.
Feeling the pressure from big-box stores and the weak economy, Triangle Sports has put its building up for sale in hopes of finding a store or restaurant itching to be close to the multiuse sports, retail and residential project rising across the street.
"It's getting harder and harder for a smaller, independent retailer to survive," said an emotional Henry Rosa, one of the partners behind Triangle Sports, who started working in the shop as a teenager in the 1960s.
...More change is on the way for the area around Barclays Center as it prepares to open this fall. National retailers and Manhattan restaurateurs have been quietly scoping out properties around the arena, real-estate brokers and property owners said.
"Is it going to look like Madison Square Garden?" said Geoffrey Bailey of real-estate service firm TerraCRG, which is marketing the Triangle Sports building. "It's going to look like Brooklyn's interpretation."
..."This trend is going to accelerate in a monumental way as we get closer to the arena opening," said Timothy King, managing partner with CPEX Real Estate.
...But longtime Triangle Sports shoppers said they were sorry about the news that the business was closing.
"It's a symbol of things that have been here a long time," said Liz Fader, 75 years old, from Boerum Hill. "This is just another example of this loss of community."
Related coverage...
Here's Park Slope, Triangle Sporting Goods Up For Sale
This sadly seemed inevitable: After 96 years occupying the prime corner of Fifth Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, and Dean Street, Triangle Sporting Goods has put itself, and the building it calls home, up for sale.
Posted by eric at 5:12 PM
Daniel Goldstein on Edge of Sports Radio
Edge of Sports Radio via Sirius Satellite Radio
Edge of Sports host and The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin talks with Daniel Goldstein about Atlantic Yards, beginning around the 28:40 mark.
Posted by eric at 5:05 PM
January 27, 2012
Delay in transportation plan for arena dismays residents, CM Levin; lack of info about area garages hampers efforts to reduce surface parking lot in residential neighborhood
Atlantic Yards Report
The delay in the release of the long-awaited Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan, from once-promised December to now-promised May, has distinct real-world consequences, notably stalling the efforts of Prospect Heights residents to argue for a reduction in the size of the planned 1100-space parking lot on Block 1129, bounded by Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues and Dean and Pacific Streets.
The availability of parking garages elsewhere might buttress their case, but more than five years after the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) was completed, Forest City Ratner contractors are newly analyzing available spaces in parking garages near the project site.
During meetings yesterday of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet (made up of affected agencies and elected officials) and the Transportation Focus Group (including neighborhood and civic groups), representatives of Sam Schwartz Engineering (SSE) did not discuss the emerging plan in great detail, but described the research process (e.g., surveys of attendees), the plan to select a vendor to manage parking, and shared how incentives for mass transit, including marketing, had reduced the number of drivers at other sports facilities, such as the Prudential Center in Newark and CitiField in Queens.
The pre-sale of parking spaces in local garages, plus parking in remote garages (with free shuttle buses), is aimed to steer drivers away from residential streets.
However, several residents expressed qualms about the effect in neighborhoods around the Barclays Center, given the failure, for example, to establish residential permit parking (RPP), which would deter out-of-area drivers looking for free on-street spaces.
NoLandGrab: They've had more than eight years to work on this. Is it any wonder residents around the arena site have zero confidence in the efficacy of the "plan?"
Posted by eric at 11:46 AM
First residential tower now delayed until spring or summer; Forest City admits "goal" of including more larger units won't be met; CM James says developer's not meeting commitment
Atlantic Yards Report
Say what you will about creepy Jim Stuckey — he wasn't so nearly prone to ineffectual blathering as Jane Marshall.
For the umpteenth time, Forest City Ratner has pushed back the projected groundbreaking for the first Atlantic Yards residential tower, Building 2 (B2), at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street flanking the Barclays Center arena. Now the groundbreaking could be spring, as most recently projected, or summer.
Also, as acknowledged today at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, Forest City will not meet its "goal"--purportedly guaranteed by the Community Benefits Agreement and long promoted by the developer--of ensuring that half of the subsidized "affordable housing" would be (in square footage) devoted to larger units of two and three bedrooms.
"It doesn’t dilute our desire to meet the commitment in the future," insisted Forest City executive Jane Marshall at the meeting, held at Borough Hall.
"I understand your desire," responded Council Member Letitia James, skeptically. "I desire to be thin, and young"--the audience chuckled--"but that’s not going to happen. The bottom line is that, there was a commitment, there was a promise. There’s a need in the neighborhood... I would hope you would honor your commitment to the community.”
Forest City Ratner's partner ACORN, or its successor, was supposed to hold the developer to its housing pledge, but Bertha Lewis, who promoted the project because of the pledge, has not yet questioned the commitment.
Click through for Norman Oder's timeline of Forest City's moving Building 2 "goal" posts — which have now been moved 10 times in a little more than two years.
NoLandGrab: Forest City's repeated delaying of housing construction sure helps our confidence in all their other promises — but surely they'll deliver with the Transportation Demand Management plan or the reopening of the Carlton Avenue bridge. Right?
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
Eye on the Politics of the Atlantic Yards Project
Our Time Press
by Mary Alice Miller
What, OTP couldn't send crack(ed) reporter Stephen Witt to the presser?
For all the good that they do, occasionally, local elected officials do something that makes you want to say, “Hmmm?” Last Sunday, State Senator Eric Adams teamed with Assemblymen Hakeem Jeffries and Karim Camara to call “Foul” over “Failure of Barclay Arena Developer to Score on Community Givebacks.” Claiming that “many of the community benefits promised by the developers — including job creation, a public safety plan and the inclusion of affordable housing – have failed to materialize,” the trio announced “their plans to introduce legislation that establishes a subsidiary corporation for Atlantic Yards oversight and development.” The group calls on Kenneth Adams, president of the Empire State development Corporation, to “implement oversight changes in the Atlantic Yards development project” which “will ensure transparency and accountability to protect public resources invested in the project.”
State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, a staunch critic of the Atlantic Yards development as it was proposed and funded, was not invited to the presser. Neither were Assembly members James Brennan or Joan Millman. Montgomery is the Senate sponsor of the bill; Brennan and Millman are co-sponsors of the Assembly bill. Oddly, Adams has not yet co-sponsored the Senate bill.
Where was the concern expressed this week by Adams, Jeffries, and Camara during five years of displacements, eminent domain law suits, and skepticism from other elected officials and community members over Forest City Ratner’s inflated job and affordable housing estimates. Why is legislation calling for “changes in the governance of the Atlantic Yards Project, the development that includes Barclay Arena, future home of the New York Nets” being announced now?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Who was missing from the press conference last Sunday? Sen. Montgomery and other Atlantic Yards critics
Mary Alice Miller, the Our Time Press reporter/columnist who bluntly asked three belated critics of Atlantic Yards "Where were y'all?" last Sunday, offers her take, in Eye on the Politics of the Atlantic Yards Project.
...Unrelated but intriguing was the news yesterday that the GOP-proposed Senate redistricting would pit two sitting Democratic Senators, as reported by City and State NY:
Brooklyn State Sens. Eric Adams and Velmanette Montgomery’s residences are now in the same Senate district, spokespersons for both the Senate Republicans and Democrats confirmed, potentially putting the two colleagues in the position of running against one another.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo has promised a veto.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
January 26, 2012
A couple of big Atlantic Yards meetings today
Atlantic Yards Report
The first meeting today (as I previously wrote) is the bimonthly Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, is open to the public, at Borough Hall at 9:30 am. The expected topic is the long-awaited Transportation Demand Management plan.
The second, at Borough Hall at 6 pm, is an invite-only event regarding community groups' response to general traffic/transportation issues.
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
January 25, 2012
Is Atlantic Yards Good for Brooklyn? A Public Call to Host a Town Hall Meeting With Michael Ratner
The Nation
by Dave Zirin
As reported by Michael O’Keeffe in yesterday’s New York Daily News, I have issued a formal request to Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights to co-host a film screening of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn. The documentary describes the efforts in Brooklyn to resist the Atlantic Yards basketball arena/housing development project, which will upturn twenty-two acres in the heart of the borough. That has meant protesting eminent domain evictions, sweetheart backroom deals, the prospect of accelerated gentrification, the tearing down of historic buildings and the use of taxpayer subsidies. Mr. Ratner is an investor in this project, spearheaded by his brother, Bruce Ratner, a high powered real estate magnate. Michael Ratner is also a hero of mine. His work opposing the Patriot Act, torture as policy, and the War Powers Act is an inspiration to anyone who cares about civil liberties and real freedom. In other words, not freedom the way Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich or Ron Paul talk about freedom—the freedom to destroy the environment, smash unions, or build a pipeline through your backyard—but the freedom to actually assemble, debate, discuss and live in an open society.
But Michael Ratner is also an investor in this incredibly controversial project. He has never commented publicly about the constitutionality of how eminent domain was used to remove people from their Brooklyn homes and businesses. He has never explained why someone of his sterling reputation would involve himself in a project that symbolizes for so many residents the profits of the few over the needs of the many. Maybe he believes that this kind of massive development project is completely constitutional. Maybe he thinks that it’s in the best interests of Brooklyn. Maybe he believes that the Ratner family will profit mightily from the project, which will in turn support the good works of the CCR. I have no idea. As a boy with Brooklyn roots, I’m certainly open to his arguments, but it would be good to actually hear them. Given Michael Ratner’s profile as a civil libertarian, I honestly believe he has an obligation to be public and transparent about his involvement.
That is why I am issuing the following offer to Mr. Ratner: let us co-host a showing of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn. The film, which was shortlisted for an Academy Award, is remarkably gripping and would provide a terrific basis for a townhall conversation about the merits of Atlantic Yards, the constitutionality of eminent domain for private benefit and whether sports arenas are answers to the vexing problems of urban development and job creation. I already have agreements secured from several movie theaters willing to host such an event as well as a commitment from Daniel Goldstein, the protagonist of Battle for Brooklyn, to attend. You and I can both make brief statements and then open it up to the crowd. To Mr. Ratner: I can be reached at dave@edgeofsports.com. Let’s hold this event soon, in a comradely amicable setting, that allows us all to clear the air and educate the public about whether Atlantic Yards is in the best interests of Brooklyn not to mention in accordance with the kind of free, open and just society you have spent a lifetime championing.
NoLandGrab: Michael Ratner: "OK, so long as I can bus in 500 construction workers and ACORN members and give them free sandwiches."
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, David Zirin Publicly Invites Developer Bruce Ratner's Brother Michael to Discuss Atlantic Yards
Until now the media and icons on the left have stayd away from Michael Ratner's financial involvement in Atlantic Yards. No more.
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
From Atlantic Yards Watch: "urina" trash on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
Eeew.
Neighborhood opposition to the expected cluster of bars and restaurants near the Barclays Center includes concern that inebriated patrons will use the neighborhood as a urinal. That generated unsurprising mocking response from the bravely pseudonymous contributors at NetsDaily.
However, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch, a version of the "urina" is already in place. Construction workers have been discarding bottles of urine as neighborhood trash for months.
That bottle in the photo below, in a tree bed on Pacific Street between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues? Not apple juice. Maybe it would be less noticeable if the workers didn't park in a residential neighborhood.
.JPG) |
NoLandGrab: Classy, like everything else about this project.
Posted by eric at 12:12 PM
Federal agency overseeing EB-5 immigrant investment program confirms that it will continue to let states gerrymander districts of high unemployment
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote 1/11/12 how a revised draft memo on EB-5 Adjudications Policy, issued that day by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), punted regarding the practice by states of gerrymandering maps to ensure projects aimed at immigrant investment were located in areas of high unemployment.
And that allows for a lower investment level, $500,000, rather than $1 million, for those seeking green cards and their families.
Last month, in a front-page article, the New York Times put the gerrymandering issue on the national agenda, forcing USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas to acknowledged concern about the spirit of the legal provision which aims to help high-unemployment districts.
The Times article, which focused on the odd maps approved for New York projects (including what I've dubbed the "Bed-Stuy Boomerang" involving Atlantic Yards), even generated an editorial chiding the federal agency.
But the memo issued earlier this month stated that the USCIS would continue to give deference to the lines drawn by the state.
NoLandGrab: We suppose it's too much to ask for that boomerang to come back and hit Bruce Ratner in the tuches.
Posted by eric at 12:02 PM
NY State Appeal of Atlantic Yards Sweetheart Deal Ruling in Court on Valentine's Day
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Happy Valentine's day courtesy of the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner.
Oral argument on NY State's and the developer's appeal of the ruling that went against them in DDDB et al. v. ESDC et al. has been scheduled for....Tuesday, February 14th at 2pm in the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court (27 Madison Avenue in Manhattan.)
What better day to further discuss, in court, the sweetness of Bruce Ratner's sweetheart deal.
NoLandGrab: Will they be the Appellate of our eye?
Posted by eric at 11:55 AM
UPDATE: 'Battle For Brooklyn' Doesn't Make Oscar Cut
Park Slope Patch
by Paul Leonard
Update, 10:48 a.m.: We received the following from "Battle For Brooklyn" co-director Michael Galinsky on today's Oscar news:
"We are really pleased by the energy that being on the short list gave the film. It's been on screen in NY almost every week since June and it will continue to show ... We are very pleased to see that our friend Marsh Curry's film "If A Tree falls" was recognized. So many incredible films are being made right now. It's truly a golden age of documentary."
On Monday, the film will screen at the American Can Factory at Third Avenue and 3rd Street to bring attention to proposed zoning changes in Gowanus, according to Galinsky.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
January 24, 2012
'Battle For Brooklyn' Doesn't Make Oscar Cut
Announced this morning, list of nominees leaves out Atlantic Yards doc.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Paul Leonard
Weeks after making a list of 15 Oscar hopefuls, it's official: The Clinton Hill filmmakers behind the Atlantic Yards documentary, "Battle For Brooklyn," won't be strolling down the Kodak Theater's Hollywood red carpet after all.
The film, which has been shown across the country to acclaim, was left off of the list of five nominations announced in Los Angeles Tuesday morning.
Among the docs that did make the cut was Wim Wender's 3-D "Pina," an ode to the director of an innovative dance company that continues its run at BAM Rose Cinemas through this week.
Other films on the list include "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory," a film tracking the aftermath of the Robin Hood Hills murders in Arkansas, and "If the Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front," which featured the story of one of ELF's members caught by police.
NoLandGrab: Paradise Lost 3, for one, was panned by The New York Times. We wuz robbed.
Posted by eric at 11:00 AM
Sports editor of 'The Nation' asks Michael Ratner, Bruce Ratner's brother, to screen 'Battle for Brooklyn'
NY Daily News Sports ITeam Blog
by Michael O'Keeffe
Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, is a hero to many people for his work for human rights and civil liberties.
He’s also an investor in brother Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development, which includes an arena for the NBA’s Nets, which has prompted some former admirers to write him off as a phony and a limousine liberal, a hypocrite who speaks out when a government razes Palestinian homes but is silent when government seizes Brooklyn apartments.
...Progressive media – or at least one member of it – is finally calling out Ratner for an explanation.
Dave Zirin, the sports editor for The Nation, challenged Michael Ratner, via his Twitter account, to co-host a showing of the documentary “Battle for Brooklyn” and explain his support for the controversial project.
Posted by eric at 10:36 AM
January 23, 2012
Atlantic Yards Not Nearly As Brooklyn Job-Friendly As Claimed
Gothamist
by Garth Johnston
 |
You guys are never going to believe this, but remember when Forest City Ratner kept telling us that its Atlantic Yards Project would bring thousands of jobs and units of affordable housing to Brooklyn? They lied! Not only are there fewer (prefab) buildings going up than initially promised, but the steadily rising stadium, now known as the Barclay's center, has been a disappointment jobs-wise, too.
...None of this is actually new (remember those "interns" who sued Ratner when it reneged on a promise of jobs and a union card?) but its the response from the Ratner cake that is the icing on the camp. First off, they're all "Over 20% of all contract dollars to date have gone to [minority] firms, the highest percentage in the city"—which, fair enough—but then the company's spokesman goes on to say that litigation (*cough* Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn *cough*) and "the economy" have "impacted" the number of jobs created. So yeah, its not Forest City Ratner's fault they aren't doing what they promised they'd do—its Brooklyn's fault for complaining and holding the whole thing up.
Related coverage...
threecee via flickr, 2012 BrooklynSpeaks Atlantic Yards Governance Press Conference
Park Slope Patch, Pols Criticize Forest City Ratner's Promises at Rally
The Atlantic Yards website touts that the project would create “more than 16,000 union construction jobs plus over 8,000 permanent jobs,” but a report by Merritt & Harris said that as of November there were 645 construction workers on the job.
Posted by eric at 6:19 PM
Times Public Editor Brisbane gingerly moves to embrace more fact-checking, offers warnings; I suggest Atlantic Yards as a subject, offer examples of misleading coverage
Atlantic Yards Report
"He said, she said?" They'd both prefer truth to "news."
New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane, fresh off his "Truth Vigilante" exploration, yesterday gingerly surveyed the new media world of dedicated fact-checking outlets/efforts. He pronounced himself somewhat chastened:
Newspaper journalism’s traditional way of dealing with spurious claims, meanwhile, isn’t satisfying readers. Often derided as the “he said, she said” approach, this method entails finding and quoting someone to counter a claim, thereby offering a form of balance but no resolution. This sufficed in the past, for many at least, but now many readers are asking for more aggressive rebuttals.
I heard this loud and clear last week when I asked readers on my blog whether they wanted more fact-checking in straight news articles and they said, resoundingly, yes.
James Fallows, author of “Breaking the News” and a national correspondent for The Atlantic, told me it is incumbent on reporters to correct falsehood, not just balance it.
...I posted a comment:
If the Times is going to do some non-political fact-checking, why not start with the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, where so many facts promulgated by elected officials and the developer are supremely questionable, and the newspaper too often acts as a stenographer?
Posted by eric at 1:24 PM
Brooklyn Arena Criticized on Hiring
The Wall Street Journal
by Heather Haddon
As the Barclays Center arena slowly progresses in Brooklyn, elected officials are calling for the developers to make good on the affordable housing units and thousands of jobs promised to accompany the development.
Nearly two years after it broke ground, the development has created less than a thousand jobs, fewer than the 1,500 slots a year developer Bruce Ratner had promised to bring to the area, elected officials said Sunday.
"The project was presented as a field of dreams but has turned into a cemetery of broken promises," said Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who was joined by fellow Brooklyn Democrats Sen. Eric Adams and Assemblyman Karim Camara during a news conference on Sunday.
About 100 of the jobs created have gone to workers from the five Brooklyn neighborhoods surrounding the $5 billion sports arena and housing complex, but they have mostly been retail positions, not well-paying ones in construction, Mr. Jeffries said.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Press Conference Over ‘Broken Promises’ at Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards report has an extensive post about the press conference noting that three have had “nuanced and/or supportive positions toward Atlantic Yards” until now and that their about-face likely represents the fact that two are running for office at the moment, as well as representing how many of their constituents feel about the development at this point.
Posted by eric at 1:04 PM
Q&A with Kickstarter’s Yancey Strickler
Cinespect
by Alexandra Marvar
Kickstarter is an online pledge system for financing creative projects—a pioneer of the “crowdfunding” movement when it was founded two and a half years ago. In that time, thousands of projects from design to dance have come to life thanks to the website, but the most prominent and profitable category has been film. So far on Kickstarter, 4,500 film projects have run their course, and a fair share of those are finding real world success with help from the funds—and fans—they’ve rallied.
...Cinespect sat down with Kickstarter co-founder Yancey Strickler to discuss the magic of Kickstarter’s collaboration with the Sundance Institute, how many dinners with Russian oligarchs it takes to fund an indie film, and how crowd-sourcing support for films is shaking up the industry.
I don’t have a film background, I’ve had to get a crash course this year, but I had always imagined that someone like Jim Jarmusch just sat in a castle somewhere and looked at camera lenses for twenty hours a day and was like, “That one.” And, that’s how a filmmaker spends their time. But, I realize now that as a filmmaker, you are a perma-fundraiser. You’re having weird dinners with oil barons from Oklahoma, and Russian oligarchs, to try to get 100,000 dollars out of them, and meanwhile you cast their, you know, second mistress in the lead or something in exchange… There’s a really dirty part involved in how you have to fund these things.
Russian oligarch-funding was a non-starter for Battle for Brooklyn. Good thing there was Kickstarter.
What are some stand-out examples of Kickstarter film successes?
There’ve been a number of films that have had real world success. There’s a film called “Resurrect Dead”—a really, really interesting documentary about these weird signs that are imprinted into the asphalt, and it’s a guy trying to figure out what that is. He got picked up by Focus, won best documentary director at Sundance… He was cleaning houses before that. And he was shooting this on nights and weekends when he had time for five years. And suddenly he’s a filmmaker. That one’s really neat.
Two of our very earliest documentaries are short-listed for the Best Documentary Academy Award right now. “Battle for Brooklyn” is a documentary about the Atlantic Yards Project. They raised $25,000 the first year of Kickstarter, which was by far the largest film we’d had at the time. Also up for Best Documentary is “The Loving Story,” another really early one—I backed both these projects—a documentary about Virginia vs. Loving, the Supreme Court Case that first legalized interracial marriage.
Posted by eric at 12:31 PM
January 21, 2012
Behind the "Atlantic Yards Now" button: a 24-hour turnaround
Atlantic Yards Report
As I've been noodling around some databases for small business and MWBEs (minority- and women-owned businesses enterprises), I found one interesting mention:
Creation of "Atlantic Yards Now" button. 24 hour turn around
Those were given out to union workers and other project supporters in advance of the 5/29/09 state Senate oversight hearing on Atlantic Yards held at the Pratt Institute.
The buttons were produced by Concept Marketing & Promotions Inc., led by Ellen North, a WBE that was hired by the public relations firm Geto & DeMilly ("Shaping public policy. Creating strategies that generate change").
The tab: $475.
Posted by steve at 10:13 PM
January 20, 2012
The Big League Lie: Do Sports Really Matter to Your Community?
Aaron Gordon recounts the story of how one man fooled a city with the promise of professional basketball.
The Good Men Project
by Aaron Gordon
Kids playing stickball on the street. Arguing about last night’s game with your barber. Whatever it is, so many of us consider sports to be a fundamental aspect to a healthy community. Not only do we believe this, but it makes sense, too. Our surroundings, both physical and intangible, are part of who we are. Professional sports teams are part of our identity as well, so we conflate professional sports with other aspects of our community. But this is wrong, and smart businessmen have learned to exploit the error.
Local elites socially construct ideas such as community self-esteem and community collective conscience to help them reap large amounts of public dollars for their private stadiums. That quote comes from the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, published in 2002, four years before the Atlantic Yards project was approved, and before the documentary Battle For Brooklyn was filmed. After attending a screening of the film and speaking with the directors, I now see the notion of professional sports as a community entity isn’t just wrong, it’s dangerous.
Posted by eric at 12:18 PM
Responding in timetable case appeal, community coalitions charge ESDC with "fabrication," "sham," and "cover-up" for not analyzing impact of 25-year buildout; argument likely in February
Atlantic Yards Report
The two community coalitions challenging the state's failure to study the effects of a 25-year project buildout have filed a joint brief responding to the dual filings by the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and Forest City Ratner that appeal a lower court's decision finding the ESDC's actions arbitrary and capricious for failing to order a Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).
The legal dispute does not affect the building of the arena, nor the towers around it, but does address plans for and impacts of Phase Two of the project: the eleven towers east of Sixth Avenue, including those to be built on a platform over the Vanderbilt Yard.
On a broader note, the case, which should be heard in a state appellate court in Manhattan in February, addresses whether the state agency essentially cheated to ensure that Atlantic Yards would move forward.
As the plaintiffs--coalitions led by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks--argue, had the ESDC been forced to conduct an SEIS, the agency, which approved a new Modified General Project Plan in September 2009, would have had to delay approval until 2010.
That would have forced Forest City Ratner to miss a crucial end-of-2009 deadline to get federally tax-exempt arena bonds sold. And that would have cost the developer at least $100 million more.
Posted by eric at 12:11 PM
'In the Footprint': Unfocused tale of a real estate grab
Philadelphia Inquirer
by Toby Zinman
From the same people who booed Santa Claus...
Although Philadelphia audiences may care theoretically about the issues, we can't care much about the place names, the street names, the delis, the mom-and-pops that go the way of mom and pop. And because the show is a retrospective of the battle over Atlantic Yards, it is really just whining and hand-wringing; it's over before the show begins, so there is no need, much less inclination, to jump to our feet, fists in the air. This is especially so because the characters are so unappealing and the show is so unfocused (probably a function of both a messy script and fuzzy direction by Steve Cosson).
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
January 19, 2012
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN -- Michael Galinsky and Daniel Goldstein interview
Filmmaker Michael Galinsky and activist Daniel Goldstein talk private property, holding out, and standing ovations.
Killer Movie Reviews via PRX
by Andrea Chase
Filmmaker Michael Galinsky used the synchronicity that brought him together with Daniel Goldstein when making BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN, the story of how a private developer invoked Eminent Domain to seize private property, including Goldstein's. The resulting film has been shortlisted for an Oscar, and at the screening I attended in San Francisco, brought an audience to its feet. When I spoke with them, the conversation covered what it was like for Goldstein to be trapped in an elevator after everyone else had moved out, how a developer can circumvent local authorities, and how the Occupy Movement has helped get the film booked around the country.
Related content...
SF Gate, The Watch
The Oscar buzz was almost audible as an industry-heavy crowd piled into a recent screening of the documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" at Dolby. Most stuck around for the Q&A with director Michael Galinsky, as well as "BFB's" focus, Brooklyn resident-turned-Atlantic Yards-opponent Daniel Goldstein, and activists fighting a 49ers stadium in Santa Clara. Opined the director, whose film screens tonight at the Roxie: "It's a local story, happening in every locality."
Examiner.com, Movie review: 'Battle For Brooklyn' shows that a couple can fight City Hall
In some ways "Battle For Brooklyn" resembles Frank Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" but even more so his "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" in its look at a relentless couple who fearlessly keeps fighting City Hall and its powerful allies at the expense of a social life and time to breathe, as the couple awakens a community and galvanizes a fight against a corporate and government structure that puts political roadblocks and legal linguistic contrivances in front of the resident taxpayers at every turn.
Unyielding in its fervor and outrage, and personified by the divided working-class community members and long-time small businesses facing closure, "Battle For Brooklyn" is undeniably a piece of advocacy, even if unintended.
Posted by eric at 5:38 PM
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn takes Gotbaum to task for support of Ratner
NY Daily News Sport ITeam Blog
by Michael O'Keeffe
Former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum’s recent rush to defend Nets’ minority owner Bruce Ratner shows that when it comes to New York politics, the fox is quite welcome in the hen house, according to Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.
“We don't remember her doing any meaningful public advocacy as Public Advocate but she sure hopped to it as Ratner Advocate when Ratner called,” DDDB says on its web site.
Gotbaum is the former elected official who once said she would support Ratner’s plans to build the massive Atlantic Yards project, and its arena for the woeful Nets, because the developer told her he would not use eminent domain to acquire Brooklyn real estate.
Gotbaum is apparently willing to overlook Ratner’s fib. She wrote a letter that appeared in The New York Times last week that praised the developer for always demonstrating the “highest ethical standards.”
Gotbaum does have her fans, however...
@ShellySilver via Twitter: Betsy, we miss you. As your letter to the editor reminds us, you were everything a Public Advocate should be. http://ow.ly/8zy1b
Posted by eric at 4:37 PM
For two documentary makers, the Oscar phone call that may or may not come
Independent Weekly
by Craig D. Lindsey
Well, we're down to the wire, folks. Next Tuesday morning, the Academy Award nominations will be announced, and people in the motion picture industry will likely have spent the night wide awake and wondering if a film they worked on, or if they themselves, will be nominated for that most golden of statues. While the well-lauded likes of Meryl Streep will perhaps be content to sleep in, for others, a nomination could have a galvanizing effect on their films and careers.
In this latter category are two documentary filmmakers with Triangle ties. Nancy Buirski, director of The Loving Story, and Michael Galinsky, who co-directed Battle for Brooklyn with his wife Suki Hawley, may be around that morning to first receive the news. Or they may be notified secondhand, like when they heard last November of their films being on the shortlist for documentaries eligible for Oscar contention.
"Someone wrote to me to congratulate me," remembers Buirski. "I wasn't sure what it was about."
As for Galinsky, he found out via the social network grapevine. "Someone posted it on my Facebook page," he says. "I screamed so loud, I scared the interns. I did!"
It makes sense for Buirski and Galinsky to be shocked and surprised by the news. For both filmmakers, it's only been their first time out making a theatrical, documentary feature—and already, there is the possibility that they could become Oscar nominees, a designation that would be an extraordinary reward for the time and effort they put into their flicks.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
An imaginary dialogue between Bruce Ratner and Bruce Bender: how talking up transit (vaguely) might distract from the Ridge Hill case
Atlantic Yards Report
Last March, after the charges surfaced against (now-guilty) state Senator Carl Kruger and lobbyist Richard Lipsky, including a profane exchange between Kruger and Forest City Ratner executive Bruce Bender, I wrote an imaginary dialogue between Bender and his boss, Bruce Ratner.
Maybe they've had another conversation recently.
BB: I have an idea.
BR: I'm listening--
BB: Did you hear about Richard Ravitch? Last week he said that the city's crumbling transit infrastructure is a huge problem, and business leaders lack public spirit, and I quote, "keeping the Bush tax cuts, keeping the government from regulating them and making sure they’re too big to fail."
BR: And what's wrong with that?
BB: Nothing's wrong with that, of course. (Chortles) That's what we do too, more or less. The last part, at least. (Beat) But we need the transit system.
BR: We're an urban company.
BB: Damn straight. We have offices and malls that rely on the subway. And--
BR: --an arena.
BB: An arena that needs subways and buses running well, more of them, in fact. And the LIRR.
BR: Especially the LIRR.
BB: We're not talking about the Islanders yet.
BR: Who said anything about the Islanders?
BB: So this is what we can do.
Posted by eric at 10:12 AM
Review: Battle for Brooklyn
Doc Geeks
by Kristy Hutter
Unlike the Occupy movement, the Battle for Brooklyn had a resilient leader – one who wasn’t going to back down for anyone, not the mayor, not a reverend, not a Russian Billionaire, and not even the world’s most celebrated hip-hop icon.
Directed by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, the film chronicles Brooklyn resident Daniel Goldstein’s fight against private developer, Bruce Ratner, who wants to buy the borough’s historic Prospect Heights neighbourhood, tear it down, and replace it with 16 skyscrapers and an arena for the New Jersey Nets (the team he owned at the time). Known as the Atlantic Yards project, the venture was slated to be the densest real estate development in U.S. history – a plan that divided neighbours, many who actually welcomed the prospect of construction jobs, affordable housing and million-dollar buyouts.
...In its role as a pulpit for the activists, the film is extremely successful, divulging wrongdoings that most of us would abhor. Battle for Brooklyn exposes corruption of corporate ownership, sloppy reporting by local and national media, and the ease with which people sacrifice what they believe in just to get their hands on a fat wad of cash. Not to mention, it portrays rap legend Jay-Z – part owner of the New Jersey Nets – as a corporate blockhead who disregards the plight of his fellow brooklynites, a bold move considering he often claims to “represent” his native district till the day he dies.
What puts Battle for Brooklyn in a class of its own is the filmmaking process? The directors dedicated seven years to the fight, documenting every detail and development of the process for more than half a decade.
Related content...
BeyondChron, “Battle for Brooklyn:” Powerful Film Shows at Roxie Theater Tonight
San Franciscans can see Battle for Brooklyn this evening.
In October 2009, I wrote an article about activists waging an incredible struggle in Brooklyn to prevent a publicly subsidized sports arena and highrise office developments at Atlantic Yards. A film of this campaign, “Battle for Brooklyn,” shows at the Roxie Theater at 16th Street near Valencia tonight at 7 and 9 pm. It should not be missed. The film is on the short list for an Oscar nomination in the Best Documentary category, but its populist message has found it not reaching wide distribution. Tonight offers a great chance to see how power is exerted in major cities in today’s world, with Atlantic Yards being among the most notorious examples.
Posted by eric at 9:48 AM
Is America shutting the door on expats?
After an eight-year battle to become a US citizen, London-born Sebastian Doggart looks at how the Obama administration has tightened the defences of Fortress America
The Telegraph
by Sebastian Doggart
Bruce Ratner's favorite immigration program is the one place where America's borders have not been solidified.
The Obama administration has overseen an escalation of America’s greenbacks-for-Green-Cards policy. These visas are called EB5s, and getting them has become a whole lot easier recently. Their cost has dropped from $1million to $500,000. The requirement that an EB5 investor should employ at least 10 workers is rarely enforced. EB5s have been used to refinance troubled schemes, including, in my own neighbourhood of Brooklyn, the blighted Atlantic Yards project. The subject of a powerful, new documentary called Battle for Brooklyn, this highly controversial scheme was backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and sought to evict local residents to build high-rise buildings and a new stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. When financing dried up after the 2008 financial crisis, developer Bruce Ratner had to find new financial instruments to pay for construction. These included raising $249 million from 498 investors, mostly from China and South Korea, in exchange for EB5 Green Cards, as well as the sale of the Nets to Russian oligarch and presidential candidate, Mikhail Prokhorov.
For anyone not in the one per cent, the locks on the gates to America have been fortified.
Posted by eric at 9:40 AM
January 18, 2012
Ratner Advocate, Former NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum, Defends Her Developer Chum
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
This story tells you everything you need to know about politics in New York City where the most strident advocacy the city's former Public Advocate has done is in defense of her power elite buddy Bruce Ratner and his development firm.
...To come out of the woodwork to defend the ethics of one of the most ethically challenged developers around is just plain astounding...but its what you do for an ol' chum.
Posted by eric at 11:43 AM
Betsy Gotbaum vs. reality: Ratner "has always demonstrated the highest ethical standards and behavior"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder weighs in on former NYC Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum's "astonishing letter" to The New York Times.
The highest ethical standards and behavior?
Then why did Forest City Ratner give a no-show job to the consultant charged with bribing the Yonkers council member who changed her vote to green-light the developer's Ridge Hill project?
Gotbaum was endorsed in 2005 by the Times, which cited her opposition to the West Side Stadium with no mention of her record regarding Atlantic Yards. As I wrote 9/7/05:
Conspicuously absent is any mention of Gotbaum's indefensible record on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan (which also would require hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars): in a nutshell (as she even told me when I ran into her on the campaign trail), she's for the project, unless there's eminent domain; then she's against it. But Bruce Ratner told her there wouldn't be any eminent domain, so she trusts him--even though several landowners within the proposed project footprint have vocally indicated their intentions not to sell, and that the Memorandum of Understanding between Ratner and the state includes eminent domain.
Of course, there was eminent domain. Gotbaum kept quiet.
NoLandGrab: We'd forgotten about Betsy's ridiculous "Bruce told me there wouldn't be any eminent domain" shtick. FIVE MORE BOGUS POINTS!
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Posted by eric at 11:29 AM
Still No Compliance Monitor At Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Zach Campbell
We don't often think of the Eagle when it comes to insightful coverage of Atlantic Yards, but reporter Zach Campbell takes a good, hard look at the utter flimsiness of the project's CBA.
Community Benefit Agreements have a rare history here. They are meant to serve as tools for reconciliation between developers and affected communities — developers can give their projects more legitimacy through the incorporation of public input, while the residents themselves have a vehicle through which they can push for changes to benefit the community and preserve a neighborhood in the face of drastic changes.
In Brooklyn, though, things have worked out a bit differently.
...The CBA required the Executive Committee to hire an independent compliance monitor “as soon as reasonably practicable” after its formation, presumably soon after the document’s signing in 2005. The contract holds the position as its primary means of enforcement; it is referred to in almost every section of the CBA.
The compliance monitor is meant to serve as a community enforcement mechanism, and is the only legally binding tool by which the other CBA groups can make sure the developer plays by the rules. Today, six-and-a-half years after the contract was signed, five years from when the EC began accepting proposals for the job and nearly two years after the site’s groundbreaking, the position of independent compliance monitor for Atlantic Yards is still vacant.
The developer has long disputed its contractual obligations per the CBA. More recently, it has begun to say it will hire the compliance monitor for the second (non-arena) phase of construction. “They [FCR] are going to retain a compliance monitor per the CBA, but they are going to wait until the housing phase,” said Brian Moriarty, a spokesperson for the developer.
...Julian Gross, a CBA lawyer who has written extensively on the other three major CBA agreements in New York history, says it is usually considered a conflict of interest to have financial agreements between developers and the community groups involved.
“New York CBAs are not written for accountability — many are drafted in such an egregiously one-sided manner that it’s clear that there wasn’t really a back and forth,” Gross said. “They are trying to get the credibility of a real CBA without them being a real enforceable agreement.”
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Where's the Independent Compliance Monitor for the CBA? Brooklyn Eagle article elicits evasive response from CBA signatories
Even though the enormous flaws in the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement--most glaringly, the failure to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor (ICM)--have been manifest for a while, journalists have pretty much ignored them.
So credit the Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Zach Campbell for following up, in an extensive article, headlined Still No Compliance Monitor At Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, which elicits some curiously evasive responses.
...It further quotes me as writing, “If the executive committee hardly meets, hasn’t decided yet [when to hire an ICM], and has members whose groups are financially tied to or dependent on Forest City Ratner, what incentive do they have for an Independent Compliance Monitor?”
...So what do the CBA signatories say?
James Caldwell of BUILD blamed lawsuits for delays.
Lennox Britton of the New York State Association of Minority Contractors, said, “I’m sure they’ll get to it.”
The Rev. Herbert Daughtry of the Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance doesn't mind: "The point is that I feel, whether they [FCR] have reneged on promises, I’m not concerned about it.
Bertha Lewis, the former CEO of ACORN, did not respond to Campbell's query, while he found three of the other signatories hard to find.
Note that Lewis in May 2006 defended the CBA by noting that it calls for an independent monitoring body that “does not have a dog in this fight” to oversee implementation.
Brownstoner, Where’s the Promised Atlantic Yards Compliance Monitor?
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
NPR and PR Blitz
Rumur
by Michael Galinsky
This morning on NPR I heard two stories within moments of each other that have a direct connection to “Battle for Brooklyn”. The first was a story about the St. Louis Rams, and the fact that they will likely leave St. Louis for a city with deeper pockets. The second was about how the majority of millionaires in China are looking for a way out, and that many are doing so via the EB-5 program.
...It seems every story seems to point back to an abuse of the government/business relationship cycle. Yet the vast majority of these pieces don’t acknowledge this reality, and bury the lede by following the script. This is what Occupy is about. Perhaps the tide is turning, though the PR blitz is in full effect, so it remains to be seen whether or not people can take back the power.
Related content...
NY Daily News Sports ITeam Blog, Occupy Wall Street has been a boon for 'Battle for Brooklyn'
We wrote a few months back how "Battle for Brooklyn," the critically praised documentary about the fight over Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards, reflected the anger and frustration that prompted Occupy Wall Street. Now, Press Action, a D.C.-area website dedicated to news analysis, reports that OWS has been a boon for "Battle for Brooklyn."
Posted by eric at 10:37 AM
A Call For Governor to Step In and End 'Cycle of Litigation' at Atlantic Yards
Community group wants renewed focus on promised affordable housing at the site.
Fort Greene-Clinton Hill Patch
by Jamie Schuh
Amidst a back-and-forth legal war over the environmental effects of the timeline of Atlantic Yards development, at least one community group is now asking for Gov. Andrew Cuomo to step in and make affordable housing at the site a priority.
“Brooklyn needs Governor Cuomo to step in to end the cycle of litigation, and get this project to deliver on its promises,” said Deb Howard, executive director of the Pratt Area Community Council. “It’s time to move beyond the past failings of the Empire State Development Corporation, and focus on building the affordable housing and providing the jobs the community so desperately needs—now, not in 25 years.”
The call to Albany coincides with ESDC and Forest City Ratner's recent appeal of a July 2011 court decision ordering further environmental review of the Atlantic Yards project, and the subsequent legal response taken this weekend by groups like BrooklynSpeaks and Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: Sure, Status Cuomo will get right on it — as soon as he builds his mega-casino-convention center in the chic downtown neighborhood of Ozone Park, Queens.
Related coverage...
The Real Deal, Brooklyn activists call on Cuomo to bring resolution to AY saga
The legal tug of war started in 2009 when the Empire State Development Corp. allowed Forest City Ratner a 15-year extension on the construction timeline at Atlantic Yards. This summer a court ordered an environmental review of the consequences of the prolonged construction timeframe, which ESDC and Forest City Ratner subsequently appealed. This week, several other activist groups — including Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn — filed legal documents against that appeal.
But the Pratt Area Community Council wants to bypass the legal jostling by getting Cuomo to coerce a resolution.
Posted by eric at 9:57 AM
January 17, 2012
CELLULOID DREAMS: Featured Audio
Celluloid Dreams
Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker Michael Galinsky sat down for an interview with San Jose public radio station KSJS's Tim Sika. Their interesting conversation begins just past the two-minute mark, and runs for about 24 minutes.
Related...
Closer to home, Battle for Brooklyn is making its New Jersey premiere tonight as part of The University of Orange's Jan Term: Real Cities series, at Luna Stage in West Orange, at 7:30 p.m. Michael Galinsky and Daniel Goldstein will be on hand for a Q & A.
Luna Stage
555 Valley Road
West Orange, NJ [map]
Suggested donation $10
Posted by eric at 11:46 AM
Occupy Movement Reignites 'Battle for Brooklyn'
Press Action
The producers of Battle for Brooklyn attribute the documentary’s growing success to the Occupy Wall Street movement’s focus on how government institutions operate on behalf of the wealthy few in the United States.
When it was released in April 2011, Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary about a community in Brooklyn fighting real-estate developers who want to build a basketball arena and numerous other buildings, received positive feedback from reviewers and the public.
But as the Occupy movement caught fire in September 2011, Battle for Brooklyn started getting noticed by an even larger audience, said Michael Galinsky, speaking Jan. 15 at a screening of the film at the Artisphere complex in Arlington, Va. Galinsky co-directed and co-produced the film with his wife Suki Hawley.
Battle for Brooklyn addresses the same issues targeted by the Occupiers: corporate greed, crony capitalism, undemocratic institutions and community destruction.
Posted by eric at 11:41 AM
January 16, 2012
Some "Truth Vigilantism" toward a 2005 New York Times account of AY arena costs
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder, the Charles Bronson of truth vigilantes, injects a little sodium pentathol into a 2005 New York Times story.
I didn't start writing about Atlantic Yards until late 2005, so I'll apply some retrospective "Truth Vigilante" treatment to Stadium Games: Give and Take And Speculation; What the Teams Want And What the City Gets, a 1/16/05 New York Times articles about the proposals then in play:
Nonetheless, the mayor and Gov. George E. Pataki are on the verge of approving three new sports sites -- a football stadium for the Jets, a baseball stadium for the Yankees and a basketball arena for the Nets -- that will require a combined public investment of at least $1.1 billion.
It is not easy to assess precisely what the taxpayers will get out of their investment, which is equivalent in cost to a major Manhattan skyscraper or 25 schools with 600 seats each. In part, that is because the economic benefits are based on studies commissioned by the teams themselves, and promoted by the government sponsors of the projects.
What about AY?
So, what did it say about Atlantic Yards?
The Nets arena in Brooklyn will require a public investment of about $200 million and the condemnation of several blocks of housing and stores. New York will get a basketball team back from New Jersey and an arena with a public garden on top that is intended to serve as an anchor for a residential and commercial development. The arena could also be used for high school or college games.
Well, the public direct investment is nearly 50% higher now, while there are numerous other subsidies and opportunity costs, leading the New York City Independent Budget Office, in 2009, to pronounce the arena a net loss for the city.
The public garden? Long gone.
Arena as anchor for residential and commercial development? Not so much. Maybe leverage for subsidies.
Posted by eric at 12:31 PM
January 13, 2012
Forest City Ratner's designated lurker, the powerful Rapfogel family, and the developer's ties to Sheldon Silver
Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner's designated lurker at certain public events is easy to spot, a round-faced young guy who wears the kipah of an observant Jew: Michael Rapfogel, who comes from a family thisclose to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver.
Rapfogel, who works in FCR's government relations department, was taking notes outside an April 2010 courthouse interview after Atlantic Yards opponent Daniel Goldstein settled and agreed to move--the latter's attorney called it spying.
Rapfogel was, curiously enough, at Brooklyn Borough Hall just before the 12/12/11 meeting concerning a Transportation Working Group, though he didn't stay for the event.
And Rapfogel was across the street (with basketball coach/political consultant Thomas "Ziggy" Sicignano) on 11/15/11 watching the press conference held by Council Member Letitia James announcing a lawsuit filed by seven people who said they were promised construction jobs and union cards after going through an FCR-paid training program.
The Rapfogel connection
Rapfogel holds the title of Vice President--relatively low on the totem pole where such titles later get prepended with "Senior" and "Executive"--but I doubt he's a random hire. Sure, he's got a law degree, so he's competent, but he's also part of a family with crucial political ties. And he's survived while Forest City Ratner has downsized its staff.
His father William Rapfogel serves as the head of a major charity, the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, and is an old friend of Silver, and his mother Judy Rapfogel is Silver's chief of staff.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
Two Atlantic Yards Meetings January 26th
Atlantic Yards Watch
There will be two meetings addressing Atlantic Yards issues taking place at Brooklyn Borough Hall on Thursday, January 26th.
The next Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet will meet from 9:30 am to 11 am. Members of the public may observe the meeting. The agenda has not yet been announced, but given the meeting's timing, it is likely to focus on the transportation demand management plan for Barclays Center.
The second meeting is a follow-up to the December 12, 2011 meeting on traffic issues related to Atlantic Yards. The meeting has the format of a roundtable discussion in which invited community groups can each appoint one representative to participate. Representatives of FCRC and NYCDOT will join the group. The meeting will begin at 6 pm.
Both meetings will be held in the Community Room at Brooklyn Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From AYW: Two Atlantic Yards on January 26: District Service Cabinet and transportation group
I'd add that there was considerable concern at the meeting last month over the content and timing of the much-promised Transportation Demand Management plan.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
Film Listings
San Francisco Bay Guardian
by Kimberly Chun
Hey, Northern California NoLandGrab readers! You can catch Battle for Brooklyn at the Roxie tonight and next Thursday.
OPENING
*Battle for Brooklyn Posed as neither a left nor a right issue (though George Will does drift into view at one improbable moment), Michael Galinsky's powerful documentary does the exhaustive, long-haul work of charting the fight between residents and business owners in Brooklyn's Prospect Heights as they oppose the condemnation of their property — oh-so-inconveniently in the way of the proposed Atlantic Yards, a mammoth Frank Gehry-designed development involving a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets and more than a dozen skyscrapers. The scrappy residents and activists, led in part by graphic designer Daniel Goldstein, face seemingly unbeatable forces: developer Forest City Ratner, which looks to Eminent Domain to seize a community's land, whether it likes it or not; a complicit and corrupt state and city government; and other members of a diverse, divided community who are clamoring for the jobs that Ratner's PR machine promises. Galinsky imparts the impact of the project — and its devastating effects on the neighborhood, despite alternate proposals and the recent real estate bust — over the course of eight years, with hundreds of hours of footage, time-lapse images, and a fortunate focus on one every-guy hero: Goldstein, who loses a fiancé and finds love at the ramparts, while his home is shorn away, all around him. Along the way, the viewer gets an education on the infuriating ways that these sorts of boondoggles get pushed through all opposition — the corollaries between this struggle and, say, the building of the 49ers stadium in Santa Clara are there for the viewer to draw.
Related content...
Reason Hit & Run, ATTN, DC & SF Reasonoids: Battle for Brooklyn, and The Tragedy of Urban Renewal are coming to an art house near you!
Posted by eric at 11:11 AM
January 12, 2012
New York State's Atlantic Yards Appeal Briefs Dissected by Norman Oder
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Norman Oder takes a long look at New York State's briefs on appeal of the Supreme Court ruling that requires the Empire State Development Corporation to undertake a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. ESDC argues that the court usurped agency discretion. The ESDC certainly knows a thing or two about usurpation, such as usurping all NYC zoning laws and 22 acres of Brooklyn to construct a money-losing arena and massive parking lots for a politically connected developer.
But we digress. The plaintiffs on the case, which include DDDB, have made clear, and the court agreed, that the ESDC acted arbitrarily and capriciously in its decision making "process."
Posted by eric at 11:34 PM
In new briefs, ESDC and Forest City ask appeals court to overturn decision ordering new environmental review for Phase 2 of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The battle over the last remaining Atlantic Yards lawsuit continues in court, with new briefs from the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and developer Forest City Ratner.
The state agency, decrying an "unprecedented judicial usurpation of agency discretion," slams state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman for imposing what it says are her views on how to analyze the potential impact of an extended project buildout lasting 25 years, rather than the officially announced ten years.
Similarly, Forest City denounces "an unprecedented expansion and distortion of SEQRA [State Environmental Quality Review Act], and an improper substitution by the court of its judgment for that of ESDC."
Thus, contends the agency, her decision, which required the ESDC to conduct a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) regarding Phase 2--the eleven towers outside the arena block and Site 5--should be reversed both because judges should defer to agency decisions, as well as "the record here, which makes clear that ESDC took multiple SEQRA 'hard looks' at the impacts of the Project under various construction schedules."
The briefs by ESDC and Forest Citywill get a response from the two coalitions (led by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council/BrooklynSpeaks) that brought the (now-combined) lawsuit.
The twist
But the whole thing's a bit surreal.
Why? Because statements made outside the record by developer Bruce Ratner make a mockery of the agency's longstanding claims the project would last ten years. Moreover, a regular pattern of construction-related abuses means that the mitigation plan created by and cited by the state is less "robust" than asserted.
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
'Battle for Brooklyn': It's not just a New York story
TBD.com
by Andrew Beaujon
Battle for Brooklyn is a documentary film about the Atlantic Yards project, which attempted to parachute a new neighborhood, including a basketball arena, into downtown Brooklyn. The only problem? There was already a neighborhood there.
So why should we care about it here? You can't swing a Twitter client in Washington without hitting some nimrod who'll tell you New York's got better food, better coffee, and a better arts scene. Now we have to hear about how much more cinematic their civic problems are than ours?
But: the city of Alexandria has floated the idea of using eminent domain to get its waterfront-redevelopment plan going. Maryland considered using eminent domain to keep the Preakness in Baltimore. And the District recently argued that it could strong-arm tenants out of the Skyland shopping mall whether or not the plan to replace them was viable.
Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's film begins with a press conference in 2003 where the famous architect Frank Gehry enthuses about the possibility to "build a whole neighborhood practically from scratch," demonstrating a hubristic tenor that carries through the movie, as the developer Forest City Ratner steamrolls community opposition groups, city government, the courts, and not least the New York press.
..."This film scholar in Italy said it's like a Frank Capra film except the hero loses," Galinsky says. "I said it's exactly like a Frank Capra film. At the end, he is profoundly whole."
...Battle for Brooklyn shows at Artisphere on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; tickets are $7 and Hawley, Galinsky, and Goldstein will do Q&As at each showing.
Posted by eric at 11:20 AM
In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards
Jan. 18-29, $27-$30, Annenberg Center, 3680 Walnut St., 215-898-3900, annenbergcenter.org.
Philadelphia City Paper
by A.D. Amorosi
Yo, NoLandGrab readers in the City of Brotherly Love!
A love for labor drove American theater in the 1930s (a la playwright Clifford Odets) and the Brits of the 1950s (think John Osborne) with scripts devoted to hardball union discussions, social woes and wages. Making it musical is now the job of The Civilians, a self-described "investigative theater company" dedicated to documentary-style theater. In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, written and directed by Steven Cosson with songs by Chestnut Hill's Michael Friedman, looks at the history of the controversial Brooklyn railyards project and how it's continued to cause positive and negative reactions throughout that blue-collar area.
NoLandGrab: Mostly negative. And it's hardly just a "railyards project."
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
January 11, 2012
Podcast: Atlantic Yards, Part III
The Civilians Blog
This week's episode is from our interviews about Atlantic Yards, the complicated and controversial development in Brooklyn at the site where the new Barclay's stadium is currently being constructed. We hear from some of the key players on both sides of the fight, passionately discussing topics like gentrification, what makes a neighborhood, change, affordable housing, and more. This week features Jennifer R. Morris as Jezra Kaye, a member of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn; Heather Alicia Simms as Bertha Lewis, the head of ACORN; and Joaquin Torres as Saul Zarzana, a union member who supports the project; and Joaquin Torres leading the cast in "The Neighborhood Song" by Michael Friedman.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
January 10, 2012
A shout-out for AYR from NY Times columnist Powell
Atlantic Yards Report
Yes, New York Times columnist Michael Powell, who wrote this morning on the curious role of Forest City Ratner in corruption cases--beneficiary, but unscathed--has read some pieces in this blog.
Hence this tweet:
If only more people at the Times were reading.
Posted by eric at 9:54 PM
Bruce Ratner “Walked Between the Legal Raindrops”
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
That is Michael Powell’s assessment of the Brooklyn developer in his column in today’s Times, noting that Mr. Ratner is involved in at least two corruption scandals involving state politicians.
...Who says The Times never goes after Mr. Ratner. Not that the paper managed to stop either of the projects while they were in the works.
NoLandGrab: The Observer's caption for the photo above is "Rain man." We had a different movie in mind: The Godfather.
Photo: Getty Images
Related coverage...
The Cleveland Leader, THIS IS NOT ABOUT JIMMY DIMORA
Cleveland's Roldo Bartimole — a little bit Norman Oder, a little bit Daniel Goldstein, a little bit Patti Hagan — weighs in on Bruce Ratner's Singin' in the Rain routine.
Equally disturbing, the Times today reveals that "Mr. Ratner... would haul in $726 million in special public benefits" from development in NYC. Indeed, Mr. Ratner (Bruce) is related to our Forest City Ratners. The article points out he is "Developer No. 1" and "Developer No. 2" in two corruption cases in the city, though he isn't charged in either. The article notes that Bruce Ratner "walked between the legal raindrops."
Development and Corruption seem uniquely tied so often. But, hell, money is involved so why not?
Posted by eric at 9:42 PM
“Battle for Brooklyn” playing this weekend. Meetup?
Market Urbanism
by Emily Washington
A heads-up for NoLandGrab readers in the District...
For readers in the DC area, the movie Battle for Brooklyn is playing at the Dome Theater in Arlington this weekend. The film explores eminent domain in the Forest City Ratner development at Atlantic Yards. It will be playing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday with a Q&A with the directors Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley after each screening.
...Battle for Brooklyn has received positive reviews and has been shortlisted for and Oscar. The film follows the work of Daniel Goldstein, the Jane Jacobs-style community activist who has been leading the losing battle against eminent domain.
I’m planning to attend the movie this Sunday, January 15th at 6:00 pm. If any of you would like to go to that showing as well, would you like to meet up for drinks before or after? I would suggest Galaxy Hut but I’m open to somewhere closer to the theater also. If you’re interested, please comment or send me an email at emilybwashington@gmail.com.
Posted by eric at 9:32 PM
Controversy as Muse–Atlantic Yards-Inspired Art
Brooklyn Based
by Jordan Galloway
An article about Atlantic Yards-themed art ends on an, ahem, curious note, with reporter/fabulist Stephen Witt comparing himself to Jonathan Safran Foer and Dostoevsky.
Stephen Witt, a writer and AY-reporter for the Brooklyn Daily blog, is currently fine-tuning what he says is the seventh of eight drafts of The Street Singer, a satirical novel about AY and the artistic community of Brooklyn. He plans on self-publishing it in June if it fails to find a publisher before then and calls his work a roman a clef of his early life as a street musician in the city, re-set in the six months leading up to the arena’s ground breaking.
“I think it works really good as a satire,” he said. “A lot of journalists and artists really beat me up over my coverage of Atlantic Yards. I think history will show I covered it right.” When asked whether he’s capitalizing on the situation with the Barclays Center set to open in September, his response was succinct. “Absolutely,” said Witt. “It’s a timely novel. I am definitely capitalizing on it. It’s timely. It’s a news angle. I’m capitalizing on it in the same way [Jonathan Safran Foer] capitalized on the World Trade Center with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.” He added, “Dostoevsky used to take ideas from the newspaper. My say is as good as anyone else’s say.”
NoLandGrab: "It think it works really good?" We're guessing eight (drafts) isn't enough.
Posted by eric at 2:03 PM
A Developer Between Legal Clouds
The New York Times
by Michael Powell
Even Bruce Ratner's development partner can connect the dots. Will US Attorney Preet Bharara catch on next?
This is corruption’s high season in New York.
Nearly every week, a politician or a lobbyist indignantly denies charges, crows at hung juries or mumbles teary admissions of guilt before an implacable judge.
Last week, the lobbyist Richard Lipsky stood in a courtroom to acknowledge bribe-making. His partner in crime, Carl Kruger, the former state senator and a Brooklyn Democrat, had taken his tear-soaked turn two weeks earlier. They face years in prison.
A few weeks from now, in the same courthouse, a Democratic Yonkers councilwoman and her cousin, the city’s Republican Party chairman, are expected to stand trial. They are accused of bribery, extortion and tax evasion.
The Brooklyn and Yonkers cases are not simply about wayward politicians. The cases share an intriguing tie to the developer Bruce Ratner, who in project after project deploys lobbyists and politicians to change zoning ordinances and chase down rich packets of subsidies.
I should emphasize that Mr. Ratner has walked between the legal raindrops. Federal prosecutors have not implicated him or his company, Forest City Ratner, in either of these corruption cases.
But he figures prominently enough that the indictments identify him as “Developer No. 1” in Brooklyn and “Developer No. 2” in Yonkers. In Brooklyn, he has pushed the 22-acre Atlantic Yards development, including an arena and residential towers. Forest City Ratner was the development partner for the headquarters of The New York Times Company.
Click through for a rundown of the evidence.
NoLandGrab: It's worth noting that the story's original headline, visible at the top of the article window, was "In Corruption Scandals, Recurring Ties to a Developer, Forest City Ratner." Wonder why Forest City got erased from the headline.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, New York Times columnist focuses on "intriguing" Ratner tie in two corruption cases
New York Times columnist Michael Powell, in A Developer Between Legal Clouds, offers some much-needed connections between “Developer No. 1” in Brooklyn and “Developer No. 2” in Yonkers and some corruption cases that curiously left Forest City Ratner a beneficiary yet legally unscathed.
...I think the case in Yonkers--where Forest City gained the benefit of a City Council vote thanks to a vote gained by bribery, and never explained giving the indicted briber a no-show job--involves the developer more than the case in Brooklyn, where lobbyist Richard Lipsky and former state Senator Carl Kruger had a range of clients and beneficiaries.
...The Yonkers case should go to trial soon, and then, perhaps, we will learn some answers to the question of, as I've written, the mystery of Ridge Hill.
A Gotham column unafraid to take on the powerful
Powell's been a columnist since only May 2011, and since then has been unafraid to look critically at the power structure in the state, including Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Would that he or someone like him had covered, say, the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking in March 2010.
True News, NY Still Has A Poll Tax and the True News Wags the NYT Again
True News takes credit for lighting a fire under the Grey Lady.
On January 5, Right After the Ratner lobbyists took a plea True News wrote a story
True News Asked what Did Bruce Ratner Know and Do About the Lipsky Bribe?
Posted by eric at 11:46 AM
After Beyoncé Gives Birth, Patients Protest Celebrity Security at Lenox Hill Hospital
The New York Times
by Nina Bernstein
Speaking of Jay, it sounds like he took a page out of Bruce Ratner's book and eminent domained the maternity ward at Lenox Hill Hospital, which — betta look on a map — ain't in Brooklyn.
Lenox Hill Hospital went all-out to protect the privacy of Beyoncé Knowles and Jay-Z, whose daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, was born there on Saturday.
At one point, another father, Edgar Ramirez, 25, said, security guards kept him out of the neonatal unit for three hours while his wife and newborn were waiting for him. At another point on Saturday, a guard declared that “the floor is on lockdown,” Ms. Nash-Coulon said, and told her that if she left the neonatal unit, she would not be allowed back in to see her babies.
“It was just really disgusting,” said Ms. Nash-Coulon, 38, who is still recovering from her C-section, while one of her twins remains in the hospital. “We really believe the hospital is culpable in this because they didn’t let us know what was happening. And the security of our children is at risk when you cover security cameras.”
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The fallout from a celebrity birth: other parents complain that security required by Jay-Z/Beyonce hindered their visits
It's tough out there in celebrity-land. Jay-Z and wife Beyonce had their baby, and they're rightfully delighted.
But the security plans instigated apparently on their behalf--the cordoning off of sections of the hospital, and the blocking of certain visitors--has prompted a backlash.
Click through for links to other news stories.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
The Book of Hov: Clinton Hill pastor gets inspiration from Jay-Z
The Brooklyn Paper
by Kate Briquelet
A new pastor in Clinton Hill gets his gospel straight from Jay-Hova.
Presbyterian minister Jamison Galt kicked off his inaugural sermon at Christ Church on Lafayette Avenue on Sunday night, preaching to a crowd of roughly 100 souls about Jay-Z, the self-described savior of hip-hop.
...Galt is a fan of Jay-Z’s songs, but during his sermon, he trashed one of the rapper’s most publicized business ventures.
Jay-Z owns a small portion of the New Jersey Nets, the basketball team scheduled to move into the Barclays Center at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues this fall as a part of developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega project. Despite plans for a “meditation room” in the arena that could host a house of worship, Galt compared the Atlantic Yards development and similar projects to the Tower of Babel, calling them “massive monument[s] ... without god.”
NoLandGrab: Amen!?
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
‘Battle for Brooklyn’ shoots and scores
'Battle for Brooklyn' offers a scathing look at the the process of building a new sports center for the Brooklyn Nets.
The Chicago Maroon
by Michaela Cross
It's not just a boondoggle, it's a movie!
Making a documentary is an uncertain art. There is no real way a director can ensure that the people and events being filmed will develop into an interesting story and the time they are investing will be paid back in full. Battle for Brooklyn, directed by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, stands as a shining example of what happens when documentaries turn out right, when interesting people and events come together to create a fascinating journey and do it in front of a camera.
Posted by eric at 10:46 AM
The Battle for Atlantic Yards comes to Penn, bookended with megaproject forums
Plan Philly Eyes on the Street
It's not just a boondoggle, it's a musical!
Development can make for sensational drama, which is just what the the docu-musical, In the Footprint: The Battle over Atlantic Yards promises for its 16-show run at Penn’s Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts.
In the Footprint follows the polarizing issue of Brooklyn’s huge, controversial Atlantic Yards development as it transpired through political channels, developer maneuvers, the use of eminent domain, and emotional neighborhood opposition. In the Footprint will premiere in Philadelphia with its run at the Annenberg Center’s Harold Prince Theater January 18-29, by The Civilians.
PennDesign will bookend the performances with two community forums called, Megaprojects: Can we balance individual and social good?, featuring Penn faculty members in conversation with developers, real estate experts, politicians, and journalists.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
January 9, 2012
A profile of Prokhorov on MSNBC by Robert Windrem, who does not acknowledge he's also "Net Income," chief editor of Nets Daily
Atlantic Yards Report
Who knew? We never had "Net Income" pegged for being a real journalist!
So who wrote the stylish, reasonably thorough, and only slightly skewed profile on MSNBC's Open Channel, dedicated to "investigative reporting by NBC News," headlined Meet the NBA tycoon and rapper's friend who could be president of Russia.
One Robert Windrem, described as a senior investigative producer for NBC News and a Nets season ticket holder.
 |
Simply describing him as a "Nets season ticket holder" is just a tad inadequate. He's also Net Income, the ubiquitous, prolific pseudonymous main editor of the NetsDaily web site.
NoLandGrab: Windrem also triples as "Bobbo," the insulting, factually deficient sometime-commenter to Atlantic Yards Report posts.
Related coverage...
MSNBC.com, Meet the NBA tycoon and rapper's friend who could be president of Russia
"The most interesting man in the world?" Windrem needs to get out more.
Posted by eric at 11:19 AM
Atlantic Yards Worker Reprimanded for ‘Amen’ Corner
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Minty Grover
 |
A construction worker at the Atlantic Yards project was reprimanded by his bosses last month, fellow employees said, after he painted a seemingly non-controversial bit of Yuletide graffiti on an under-construction kiosk — the word “Amen” in big red block letters.
The holiday greeting — truncated because the worker didn’t have enough paint to write “Merry Christmas,” one worker said — wasn’t visible from the streets around the rising Barclays Center basketball arena, but it was clear to see from the top floor of the neighboring Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls as well as the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower across the street.
The extent of the reprimand remains unclear, but the worker was not fired, said construction workers, who wouldn't give their names out of fear of reprisal. The religious graffiti has since been partially covered up with concrete as part of the contruction of the subway entrance at the front of the arena at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.
A spokesman for Bruce Ratner, whose Forest City Ratner Companies is building the arena as part of its larger Atlantic Yards development, said that the reprimand was deserved.
“It is inappropriate to write anything that is not authorized on a construction site,” said the spokesman, Joe DePlasco.
NoLandGrab: In the overall scheme of things, it seems much less worse than the usual Atlantic Yards construction worker behavior.
Posted by eric at 10:49 AM
This Week in Kickstarter
Kickstarter Blog
by Michael McGregor
We're not even a full week into 2012 and, not gonna lie, we're feeling pretty good about the upcoming year, impending Apocalypse and all! All kidding aside, it's been a pretty productive week in the Kickstarter universe and, as always, we're happy to share a few things we've found exciting.
...We were busy hosting a screening of RUMUR's Battle for Brooklyn for press and backers. Why, you may ask? Because, the film, which chronicles the eminant domain case surrounding Atlantic Yards, the future home of the Brookyln Nets, has been shortlisted for an Academy Award for Best Documentary, and as part of the process the film is screening all over the country, in an effort to build momentum before the Oscars. Not gonna lie, we love Battle for Brooklyn and we love the Oscars, so we're just happy we could join the process. It. was. fun. And the movie is awesome, so if it's playing in your town, go see it!
Posted by eric at 10:33 AM
January 7, 2012
Whither Brooklyn's turning points? Some came well before the Atlantic Yards plan
Atlantic Yards Report
If Atlantic Yards is a symbol, as per Crain's, of Brooklyn's renaissance, we should remember that Bruce Ratner's vision, announced in late 2003, emerged well after Brooklyn had begun to be validated.
In a 1/4/12 Critic's Notbook essay titled How the View from the Critic’s Perch Has Changed, Times interim restaurant critic Eric Asimov offered a contrast between writing about restaurants today and a decade ago. Among his observations:
Brooklyn? Sure, Brooklyn is now full of wonderfully exciting restaurants. It’s really a second or third wave, though. I wrote a piece back in 2000 [A Defining Moment in Brooklyn, 3/29/00] noting an earlier Brooklyn explosion. It’s interesting to see how many of those restaurants are gone, though the ones that survived and prospered — Saul, Diner, the Grocery, Al di Là, to name a few — are really good.
Fun quote from that earlier piece:
The new age on Smith Street began on Dec. 21, 1997, when Mr. [Alan] Harding, formerly the chef at Nosmo King in Manhattan, opened the bistro Patois, the first of the new restaurants. ''Our rent was $900 when we started, and I figured if nobody came, I could live there,'' Mr. Harding said. ''Now rents have tripled.''
Posted by steve at 10:44 PM
January 6, 2012
LiC contributor Jackson Truax’s 2011 Top 10 (plus 5)
Living in Cinema
by Jackson Truax
Looking back at the 218 new movies I’ve seen this past year, here’s a celebration of those I can’t stop talking or thinking about, and those I’m jumping at the chance to write about again. My top ten list is comprised of the films that were “released” this year, that would qualify for most Oscar categories or other year-end awards.
...4. Battle for Brooklyn – Dirs. Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley
The RumuR Inc. production team of David Beilinson, Suki Hawley, and Michael Galinsky crafted the most viscerally powerful, enraging, and dangerous documentary of the year. Battle for Brooklyn follows graphic designer turned reluctant community organizer and activist Daniel Goldstein as he fights to save his Brooklyn neighborhood from being seized by a government that’s been bought by billionaire developer Bruce C. Ratner. Every frame delivers a sense of populist outrage and danger, and Galinsky (in his capacity as Director of Photography) follows Goldstein into one confrontation after another, ranging from the streets of Brooklyn to the hearings where the voice of the community is either ignored or shut out all together. Though Goldstein falls into his role of the voice of the people accidently, the audience witnesses him evolve into the ultimate everyman’s spokesperson, marching into enemy territory with the unrepentant attitude of Bob Dylan walking on stage plugged-in for the first time. Suki Hawley edited together a film that in 93 minutes is equal parts polemic, character study, a David-and-Goliath tale, and shows enough of both sides of the issues to never veer off into propaganda. The Academy has shortlisted the film for the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature.
Catch Battle for Brooklyn locally this weekend at indieScreen in Williamsburg. Our loyal Left Coast readers can see the film tomorrow and Sunday in Santa Monica followed by Q&A sessions with Michael Galinsky.
Posted by eric at 12:46 PM
After 15 months, still waiting for response to a Freedom of Information Law request regarding ESDC official's trip to China to support Forest City Ratner's EB-5 sales efforts
Atlantic Yards Report
So, how far did New York State go to assist Forest City Ratner in its efforts to raise a low-interest loan of $249 million from immigrant investors seeking green cards under the federal government's EB-5 program?
After 15 months, I'm still waiting for a response to my Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the Empire State Development Corporation. Nothing's changed since I wrote about my request nearly five months ago, in August.
Still, thanks to New York Times coverage of EB-5 gerrymandering, there's now much more concern about whether New York State bends the rules to help favored projects. So there's even more reason the state should practice transparency.
NoLandGrab: Yeah, how's that transparency thing coming along, Status Cuomo?
Posted by eric at 12:33 PM
January 5, 2012
In Lipsky guilty plea, no mention of Forest City Ratner connection
Atlantic Yards Report
In lobbyist Richard Lipsky's guilty plea yesterday, there was no mention of Atlantic Yards or the unnamed developer, Forest City Ratner, that was among his clients.
It was about paying referral fees to now-disgraced Sen. Carl Kruger for clients Kruger directed his way, and then expecting Kruger to help him in Albany.
Though the indictment and legal complaint indicated that Kruger allocated $500,000 to a client of Lipsky--actually the allocation was at the request of Forest City Ratner executive Bruce Bender, but to his wife's charitable cause--there was no evidence of whether Kruger did so at Lipsky's request.
Lipsky, whose Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog was frozen after he was charged last March, pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and one count of bribery.
Though he faced a maximum potential penalty of five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense, Crain's reported that Lipsky made a deal with prosecutors to serve 57 to 71 months, or slightly less than five years, at best. He will be sentenced by Judge Jed Rakoff on May 4, 2012.
Related coverage...
The New York Times, Lobbyist Pleads Guilty to Paying Bribes to a State Senator
Over three decades, Richard J. Lipsky built a reputation as a staunch lobbyist for the underdog, even though his side did not always win and his clients were sometimes more establishment than mom-and-pop.
NoLandGrab: Yeah, underdogs like poor lil' Bruce Ratner, whom Lipsky defended from Daniel Goldstein Incorporated.
Crain's NY Business, Richard Lipsky admits guilt in bribery scandal
Forest City Ratner hired him in 2006 to advance its $5 billion Atlantic Yards megaproject in Brooklyn. A related corporate entity snagged him to pave the way for an East Harlem shopping mall anchored by a Target. The moves were widely attributed to the developer's desire to prevent Mr. Lipsky from stirring up and advocating for the little guys, his traditional constituency.
Brooklyn Daily, Lobbyist: I bribed Kruger
A deep-pocketed lobbyist who worked for Forest City Ratner Companies admitted to funneling more than $250,000 in bribes to former state Sen. Carl Kruger in an attempt to buy favor for his clients from the disgraced rep.
Richard Lipsky, who was employed by the developer of the Atlantic Yards arena and residential high-rise project for five years, told Manhattan Federal Judge Jed Rackoff that he had an “implicit agreement” with Kruger that payment to the senator — which he euphemized as “referral fees” — would benefit his clients.
...One of his biggest clients was Forest City, which paid Lipsky $4,000 a month to help line up legislative support for its many real estate development projects. Forest City also paid him an additional $2,750 a month to promote the Atlantic Yards project.
The Wall Street Journal, Lobbyist Lipsky Admits to Bribery
"I acknowledge that my actions were in violation of the law and I knew that they crossed the line," Mr. Lipsky, 64 years old, said during the proceeding in federal court in Manhattan. "I accept responsibility for my conduct and incredibly poor judgment and I am truly sorry for the serious consequences to my family, my clients, the government, the court and the people of the state of New York."
City & State, Heard Around Town, Jan. 5, 2012
The crowd that gathered in Manhattan Federal Court yesterday to hear lobbyist Richard Lipsky plead guilty to two bribery charges was befitting a man who made more calls to reporters than perhaps any lobbyist in New York City history. Most of the two dozen people on hand to hear Lipsky confess were from the forth estate – and many, no doubt, had been bombarded with story pitches from Lipsky over the years. Even up to the time Lipsky ultimately agreed to his plea, he was relentlessly leading efforts to submarine the Willets Point development in Queens under a thinly veiled pseudonym. So what will Lipsky do with all that boundless energy in prison? As Lipsky and a small group of relatives descended in the courthouse elevator following his guilty plea, he for once had nothing to say.
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
Brooklyn Broadside: Looking Back at 2011 in Brooklyn: It’s Not Just Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Dennis Holt
Well out of ideas after his many years at The Eagle, Dennis Holt is content to regurgitate some recent tripe from the Times.
The New York Times got into the act with a series of forecasts, and the comments on Brooklyn are worthy of note because they reflect what the Times editors believe are the major events coming our way. The section on Brooklyn focused almost totally on the Atlantic Yards story.
But the editors are not sure which of two forecasts will come true: “When the sports arena that anchors the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project finally opens in September ... it will undoubtedly transform Downtown Brooklyn. But will the 19,000-seat Barclay’s Center help its neighborhood become an epicenter of entertainment and commerce as most officials predict? Or will it be a vortex of traffic, trash and other civic headaches, as some residents fear?”
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
January 4, 2012
Prokhorov and Ratner Preparing to Move Semi-pro Team into Naked Arena
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
One has to wonder, what exactly are Bruce Ratner and Mikahil Prokhorov planning on bringing to Brooklyn. A team that can hardly call itself professional and a naked arena?
The New Jersey Nets, once again, are stinking up the joint and the Barclays Center arena is in jeopardy of being facadeless come projected completion in September 2012 now that the custom manufacterer of the rusty panels has gone belly up.
...Will the arena in Brooklyn be ready when the semi-pro Nets are ready to move? That is now a question worthy of a "no comment" from Forest City Ratner.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Barclays Center Facade Maker Goes Out of Business
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
Hawaii Premiere Of "Battle for Brooklyn" - Oscar-Contending Docfilm Of Atlantic Yards Eminent Domain Fight
Inverse Condemnation
Today was the Hawaii premiere of Battle For Brooklyn, the Oscar-shortlisted documentary film about the Atlantic Yards case. We're introducing the film and conducting a question-and-answer session after each showing.
...Today's two screenings were followed by lively questions from the audience. Here are links to the key posts on the case, in the event you want to find out more...
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
January 3, 2012
Lobbyist Is Expected to Plead Guilty in Bribery Case
The New York Times
by Benjamin Weiser
Why, we just noticed that Richard Lipsky hasn't updated his bombastic, pompous blog since the day before he got pinched on bribery charges. DA got your keyboard, Lipsky?
Richard J. Lipsky, a prominent lobbyist who was charged in the bribery conspiracy case that also ensnared State Senator Carl Kruger, was expected to plead guilty on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Manhattan, according to a person briefed on the matter.
Mr. Lipsky’s plea would come just two weeks after Mr. Kruger resigned from the Senate and pleaded guilty to corruption charges in the broad conspiracy case that has been seen as spotlighting the pervasive issue of corruption in Albany. Mr. Kruger faces up to 50 years in prison when he is sentenced in April by Judge Jed S. Rakoff.
Mr. Lipsky was one of eight defendants originally charged in the matter, and was scheduled for trial this month.
Another of his co-defendants, Robert Aquino, the former chief executive officer of Parkway Hospital in Queens, was expected to plead guilty on Tuesday, leaving just one defendant facing trial.
It was not clear on Tuesday morning to what charges Mr. Lipsky and Mr. Aquino would plead guilty. Lawyers for the two men declined to comment, as did a spokeswoman for the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting the case.
Mr. Lipsky, who is in his 60s, has long portrayed himself as an advocate for the underdog; he has been a frequent presence in City Hall and in the State Capitol in Albany, and has had a reputation as a pugnacious fighter for his clients.
...
"Underdogs" like these:
Mr. Lipsky’s clients included... a real estate developer that has since been identified as Forest City Ratner.
Posted by eric at 4:18 PM
Atlantic Yards in 2012: massive buzz for an arena opening, the ubiquitous Barclays, a first tower unveiled, a huge local mess (?), inevitable surprises (a modular twist? Carlton Avenue Bridge delay?)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder gazes into his crystal computer monitor...
What's next in 2012 for Atlantic Yards? Some things we can predict, but other issues are up in the air. And, as I suggested in the 2011 round-up, Atlantic Yards always seems to bring some new twist, so expect something unexpected (though I have a few guesses).
Posted by eric at 11:23 AM
Battle for Brooklyn | Jan 7 and 8 at 5pm
indieScreen
Catch the Oscar-contending Battle for Brooklyn this weekend at Williamsburg's indieScreen.
And our faithful readers in Beantown can circle March 19th on your calendars.
The DocYard, BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
Posted by eric at 11:11 AM
January 1, 2012
Brooklyn blooms again, but not for all
Atlantic Yards project caps a decade of growth for borough, yet some areas remain mired in poverty.
Crain's NY Business
by Patrick Wall
When the roar of 18,000 Brooklyn Nets fans rocks the Barclays Center to life this fall, some will hear it as the clearest announcement yet that Brooklyn has arrived.
As Borough President Marty Markowitz put it, the sparkling new arena near downtown Brooklyn “will host the kind of events you used to have to leave Brooklyn to enjoy.”
To proponents, the Nets' arena at Atlantic Yards is the exclamation point of the Brooklyn Renaissance—a flourishing of creativity, construction and coolness over the last decade.
But critics note that Brooklyn's economic gains have occurred predominantly in the northwest corner of the borough, where the Atlantic Yards development is situated. The neighborhoods in the central and eastern parts of the borough remain poor, and Brooklyn's overall poverty and unemployment rates outstrip the citywide numbers.
NoLandGrab: And some critics, like, say, us, note that the alleged economic gains from Atlantic Yards are illusory for anyone not named Bruce C. Ratner.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Crain's points to Atlantic Yards as symbol of Brooklyn's bifurcated blooming, but misses the irony of unfulfilled promises
There's a huge, unmentioned irony here: Atlantic Yards may be a symbol of Brooklyn's progress, but, employing relatively few locals, has not delivered the jobs and housing promised, nor proven a good investment of public dollars.
...A gloomy future
The article concludes:
Just as there is no consensus on the root of Brooklyn's economic inequities, there is no concerted effort to address them. Instead, city planners and private developers tinker with economic issues on a project-by-project basis.
“There hasn't been, to my knowledge, a really comprehensive plan done under the auspices of any government agency,” said Brooklyn Economic Development Corp. President Joan Bartolomeo.
Maybe one could start by assessing whether the money spent on Atlantic Yards helped narrow Brooklyn's economic inequities.
Posted by eric at 6:42 PM
"How Brooklyn Got Its Groove Back": an analysis of the borough's rise, and those left behind (and, I'd suggest, why that helped bring us AY)
Atlantic Yards Report
In the Autumn 2011 issue of the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, Kay S. Hymowitz offers How Brooklyn Got Its Groove Back: New York’s biggest borough has reinvented itself as a postindustrial hot spot.
And, while not about Atlantic Yards (except for one mention), it presents a useful framework, based on personal experience and reportage, for some of the changes that brought us here, while offering more background on the enduring economic divide sketched this week in Crain's.
(It's on the Atlantic Cities' list of ten best CityReads of 2011.)
...An AY mention
In the section under rezonings, Hymowitz writes:
Brooklyn also benefited from the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations’ rezoning of fallow industrial neighborhoods for “mixed” uses, so that residential, commercial, and light-industry buildings could occupy the same area. These decisions have met with fierce resistance, with Brooklyn’s gentrifiers—ironically, given their historical role in changing the borough—among the most vociferous in arguing that grabby real-estate interests and their friends in government are driving out an indigenous population. Bruce Ratner’s much-reviled Atlantic Yards project, which took advantage of the government’s bullying eminent-domain powers, lends some credence to the charge. But mostly, Brooklyn’s transformation has come from the ground up. In the beginning, as Osman observes, gentrification spread because “a few families decided to cross” Atlantic Avenue, the southern boundary of Brooklyn Heights. The rezoning that finally took place decades later was simply bowing to reality: large factories were gone for good, and young singles and families wanted in.
For Atlantic Yards, it must be pointed out, there was no rezoning, just an override of zoning.
Posted by eric at 6:33 PM
Marie Louis, Chief Operating Officer of BUILD, 1972-2011
Atlantic Yards Report
2011 goes out on a somber note.
Marie Louis, Chief Operating Officer of Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement signatory BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), died December 23, 2011, after a six-month battle with cancer.
Her family asked that, in her honor, people register to be bone marrow donors.
I'll write more about Louis at a later date, but want to share the obituary, provided by her family, which appears in this week's Our Time Press. It also was distributed at her funeral service this week.
Posted by eric at 6:23 PM
December 31, 2011
Fucked in Park Slope: A Year in Review
F'd In Park Slope
10, The Atlantic Yards Project And Battle For Brooklyn
While nearly everyone in our neighborhood is familiar with the Altantic Yards Project that started back in 2003, this year's documentary Battle for Brooklyn consolidated those eight years into a cohesive -- and possibly Oscar-nominated -- film. The ambitious project, spear headed by private developer Bruce Ratner, was initially proposed as 16 new skyscrapers and a giant sports arena for the city of Brooklyn. In the process, people were forced out of their homes and a community was divided: while many strongly opposed the looming eviction of nearly 1,600 tenants whose property fell into the footprint of the design plan, some residents supported the project for the promise of jobs and the excitement of having a major sports team in our neighborhood.
...
In November, a group of local unemployed construction workers announced a lawsuit against Bruce Ratner for failing to provide promised jobs and wages to work on the Atlantic Yards project. It's likely that Ratner offered this "Community Benefits Agreement" to cool some criticism and gain support of local politicians.
This past year the Barclay Center itself has given us some blog-worthy news: it almost made Kim Kardashian's ass move here, has the worst rendering artist in the history of rendering artists, announced an integration with our beloved BAM, will be hosting Jay-Z shows and has made the traffic in that area worse than it already was.
Are you there, Bruce? It's me, Kerri.
You suck.
Posted by steve at 5:22 PM
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of 2011
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Missing from this review of Atlantic Yards news, is the admission by developer Bruce Ratner that the affordable housing long promised as part of the project is not possible.
Love it or hate it, 2011 was the year the Atlantic Yards project really got under way. Construction has been moving rapidly on Barclays Center – future home of the Nets basketball team -- and the physical fact of the arena’s presence in the Brooklyn landscape began to overshadow the project’s use of eminent domain and other controversial development practices in the news coverage this year. But construction has not been without strife. (A so-called “rat tsunami” was one of the unpleasant side effects of the large construction site).
And the years-long community struggle against the project will not soon be forgotten thanks to Battle for Brooklyn , a documentary released in 2011 about the Atlantic Yards project that is reportedly on the short list of possible Oscar nominees.
In other Atlantic Yards news, the project’s developer, Bruce Ratner, announced in November that they planned to use prefabricated, modular construction for the residential towers planned for the site – meaning that the majority of construction would take place in a factory and the pieces would be assembled on site. If the plan goes forward, Brooklyn will be home to the tallest prefabricated or modular steel structure in the world.
Posted by steve at 5:10 PM
Brooklyn’s Predictions for 2012
Brooklyn Heights Press
by Mary Frost
Two items of this list include references to the Atlantic Yards project.
John Torenli, sports writer, Brooklyn Eagle:
The Nets scheduled arrival in Brooklyn in November will go off as planned. Don’t be surprised if Orlando center Dwight Howard joins point guard Deron Williams for the Opening Night festivities at the Barclays Center. Nets owner Mikail Prokhorov will not win the Russian presidency....
Ed Breslin, proofreader, Brooklyn Eagle
...Gridlock will finally become reality on Flatbush and Atlantic avenues as the Nets open in the Atlantic Yards area of Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at 5:04 PM
December 30, 2011
Open and Shut: The 2011 Edition
Brownstoner
Atlantic Yards Anxieties
The arena’s going up, but many nearby residents cast aspersions on the planned opening of several businesses perceived as catering primarily to arena visitors. The controversy over a bar/restaurant called Prime 6 got the most press. After the owner announced the joint wouldn’t, as some feared, be a strip club, residents still pushed for strict operating hours and complained about plans to offer bottle service. The state approved a liquor license but it has yet to open. Meanwhile, a gastropub announced plans to open at 604 Pacific Street, and a liquor license was eventually approved with a stipulation that no dancing be allowed. No doubt these won’t be the only new businesses near the arena to battle the community boards.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
Movie Review: "Battle For Brooklyn" -- Lessons For Honolulu Rail From A Reluctant Activist
Inverse Condemnation
by Robert H. Thomas
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser today published my movie review of "Battle For Brooklyn," the documentary about the Atlantic Yards eminent domain fight, on the op-ed page. Check it out here or below. More importantly, if you are in Honolulu next week, come to one of the four screenings (details and link to ticket purchase below).
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
December 29, 2011
A look back at 2011: the arena rises, construction troubles, a reconfigured community response, the modular surprise, an enduring lack of oversight, and the lingering impact of Battle for Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder runs down the Atlantic Yards year that was.
Even if the volume was turned down somewhat, it was not a quiet year in Atlantic Yards.
When I wrote my "What's next in 2011" post on 1/4/11, I pointed to "Accountability issues, timetable questions, and a reconfigured community response, with BrooklynSpeaks rising, DDDB receding."
That was mostly right, though hardly the full story. After all, as I wrote, "I wouldn't be surprised if there's a new Atlantic Yards twist."
The surprise in 2010 had been "the astonishing effort" to market Atlantic Yards to immigrant investors seeking green cards. The 2011 surprise was Forest City Ratner's revelation that it was planning to build the long-delayed first tower, and the rest of the project, via untested modular construction. (That's still not firm.)
Accompanying that statement was the astonishing admission by developer Bruce Ratner that union-built towers with affordable housing had never been viable. While that contradicted some eight years of his and backers' statements, it produced few ripples.
While I pointed to "a push to sell Nets tickets and suites, and further evidence of Forest City Ratner/Barclays strategic philanthropy," I didn't fully anticipate the impact of the arena rising and how the Nets and Barclays Center operators would strategically dole out announcements, including the unsurprising team name, to generate press coverage.
Along with the arena and railyard work, which soon stretched to after-hours work, came a steady stream of complaints about the impact of construction--parking, garbage, traffic, and noise, as well as a seeming weekly (if not daily) pattern of violating various promises and rules, all documented via Atlantic Yards Watch, a key new player in the community response.
Posted by eric at 10:09 AM
Bruce Ratner's Exercise in Bland
The Wall Street Journal
by Robbie Whelan
Up until now, the design story of Bruce Ratner's mega arena and mixed-use project at Atlantic Yards has involved a feeling of betrayal and then later, a sense of partial redemption.
Now there's a new chapter with the unveiling last month of Mr. Ratner's plans for the residential component of the project. This one could be titled "Playing it Safe." The design for Atlantic Yards' apartments doesn't offend, but ultimately they serve as an unsatisfying conclusion to the story.
Actually, many critics of Atlantic Yards find this highly offensive, especially since the "cutting-edge Frank Gehry design" and "15,000 unionized construction jobs" were key elements of Bruce Ratner's massive bait-and-switch.
Critics who long for great architecture are unlikely to be appeased by the design of the first apartment building.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Ratner ‘Playing it Safe’ With Atlantic Yards Design?
Posted by eric at 9:39 AM
Brooklyn’s Top Stories of 2011
Brownstoner
Atlantic Yards Starts to Take Shape
As it has for several years running, Atlantic Yards dominated Brooklyn news in 2011. Construction on the Barclays Center arena has progressed at a steady clip this year. The project continued to be controversial and a magnet for lawsuits, however. This fall the Empire State Development Corporation and developer Forest City Ratner appealed an earlier ruling in favor of project opponents. In that case, community groups challenged the ESDC’s 2009 approval to increase the duration of the project’s construction from 10 to 25 years, arguing that a new environmental review was necessary given the new time line. Meanwhile, another lawsuit against the mega-project was filed in November by workers who said they hadn’t landed union jobs they believed were promised after completing a training program. With the arena construction in full swing, nearby residents complained about a rat tsunami, as well as traffic changes that had been implemented and less-than-desirable “Atlantic Yards businesses” opening. While construction has yet to begin on any Atlantic Yards buildings aside from the arena, Forest City Ratner applied for building permits for the project’s first residential building and made headlines with the news that the company was considering a prefab structure for that and subsequent towers in the development.
Posted by eric at 9:35 AM
People We've Met: Angelina Jolie, James Caan and other stars we spoke to in 2011
Joe Neumaier remembers talks with Michelle Williams, Drake Doremus, Joe Berlinger and more
NY Daily News
by Joe Neumaier
The News's movie critic looks back at the year in film.
In June, Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky — the filmmakers behind one of the year’s best documentaries, “Battle for Brooklyn” — talked about good and bad changes in the borough they love and live in. Joining them was Daniel Goldstein, one of the most impassioned voices in Hawley and Galinsky’s film about the fight surrounding the Atlantic Yards project.
The first thing Galinsky noticed when we all sat down? That I was holding a coffee from a local deli, not a Starbucks “Venti.”
Posted by eric at 9:19 AM
Curbed Awards '11: Adventures in Urban Planning
It's time to make up a bunch of awards and hand them out to the most deserving people, places and things in the real estate architecture, and neighborhood universes of New York City. Yep, it's time for the Eighth Annual Curbed Awards!
Curbed
by Dave Hogarty
Bruce Ratner takes the Bronze and the Gold in 2011!
3) The roof is raised at Barclay's Arena, literally! And Italian classical soloist phenom Andrea Boccelli turns up his nose at MSG to perform at the Atlantic Yards arena in December 2012.
...1) Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project has gone from starchitect Frank Gehry's sweeping redesign of Prospect Heights to the proposed installation of the world's tallest pre-fab modular rental tower. Hurray?
Posted by eric at 9:12 AM
December 28, 2011
Battle for Brooklyn | Dec 27-29 at 8pm
indieScreen
Battle for Brooklyn is playing tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. at indieScreen in Williamsburg — your last chance to see the Oscar-contending film in 2011.
You also have until 9:43 p.m. this Thursday to make a pledge to Battle for Brooklyn's Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the Academy Awards push. A $35 donation will secure a signed pre-release DVD — your last chance to grab a DVD for some time.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
Battle for Brooklyn, "community," and the Occupy Wall Street parallel (the massive NYPD response to protest)
Atlantic Yards Report
On watching Battle for Brooklyn yet again, I notice things I didn't emphasize the first time around in my review, things that make the movie both more frustrating and more valuable.
For example, the term "community" is a slippery concept in multiple ways. The movie portrays tensions over the Community Benefits Agreement, ginned up by developer Forest City Ratner to create the appearance of responsibility to the community.
But the "community" of opposition to Atlantic Yards--portrayed, though not sufficiently explained--depends less on those living/working in the project footprint than on those in the surrounding neighborhoods, those who must bear the brunt of the project's impacts.
The film has a neat narrative arc, following the path of activist Daniel Goldstein, but it can leave the impression that the fight is over. Yes, the fight to stop the project is over, and the amount of activism diminished, but, community concerns continue, such as over the lack of a transportation plan as the arena opening approaches.
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
Million-Dollar Visas
The New York Times, Editorial
The Times has a big, fat blind spot — and it obscures 22 acres in Prospect Heights.
The federal government’s investor visa, created in 1990, gives foreigners a chance at green cards if they invest $1 million to build a business in the United States that creates at least 10 jobs. Investing in an area with high unemployment would cut that price in half.
The program, known as EB-5, has led foreigners to invest in projects around the country, like factories, resorts, shipyards and other enterprises in designated poor areas in need of jobs. A report in The Times last week found that EB-5 applications have nearly quadrupled in two years, to more than 3,800 in the 2011 fiscal year.
But the program has spawned cynical practices that are stretching the rules and violating the spirit of the law. Some participants in New York, the report found, are pouring money into development zones that are misleadingly labeled as high-unemployment areas to qualify for the lower $500,000 investment threshold, but are not poor or underdeveloped.
For example, a $750 million office tower in the mid-Manhattan diamond district has raised 20 percent of its financing through the EB-5 program. This was made possible through a trick of mapmaking in which state officials counted the number of unemployed people in the census tract next door, which includes Times Square, to justify calling the whole area a high-unemployment zone.
Likewise, the gerrymandered lines of the development zone in Lower Manhattan near Wall Street skirt the wealthy enclaves but cross the East River to enfold a public-housing project in Brooklyn. Visa-seekers have used this district in three separate projects to qualify for the $500,000 discount.
NoLandGrab: Is it just coincidence that The Times fails to mention the grandaddy of EB-5 abuse, their development partner Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards?
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Times editorial criticizes EB-5 gerrymandering, ignores Atlantic Yards example, as well as other EB-5 abuses
What's missing
Well, it's good that the Times is taking EB-5 issues seriously, but it's glaring that one of the key projects to take advantage of this gerrymandering, the Atlantic Yards project, went unmentioned. (Is that the "spirit of the Times," channeled through the publisher, a former business partner with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner?)
It's also notable that the Times does not recognize that the intent of Congress--to create jobs--is subverted in other ways, such as giving immigrant investors credit for jobs created by money contributed by taxpayers, or by allowing dubious calculations of indirect job creation.
MichaelBenjamin2012's Blog, Using Poor NYers as window dressing…Again! – UPDATED
Projects such as Atlantic Yards, the Battery Maritime Building, and the International Gem Tower have used questionable maps and the EB-5 program to attract foreign investors. Blogger Norman Oder and Reuters have revealed that manipulation of the program extends beyond deceptive zoning districts to misrepresentations and flat-out lies told to potential Chinese and Korean investors.
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
Hip Hop and the (Near) Future
The Huffington Post
by Eric J. Henderson
Ness touches a particular bundle of nerves that are base ingredients: futurism, hip hop, and the "occupy" spirit long before the tents went up.
I was introduced to him by actor and dj, DJ TAbu, who showed me his first EYE2025* salvo, "Pedalin." He sharpens his political angle to deliver part I of the vision:
"...set in Ratner Heights, (the area formerly known as Fort Greene/Clinton Hill/Downtown Brooklyn, now owned entirely by construction mogul/re-gentrification king Bruce Ratner). EYE2025*Chapter1 is a dystopic vision of the future, a future that is rapidly approaching. Blurring the lines between genres, the music twists and turns through sounds [on a] mission to bring to light the world of the have-nots, and send out a call to arms to rise up, educate and build community."
That's old school hip hop -- basic political agitation -- but it's also near future for a new age, especially if you live near the Atlantic Yards he's talking about, flashpoint for the Battle of Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
December 27, 2011
Year In Review: Top Real Estate Stories of 2011
The biggest real estate stories of the year include the commercial development of Brooklyn Bridge Park and the reverberating effects of Atlantic Yards
Carroll Gardens Patch
by Peter Saalfield
This week Carroll Gardens Patch is looking back at some of the biggest stories of 2011.
We continue today with real estate. In 2011, gentrification marched onward as home prices rose, developers unveiled new building plans, and several stores and restaurants were forced out of business by rising rents.
As the neighborhood searches for the right balance between the old and the new, construction continues to cause contention. For every person who supports development, there is another who opposes it. In 2011, disagreements arose over a few issues in particular.
...Spillover from Atlantic Yards
The massive Atlantic Yards construction project, supported by politicians such as Mayor Bloomberg and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, has been ruffling feathers for years—and it isn’t even finished. Critics have accused the developer, Bruce Ratner, of lying about the number of jobs that would be created and exaggerating other positive effects for the surrounding neighborhoods.
A particular concern of the people of Boerum Hill and Cobble Hill is traffic and parking. With the main feature of the project—a new stadium for the Brooklyn Nets basketball team—still a year away from completion, traffic has already been disrupted and is poised to get worse.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
Cartographic Excess
Words in Space
by Shannon Christine Mattern
Last week we drew to a close our second year of Urban Media Archaeology, a graduate studio in which my 15 students; my Technical Associate, the ever capable Rory Solomon; and I work together to map historic media networks. Last fall, in the inaugural section of the class, our students mapped everything from the history of walking tours, to movie company headquarters, to Daily News delivery infrastructure, to the social lives of East Village zines, to key sites in carrier pigeon history. This semester the projects were no less innovative; we mapped “media actors” in the debate over the Atlantic Yards development; data-driven systems of graffiti removal; the spatial history of the Young Filmmakers Foundation (intended to seed a larger map of youth media organizations in New York); the evolution of street signs in Manhattan since the late 19th century; the old West Side Cowboys of Chelsea (this project, one of my favorites, involved “ontography“; see below); the changing landscape of independent bookstores in Manhattan and Brooklyn; the social networks of the Soho Fluxus community; 100 years’ history of theaters around Union Square; key individuals and places in the history of subway graffiti; the spatial history of the Bell Telephone system; the forgotten histories of official memorials and murals in East Harlem; surveillance networks in Corona, Queens; locations in Woody Allen’s films; and historic jazz performance venues.
Posted by eric at 10:52 AM
December 23, 2011
An open letter to the city's new Atlantic Yards sort-of-ombudsperson: when there are construction miscues, try to avoid saying "Sorry, it won't happen again"
Atlantic Yards Report
Dear Ms. Lolita Jackson (Director of Special Projects at the NYC Office of the Mayor),
You've apparently just started working on Atlantic Yards issues as the city's new sort-of-ombudsperson, just as you've been doing on the Second Avenue Subway, as you say, "bring[ing] together city agencies to address quality of life issues for businesses and residents that are adjacent to large infrastructure/construction projects."
I hope you don't mind a bit of unsolicited advice.
You haven't had a chance to issue what has become a common mantra from both Forest City Ratner (FCR), the developer, and Empire State Development (ESD), the agency in charge:
Sorry, it won't happen again.
That's what FCR and ESD said after neighbors (via Atlantic Yards Watch) blew the whistle on generators that were making an infernal racket.
That's what ESD said--more or less; they later issued a letter--after neighbors (via Atlantic Yards Watch) cited widespread violations of truck routes.
That's what ESD said after neighbors (via Atlantic Yards Watch) showed how railyard flood lights were left on all night without warning.
That's what ESD said after neighbors (via Atlantic Yards Watch) spotted a contractor disposing of powder on Pacific Street.
You don't want to say it yourself, do you? Shouldn't the government--the representatives of the public--do better?
Shouldn't there be more of an effort to stave off such problems in the first place, or to penalize infractions?
Or is the developer really in charge?
Posted by eric at 10:56 AM
December 22, 2011
Immigrant investors seeking green cards now own mortgage on development rights for Atlantic Yards tower; more mortgages coming
Atlantic Yards Report
Chinese millionaires are closer to owning a piece of the Atlantic Yards project.
Immigrant investors now own a $24.7 million mortgage on the 1.24-acre site for B12, the first of seven development parcels promised as collateral for a low-interest loan to developer Forest City Ratner.
More such mortgages are coming, a state official says, indicating that proceeds from the $249 million low-interest loan garnered through the EB-5 visa program are being delivered.
Forest City Ratner is thus transferring portions of a longstanding high-interest loan to the cheaper capital raised via Brooklyn Arena Infrastructure and Transportation Improvement Fund, an affiliate of the New York City Regional Center (NYCRC), a private investment pool authorized to recruit immigrant investors.
It looks like the large majority of the cheaper capital will replace that existing loan rather than be used, as Forest City officials once said, to build a new railyard.
Posted by eric at 12:51 PM
Free Rat-Proof Garbage Cans for Residents, Again
Forest City Ratner and Council Member Letitia James are providing free trash cans to residents to address continued rat problem.
Prospect Heights Patch
by Jamie Schuh
Free rodent-proof garbage cans are now available for all Prospect Heights residents, thanks to Council Member Letitia James and Forest City Ratner. The heavy-duty, plastic cans with lids are approved by the Department of Health.
More like thanks to Council Member Letitia James's persistent prodding of Forest City Ratner.
Forest City Ratner first offered free trash cans to residents back in August, as part of a “rodent control strategy.”
The trash cans are now available to all residents and business owners within Prospect Heights. They can be picked up at the office of Council Member James, 50 Hanson Place, between 9:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
Bring an I.D. and proof of address when picking up, and call (718) 260-9191 to confirm availability.
NoLandGrab: Yormarketing genius should be announcing the inking of the "official resident trash can sponsor" any day now.
Posted by eric at 12:41 PM
Curbed Cup Elite 8: (3) Atlantic Yards vs. (6) DoBro
Curbed
It's a battle between a phony neighborhood and a phonily named neighborhood — and it's not close.
Half the field has already been eliminated in the Curbed Cup, our annual award to the New York City neighborhood of the year. This week we'll have one matchup per day—with the polls left open for 24 hours—and by Friday only four contenders will be left vying for the prestigious fake trophy. Let the eliminations continue!
...AY's opponent in this round? Downtown Brooklyn. One commenter and Curbed operative wrote of the neighborhood's transformation this year: "Never mind the Brooklyner, Brooklyn Fare, the new consolidated subway hub, Aloft hotel, or Dekalb Market, but soon there will be Shake Shack, the new Dieterle spot, H&M, a new residential complex, and so on. Subway access is awesome; walking access around Brooklyn is just as good." (And hey, the Shake Shack just opened!) Another commenter points to the makeover of the BAM area and the sales and rental success stories the 'hood's had this year. So which 'hood should advance to the next round?
Posted by eric at 12:34 PM
The Good News of 2011
Stone Circles at The Stone House
A film about the Atlantic Yards fight ranks high on a North Carolina list of the best things of the year.
3. “The Battle for Brooklyn” film about fight against Bruce Ratner”s development debacle, on list of possible Oscar nominations for best doc.
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
December 21, 2011
Why will railyard floodlights be illuminated at night? Because the policy changed
Atlantic Yards Report
As I wrote yesterday, it seems quite possible that floodlights at the railyard will be illuminated until 11 pm for many months, through next summer.
That leads to scenes (via Atlantic Yards Watch) such as the illumination (at 7 pm) as seen from the Newswalk building on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton avenues.
The policy regarding the lights has apparently changed, as Peter Krashes notes on Atlantic Yards Watch, in Nighttime use of railyard floodlights may continue until September 2012.
...A belated Forest City response
About a week after an inquiry via the Community Liaison's voice mail, Community Liaison Brigitte LaBonte answered AY Watch, in part:
The lights are required to provide visibility for the workers, and to ensure safe working conditions. To minimize the impact to those adjacent to the yard, the lights are directed downward and into the Yard, and away from residential buildings.
However, as noted by Krashes:
Residents note that while the lights are directed downward, spillage on the sides of the lights is intense and flows directly into nearby residences. No adjustments to the floodlights redirecting their beams away from residential building have been made to compensate for their increased use.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
Brooklyn's Top 25 News Stories Of 2011
The L Magazine
9. Atlantic Yards Ascendant (Meh.) After years of lawsuits and controversy, construction began on the Barclays Center, its shell rising up above Park Slope, Prospect Heights and Fort Greene. Jay-Z announced the basketball team would be called “The Brooklyn Nets” (whoop-dee-do), while the bar Freddy’s—an icon of the displaced—opened a new location in South Slope. Oh, and those local jobs for construction workers don’t seem to be materializing. Shocking.
Posted by eric at 10:49 AM
December 20, 2011
Deconstructing Marty Markowitz on Atlantic Yards blame (it's all the fault of lawsuits), residential permit parking, and his claim of being underpaid
Atlantic Yards Report
Better sit down for this one.
In a recent interview by Roberto Perez on The Perez Notes, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz gave what likely will remain his standard line on Atlantic Yards: it all would've worked out if there had been no lawsuits.
Well, that ignores the fact that developers of large, multi-phase projects must plan for up-and-down development cycles, and, as already noted by DDDB and NLG, developer Bruce Ratner admitted that his announced plan was never feasible.
The question
At 10:06, host Perez opened up the mike: "Borough President, talk a little bit about Atlantic Yards. There are both sides, of course, the people who are upset about eminent domain, people who are upset that the jobs, supposedly promised by Bruce Ratner have not materialized, and the job training, and the people that are upset over gentrification. Talk about some of the positives of the project, and what do you think of the overall so far, there's a lot of development left that's part of the final project that hasn't happened just yet."
The answer
Markowitz took to it like catnip: "Well, let me just say that, if the folks that opposed this hadn't tied the project up for seven years in litigation, Atlantic Yards, a good piece of it would have been built. The affordable housing would've been on its way. The Nets would be playing in the arena and defeating the Manhattan Knicks. I'm sure, I'm confident. And people would've been working, and it would've been the jobs that were promised. Because when this project was first proposed, the economy was strong in new York and in America. Sadly, seven years of lawsuits that sucked up time, money, and everything else and then we get into the middle of a deep recession."
Wait, the developer originally promised 10,000 office jobs in four office tower. That was bogus from the start. Now there's one office tower planned.
Damning the critics
"Listen, now the critics are complaining that there's not enough jobs," Markowitz continued. "Before, they couldn't care less about the jobs. They couldn't care less about the jobs. They couldn't care less about affordable housing."
NoLandGrab: Sure, Marty, we couldn't care less about any of that stuff. But what we really don't care about is bringing a lousy pro basketball team to Brooklyn — especially on the taxpayers' dime.
Posted by eric at 1:36 PM
Nighttime use of railyard floodlights may continue until September 2012
Atlantic Yards Watch
And God Bruce Ratner said, Let there be light.
 |
The floodlights in the Vanderbilt Railyard are being used to extend construction work hours to as late as 11:00 PM many days of the week. In the spring of 2010, LIRR told community members the lights would be used infrequently to enable work that could not be executed in the day while the railyard was operating. At that time there was no mention the lights would be used for construction.
The policy for use of the lights has apparently changed. According to ESDC Project Director Arana Hankin, LIRR and the FCRC contractors working on the Carlton Avenue Bridge are negotiating an agreement for the use of the lights that includes extending construction work hours. The rebuilding of the Carlton Avenue Bridge is not a LIRR project, although its completion is dependent on various elements of railyard construction being finished. The lights are planned to be used until reconstruction of the Carlton Avenue Bridge is complete, which must be prior to the time the arena opens in September 2012. It is unclear to what extent the lights will be used when construction in Vanderbilt Railyard continues with the replacement of the permanent railyard. It is anticipated to be complete in 2016.
Although the work currently taking place only involves a small number of workers in limited locations, all of the lights in the yard are turned on. On Tuesday, December 6 the lights were left on until 3:30 AM without notice to the community.
Click through for photos of how the lights obviate the need for nearby residents' interior lighting (thereby lowering electricity costs!) and how reading is easy any time (saving people's eyesight!).
Posted by eric at 1:22 PM
From Atlantic Yards Watch: Generators at Carlton Avenue and Pacific Street disrupt residents
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder follows up on yesterday's Atlantic Yards Watch post on noisy generators.
Who wants to live near generators, especially when the decibel level gets stratospheric?
...So, is "noisier equipment," as per the memorandum, situated "at locations that are removed from sensitive receptor locations and are shielded from sensitive receptor locations wherever feasible," provided with significant noise shielding?
Apparently not:
Although the Memorandum specifies a "minimum 8 foot height perimeter barrier (constructed of 3/4 thick plywood), with a 16 foot hight barrier (of 3/4" thick plywood) adjacent to sensitive locations, including locations along Pacific Street, Dean Street, and Flatbush Avenue opposite residences," there are no barriers of that description installed in this location. The generators are separated from residences by a chain link fence that does not shield noise.
Yesterday, I contacted the state and city officials in charge of Atlantic Yards construction issues, but didn't hear back yet.
Posted by eric at 12:56 PM
Psst, you want to buy a green card? It’ll cost you $500,000
KPCC/Southern California Public Radio
A federal program, known as EB-5, was created by Congress during the recession of 1990 to offer foreigners a way to earn a green card by investing in American construction projects.
The program is so successful that applications have quadrupled in the last two years. The minimum investment in the program was set at $1 million, but if the project is in a rural area or a place where the unemployment rate is fifty percent above the national average, the minimum investment is $500,000. The program is intended to encourage more development and job growth in poor areas, but some evidence suggests that, through selective use of census statistics, state officials are using gerrymandering techniques to designate development zones as having high unemployment in areas that are actually economically flourishing.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, EB-5 controversy makes CA public radio show; CA rep says state doesn't bend rules
Yesterday, the Patt Morrison Show, on KPCC/Southern California Public Radio featured a segment taking off from the New York Times's coverage of how EB-5 projects in New York City stretch the rules.
The first guest on Psst, you want to buy a green card? It’ll cost you $500,000 was Times reporter Patrick McGeehan, who gave a basic summary of his article, explaining of state officials "string together census tracks" to claim projects are located in high-unemployment areas, thus allowing a more attractive minimum investment to those seeking green cards: %500,000 versus $1 million.
McGeehan used the term "little private investment banks" to describe the middlemen, formally known as regional centers, who earn both fees and the spread between the low interest the borrower is paying and the no-interest paid by those seeking green cards.
He also noted that the EB-5 program is dependent on "theoretical" job creation, based on a formula.
The program, he said, "was used quite effectively in Vermont, to build ski resorts... Now the problem is these big shiny projects... like a pro basketball arena in Brooklyn [are] stealing away the oxygen."
Actually, though the Atlantic Yards EB-5 project was pitched as an investment into the arena, does not involve a piece of the arena.
NY Observer, New York [Hearts] EB-5 Visas
The Farragut Houses, which like many city housing projects suffers from especially high unemployment, is actually included in three different EB-5 zones, including Atlantic Yards. Whether anyone in the houses is actually benefiting from the jobs is unknown. Whatever the ethics of the program, it should at the very least be helping them.
NoLandGrab: And who wants to bet that it's not?
Forbes, Job Creation Program Stretches Claims About Low-Income Neighborhoods
One example: the huge $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. To attract financing under the EB-5 program, the developer, Forest City Ratner, has claimed the project is going up in an oddly-shaped zone that stretches more than two miles from the site and includes low-income parts of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. Longtime journalist and Atlantic Yards watchdog Norman Oder, author of the Atlantic Yards Report blog, has used Freedom of Information Act requests and translators to comb through piles of documents. Oder has described the developers’ supposed project area as “the Bed-Stuy boomerang,” akin to a gerrymandered political district.
...Oder has written more than 100 articles on the EB-5 program and he tells me the gerrymandered districts only scratch the surface of EB-5’s many problems.
Curbed, Green Cards Go For Real Estate Cash in Visa Deals
In a bid to finance real estate projects, developers have been ferreting out the hungry, tired, and poor already in NYC to qualify for the creation of special development zones, so they can sell visas to wealthy foreign investors.
Posted by eric at 12:37 PM
Project: Atlantic Yards Media Actors
Urban Research Tool
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I've mapped traces of an actor-network involved in transforming representations of the Atlantic Yards redevelopment project in Brooklyn. The green circles represent sources, like The New York Times, mapped based on their headquarters, the black dots represent individual articles/videos/etc and the purple stars represent interviews I've conducted and edited. The map covers two events so far, about which I've written short essays to guide you through the map. Essay 1: Ratner's Announcement. Essay 2: Freddy's Bar.
Related content...
Urban Media Archaeology, Evaluating My Atlantic Yards Media Actors Map
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
Battle for Brooklyn | Dec 27-29 at 8pm
indieScreen
Catch Battle for Brooklyn at Williamsburg's indieScreen next week.
Dirs. Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley.
93min | Doc | US | 2010.
Brooklyn Film Festival’s Grand Chameleon Award 2011.BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an intensely intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by owners and residents facing condemnation of their property to make way for the controversial Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in the heart of Brooklyn. Shot over seven years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an epic tale of how far people will go to fight for what they believe in.
Posted by eric at 11:59 AM
December 19, 2011
Update #8: The role of the dissident
Battle Campaign via Kickstarter
Today I saw that Marty Markowitz once again used the leverage of his office to make the case that the Atlantic Yards project would be almost built if it wasn't for the complaining gentrifiers.
...Using the power of office to demonize those who raise important questions leads us to a quote from a more powerful politician and profound thinker. Vaclav Havel died yesterday. On the nature of opposition to power he had this to say:
"You do not become a dissident just because you decide one day to take up this most unusual career. You are thrown into it by your personal sense of responsibility, combined with a complex set of external circumstances. You are cast out of the existing structures and placed in a position of conflict with them. It begins as an attempt to do your work well, and ends with being branded an enemy of society." —Vaclav Havel
Some dissidents get beaten down. Others overthrow corrupt regimes and become President.
Posted by eric at 11:15 PM
Times, in front-page story, critiques gerrymandering in New York's EB-5 projects, gets defensive response from feds; unmentioned are other rules being stretched
Atlantic Yards Report
In a front-page article today headlined Rules Stretched as Green Cards Go to Investors, the New York Times jumps on one aspect of the EB-5 story, the gerrymandering to ensure that immigrant investor projects qualify as located in high-unemployment areas.
The Times cites the International Gem Tower in the diamond district, the Battery Maritime Building in Lower Manhattan, and yes, Atlantic Yards (as I wrote 12/9/11), as taking advantage of gerrymandering. The Battery Maritime Building's Targeted Employment Area, the Times reveals, even "jumps across the East River to annex the Farragut Houses project in Vinegar Hill, Brooklyn."
Unmentioned: other rules being stretched regarding EB-5, such as the lack of actual job creation (defined via murky, non-public reports by hired economists), or the credit given to immigration investors for investments made by others, including taxpayers.
Also unmentioned is the enormous, sometimes deceptive hype behind project promotion, as well as the participation by city and state officials in such promotion--and the finder's fee to the New York City Economic Development Corporation in brokering EB-5 deals.
In other words, the problem goes much deeper than gerrymandering.
...Diminishing AYR impact
Describing me as a "local blogger," while not inaccurate, also is imprecise, and diminishes my experience as a journalist. It makes it harder to believe that I might have written more than 100 articles investigating the EB-5 issue.
Moreover, the paragraph leaves the impression that the gerrymandered map was publicly known, and that I merely named it. Rather, the issue was first reported on this blog, based on documents gathered via a Freedom of Information Act request.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
Rules Stretched as Green Cards Go to Investors
The New York Times
by Patrick McGeehan and Kirk Semple
Look who just caught on! In typical half-assed fashion, The Times barely scratches the surface of the EB-5 green cards-for-cash scam, a story on which they would have whiffed completely if not for Norman Oder's dogged reporting.
Affluent foreigners are rushing to take advantage of a federal immigration program that offers them the chance to obtain a green card in return for investing in construction projects in the United States. With credit tight, the program has unexpectedly turned into a mainstay for the financing of these projects in New York, California, Texas and other states.
The number of foreign applicants, each of whom must invest at least $500,000 in a project, has nearly quadrupled in the last two years, to more than 3,800 in the 2011 fiscal year, officials said. Demand has grown so fast that the Obama administration, which is championing the program, is seeking to streamline the application process.
Still, some critics of the program have described it as an improper use of the immigration system to spur economic development — a cash-for-visas scheme. And an examination of the program by The New York Times suggests that in New York, developers and state officials are stretching the rules to qualify projects for this foreign financing.
"Examination?" That's a bit much.
These developers are often relying on gerrymandering techniques to create development zones that are supposedly in areas of high unemployment — and thus eligible for special concessions — but actually are in prosperous ones, according to federal and state records.
...The giant Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which abuts well-heeled brownstone neighborhoods, has also qualified for the special concessions using a gerrymandered high-unemployment district: the crescent-shaped zone swings more than two miles to the northeast to include poor sections of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant. A local blogger and critic of Atlantic Yards, Norman Oder, has referred to the map as “the Bed-Stuy Boomerang.”
Posted by eric at 10:15 AM
Marty Markowitz Spreads Holiday Cheer With Bogus Blame and Divisiveness
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
If the folks who supported Atlantic Yards, such as its biggest (as in loudest) cheerleader Marty Markowitz, hadn't attempted to construct the largest single-developer project in NYC history by overriding local zoning, bypassing the votes of all city and state elected officials, utilizing eminent domain for private gain, giving away public assets through sweetheart deals, providing special deals and subsidies totaling somewhere near $2 billion, and breaking housing and jobs promises left and right all while ignoring community input without ever sincerely seeking it, perhaps Atlantic Yards would not be the most reviled development plan in all of New York.
And now, despite all of that plus the growing realization among the non-partisans that the project and its one accomplishment—a money-losing arena—is a clustermess in the heart of Brooklyn, the Borough President is sticking to the absurd line that it is the community advocates' fault the project is a failure. Taking it yet one step further Markowitz astonishingly claims that the use of eminent domain for Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov's benefit was somehow a good thing.
Why do we bring all of this up? Well just look at what holiday cheer Markowitz is spreading.
Posted by eric at 10:10 AM
December 16, 2011
Barclays Center traffic changes screwed Boerum Hill, residents say
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
The city’s efforts to tinker with the traffic flow around the Barclays Center to reduce congestion near the under-construction arena have not only failed, area residents say — they’ve actually made things worse on Third Avenue in Boerum Hill.
The city started tinkering with the traffic lights on Third Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues in August, when traffic on the stretch increased after changes were made to traffic flow to accommodate the coming Prospect Heights arena.
Residents said that the adjustments — including shunting Flatbush Avenue-bound Fourth Avenue traffic to Pacific Street or Third Avenue — has resulted in massive backups not only on Pacific Street, but all the way to State and Schermerhorn streets.
“In order to cross, you really have to weave in and out of traffic,” said Martha Kamber, the executive director of the YWCA on Third Avenue. “There’s also a lot of honking and cars regularly run red lights. It’s very messy.”
Messy, and perhaps unsolvable.
There may simply be nothing that the city can do, given the amout of traffic that is trying to get into and around Downtown.
Related coverage...
Carroll Gardens Patch, Efforts to Reduce Congestion Around Barclays Center Are Not Working, Residents Say
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
The Culturati Caucus
New York Magazine
Brooklyn Academy of Music Associate Producer Darrell McNeill (at least until Bruce C. Ratner gets his daily glimpse of NoLandGrab) strays from the party line in New York Magazine's 2011 culture round-up.
Over the past month, we quizzed 97 New York culture mavens (and some visiting luminaries) on the best movies, tweets, and other artistic artifacts they’ve encountered this year. The tallies were anything but scientific, but they nonetheless surfaced a few conspicuous crowd-pleasers—plus, as expected, quite a number of ardent endorsements of everything from Ellen Barkin’s Twitter profanity to DIY architecture at Zuccotti Park.
...MOVIE I WISH I’D MADE
...
Battle for Brooklyn —Darrell M. McNeill
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
The BK Buzz
We at The BK Buzz attended a screening of the new documentary Battle for Brooklyn last night at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture in Park Slope as part of the Rooftop Films series, “Films for the Occupation.”
...The film is an intimate and rigorous investigation into the seven-year long fight between a neighborhood and one of the largest real estate developers in the country, Forest City Ratner. And with all the buzz it’s generating, it’s no surprise that the film has been shortlisted in the Documentary Feature category for the 2012 Academy Awards. So check out the trailer below and if you like what you see, the people behind the film have set up a Kickstarter campaign to raise money in order to distribute the film to a larger audience.
NoLandGrab: That Kickstarter effort is nearly half way to its goal — click here to help them go all the way.
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
December 15, 2011
EB-5 News Blog: continued uneasiness in China about marketing of EB-5 projects to immigrant investors
Atlantic Yards Report
Apparently there's continued uneasiness in China about marketing of immigrant investor projects, as detailed in the EB-5 News Blog, compiled by Brian Su, head of the EB-5 China Market Council and an EB-5 consultant in Illinois.
On 1/9/11, I pointed to five reports in Su's blog about Chinese officials cracking down on abuses or expressing concern. More recently, Su's EB-5 News blog reported 12/12/11, Report from China: Beijing Exit & Entry Service Association Issues Warning on EB-5 Program:
Beijing Exit & Entry Service Association recently issued a risk warning notice to local Chinese emigration agents and potential investors on EB-5 regional center program. The year of 2011 has been a very busy one for many Chinese emigration brokers that promote EB-5 projects to Chinese investors; various EB-5 projects have been marketed to Chinese investors, and the EB-5 regional center activities in China have been alarming to Chinese emigration trade associations around the country.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, A view of EB-5 regional centers from the inside: marketing key to success, as is endorsement by local government, even though it's a private project
A 4/5/10 report by the Portland (OR) Development Corporation on the possibility of setting up a regional center to market EB-5 investments contains some interesting insights, based on calls to current regional center providers.
The report notes that marketing overseas is crucial, which means local government is rarely the applicant, because it lacks such marketing resources. A minimum of $600,000 is needed to set up, apply, and administer a regional center.
However, endorsement (or the appearance thereof) by local government is critical (as suggested in my coverage of the Atlantic Yards EB-5 venture in China) because it indicates political support, provides the appearance of financial stability, and plays well with investors from China, the largest source of EB-5 funds.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
Valery Jean, Executive Director of Families United for Racial and Economic Equality, on FUREE's 10th Anniversary Party
Runnin' Scared
by Steven Thrasher
Today we're talking to Valery Jean, Executive Director of Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE). FUREE (whom we've interacted with several times this year, including during our coverage of Mary Lee Ward's foreclosure) is celebrating 10 years of stirring up trouble in Brooklyn on behalf of poor and working class New Yorkers trying to hold on.
...So that enormous Ratner development is going up and will open next year. How big a loss do you think Atlantic Yards is, from your point of view
How big a loss is it to the community? We know we can't stop development, but it can happen in a way that's responsible and fair, and in which it gets input from the community. The loss here was that there were major opportunities for the city and the state for what could have been a positive impact on the community.
[Atlantic Yards] wasn't developed on a human basis, but for the needs of the developers. The loss - and what we're learning is that things can be learned from every situation - is that if there were sound and effective community benefit laws, it wouldn't have led to the loss of jobs and homes which can totally devastate families on many levels, including the diversity of what those families look like.
For me personally, I grew up on Vanderbilt, near Atlantic Yards. When I go back, it's nothing like I remember it at all. We're hoping there are still opportunities out of it, but it's also a wake up call for our community.
Posted by eric at 11:46 AM
The 13 Best Political Films of 2011
Looking back at the movies that moved us most.
AlterNet
by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd
...in 2011, we felt the tremors, and a clutch of political films and documentaries both presaged and inspired the increasing awareness and resolve we’ve seen smattering across the globe. You’ll see some of these in the Oscar nomination lineup, but all of them are must-see.
...13. Battle for Brooklyn (dir. Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley) Oscar shortlisted
For over six years, residents of downtown Brooklyn battled Bruce Ratner, one of the largest real estate developers in New York, for the heart of the neighborhood. After the state and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, invoking eminent domain, rezoned and seized the area known as Atlantic Yards, Ratner began developing his vision: a huge sports arena for the Brooklyn Nets, several skyscrapers (including mixed-income housing, the “mixed-income” part of which was eventually scrapped), and area for mass retail which some fretted would attract national chains and dilute the community reliance that’s been a part of downtown Brooklyn for decades. But most devastatingly, the land on which the new development was proposed already held apartment buildings and other living units. Set to be razed, its occupants and neighbors, some of whom had lived in the buildings for decades, embarked on a battle for their lives and principles. This compelling documentary chronicles the fight. (Upcoming screenings all across America, available on DVD soon.)
NoLandGrab: Note that Ratner has not "scrapped" plans for "mixed-income" housing. However, when and if any housing gets built is anybody's guess.
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
Curbed Cup 1st Round: (3) Atlantic Yards vs. (14) East Harlem
Curbed NY
by Sara Polsky
C'mon, NLG readers! You're not going to let the new "neighborhood" of Atlantic Yards advance to the quarterfinals, are you? Vote now.
The Curbed Cup, our annual award to the New York City neighborhood of the year, is kicking off with 16 'hoods vying for the prestigious fake trophy. This week we'll have two matchups per day, and all the results and the full tourney bracket will be reviewed on Friday. Voting for each pairing ends in the wee hours the next morning. Let the eliminations commence!
The drama has mostly quieted (except for the cinematic kind), but it's still been a big year at Atlantic Yards—so big that we're giving it its own neighborhood category. The roof is on the way up at the Barclays Center. And Forest City Ratner announced that the first residential tower at Atlantic Yards will be modular construction, to break ground in early 2012.
...Which should advance: Atlantic Yards vs. East Harlem
Posted by eric at 11:08 AM
December 14, 2011
The dramatic juxtapositions of Brooklyn prosperity and poverty, and looking again at the TEAs
Atlantic Yards Report
Last week, I described how state officials agreed to gerrymander maps of Targeted Employment Areas (TEAs) to ensure that the Atlantic Yards Project, as well as a project at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, were located in high unemployment zones for the purposes of attracting immigrant investors under the EB-5 program.
Such gerrymandering was possible only because New York, and especially Brooklyn, contains dramatic juxtapositions of prosperity and poverty, juxtapositions highlighted by decades of recent gentrification, which has had little impact on entrenched poverty in housing projects.
Indeed, a map (below) from WNYC via The Local points out such juxtapositions.
According to The Local:
With a average income of $9,001, the second-poorest census tract in the city is in Fort Greene, WNYC reported. The Ingersoll and Walt Whitman Houses are inside that tract, the darkest red area on the displayed map.
...Two tracts over from Ingersoll and Whitman, No. 183 has an average income of $83,105.
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
December 13, 2011
At community meeting on Atlantic Yards transportation issues, call for "buy-in" on Forest City Ratner's (delayed) plan, frustration that so little is in place, new study of baseline issues announced
Atlantic Yards Report
Funny that Forest City can put double- or triple-shifts on for construction (keeping nearby residents up all night), but the same urgency is absent when it comes to completing a transportation plan that might be those residents' only chance of avoiding an arena-generated traffic nightmare.
A long-awaited meeting last night on community input regarding Atlantic Yards transportation issues--a prelude to a Transportation Working Group (TWG)--generated significant community frustration that so little was in place less than ten months before the Barclays Center arena begins operations.
“This project, and its arena, opens in ten months,” declared Gib Veconi, an activist in the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council and BrooklynSpeaks. “We just heard we haven't figured out where the satellite parking lots would be. By the same token, we don't know what happened with the sidewalk plan that shows narrower sidewalks, fewer travel lanes... We don't know what the parking plan for Block 1129 is, which is in the middle of a residential neighborhood..”
He further asked how Traffic Enforcement Agents (TEAs) would be deployed, and how the three police precincts that touch on the site would divide their work.
“Early next year,” responded Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development, the state agency in charge of the project. About 30 people attended the meeting at Brooklyn's Borough Hall.
But Hankin faced considerable criticism that too little had been revealed, and that a crucial Transportation Demand Plan (involving incentives to reduce use of cars, free MetroCards, cross-marketing with local businesses, remote parking, and more) would be made available “in the first quarter,” rather than, as promised earlier this year, by the end of 2011.
Community approval?
Indeed, Veconi galvanized the audience by proposing that the Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan--which, unlike the forthcoming arena security and operations plans, requires approval by ESD and the city Department of Transportation (DOT)--be subject to community buy-in.
Many in the audience clapped, and Veconi suggested that the vote could be by those present, or by nominees of elected officials representing the neighborhoods around the project site.
“We can think about it,” Hankin said with a smile, in response to Veconi’s initial proposal.
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Civic Groups Ask DOT, State for Veto on Atlantic Yards Traffic Plan
Atlantic Yards-area civic leaders asked state and city agencies to give them veto power over Forest City Ratner’s plan to help reduce the traffic onslaught when Barclays Arena opens next fall.
The request came after area community groups were invited by the Brooklyn Borough President’s office to participate in an Atlantic Yards “transportation working group.”
Posted by eric at 1:33 PM
Mayor assigns Director of Special Projects to address Atlantic Yards quality-of-life issues (she's already doing that regarding the Second Avenue Subway construction zone)
Atlantic Yards Report
Though Atlantic Yards is a state project, not a city one, the Mayor's Office is apparently stepping up and assigning a top staffer to ensure a better response to quality-of-life complaints and to ensure interagency cooperation.
(Have they been reading Atlantic Yards Watch and/or tracking 311 calls?)
Council Member Letitia James, at a meeting at Borough Hall last night on AY-related transportation issues, announced that she had recently met with a a representative from the Mayor's Office, "who is now an ombudsman for Atlantic Yards."
I think James was using the term loosely, but the staffer she named, Lolita Jackson, indeed has Atlantic Yards in her portfolio. Jackson, until June 2011, was Mayor Mike Bloomberg's chief liaison for all Manhattan related community issues.
Posted by eric at 1:29 PM
Exclusive Hawaii Premiere: Battle for Brooklyn, Academy Award Contending Documentary About Eminent Domain
Inverse Condemnation
Aloha to our loyal Hawaiian readers — Battle for Brooklyn is coming your way.
A reminder: on January 3 and 4, 2012, at 1:00 and 7:30 p.m. each day, the Honolulu Academy of Arts Doris Duke Theater is presenting the Hawaii premiere of Battle For Brooklyn, the Academy Award-contending documentary about the Atlantic Yards eminent domain fight. We are lucky enough to have the exclusive Hawaii showing of this important, informative, and entertaining film. More information (and ticket purchase) from the Academy of Arts web site here.
Posted by eric at 1:03 PM
December 12, 2011
A modest proposal to Gov. Cuomo: why New York State should hire that AY Watch camera guy to fill the Atlantic Yards community outreach position
Atlantic Yards Report
When he's not busy decimating transit funding or cutting opaque budget deals in Albany's back rooms, Governor Cuomo is busy ignoring Atlantic Yards. Norman Oder thinks he should hire a local who does pay attention.
To: Governor Andrew Cuomo
From: Norman Oder/Atlantic Yards Report
Since I know you take a special and granular interest in state personnel issues, I wish to alert you to one prominent un-filled position, that of Atlantic Yards--Manager, Community & Government Relations. It was announced as an "immediate opening" way back on June 21.
We in Brooklyn wonder why no one's been hired, given the daily violations--or seeming violations--of construction rules at the Atlantic Yards site and the regular complaints by residents.
Could it be that developer Forest City Ratner, whose CEO has been not ungenerous to you, has a veto? Is Forest City's trying to save on paying the salary for that position? Or does understaffing represent a convenient excuse for paltry oversight, as documented on Atlantic Yards Watch?
Clearly, there's a crying need to have someone to respond and even allow the state, as Project Director Arana Hankin might say, to be proactive. (You might lose that nagging "Status Cuomo" nickname, too.)
After all, Atlantic Yards Watch daily documents incidents involving noise, improper truck procedures, double parking, and more.
It is, you might admit, a salutary example of citizen input. It's also pretty damning. The photos and video don't lie. You're lucky most in the press suffer from Atlantic Yards "issue fatigue."
Still, when asked, Ms. Hankin is left to offer belated explanations for such things as why railyard lights were on all night.
If you look closely at Atlantic Yards Watch, you'll see that the single most prolific contributor goes by the handle 700PacificW.
Posted by eric at 10:12 AM
December 10, 2011
Battle of Brooklyn roundup: Blogger questions Nets plan for cheap financing for new arena
Daily News
BY Michael O'Keeffe
Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder may be the only journalist digging deep into the Nets' attempts to raise cheap financing for Bruce Ratner's massive arena-and-skyscrapers project by offering green cards to Chinese investors. His latest post explains how state officials gerrymandered the project's map to include sections of Bed-Stuy to convince federal officials that Atlantic Yards is in a high-poverty, high-unemployment area. If the feds buy the state's argument, investors could get much-coveted green cards for themselves and their families by investing $500,000 in the project, not the $1 million required for a project in a more affluent area.
"Is this kosher?" Oder asks. "Well, it seems to violate the spirit of federal immigration law - especially since the targeted census tracts are not being helped much by the project - but likely not the letter."
Also, congratulations to Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, the Brooklyn filmmakers whose critically acclaimed "Battle for Brooklyn" has made the Academy Awards short list for best documentary. The filmmakers have initiated a Kickstarter campaign to raise $9,000 to promote the film.
The directors will answer questions when "Battle for Brooklyn" is shown at the Stranger Than Fiction Series at the IFC Center in the Village on Tuesday. Daniel Goldstein, the protagonist of "Battle for Brooklyn" will appear with Hawley and Galinsky at the Brooklyn Ethical Culture Society when they show the film as part of the Brooklyn Rooftop Films Presents series.
Posted by steve at 3:49 PM
December 9, 2011
The Bed-Stuy Boomerang: how state officials gerrymandered a map to help Forest City Ratner recruit immigrant investors and save big (and how the EB-5 program is riddled with such practices)
Atlantic Yards Report
Just when you think the Atlantic Yards green-cards-for-cash scheme couldn't get any more crooked, Norman Oder unearths a crooked map.
Public officials have done much to help developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) recruit Chinese investors to provide a $249 million low-interest loan in exchange for green cards--and now there's new evidence.
We knew that officials from New York City, New York State, and Brooklyn wrote letters to the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency overseeing the EB-5 Immigrant Investor program, to get Atlantic Yards approved as an investment vehicle.
And we knew that Empire State Development Corporation official Peter Davidson joined a road show in China to hype the project before potential investors, misleadingly claiming that Atlantic Yards "will be the largest job-creating project in New York City in the last 20 years."
Now, evidence suggests that two New York State agencies helped gerrymander a map of Brooklyn unemployment--beginning at the Atlantic Yards site (in blue) in Prospect Heights, omitting more affluent census tracts nearby, and extending east to encompass poorer tracts in Bedford-Stuyvesant. (I'm dubbing the map "The Bed-Stuy Boomerang.")
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The map ensured that the promoters of the EB-5 project could tell the needed 498 immigrant investors that the project was located in a Targeted Employment Area, featuring high unemployment. That meant investors had to put up only $500,000, rather than $1 million.
By getting this EB-5 project off the ground, the state helped FCR save more than $140 million, by my estimate, on a $249 million loan.
And it could help the New York City Regional Center (NYCRC), a private investment pool federally authorized to attract purportedly job-creating investments, reap some $50 million.
NoLandGrab: Hello, New York Times, HELLO! While you're devoting an entire Sunday magazine to Hollywood, you're missing out on rampant fraud and abuse being perpetrated on behalf of your "business partner."
Related coverage...
Field of Schemes, New York gerrymandered arena district to aid Nets' green-card-for-arena-funds deal
For those unfamiliar with the nuances of Brooklyn geography, the left end of what Oder calls "the Bed-Stuy Boomerang" is mostly old warehouses along the Long Island Rail Road tracks. The right end, meanwhile, loops up into Bedford-Stuyvesant — and not its rapidly gentrifying western edge, but the still-impoverished middle. Neatly omitted, meanwhile, are the largely affluent brownstone blocks of Fort Greene to the project's north, Park Slope to the southwest, and Prospect Heights to the south.
Posted by eric at 12:01 PM
Senators show enthusiasm for EB-5 regional center program; questions raised about level of investment, length of term; a skeptic vs. Sen. Leahy
Atlantic Yards Report
The EB-5 program of investment immigration--at least via its most popular incarnation, the regional center program--has been booming, with the number of regional centers, privately owned (mostly) investment pools set up to recruit immigrants seeking green cards, growing from some 35 to 200 in three years.
However, the regional center program is a pilot program, extended five times for 19 years, and set to expire at the end of September 2012. So Congress has begun considering making the program permanent, and the Senate Judiciary Committee 12/7/11 held a hearing on a bill (Creating American Jobs Through Foreign Capital Investment Act) sponsored by Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to do just that.
The only cosponsor so far is Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), but, as at previous Congressional hearings, most legislators seemed positive about a program Leahy called “as much of a win-win program as one could think of.”
Two of the three witnesses program boosters, and the few Senators skeptical seemed more exercised by the rare intersection between EB-5 and illegal immigration than questions of fraud and enforcement.
Still, one Senator put it plainly, that the program is selling green cards.
And the program’s one prominent critic, David North of the (right-wing) Center for Immigration Studies got his due, suggesting that the U.S. scrap the regional center program, that it delivers results that have been poorly documented, and that Senators should not be seduced by positive anecdotes. At the least, he said, the minimum investment--which hasn’t been raised since 1993--should be increased.
...Some skepticism
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) offered some skepticism, suggesting that “we need to enact reforms to make the EB-5 regional center program worthy of its goals.”
“At the end of the day, one fact remains,” Grassley declared. “The program is simply a way for wealthy investors to buy a green card, not only for themselves but for their families. No skills or management experience is needed. One only needs to write a check... While taking a financial risk... is admirable, evidence suggests that it’s not doing enough to spur job creation.”
But he didn’t drill down very far.
As usual, however, Norman Oder drills down much farther. Click through for more.
Posted by eric at 11:47 AM
Schumer endorses EB-5 bill making regional centers permanent, cites projects in New York (City Point?!), avoids Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, didn’t attend a hearing 12/7/11 on making permanent a provision that allows regional centers--federally authorized private (mostly) investment pools--recruit immigrant investors under the EB-5 program.
But Schumer is the first co-sponsor on a bill by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to renew the program, and he did offer an enthusiastic statement for the record, applauding “a program that has done so much good in New York State, and which needs to be made permanent.”
“In New York State, we have 9 USCIS-approved regional center projects that are doing a world of good to create good-paying American jobs,” Schumer said, glossing over the fact that, at least with the Atlantic Yards investment, the job-creation calculation is extremely dubious.
The list, including City Point
Schumer proceeded to list five projects, conspicuously omitting the largest, Atlantic Yards, but mentioning--news to me--that the City Point project in Downtown Brooklyn by Acadia Realty Trust has raised $200 million in EB-5 funding.
 |
(Graphic from NYCRC Chinese web site promoting the project.)
Posted by eric at 11:39 AM
So why were the railyard lights on all night? Because railyard contractors got permission. Why weren't residents given an alert? The state dropped the ball.
Atlantic Yards Report
The state seems to drop the ball a lot when it comes to Atlantic Yards construction oversight.
As documented on Atlantic Yards Watch, high-intensity sodium flood lights were on through the night on Tuesday night, until about 3:25 am, even though the latest Construction Alert said they were supposed to go off at 11 pm. (Before this week, they were supposed to go off at 7 pm.)
What happened? Atlantic Yards Watch observed:
As SOP the ESDC/FCR continues to allow changes to construction work restrictions THEN informs community after the change occurs thus aggravating residents even more by failing to enforce what they publish to whitewash what is actually happening.
And that is exactly what happened.
I checked with Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project for Empire State Development, who responded:
The EIS [Environmental Impact Statement] projected overnight and extended hours of work on the Atlantic Yards sites. The contractors had the appropriate permit to conduct work in the yard overnight. A supplemental construction alert should have been sent out to notify area residents. We will be certain to do so the next time last minute overnight work needs to occur.
Another lingering question, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch:
Why is the entire rail yard illuminated when they are only working @ the far north east corner of the rail yard?
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
'Battle for Brooklyn': The American Way
PopMatters
by Cynthia Fuchs
Early on, Goldstein puts his finger on one part of the problem, as he begins to call Ratner’s invasion and use of power “un-American,” then backtracks and says, “You know what, it is American. It’s the American way.” Other parts emerge as Ratner makes deals with the city (in particular securing the right to build on the MTA rail yards) and, the film reveals, a seemingly grassroots organization, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (B.U.I.L.D.), is paid $5 million by Ratner. And yet another factor is indicated (if not exposed outright) when a series of “community meetings” either prohibit community members’ entrance or are scheduled so that community members do not cross paths with Ratner representatives, and several legal appeals look briefly auspicious and then fail.
Gehry claims that the project is an “opportunity to build an arena in a very urban setting, which is unique—most of them are built out in the fields, where there’s lots of parking around them. This has a different character, and we’re trying to understand it and work with that.” The film shows, however, that no one on the corporate or government side of this “opportunity” engages with this “different character.” The battle, which is waged on both sides for years, ends badly for the resistant residents. Still, Goldstein says, “If I had it to do all over again, I’d do the same thing.” As the film closes over time-lapsed imagery of the construction underway, you’re too aware that other residents, in other places, will have this opportunity.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
December 8, 2011
Battle Campaign
Battle for Brooklyn via Kickstarter
The Battle for Brooklyn filmmakers have launched a new Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the film's Academy Awards push. Click here to chip in (it's tax-deductible, too!).
We have worked on Battle for Brooklyn for 8 years, during which we have seen the film slowly build support and gain momentum among a wide and diverse audience. Raising $25k on Kickstarter - after striking out on two dozen grant applications - was a big UP. Finishing the film and premiering at Hot Docs was a huge UP. Launching it in theaters in NYC and LA has led to critical acclaim. Self-distributing the film this way got us qualified for the Academy Awards. We also had an amazing time at the Brooklyn Film Festival, where the film won the Grand Chameleon Award.
Now that awards season is in full swing, Battle is in the running for some of the big ones. However, there are a lot of expenses involved with getting a film qualified for these awards. We need to make an expensive Digital Cinema Package ($6,000 for that alone!), advertise, travel, and hire publicists. At a bare minimum, we need to raise 9K. 100% of the money raised will go towards our efforts to bring the film to as wide an audience as possible.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
If Bruce Ratner says "it's taken us a while to get there on the architecture," why do prefab plans look like Atlantic Lots?
Atlantic Yards Report
From the New York Observer's 12/7/11 article The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far?:
“It’s taken us a while to get there on the architecture,” Mr. Ratner told The Observer last month on the day he unveiled his new plans for a modular approach at Atlantic Yards. “We did a lot of work to make sure it was something appropriate, in fitting in with the arena and a good reflection on Brooklyn, the city and our country.”
Oh, really?
The Atlantic Yards resemblance, and disavowal
Actually, as I reported 11/17/11, the renderings of prefab towers by SHoP (above and bottom) look a lot like the generic renderings of Atlantic Yards buildings created in May 2008 for the Municipal Art Society's Atlantic Lots plan, which aimed less to show architecture than to depict the impact of an extended fallow period.
And (as I didn't point out last month) a Forest City spokesman, speaking to the 5/5/08 New York Post, disavowed any comparison:
"If MAS thinks that this resembles our project in any way, they are not only greatly mistaken they're doing themselves and the public a great disservice," said Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt. "Frankly, this is so far from anything even remotely resembling what we are building that it's not worth commenting on further."
Riegelhaupt has since left Forest City. Otherwise he might have to eat his words.
Click the link to see the side-by-side comparison.
Posted by eric at 11:30 AM
The Observer finds support and skepticism regarding Forest City's modular plans, ignores some lingering questions raised by company's announcement
Atlantic Yards Report
So, does the New York Observer's 12/7/11 article, The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far?, address some of the issues I raised last month, such as:
- the curious timing of Forest City Ratner's modular announcement (to distract from a lawsuit)
- the fact the permit application for the first building doesn't indicate modular
- the possibility the announcement was meant to achieve union concessions (on a conventional building)
- the diminished totals of project wages and tax revenues, with a modular plan
- the amount of time it takes to get a factory up and running
- the seeming disavowal of a pledge to build larger apartments
- Ratner's astounding claim that "existing incentives" don't work for high-rise, union-built affordable housing
No.
That said, the article does gather a reasonable range of opinions on a plan that, given the total of 16 towers (nearly all of them housing), might justify factory start-up costs. And here's a tidbit that explains how the prefab plan was chosen:
Indeed, SHoP, the architects behind the arena and apartment towers, had two separate design teams working on the project at once, walled off from each other. They used different engineers and everything, had a mini architecture competition, and the prefab team came out on top.
Posted by eric at 11:23 AM
The Mod Squad: Will Bruce Ratner Transform the Way New York Builds, or Is Prefab Another Project Too Far?
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
For nine years now, Bruce Ratner has talked of transforming Brooklyn with his Atlantic Yards project. Bringing professional sports back to the borough, creating a new skyline, “a neighborhood practically from scratch,” as architect Frank Gehry once described it. There would be union jobs and affordable housing for all to enjoy.
As of now, only basketball and a handful of those jobs are guaranteed, all of which took three times as long as originally planned. Mr. Ratner and his partners like to blame the economy and the holdouts who sued to save their property, but the fact remains, they are running well behind schedule, possibly even in violation of previous commitments made to the state when the project was approved.
To catch up, Forest City Ratner has come up with a novel solution for myriad problems with his project: modular construction. More than transforming Brooklyn, Mr. Ratner may transform the way the entire city, even the world, builds. At least that is his hope.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Reactions to the Prefab Designs on Atlantic Yards
There’s a lengthy piece in the Observer about Forest City Ratner’s desire to use modular construction for many, if not all, of Atlantic Yards’ planned high rises. The story has quotes from people in the building trades who are supportive of the idea and some who are skeptical that it will actually save the developer a significant amount of money.
...The real unanswered question, though, doesn’t necessarily concern the cost savings but simply the technology: That is, can modular design actually be used for buildings as tall as the planned Atlantic Yards skyscrapers?
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
Whoops
Urban Media Archaeology
A New School grad student continues to hash out his Atlantic Yards-related thesis.
Part of what got me thinking about this was actually this idea of “opposition networks” that frames my whole project (I’m really digging myself a hole here). First, I don’t think that’s how the people I’m calling “opposition” conceive of themselves. Their work shouldn’t be defined in the negative. The “opposition networks” offer resistance and dissent, but in many cases only implicitly through the telling of a less selective and more considerate account.** Calling them “opposition” implies authority for the developer and the uncritical press’ narrative.
** There’s an important mirroring between the include-everything goals of actor-network theory (the more mediators the better) and those of the Atlantic Yards writers I’m most interested in (the more perspectives/reporting/studies the better).
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
Thursday December 8 2011
Majority Report Radio
Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker Suki Hawley is scheduled to appear today on The Majority Report with Sam Seder at 11:30 a.m. EST. Follow the link to tune in.
A great show in store for you today. Suki Hawley, director of Battle for Brooklyn, is here with us to talk about her acclaimed film. It’s the story of one neighborhood’s battle to fight big business from taking their homes.
“…The pundits who continue to say they don’t understand what the protesters behind Occupy Wall Street want should look at Battle for Brooklyn, the award-winning documentary about the Atlantic Yards that was released this summer. The film was released before the Wall Street protests began, but the story it tells is a strong summary of the crony capitalism that sparked the OWS movement.” — Michael O’Keeffe, New York Daily News
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
December 7, 2011
ROOFTOP FILMS PRESENTS “FILMS FOR THE OCCUPATION” SERIES
Rooftop Films
by Lela Scott MacNeil
We have exciting news. Next week, December 13-16, in conjunction with several of New York City’s finest film venues, we’ll be bringing you a series of four film programs that continue the conversation that was started at Zuccotti Park.
...Thanks to the generosity of all filmmakers, distributors, and venues, all screenings will be free for all audience members. Seating for all screenings is limited, audiences are encouraged to arrive early.
...Wednesday, December 14 – Screening of Battle for Brooklyn (2012 Oscar shortlist)
Directors: Michael Galinsky & Suki Hawley (directors present for Q&A)
Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture in Park Slope at 7:30PM
Just as the new home for the New Jersey Nets (soon to be the Brooklyn Nets) is rising up into the Downtown Brooklyn skyline, Galinsky & Hawley released their film Battle for Brooklyn, which documents the shady business dealings that uprooted families and local businesses from their longtime homes. Films for the Occupation will screen the film, which was just shortlisted for the Best Documentary Oscar, just blocks from the Atlantic Yards site.
Related content...
The Huffington Post, The Occupy Wall Street Film Series By Rooftop
Stranger than Fiction, BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
The IFC Center will also be screening Battle for Brooklyn next Tuesday as part of its Stranger than Fiction series. Click the link for more info.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
Atlantic Yards Rivalry! Steve Witt’s ‘Gonzo’ Book Goes Head-to-Head With Watchdog Norman Oder
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
It looks like there is some competition on the Barnes and Noble shelves for pride of Atlantic Yards place. Norman Oder has been hard at work on a book about the Brooklyn megaproject for the past year, but now his chief rival has thrown his pen into the ring.
Calling Stephen Witt Norman Oder's "chief rival" is like calling Kitty Kelley Robert Caro's "chief rival" — and then some.
According to the Daily News, Steve Witt is working on a roman a clef lampooning the development saga—as if the truth weren’t already stranger than fiction. Mr. Witt calls his take “gonzo,” but for critics like Mr. Oder, who calls him “the notorious Steve Witt,” might find it strange that he has chosen not to play the story straight.
...Who needs facts when you’ve got a great story?
NoLandGrab: Facts have never been an impediment to Steve Witt.
Posted by eric at 11:20 AM
THE SKINNY ON BUILD: THE SUCK JUST KEEPS GETTING SUCKIER
F**ked in Park Slope
The Atlantic Yards is the GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING THE WHOLE YEAR. It's just so easy to hate the project because everyone associated with that giant wicker rat's nest sucks just as hard as Bruce Ratner does. According to LAST THURSDAY'S BROOKLYN PAPER, BROOKLYN UNITED FOR INNOVATIVE LOCAL DEVELOP (BUILD) was promised 1,500 jobs a year over the Atlantic Yards 10-year construction period. They saw only 15 jobs this year.
In the past, members of BUILD could be seen at anti-Atlantic Yards demonstrations, where they showed support for the project because of the bolster in jobs it would provide for local workers. Well guys, you all got duped because that amounted to a big, fat, nothing. As a result of the lack of promised jobs, residents and members of BUILD FILED A LAWSUIT AGAINST RATNER AND EXECUTIVES AT BUILD for not delivering what they promised, including union memberships if workers attended a 15 week training program.
NoLandGrab: The total number of construction jobs promised, 1,500 a year for 10 years (later revised to 1,700 a year), weren't all promised to BUILD members; only a fraction of the jobs were expected to go to BUILD trainees. But it's safe to say that the number was much greater than 15.
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
December 6, 2011
Wednesday’s Department of Environmental Conservation Hearings on High-Volume Hydraulic Fracturing (“Fracking”): Noticing New York’s Testimony Plus. . .
Noticing New York
You didn't think Michael D.D. White could manage to testify against the potentially disastrous process of hydrofracking without it coming around at some point to Atlantic Yards, did you?
I suggested banning confidentiality covenants. This goes to a broader matter of public policy. Too often the public and public officials do not have the information available to make appropriate decisions because confidentiality covenants have put that information beyond reach. I am not just talking about fracking. This also applies to the use of confidentiality covenants restricting the free speech of those who sign them in connection with many other things:
• Those being evicted by mountaintop removal coal mining
• Those finally agreeing to accept settlements when being chased off their properties by eminent domain abuse as in the case of Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly or Columbia University’s takeover of West Harlem.
Posted by eric at 7:20 PM
From street trees to illegal parking; photos show Atlantic Yards' adverse effect on 6th Avenue
Atlantic Yards Watch
They cut down paradise and put up an (illegal) parking lot.
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Illegal parking on sidewalks, primarily by 78th Precinct employees, has replaced street trees on 6th Avenue between Dean and Pacific Streets. The photos above are one example of how Atlantic Yards construction has reversed the development progress of some areas of the community adjacent to the project site. The photo on the left was taken in December 2007. The photo on the right was taken November of 2011.
In March 2008, prior to the start of water main and sewer work, the Parks Department gave Forest City Ratner approval to cut down 86 trees adjacent to the project footprint in order to facilitate construction. The trees, like most street trees, were public property overseen by the Parks Department's forestry division.
The now empty tree beds are currently still visible under the tires of the 78th Precinct employees' cars. Because there are currently no plans to replace these trees until construction is complete, this area may not see them restored until Building #15 is built. In the 2006 project plan, Building #15 was anticipated to be the sixth non-arena building completed, and would have been finished less than three years after the opening of the arena. Under the current Project Agreements FCRC can take 25 years to complete Building #15.
Photos: Tracy Collins (L) & N. Wayne Bailey (R)
Posted by eric at 1:05 PM
Who's Suin' Who? Atlantic Yards EB-5 Marketer NYC Regional Center is Awash in Lawsuits
Atlantic Yards Report, Former affiliate of NYC Regional Center files suit, claiming firm stole confidential Chinese client list, thus saving millions in finder's fees for EB-5 investors in Atlantic Yards, other projects
The New York City Regional Center, which has marketed Atlantic Yards as an investment for green card-seeking investors, is the busiest regional center in the China market, and seems to be New York City's designated third-party source for such cheap capital, is embroiled, directly and indirectly, in two lawsuits, one described below, the other here.
Given the early stage of the lawsuits, and the confidentiality of certain exhibits, it's difficult to fully evaluate them. But it is clear that the EB-5 program can bring significant sums to the middlemen, and thus fuel disputes.
The New York City Regional Center (NYCRC), which has focused on recruiting green card-seeking investors in China, is facing a lawsuit filed by a former affiliate, which claims that the NYCRC appropriated its confidential client list and thus evaded obligations to pay $6 million in finder's fees for new investors.
The lawsuit, filed 4/18/11 by Lion's Property Development Group, also names Hoche Partners Capital and its president, Gregg D. Hayden as defendants. Hayden has served as the NYCRC's chief salesman in China (as I've described) under the title "General Manager Asia" on behalf of NYCRC.
Lion's (led by Chaim Katzap) argues that NYCRC has thus recruited more than 200 investors without paying the $30,000 fee it owed Lion's, or a total of $6 million. (That $30,000 fee, however, would have included a downstream finder's fee of $15,000 from Lion's to each local affiliate.)
There's good reason to pay a big referral fee; I estimated that the 498 investors in the Atlantic Yards project might earn NYCRC $50 million. Meanwhile, Forest City Ratner will get the benefit of a $249 million low-interest loan, from 498 immigrant investors, itself saving perhaps $140 million.
The NYCRC would benefit from the spread between the no-interest offered investors--who care more about green cards than investment returns--and the low interest, perhaps 4% to 5%, charged to the borrower.
Indeed, the suit charges that NYCRC told the local affiliates, aka Network Agents, they'd get $20,000 rather than the $15,000 offered by Lion’s if they worked directly with NYCRC to recruit investors for Atlantic Yards and the other two projects, involving the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Steiner Studios.
Atlantic Yards Report, Lawsuit over control, revenues of NYC Regional Center: co-founder charged with fraud by former partner; counterclaim also charges fraud
The New York City Regional Center (NYCRC), the private firm authorized to raise funds from immigrant investors under the EB-5 program is embroiled in a lawsuit one of its founders filed against another, and that engendered a counter-claim.
Empire Gateway, LLC which owns more than half the NYCRC, and Empire's controlling owner, George Olsen, charge that Sandra Kim Dyche fraudulently gained "membership interest in Empire" and never recruited investors. Thus she should return her membership interest, which is nearly half the value of Empire (and about a quarter of the value of the NYCRC).
In return, Dyche charges that Olsen fraudulently gained control of Empire, and that she deserves damages of at least $5 million. ...
The suit has no direct bearing, apparently, on the NYCRC's Atlantic Yards effort, in which it has apparently raised $249 million from 498 investors, mostly from China but some from Korea.
But there's big money at stake.
Posted by eric at 12:53 PM
Rooftop Films Gives Occupy Wall Street Its Own Film Series
The New York Times
by Felicia R. Lee
Not going to be in Portland this weekend? Here's an upcoming Battle for Brooklyn screening closer to home.
As a political movement, Occupy Wall Street has attracted plenty of headlines, buzz and creative energy. Now, this being New York, it has its own film series. Rooftop Films, in partnership with several movie houses throughout the city, is presenting a free series of four films from Dec. 13 to 16 featuring issues that ignited the demonstrations.
Rooftop Films is a nonprofit best known for showing movies outdoors (hence the name). In a statement released on Monday, Dan Nuxoll, the program director for Rooftop, said the series was prompted by a public outpouring over the events surrounding Occupy Wall Street.
...On Dec. 14 at 7 p.m. the screening will be “Battle for Brooklyn” at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture in Park Slope. The directors Michael Galinksy and Suki Hawley will be available for a Q. and A. session about their 2012 Oscar-nominated documentary film about families and businesses uprooted in Brooklyn by the construction at Atlantic Yards of the Barclays Center, the new home for the New Jersey Nets (as they morph into the Brooklyn Nets).
Related content...
Indiewire, Rooftops Films Brings "Films for the Occupation" to NYC
Indiewire has the full press release.
Rooftop Films will present "Films for the Occupation," a series of four film programs set to run December 13-16 in New York.
Films to be screened include Emily James' "Just Do It: A Tale of Modern-Day Outlaws," Michael Galinsky & Suki Hawley's "Battle for Brooklyn," David Singleton's "The Flaw" and various short films.
Posted by eric at 12:29 PM
Battle for Brooklyn Q&A with Eminent Domain Activist Randal Acker Following Screening
Hollywood Theatre
Here's a heads-up to our loyal readers in Portland, OR.
Sunday, December 11th at 7:30pm I Q+A with local eminent domain activist Randal Acker following screening.
Posted by eric at 12:23 PM
Brooklyn writer pens 'The Street Singer,' a novel based on the Atlantic Yards arena project
Author Stephen Witt's fictional take includes characters based on developer Bruce Ratner and rapper Jay-Z
NY Daily News
by Erin Durkin
Reality-based reporter Erin Durkin reports on a new book by an Atlantic Yards beat reporter not so grounded in reality.
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The Atlantic Yards project has inspired a musical, a movie - and now a madcap book by a reporter turned novelist.
Stephen Witt, who covered the project for local papers for years, penned “The Street Singer” - a self-described roman a clef combining his own early years in New York with a gonzo take on the $4.9 billion Prospect Heights project.
“I got into journalism originally because I loved creative writing,” said Witt, who is looking for a publisher for the manuscript but plans to put it out by next spring through his own publishing company if he doesn’t find one.
The book follows a flat-broke subway musician who stumbles into contact with a high-powered developer named Thaddeus Hoover - a thinly veiled take on developer Bruce Ratner.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The notorious Stephen Witt writes a novel based on Atlantic Yards
The notorious Stephen Witt, known for his tendentious articles in the Courier-Life chain and now Our Time Press, is writing a book based on Atlantic Yards--a novel--and the Daily News thinks it's newsworthy.
Here are a couple of lines from the Daily News article:
“I got into journalism originally because I loved creative writing,”
....Witt said he found the project’s twists and turns better suited to an off the wall fictional take than a scholarly account. The story unfolds over six months leading up to the groundbreaking for the new Nets arena, but takes some artistic liberties. “It’s definitely a gonzo telling of it,” Witt said.Um, he's been taking some artistic liberties all along.
Posted by eric at 12:10 PM
December 5, 2011
Eye On New York: On The ‘Battle For Brooklyn’
CBS New York
“Battle for Brooklyn” tells the story about how one man and how his small Brooklyn community fought to save their homes and neighborhood from being taken over by one of the largest development plans in New York City history.
It took Brooklyn filmmaker Suki Hawley and her co-director Michael Galinsky eight years to make the documentary, and now it’s done.
In this segment of Eye on New York, CBS 2’s Dana Tyler talks with Hawley about the long community battle and how the film came together.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, "The project that was approved in 2009 no longer exists": from "Battle for Brooklyn" via Eye on New York
Well, the fight involved much more than "his small Brooklyn community." Nor were there "several dozen lawsuits," as interviewer Dana Tyler suggested. Nor was Tyler's closing observation that "We do know Jay-Z very much behind this" explored.
For those new to the documentary, co-director Suki Hawley gave a reasonable summary of the project's history and goals. For those of us not new to it, the initial scene broadcast still has power.
"The project that was approved in 2006 no longer exists," asserts protagonist Daniel Goldstein. The excerpt does not explain that he was speaking at a May 2009 state Senate oversight hearing, a prelude to a revision of the project to be approved by the Empire State Development Corporation.
Goldstein was correct then. And, it could be said now that "The project that was approved in 2009 no longer exists," since developer Bruce Ratner last month said, astoundingly, that a project with high-rise affordable housing built by union labor was never viable.
Posted by eric at 9:57 PM
Brooklyn ‘lands one’
Tenor picks new arena over MSG
NY Post
by Rich Calder
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With this, our final NoLandGrab post, we would like to thank all of our readers for their loyalty during the past eight years. But now that the Barclays Center will indeed become the 18,000-seat opera house that we've always hoped it would (added bonus: also future home to the world's most chichi equestrian event), we don't see the point in fighting it any longer.
Bravo, Bruce Ratner!
The World’s Most Famous Arena is getting a run for its money.
Renowned Italian classical vocalist Andrea Bocelli will shun Madison Square Garden next holiday season to perform instead at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, The Post has learned.
“It’s always a pleasure for me to play in New York, but I’m particularly excited to perform in Brooklyn for what will be my only 2012 performance in the city that has given me such affection,” Bocelli, known as “The Fourth Tenor,” said yesterday in a statement.
Bocelli had played nine straight holiday shows at the Garden, but has booked Dec. 5, 2012, at the Barclays Center — becoming the biggest name yet to be lured away from MSG to the future home of the NBA’s Nets.
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
What's going on here? Arena roofing contractors dump white powder on Pacific Street
Atlantic Yards Report
If they were aiming to placate residents with free cocaine, they should know that folks near the Atlantic Yards site aren't having any trouble staying awake.
On Saturday morning at about 7:30 am, workers for Wolkow Braker Roofing, which calls itself "New York's Premier Roofing Company" and has a $4.3 million contract to work on the roof for the Barlcays Center, were spotted doing something very curious on Pacific Street between Sixth and Carlton Avenues.
As noted on Atlantic Yards Watch, at about :46 of the video below (and captured in the screenshot at left), workers for the company took a white drum from a van, inspected it, and upended it on the street, discharging a white powdery substance.
What was it? Was this SOP?
As they were wearing no protective gear, it's likely the substance was not particularly toxic. Still, dumping waste material, of whatever ilk, in the street, is hardly an appropriate procedure.
As asked on Atlantic Yards Watch, "Can the ESDC or FCR please tell the community what unknown white power substance was dumped into the street next to 171 unit residential building from a Barclay’s arena contractor? [Are] there any penalties?"
I reached out to the Empire State Development Corporation and Wolkow Braker, which works on major projects like office buildings, schools, courthouses, and museums. If and when I get any amplification, I'll post an update.
But wait, there's more. Click below to read on.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
What's going on here? Atlantic Yards Watch offers more evidence that those operating railyard flood lights turn them on well before announced 6 am start.
Atlantic Yards Report
When author and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Advisory Board member Jonathan Safran Foer wrote Everything is Illuminated, this isn't what he had in mind.
According to the last few Atlantic Yards Construction Alerts (e.g., 11/21/11, floodlights at the Vanderbilt yard are supposed to be turned on during the week at 6 am and from dusk to 7:30 p.m., to facilitate work.
As documented on Atlantic Yards Watch, on Wednesday, 11/30/11, the lights were on early, beginning at about 5 am, as indicated in the video below, and at 5:19 am, as indicated in the time stamp on the photo at left.
(Also see article on AY Watch.)
This isn't the first report of such deviation from the schedule.
As I wrote 11/10/11, Atlantic Yards Watch reported that, on the day before, the lights went on at about 4:30 am.
That may be more convenient for those planning work at the site. It's not more convenient for the neighbors. If the reports are true--and I'll see if Empire State Development, charged with overseeing site work, has a comment--shouldn't this be stopped?
And on Sunday
Note that the lights are supposed to be on early during the week to facilitate work.
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However, yesterday, Sunday, when no one was working at the railyard in the early morning, the lights were on by 6:30 am, as noted on Atlantic Yards Watch.
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Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Watch, Entire railyard is illuminated for construction mornings and nights, including outside of scheduled construction hours
Representatives of Dean Street Block Association, 6th Avenue to Vanderbilt raised the use of the lights with LIRR during a meeting in the spring of 2010. The meeting was facilitated by former ESDC Ombudsman Forrest Taylor and took place at his office. The lights had recently been installed and their intensity was a concern to the community. At the meeting LIRR reassured the community representatives the lights would be used only rarely for work that could not be done during the day because of conflict with railyard operation. The use of the lights for railyard or Carlton Avenue Bridge construction was not mentioned as a possibility. At this time in the project's implementation the temporary railyard has been moved to its new location on the east side of the LIRR/MTA property, but has not yet been covered.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
December 2, 2011
Fraud? Immigrant investors in Atlantic Yards were told their green cards were guaranteed, but New York City Regional Center typically warns investors it makes no warranties
Atlantic Yards Report
Why should the green cards-for-cash scam be any different from all the other Atlantic Yards "guarantees?"
There's a huge gap between what the assurances the New York City Regional Center (NYCRC) gave to potential Chinese investors in Atlantic Yards about the certainty of their expected green cards and the "no warranty" message the firm typically tells investors.
The warning
The following passage appears in the confidential offering memoranda for two previous NYCRC projects, regarding the Brooklyn Navy Yard and Steiner Studios:
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In other words, the company offers no warranty and no assurances that the investors, who parked $500,000 for five years and eschewed interest (mostly) in lieu of green cards for themselves and their families, would actually get the green cards.
Presumably, such boilerplate also appeared in the memorandum for the Brooklyn Arena and Infrastructure Project, which sought (and apparently achieved) $249 million from 498 investors, mostly from China.
In China, green cards guaranteed
As I reported last year, in webcast presentations, representatives of the NYCRC offered public assurances that green cards were guaranteed.
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
Another look at the huge benefits from the EB-5 program: perhaps $140 million to Forest City Ratner, and $50 million to NYCRC
Atlantic Yards Report
"EB-5 Friday" continues at Atlantic Yards Report.
So, how much is Forest City Ratner saving on its $249 million low-interest loan from immigrant investors under the EB-5 program? And what are the earnings of is the New York City Regional Center (NYCRC), the private investment pool that was marketing the project--green cards in exchange for $500,000 in purportedly job-creating investments?
I have to revise some of my reporting from last year, when I calculated a gain of some $191 million to Forest City, based on the difference between the interest rate the developer might have to pay on the open market and the no-interest being offered to Chinese investors.
I also have to revise my calculations regarding benefits to the NYCRC, which I calculated would earn $38,000 per client in fees, or nearly $19 million.
Earning money on the interest
Rather, the NYCRC may be keeping very little of those fees, since it has to share fees with affiliates. It earns its money on the spread between the interest rate on loan offered to Forest City and the return received by the 498 investors.
Forest City likely will pay 4% to 5%, as with other NYCRC projects promoted by the city, while the majority of the investors, from China, will get no interest, and the 40 or so Korean investors will get .25%.
So it's a win for Forest City and the NYCRC: they both make money. I think Forest City's benefit is still more than $100 million, while NYCRC may earn some $50 million (see bottom).
It's a win for the immigrants: they get green cards for themselves and their family, with the cost being the foregone interest on the investment they get back. (Of course there is a risk, and not every EB-5 investor gets a green card.)
What about the public benefit? The investments are supposed to create jobs, but in some case--as I've shown with the Atlantic Yards investment--they don't create new jobs, and the immigrant investors get credit--apparently legal, though logically questionable--for the jobs created by the entire $1.448 billion in the "Brooklyn Arena and Infrastructure Project."
Posted by eric at 10:05 AM
New York City Regional Center was busiest nationally in Chinese market in 2011; EB-5 financing via NYCRC seen by city as potential funding for engineering campus, Willets Point
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of Willets Point, its future "redevelopers" might be the latest beneficiaries of the ol' green cards-for-dollars scheme.
As I reported 12/17/10, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYC EDC) proposed that the NYCRC and Forest City Ratner meet to discuss a potential collaboration, and that the NYC EDC has an agreement with the Regional Center that provides a finder’s fee for projects that it refers and are ultimately are financed through their program.
Now NYC EDC sees EB-5 as an integral part of its arsenal, as it gives developers access to low-cost capital while costing the city nothing. The discount comes because the investors are willing to forego much or any return on their $500,000, since they're looking to gain a green card and, after parking their $500,000 for some five years, their money back.
Request for Proposals (RFPs) for both the Willets Point Development Phase 1, released 5/9/11, and the Applied Sciences Facility in New York City, released 7/19/11, list the EB-5 program via the NYCRC as part of a suite of potential economic development benefits....
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
December 1, 2011
Lawsuit prompts Brooklyn Paper to take tough (and partly misleading) look at BUILD and failure to deliver project jobs to supporters
Atlantic Yards Report
Now that BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development) has been sued for not delivering Atlantic Yards jobs to some of the 36 selected for a highly competitive pre-apprenticeship training program, some are taking a closer look at the results delivered by one of Forest City's most vocal organizational supporters.
The Brooklyn Paper, in Out of work! Ratner ally BUILD got just 15 jobs for black Yards supporters, offers some tough--and in a couple of cases overstated--reporting, focusing on the failure to deliver promised jobs expected as a result of the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) BUILD signed:
BUILD’s President James Caldwell said that the group has helped 400 people find work around town — but he admitted that only 15 of those positions were on Ratner’s Prospect Heights development, which currently consists of only the under-construction Barclays Center near the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.
I reported last month that most of the 350-400 jobs were at places like Forest City Ratner's malls, though not that 15 had found work at the project. Note that the Brooklyn Paper headline overstates the issue somewhat, since, the "just 15 jobs" refers to jobs at the project, not jobs in total.
Most importantly, the article points to an issue I've reported on previously: experts on CBAs agree that groups shouldn't take money from the developers they negotiate with. BUILD never existed before Atlantic Yards was announced, and has always supported the project.
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
Out of work! Ratner ally BUILD got just 15 jobs for black Yards supporters
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
The organization that promised to deliver jobs for black supporters of Atlantic Yards has received hundreds of thousands of dollars from developer Bruce Ratner to help train workers for the positions — but has only secured work for 15 people at the $5-billion mega-project.
The mostly black members of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development who were promised some of the 1,500 jobs per year over the project’s 10-year buildout loudly supported Atlantic Yards during the approval process, often appearing in hard hats at rallies and hearings and presenting a contrasting face to the project’s mostly white opponents.
BUILD’s President James Caldwell said that the group has helped 400 people find work around town — but he admitted that only 15 of those positions were on Ratner’s Prospect Heights development, which currently consists of only the under-construction Barclays Center near the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.
Residents filed a lawsuit against Ratner and BUILD last Tuesday in federal court, claiming that executives at BUILD and Ratner’s company falsely promised them union memberships and jobs in exchange for completing a “sham” 15-week training program run by the Downtown nonprofit in 2010.
Caldwell disputed the claim, and blamed his failure to secure more Atlantic Yards jobs for local residents on the economy and lawsuits from Yards opponents.
“There would be [more jobs] had all these things not taken place,” he said. “The bottom fell out of the economy.”
But the Great Recession didn’t hurt BUILD’s bottom line: the organization’s annual operating budget increased from $191,721 in 2007 to $279,395 in 2009, according to the latest available documents from the Internal Revenue Service.
NoLandGrab: Wow, who could have predicted that? We had Bruce Ratner's word, after all.
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
ATTN, NYC Reasonoids: Reason.tv urban renewal doc and Battle for Brooklyn screening tomorrow
Reason Hit & Run
by Jim Epstein
Tomorrow nightTonight, my Reason.tv documentary short, The Tragedy of Urban Renewal, will open for Battle for Brooklyn (which was recently shortlisted for the Oscars) at Maysles Cinema in Harlem. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with me, Jim Torain (who's featured in my film), Battle director Michael Galinsky, and Columbia University professor Mindy Fullilove, who's the author of Root Shock: How Tearing up City Neighborhoods Hurts America, and What We Can Do About it.We'll be talking Robert Moses, Atlantic Yards, and eminent domain abuse in the 1950s vs. today.
WHAT: Screening of The Tragedy of Urban Renewal and Battle for Brooklyn.
WHEN:
TomorrowTonight, December 1, at 7:30PM.WHERE: Maysles Cinema at 343 Malcolm X Blvd/Lenox Ave (Between 127th and 128th) in NYC. Suggested admission is $10.
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
November 30, 2011
Forbes feature on Gilmartin (and Pavlova) repeats developer's talking points, revisionist history
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder sprinkles a little cold water on MaryAnne Gilmartin's version of events, as told to Forbes.
Forbes.com, in a feature aimed for its ForbesWoman channel, offers Meet The Women Behind The Brooklyn Nets, focusing on Forest City Ratner's MaryAnne Gilmartin and Onexim's Irina Pavlova.
Writes Jenna Goudreau, transcribing without skepticism Gilmartin's self-serving account:
Gilmartin, 47, has been a commercial real estate developer with Forest City for 17 years—seemingly as long as this project’s been in the works. The firm purchased the Nets in 2004, she explains, with the intention of bringing them to Brooklyn and building a state-of-the-art sports complex and 15 residential buildings over an old rail line running through the borough’s center. Rigorous public reviews, resident protests and holdouts, 35 lawsuits and a volatile economy resulted in years of delays.
Here's what Gilmartin said, on the video below:
"So this project has been in the planning since 1994, when we purchased the New Jersey Nets, with the intention of bringing them to Brooklyn, to build a new home for professional sports and also to build thousands of units of housing. There are over 35 lawsuits associated with the project, and that cost us time and the process that we went through to resolve those lawsuits and to work through the public approvals I think resulted in a better project."
...What's wrong: the timetable
How could the writer suggest that this project has been in the works some 17 years, since 1994? Because Gilmartin, in either an error or a Freudian slip, said the project "has been in the planning since 1994, when we purchased the New Jersey Nets."
That year, of course, was 2004, but the planning for this specific project began well before then, at least two years earlier. And, as I reported in 2006, the Nets did approach Forest City Ratner in the early 1990s to buy the team and move it to Brooklyn.
What's wrong: the project configuration and location
Actually, the initial plans were not for "15 residential buildings," as Goudreau wrote, nor merely to "build thousands of units of housing." Forest City Ratner promised 10,000 office jobs in four office towers.
Nor would the project be "over an old rail line running through the borough’s center." Rather, less than 40% of the site would be over an existing rail yard used to store and service trains.
What's wrong: rigorous public review
Goudreau, not Gilmartin, called the process "rigorous public reviews." Nope, not when the state said Ratner could build the project in ten years, while Ratner now says it was never possible.
What's wrong: 35 lawsuits
Now, there weren't 35 lawsuits. Not even close.
Read on for more debunking.
NoLandGrab: Is it us, or is MaryAnne Gilmartin starting to make Jim Stuckey sound like a stickler for the truth?
Posted by eric at 12:11 PM
Meet The Women Behind The Brooklyn Nets
Forbes
Deep inside the steel skeleton of the soon-to-be Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY, drills are whirring, hammers striking and cranes excavating. The air is dusty and the ground littered with piles of wires, metal beams and loose hardware. Despite her suit dress and open-toed heels, an unconcerned MaryAnne Gilmartin, the arena’s lead developer, simply steps around the debris. In just 10 months, these gaping bones will welcome the NBA’s New Jersey Nets to their new home—as the Brooklyn Nets—thanks to two powerful women working vigorously behind the scenes.
If real estate mogul Bruce Ratner and Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov are the faces of the New York-bound basketball franchise, Gilmartin and Irina Pavlova are the feet on the ground, clearing the way. As EVP of Forest City Ratner Companies, Gilmartin manages development of the near $1 billion arena, which anchors the larger $4.9 billion, 22-acre Atlantic Yards project in the heart of Brooklyn. Pavlova represents the interests of Prokhorov, the minority owner of the arena and majority owner of the Nets, its major tenant.
We'll leave it to Atlantic Yards Report to dissect Gilmartin's fantasy version of events. Here's some of the bit on Pavlova.
Spearheading the excitement over the 18,000-seat arena, Pavlova, 41, gets a live video feed of construction on her desktop and gushes that she cheers so hard at Nets’ home games she loses her voice. The Russian-American has dual citizenship, speaks five languages (with varying levels of fluency) and has worked all over the world. She started her career at Prudential in New York, and in 2005 launched the Moscow office of Google. In 2010, the chief executive of Onexim, Prokhorov’s company, told Pavlova over a casual dinner about a little deal with an American team, and asked if she’d be interested in “keeping an eye on things” in the States. “I don’t know a thing about basketball,” she said, but soon agreed.
Which would explain why she shouts herself hoarse at Nets' games.
And she learned quick. “It took me a few months to get my hands around the business and get comfortable with how things work,” Pavlova says with a subtle accent. “I’ve learned it’s tickets, sponsorships and suite sales. It’s not rocket science.”
Which would explain how the Nets' CEO qualifies as a "Yormarketing genius."
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN GETTING CLOSE TO THE OSCARS
F**ked in Park Slope
Is our nabe headed to the Oscars? Maaaaybe. BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN, a feature length documentary about the controversial Atlantic Yards project, is one of fourteen films currently in the running for an Oscar nomination.
Husband and wife filmmaker team Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky spent eight years carving over 500 hours of footage down into the feature length documentary, which has won numerous festival awards, including this year's Rooftop Films Summer Series Official Selection (you can read our FiPS review of the film HERE).
“I’m not placing odds on us [winning],” Galinsky recently told THE BROOKLYN PAPER. “I’m very excited that we even have a chance.”
Related coverage...
Park Slope Patch, Atlantic Yards Film a Finalist For Oscar Nomination
If "Battle for Brooklyn" makes it to that prestigious evening, [Daniel] Goldstein said the publicity would go a long way to bringing attention to what is going on at Atlantic Yards.
"The Oscar recognition will loudly amplify the community’s voice of opposition and further expose the corrupt Atlantic Yards boondoggles,” he told the Brooklyn Paper. “It also provides clear evidence that the community’s fight in Brooklyn has universal interest.”
Posted by eric at 11:42 AM
November 29, 2011
The EB-5 files: federal agency stonewalls request for info on job creation by immigrant investors, reveals misleading claim about arena bonds, withholds a letter made public elsewhere
Atlantic Yards Report
So, how exactly did Forest City Ratner and the New York City Regional Center (NYCRC) aim to convince federal overseers and potential investors that the plan to seek $249 million in funds from 498 green card-seeking immigrant investors was kosher?
We may never know, since the federal agency overseeing the EB-5 program is keeping most key information under wraps. For example, the document explaining how that investment would produce--as required by federal law--at least ten jobs per $500,000 investor was redacted, deemed a trade secret.
Other documents deemed trade secrets have already been made public by other parties, suggesting that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has a rather heavy hand when it comes to transparency.
No way to evaluate job-creation claim
So, while the EB-5 program is justified as supporting job creation, there's no way to evaluate that claim when it comes to the Brooklyn Arena & Infrastructure Project--said to consist of the arena, infrastructure, and a new railyard--marketed to immigrant investors.
And that's quite curious because the arena was and remains already funded. That makes it questionable that immigrant investors could get credit for jobs created not merely by their investment but by the entire $1.448 billion project, a project that did not need their money to proceed.
NoLandGrab: If by "trade secret" they mean "complete and utter bulls**t," then by all means, it's a "trade secret."
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
Oscar fever! Yards docu-ganda on short list for little gold statue
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
Can we stop with the "docu-ganda" already? Even Errol Louis thinks Battle for Brooklyn was fair and balanced.
The Atlantic Yards documentary, “Battle for Brooklyn,” has a fighting chance to take home one of Tinseltown’s top trophies.
Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s exhaustive history of the Prospect Heights mega-project and 14 other true-life tales have been short-listed for an Oscar nomination in the Documentary Feature category by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
The husband-and-wife team of filmmakers from Clinton Hill spent eight years making the documentary, but said the possibility of winning a little gold man was the farthest thing from their minds when they started the project in 2003.
NoLandGrab: As for The Brooklyn Paper's Academy Award prognostications, they wrote this back in June:
Sure, a little less hagiography on Dan Goldstein and a lot more Kelo could’ve made this an Oscar contender....
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
Pact's Benefits in Limbo
Pledge to Nonprofits Cleared Deal for Columbia, but Money Tied Up in Squabble
The Wall Street Journal
by Jacob Gershman
New York City's CBAs are leaving a lot to be desired.
It was supposed to be a breakthrough victory for Harlem residents and a model on how to settle raging land-use disputes.
But more than 2½ years after Columbia University brokered an agreement with community groups—exchanging a lucrative package of benefits for the area's blessing of the university's expansion into West Harlem—local officials and residents are complaining that the fruits of the deal remain a mystery.
Political squabbling over control of the benefits has left nearly $3 million in Columbia-donated funds idling in a bank. The group administering the largest chunk of benefits, the West Harlem Local Development Corp., doesn't have an office, a website or a staff. The corporation hasn't made public any reports of its activities.
As required, Columbia has directed funds to pay for an agreement compliance officer hired by the state and a tenants attorney to advise residents on evictions. But no one has been retained.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who enforces the state's charities law, has subpoenaed the nonprofit corporation, which spent hundreds of thousands of dollars but never registered with his office.
"It's a lesson in what not to do. These community benefit agreements, you have to be very careful because all that glitters is not gold, especially from the perspective of the people who live in the community, the little people," said state Sen. Bill Perkins, a Harlem Democrat who has opposed the university's expansion efforts.
...The snags highlight common problems with private pacts between developers and neighborhood coalitions. Agreements for the Atlantic Yards arena project in Brooklyn and the construction of the new Yankee Stadium ran into similar complaints.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
Setting up home in Brooklyn
SHoP realises visualisation for B2 residential tower, though still lingers on finalising construction method
WorldArchitectureNews.com
by Tom Aston
Designs for the 340,000 sq ft B2 building - potentially set to become the largest prefabricated modular structure to be erected - have finally been unveiled, after several setbacks had previously hindered initial progress. This release by developer Bruce C. Ratner marks the end to a fostering, in certain sectors, of doubt, over whether the project could overcome the loss of its iconic lead architect Frank Gehry.
NoLandGrab: Right. Because nothing puts an end to doubt like a bunch of renderings, right?
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
November 28, 2011
How Brooklyn Got Its Groove Back
New York’s biggest borough has reinvented itself as a postindustrial hot spot.
City Journal
by Kay S. Hymowitz
Brooklyn also benefited from the Giuliani and Bloomberg administrations’ rezoning of fallow industrial neighborhoods for “mixed” uses, so that residential, commercial, and light-industry buildings could occupy the same area. These decisions have met with fierce resistance, with Brooklyn’s gentrifiers—ironically, given their historical role in changing the borough—among the most vociferous in arguing that grabby real-estate interests and their friends in government are driving out an indigenous population. Bruce Ratner’s much-reviled Atlantic Yards project, which took advantage of the government’s bullying eminent-domain powers, lends some credence to the charge. But mostly, Brooklyn’s transformation has come from the ground up.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
ATTENTION: Additional Screenings of Battle for Brooklyn; Documentary In Oscar Running
Team Tish
by Aja Worthy-Davis
If you have not yet seen the much. talked. about. Battle for Brooklyn, now is your time to do so. The documentary, co-directed by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky and produced by David Beilinson, chronicles the seven-year long fight between the Prospect Heights community and one of the largest real estate developers in the country. It features Council Member Letitia James as well as activist Daniel Goldstein and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.
Upcoming Screenings:
Maysles Center, 343 Lenox Avenue (between 127 & 128 Streets), New York, NY
Dec 1, 7:30pm: Q&A with filmmakers
Dec 6, 7:30pm: Q&A with Mindy Fullilove and local community
Dec 9, 7:30pm: Q&A with Dan GoldstienBrooklyn Heights Cinema, 70 Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY
Nov 23, 6:00pm
Nov 30, 6:00pm
...The Academy recently announced that Battle for Brooklyn is one of 15 films listed for an Oscar in the Documentary Feature category. The five final nominees will be announced in January 2012.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
Something I’m Not Doing
Urban Media Archaeology
The first thing I thought of was a lot of facts, all the Atlantic Yards news items floating in the internet. And the thing that could tie them together would be a timeline. Probably the least debatable thing is when something happens. A lot of people/places/things can be involved and some moment in time unites them. I could pick an event that changed things—Frank Gehry fired as lead architect, for example—and use that as a jumping-off point to catalogue networks and actors identified in ensuing news stories or wherever. The three layers of my map would be timeline, network and actors, with each layer ‘filling up’ the layer that came before—a timeline full of networks, and each network full of actors.
...I think this would’ve been a valuable approach—if it were completed, it would be the world’s most thorough glossary of Atlantic Yards. But for no other reason than that sounds really really boring, I’m going to change my methodology. The three layers framework still sounds good, but I’m going to try to make my research a little more active. More on that later…
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
November 27, 2011
Forest City Ratner's latest dubious claim about the Independent Compliance Monitor required by the CBA: "As the project progresses, especially, with residential, a monitor will be hired"
Atlantic Yards Report
After I raised the issue in City Limits, and Council Member Letitia James followed up a public meeting and a press conference, we have a new pledge from developer Forest City Ratner regarding an Independent Compliance Monitor required by the Community Benefits Agreement.
Responding to a comment solicited by Our Time Press (almost certainly from the notorious Stephen Witt), FCR now says it hire such a monitor--but sometime later.
The reporter didn't bother to look at the actual document, which required a monitor years ago.
But Witt doesn't try to hold Forest City Ratner accountable. Nor does the rest of the press when it comes to the CBA.
(The New York Observer ran a front-page article this week on problems with the Columbia University CBA. No contact info for the person in charge of the Columbia CBA? Ditto in Brooklyn. No web site for the CBA? Ditto. It's just that there's a Congressional candidate, Vince Morgan, who's decided to make an issue of it in Manhattan.)
Posted by steve at 3:34 PM
November 25, 2011
"Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown": Atlantic Yards indifference and buying the future
Atlantic Yards Report
When I was working on the lecture I gave last August at Galapagos, I tried to come up with a line to nudge those who think Atlantic Yards is too complicated, or not worth attention because little can be done. ("Issue fatigue," as Capital New York's Tom McGeveran wrote recently.)
It wasn't original of, course, but it was resonant: "Forget it Jake, it's Atlantic Yards."
(I'd gotten the line from a friend, but a little searching sends me back to previous use by Michael D. D. White in his Noticing New York, which also cited New York Times columnist Clyde Haberman's use of the term.)
Fortunately, a good number of people won't forget.
Posted by eric at 1:12 PM
“Bruce Ratner’s latest useful idiots have no one to blame but themselves.”
Reason Hit & Run
by Damon W. Root
City Journal’s Nicole Gelinas reports on the latest lawsuit stemming from the Atlantic Yards boondoggle in Brooklyn, where the state of New York seized private property via eminent domain on behalf of a basketball stadium being built by real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner. As Gelinas notes, the seven Brooklyn residents who filed suit this month aren’t actually upset about the eminent domain abuse that occurred, they’re just mad at Ratner because he won’t let them get in on the spoils....
It’s hard to feel much sympathy for anybody who believed Ratner’s bogus promises, but at least these seven dupes have a shot at learning from their erroneous ways.
Related coverage...
Gideon's Trumpet, A Cautionary Tale in Brooklyn
A tip of our hat to Nicole Gelinas of the City Journal for her article that tells the story of seven people who according to their complaint just filed in court againt the Atlantic Yards management, bought into promises of good jobs in exchange for supporting that redevelopment project. Nicole Gelinas, The Ratner Seven, City Journal, November 18, 2011 — click here. But guess what? They allege that they were duped.
...Bottom line: when redevelopment promoters promise to bake a bigger economic pie for all to share, it may just be that what they are really promising is pie in the sky.
Posted by eric at 12:50 PM
Former Courier reporter hits the big time!
Brooklyn Daily
by Joanna DelBuono
Former Courier Life reporter extraordinaire [NLG: ?!] Stephen Witt has finished his second novel — and this one is going to be a blockbuster. No, that’s not a dig at Witt’s first novel, “American Moses,” but his new one, “Street Singer,” is set in the tumultuous saga of the Atlantic Yards mega-project, which Witt covered from its inception. “Street Singer” is Hemmingway-esque — no, not because it’s the greatest book of all time or features lots of drinking in Paris, but because its such a thinly veiled look at the intrigue surrounding the deal that brought the Nets across the river from that other state. Spoiler alert — “Street Singer” follows subway musician Jason Spirit (he’s based on Witt, by the way) through the seamy backroom deals, on the hustings with the anti-project rabble, and into the offices of Russian oligarchs. Yikes!
NoLandGrab: "Yikes!" has been our precise reaction to most of Witt's writing about Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 12:05 PM
Prospect Heights Brings Community Discussion Online
The Brooklyn Ink
by Cristabelle Tumola
What's the #1 topic among Prospect Heights blogs? You guessed it.
The biggest issue that Prospect Heights residents are vocal about is Atlantic Yards, the site of the Barclays Center. Next fall the arena will be home to the New Jersey (soon to be Brooklyn) Nets basketball team. For the past five years, residents have been complaining about increased traffic, littering, noise and other problems that have resulted from the construction.
Locals have taken their concerns online with Atlantic Yards Watch. This site, part blog, part forum, allows registered users to submit incident reports related to the project, so they can be followed.
A pregnant mother of a toddler, desperate to get some sleep, recently posted about the “outrageous construction noise” that has been keeping her family up all night.
...In a recent Brooklynian post, residents lamented the closing of Christie’s Jamaican Patties, a neighborhood restaurant that’s shutting down after 45 years in business.
In another post, locals traded opinions on the just released designs for a residential high-rise glass tower to be built near Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
November 24, 2011
The Atlantic Yards site in (crazy-quilt) zoning context
Atlantic Yards Report
The Department of City Planning's new Zoning and Land Use application, aka ZoLa, offers a new way to find city zoning and other rules, though the department cautions that it "is provided solely for informational purposes," with no promises of accuracy.
Indeed, a look at the area around and including the Atlantic Yards site shows that the map had not caught up with reality, as Fifth Avenue between Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, and Pacific Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, and between Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues, had not been demapped.
 |
Moreover, several buildings remain on the site, whereas now all of those needed for the first phase are gone, and that little triangle just east of the C6-2 designation, home to the Brooklyn Bear's Garden, seems to be designated as vacant land.
But what is remarkable is the diversity of the site, a railyard north of Pacific Street zoned for low-rise manufacturing (M-1), a western parcel zoned for big development (C6-1), a southeast block zoned mainly for manufacturing, neighboring "fingers" outlined in heavy blue indicating a historic district, residential on Pacific and Dean streets in the southwest portion of the site, and commercial overlays on Flatbush (including within the site), and on Vanderbilt bordering the site.
No wonder developer Forest City Ratner sought and got a state override of zoning....
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
2003 - How far we have come
ConeyRocks
When the blogger's pseudonym is MUSCLE13, one doesn't expect much — and MUSCLE13 doesn't disappoint.
Man it has taken too long. Bruce Ratner bought the Nets in 2003. The CIDC was formed in 2003. On this Thanksgiving let's all give thanks that we are so very close to the 2 most important Brooklyn developments in history - The Barclays Center and Year Round Coney.
We are that close. Brooklyn takes on Manhattan in 2012. Year-Round! Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
November 23, 2011
Happy Thanksgiving 2011!
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
No gravy, again, this year, just Russian dressing (the gravy was used up on Forest City Ratner's taxpayer gravy train). Here we are, nearly eight years after Ratner announced his project, and all we know is that the developer is constructing the world's most expensive, money-losing arena he promised with no other promised "benefits" on the horizon (sure, this past week Forest City released renderings of 2 or 3 new buildings, and claimed they will use modular construction—though that seems like a ploy to gain union concessions, aka "union-busting"—but gave no definitive details on a groundbreaking date for the first tower, which is already years behind schedule, and admitted to not having the financing to construct that first tower.) Instead, we have 22 acres of developer's blight (though somehow a rusty arena facade is somehow a feature rather than a characteristic of blight).
On a more serious note, we offer our gratitude at this time of thanks giving to all of our supporters over the past eight years and for those who, day by day, are learning more and more about Ratner's Folly at Flatbush.
We wish you and your loved ones a very happy holiday.
Posted by eric at 10:34 AM
National Notice Article on Orwellian Reversal As Bloomberg Biographer Proclaims OWS-Evicting Billionaire Mayor "Firm Supporter of the First Amendment"
Noticing New York
There is a new National Notice article up for your delectation of things Orwellian. It involves the reversal Bloomberg biographer, Joyce Purnick, made when she declared just weeks ago on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show that New York City’s billionaire mayor is “a firm supporter of the First Amendment” when in her 2009 biography of Mr. Bloomberg she describes him as anything but. Ms. Purnick’s new point of view arrived coincidentally with the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to depict Bloomberg as a civil libertarian as he orchestrated eviction of the Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zucotti Park. (All the details are al available here: Tuesday, November 22, 2011, Orwellian Purnick Purge: Bloomberg Biographer Rewrites Billionaire Mayor’s Record On First Amendment Free Speech Rights.)
Noticing New York readers may recall that we once considered Ms. Purnick’s Bloomberg biography “Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics” in the context of how it expunged from his portrait depiction of “significantly errant Bloombergian megadevelopment” and particularly Atlantic Yards, notwithstanding Ms. Purnick’s having been thoroughly briefed on that megadevelopment’s outrages. See: Saturday, October 3, 2009, What Purnick Has Purged: The Bloomberg Bio Mysteriously Missing Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 9:55 AM
November 22, 2011
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN, the Story of One Neighborhood's Battle to Fight Big Business from Taking Their Homes, Captures the Attention of Critics and Audiences in the Heat of the Occupy Wall Street Movement
Screening at the Maysles Center in Harlem and Brooklyn Heights Cinema in December
Battle for Brooklyn
Upcoming screenings:
Maysles Center, 343 Lenox Ave., between 127 & 128 streets, New York, NY
Dec 1, 7:30pm: Q&A with filmmakers
Dec 6, 7:30pm: Q&A with Mindy Fullilove and local community
Dec 9, 7:30pm: Q&A with Dan GoldsteinBrooklyn Heights, 70 Henry Street, Brooklyn, NY
Nov 23, 6:00pm
Nov 30, 6:00pmIndie Screen, 285 Kent Ave at S. 2 Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Nov 27, 5:00pm
Posted by eric at 1:41 PM
Boxy and Timely
Archinect
by Javier Arbona
Forest City Ratner has released renderings of their SHoP-designed high-rise condos for Atlantic Yards. And let's face it, assuming Ratner doesn't backtrack on the design yet again, the project resembles the same ho-hum, cookie-cutter vertical sprawl of a thousand-and-one other transit-oriented development boondoggles. But this one is even special-er, cus the business and modular-savvy of SHoP seems to have been put to good use for Ratner's union-busting scheme. As L Magazine writes:
The union workers who would be assembling the towers, in various factories, before they're stacked up, would stand to make less the half the hourly wage they could expect if the tower was constructed on-site. Forest City Ratner told the Times, "We are in the process of attempting to reach an agreement that will work for the building trades and Forest City in an effort to create permanent employment," because they are definitely trustworthy when it comes to delivering the jobs they'd long promised the community.
Someone, quick, please break-down what Bruce Ratner makes per-hour, given his $931,584.00 annual income.
NoLandGrab: We're going to wager that the income figure represents only his Forest City Enterprises compensation, and not his Forest City Ratner haul, too.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Is Bruce Ratner "Union-busting?"
Is Ratner's dangling of modular construction a "union-busting" ploy to build conventionally on the cheap? That's the charge from Archinect and it is difficult to argue against....
One wonders if the unions will let this happen, after all, Ratner has no choice but to build union.
Posted by eric at 1:29 PM
A "Brooklyn version of Roppongi Hills"? Could densifying New York make Atlantic Yards site look like Tokyo?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes issue with New York Magazine architecture critic Justin Davidson's contention that Atlantic Yards could be like Tokyo's Roppongi Hills neighborhood.
First of all, the term "at Atlantic Yards" obscures the nature of the site. "Atlantic Yards" is the name for a proposed dense development site, in some cases--like a good chunk of the 100 feet east of Sixth Avenue between Dean and Pacific streets--not yet controlled by the developer or state.
Nor is an "arena surrounded by a vast hole." Actually, the site is long, not round, as with Roppongi Hills, at [right] (map credit here).
The arena's got some spaces bordering it for future development, and a temporary plaza. There's a huge surface parking lot two blocks away, a yet-unbuilt skyscraper site occupied by P.C. Richard/Modell's (aka Site 5), and a mostly working railyard that's undergoing reconstruction.
A "Brooklyn version of Roppongi Hills"?
Arguably, the original project plan--an arena wrapped by four towers would something closer to the spirit of Roppongi Hills. However, that plan included ideas already scotched, such as a park and running track on the arena roof.
The rest of the Atlantic Yards site, given its increased distance from transit, makes it an even less likely candidate to be Roppongi Hills.
According to Virtual Japan, the 27-acre Roppongi Hills emphasizes both height and public space, with fewer than 800 apartments (versus 6430 planned for Atlantic Yards), meaning that the density refers to office/cultural/retail uses more than residential....
Posted by eric at 1:16 PM
Patty wake, patty wake! Christie’s to close on Flatbush Avenue
The Brooklyn Paper
by Natalie O'Neill
Bruce Ratner 1, Black-owned Mom-n-Pop restaurant, 0.
A 45-year-old, critically acclaimed, beloved neighborhood eatery is falling victim to arena-spurred gentrification.
The owner of a cheap neighborhood favorite will close his restaurant after 45 years in Park Slope and Prospect Heights, citing a landlord-tenant dispute fueled by a nearby sports arena.
Paul Haye, who runs Christie’s Jamaican Patties on Flatbush Avenue and Sterling Place, says he’ll close by January, claiming his landlord — who last spring welcomed embattled sports bar Prime 6 to the neighborhood — gave him the boot in order to collect higher rent from a new tenant, now that Barclays Center is closer to completion.
The dispute is the latest evidence that small businesses may have trouble staying open near the arena, where the Nets will play basketball next season (if there is a season).
Businesses owners in Fort Greene and north Park Slope also report that landlords have doubled rent, citing proximity to the arena in new real-estate ads.
Posted by eric at 1:07 PM
Battle for Brooklyn Makes Oscar Short List, Thanks to Occupy Movement
Huffington Post
by Bruce E. Levine
The 2011 Oscar documentaries short list is in, and the good news is that Battle for Brooklyn -- snubbed earlier this year by many major film festivals -- is on that list. The Occupy movement has made Battle for Brooklyn impossible to ignore.
Battle for Brooklyn asks: Do we really accept that Big Money -- through intimidation, bribery, or some other coercion -- can shove us out of our homes and obliterate our communities? The film is about the abuse of eminent domain by the rich and powerful. Eminent domain is the government's right to seize private property (usually with compensation) for the public good. However, it is the elite -- not ordinary Americans -- who have the power to define what is the public good. Battle for Brooklyn documents a group of the "99 percent" who, between 2004 and 2011, staged a courageous battle against the "1 percent" at a time when most of us had lost our fight.
Related coverage...
Meadowlands Matters [NorthJersey.com], Brooklyn 1, Jersey 0
While I got about 5 to 10 minutes of airtime in Soprano State with my colleague Jeff Pillets explaining the Xanadu and EnCap sagas in the Meadowlands, I actually more thoroughly “lived” the Goldstein story. Goldstein, filmmakers Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, and I could not have imagined that a show of resistance by Goldstein around 2004 that was reported by me and filmed by Galinsky and Hawley would turn into a long-running saga that lasted for all of us (and felt most viscerally by Goldstein, obviously) until 2010.
...What makes Battle for Brooklyn so compelling is that the producers have hundreds of hours of “live footage” to work with. I saw Goldstein change over the years from a neophyte in terms of dealing with the press (occasionally, that being just me, in this post-apocalyptic media age) to a savvy promoter of his cause. And if you see this film, you’ll see the same transformation thanks to the years of stockpiled footage.
Reason Hit & Run, Battle for Brooklyn Shortlisted for an Oscar
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced that Battle for Brooklyn, the acclaimed documentary about New York’s eminent domain abuse on behalf of real estate tycoon and New Jersey Nets co-owner Bruce Ratner, is one of 15 films shortlisted in the Documentary Feature category in the upcoming Academy Awards, with the five final nominees to be selected from this group. It’s a well-deserved honor.
Posted by eric at 12:55 PM
Occupy Brooklyn General Assembly
threecee via flickr
November 21, 2011
Atlantic Terminal Mall
Atlantic & Flatbush Avenues
Fort Greene
Brooklyn, NY
Posted by eric at 12:46 PM
Occupy Brooklyn Activists Discuss Movement’s Future
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Cynthia Magnus
Occupy Brooklyn (OBK) activists held a “general assembly” on Sunday, Nov. 20, attended by approximately 75 people outside the Atlantic Terminal mall, to discuss the possibility of “occupying” a space in Brooklyn, among other topics.
Ideas included occupying public space at MetroTech, at the Atlantic Yards project or in a government building, as well as taking over finished but empty foreclosed buildings.
NoLandGrab: If the Occupy movement does put up some tents on the Atlantic Yards site, at least Bruce Ratner will be able to say some housing has been built there.
Posted by eric at 12:38 PM
Op-Ed: Civic Leader Blasts Community Board Secrecy
Sheepshead Bites
by Ed Jaworski
Shhh. There apparently are secret agents, or maybe participants in a witness protection program, among the members of Brooklyn’s Community Board 15.
Three times I have tried to learn the clandestine backgrounds of all Community Board 15 board members, who supposedly represent all residents of the community.
Neighborhoods they are from, which specific civic groups they represent, and who appointed them: that’s the requested, highly classified information.
...The reluctance to publicly provide fundamental facts about Community Board 15’s members presents the impression that lack of good faith, or secret deals, permeates this basic level of government. This in spite of the fact that board members are considered public officials under state law; and Governor Andrew Cuomo has vowed to restore the previously little-known quality of honest government.
While Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer proposed that the community board appointment processes be de-politicized and involve more outreach, diversity and transparency, that’s not the modus-operandi here. Indeed, examples of non-reappointments of opponents to hot-button projects as the Atlantic Yards, among others, show that politics control Brooklyn’s community board seats.
Posted by eric at 12:11 PM
November 21, 2011
Atlantic Yards: From Frank Gehry's Seussian Nightmare to SHoP's Modular MetroTech
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Here is a visual history of Atlantic Yards renderings from Frank Gehry's Seussian Nightmare to SHoP's Modular MetroTech:
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Posted by eric at 12:47 PM
RATNER'S UN-FAB TOWERS
F**ked in Park Slope
 |
Only days after being sued by disgruntled construction workers for undelivered jobs and wages, Bruce Ratner throws another shrimp on the fuck-you-Brooklyn-barbie pit he calls the Atlantic Yards. Representatives of Ratner's firm released some stank ass pictures by SHoP architects revealing the first of a few towers planned around the Barclay Center. And here's the kicker: they're all pre-fab modular towers. That means they're made in smaller modular units in a factory, then transported to the Atlantic yards, where they will be bolted into place. Sort of like Legos, but not nearly as cool.
Image: SHoP Architects
Posted by eric at 12:13 PM
NYC Regional Economic Development Council's draft strategic plan: priority projects involve the food industry, clean tech, incubators for artists and small biz (but there may be wiggle room for Atlantic Yards)
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, the New York City Regional Economic Development Council has issued its Draft Strategic Plan (also embedded below) and, contrary to my speculation last month, there's virtually nothing about Atlantic Yards in the competition (with other regions) for packages of state economic development subsidies.
Rather, the priority projects involve the food industry, clean tech, an incubator for artists and others, and a small business incubator. Here's the 11/15/11 press release. The strategic plan review, in which regions compete, will be next week.
Then again, as described below, if Atlantic Yards--despite being excluded from the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning--is considered part of the Downtown Brooklyn "Opportunity Zone," then some state assistance could be steered there.
Posted by eric at 12:07 PM
Ratner Admits That Atlantic Yards, As Proposed and Approved, Was Never Financially Feasible
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Was Atlantic Yards ever feasible as proposed in 2003, as approved in 2006, re-approved in 2009 and as presented to state court in 2010? No. Who says so? Bruce Ratner admitted as much in comments made to the Wall Street Journal yesterday upon a release of new Atlantic Yards tower renderings shrouded more in uncertainty than the press reaction would lead one to believe.
...Well, in 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2011 Forest City Ratner proposed, had approved and claimed that it would build half of its rental units as "affordable" with union labor. So what changed? Note that Ratner did not say that the changed economy is the reason his approved plan doesn't work or that the existing incentives today are different than what they were when the project was proposed and approved.
What changed? Just the candor that the project has proposed, hyped and approved was never feasible from the start. But government, Ratner and ESDC were warned that the project was not financially feasible.
Posted by eric at 11:45 AM
November 17, 2011
So, Atlantic Yards may indeed look like Atlantic Lots, in terms of buildings
Atlantic Yards Report
When, in May 2008, the Municipal Art Society produced Atlantic Lots, renderings of a stalled Atlantic Yards project, it delineated both enduring parking lots as well as some boxy buildings on the arena block.
The buildings (below) in the fanciful full buildout looked nothing like the new Frank Gehry plan just released at the time.
2008 MAS renderings
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2011 SHoP renderings
As it turns out, the new modular renderings released today look very much like the Atlantic Lots renderings. And there's still a huge surface parking lot planned for the southeast block of the project site.
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NoLandGrab: MAS's lawyers should be drawing up papers for an (anti-)intellectual property suit.
Posted by eric at 4:49 PM
Forest City releases designs for first residential tower, which would be modular (unless it's not)
Atlantic Yards Report
In an announcement that just might have been timed to deflect attention from the lawsuit filed against Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner and longtime Community Benefits Agreement partner BUILD, the developer today released renderings for the three arena block residential towers, and said they'd be built modular--unless they're not.
Given the lack of certainty about the production plan, and no mention of financing, there's reason to think the press announcement was a strategic move, either to deflect attention or to put pressure on construction unions.
Note the rectilinear nature of most buildings, a far cry from some of original architect Frank Gehry's more irregular renderings.
The Times is given the scoop
The news was broken by the New York Times, in a CityRoom post headlined Design for Tower Unveiled at Atlantic Yards. (There's no mention of the business relationship between the developer and the New York Times Company, partners in building the newspaper's headquarters.)
...The risk
[Times reporter Charles] Bagli points out that modular construction is "largely untested at this height," with the tallest building 25 stores:
The challenge for developers, architects and engineers in building taller modular buildings has been to design an economical bracing system that would protect the structure from wind shear and seismic forces. The developer is working with SHoP Architects, Arup structural engineers and XSite Modular. “If anybody can crack the code,” Mr. Ratner said, “this group can.”
This is the first Times mention of XSite Modular, which can work with Forest City thanks to the settlement of a contentious lawsuit.
The money
The article ends with a mention of discussions between the developer and construction unions. “We are in the process of attempting to reach an agreement that will work for the building trades and Forest City in an effort to create permanent employment,” said Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Greater New York, said obliquely.
Not only would wages for workers be lower, and the number of workers (likely) decreased, so too would expected tax revenues to the city and state--another project selling point.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder also points out that the building permit points toward conventional construction, not a prefab process.
Posted by eric at 3:18 PM
Design Unveiled for Tower at Atlantic Yards
City Room
by Charles V. Bagli
SHoP has replaced Frank Gehry's stacked shoe boxes with stacked milk crates. Modular milk crates.
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The developer Bruce C. Ratner unveiled the design Thursday morning for the world’s tallest prefabricated steel structure, a 32-story residential building at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street in the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project.
The 350-unit building uses rectangular shapes, colors and glass to break up the mass of the structure, which would sit snugly up against Barclays Center, the new arena of the Nets basketball team that is scheduled to open in September 2012. Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, said that prefabrication or modular construction could save time and cut construction costs by as much as 25 percent. Fourteen other residential buildings would be built at Atlantic Yards using the same technology.
Forest City Ratner is also negotiating a labor agreement with construction unions, which have supported Atlantic Yards, but could end up with fewer jobs and lower wages for some workers if the project goes forward.
Mr. Ratner said Thursday that he hoped to begin construction early next year. But the start date has been a moving target for more than a year now.
Related coverage...
The Wall Street Journal, Plans Unveiled for Apartments Over NBA Arena
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Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards is going boxy.
...Just how the buildings will be constructed is also unclear. Forest City said Thursday that it intends to use modular construction, a mostly untested technique for high-rise buildings. But the developer hasn’t made a final decision and said it is still negotiating with unions.
Of course, this isn’t the first time Forest City has released a rendering only to see the project depart dramatically from its initial vision.
Curbed, Atlantic Yards' Modular Rental Tower Will be World's Tallest
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Working with Arup and XSite Modular, the architects configured 930 steel chassis modules around a lateral system of steel braced frames, with all the connections on the exterior of the modules, a method the developer describes as "process, not product innovation."
Brownstoner, Renderings Released for First Atlantic Yards High-Rise; Ratner Wants to Go Prefab
Bruce Ratner says 60 percent of construction would take place in a factory, and a deal still needs to be hammered out with construction workers since union workers make significantly less in factory settings than at construction sites.
The Brooklyn Paper, BREAKING: Ratner’s pre-fab tower!
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner will build the world’s tallest pre-fabricated tower as the first residential building inside his mega-project, dealing a blow to labor unions and architecture enthusiasts, but jumpstarting his stalled development.
Crain's NY Business, Low-cost construction set for Atlantic Yards towers
All renderings: SHoP Architects
Posted by eric at 2:52 PM
The "Modern Blueprint" and the Triumph of Marketing over Memory
In an alternate universe, a Brooklyn newspaper columnist could have filed this dispatch yesterday.
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder imagines a world in which news outlets actually out a little effort into their reporting.
The "Modern Blueprint" and the Triumph of Marketing over Memory
The walk is little more than a mile, but on Tuesday it connected two very different worlds. At lunch hour outside Brooklyn's Borough Hall, there stood a snazzy new trailer, complete with blinking video screens, that was dubbed, in overweening form, "The Experience." A vehicle in service to commerce.
The goal: to sell tickets and suites to the opening season, beginning next year, for the Brooklyn Nets in the new Barclays Center.
Fans and downtown office workers/visitors lined up to shoot baskets, egged on by an animated announcer and DJ, hoping to win a free t-shirt. The Nets Dancers, well-toned lasses in bodysuits, clapped appreciatively. Brisk young men, trim and energetic, hawked season tickets.
One inquiring Brooklynite, hearing the tab was some $4500, shook her head in disbelief, only to be reassured that less expensive seats would someday be available. Others, the ones chosen for quotes by the Nets' fake news service, were more enthusiastic.
At 2 pm, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the wind-up doll of Atlantic Yards support, emerged from his office. He joked about being too short to play basketball among the celebrated hoopsters at Wingate High School.
“Everything we’ve seen about the team has shown it’s a ‘Net positive’ for Brooklyn,” Markowitz said, in words dutifully captured by the Nets' scribe. “It’s something you have to experience for yourself, and – thanks to the EXPERIENCE – now we can.”
...About a mile away, there was a less scripted, less corporate event, one that did not lure the reporters from the city's three dailies who were watching Markowitz.
Posted by eric at 1:12 PM
Whistleblowing and EDC: Culture and the Questionable Spirit In Which the State Agency Most Responsible For Atlantic Yards Wields Omnipotent Powers
Noticing New York
In a post that compares and contrasts the Penn State sexual abuse scandal and Atlantic Yards, Michael D.D. White explores the Empire State Development Corporation's shoddy record on compliance with state law.
Fully on notice about its noncompliance given my February 3, 2010 Noticing New York article, ESDC finally adopted the whistleblower policy it was legally required to on April 26, 2010 (i.e. also missing the March 1, 2010 deadline of the second law).
It was on the agenda for April 26, 2010 for administrative action as Agenda item #4. According to the minutes, when one of the board members asked, they were told that this was the first time the agency had such a policy but there is no mention recorded in the minutes or in the memo presenting the policy to the directors that the agency had been improperly without such a policy for many years.
JDA, ESD’s coadministered sister agency that was involved in issuing the (rather questionable) bonds for the Atlantic Yards Prokhorov/Ratner “Barclays” arena did not act to adopt the required whistleblower policy until more than a year after ESD, June 28, 2011.
...The responses I received after inquiries to the ESD press office inform me that the policies, since their adoption, have been essentially inert.
Posted by eric at 1:00 PM
Atlantic Yards Lawsuit Plaintiffs Allege Broken Promises
Brownstoner
Former Build supporters sue the organization and FCR from rumur on Vimeo.
Here’s a video of the press conference on Tuesday about the lawsuit over Atlantic Yards jobs. The footage, shot by Milica Petrovic, shows some of the plaintiffs saying they were promised union jobs at Atlantic Yards after completing a training program. Maurice Griffen, one of the people suing, has this to say: “They guaranteed me a union card. They said it’s not a question of if we have it, it’s just a question of if you complete the program or not.” Meanwhile, a lawyer from South Brooklyn Legal Services says the suit hinges on “contract law…if a promise is made it has to be kept…these were promises made at the Community Benefits Agreement, they were made at orientation…” Councilwoman Letitia James says the plaintiffs “were had.”
Posted by eric at 12:42 PM
Occupy Wall Street Protesters Hit Borough Hall at 3 p.m.
As part of the two-month anniversary of the movement, Occupy Everywhere protesters are spreading across the city.
Carroll Gardens Patch
by Georgia Kral
At 3 p.m. today, Occupy Wall Street protesters will be fanning out across the city to talk with people in train stations. They will be at Borough Hall, Court Street between Joralemon and Montague, at 3 p.m.
...Early Tuesday morning, police cleared Zuccotti Park, the home of the movement for the past two months. Meanwhile, the Occupy Brooklyn faction has been growing, focusing on corporate development projects launched in conjunction with the city, like Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
November 16, 2011
Brooklyn Residents File Lawsuit to Recover Unpaid Wages
The Local [Clinton Hill/Fort Greene]
by Chester Soria and Martin Leung
Ironic that The Times, which sent experienced reporter Liz Robbins to cover the Nets' staged event at Borough Hall, sent two interns to cover the press conference about the lawsuit. Let's hope they get better treatment in their training program than the ex-trainees got from Forest City Ratner and BUILD. And frankly, their reporting is better than The Times's usual Atlantic Yards coverage.
[Plaintiffs' attorney Nicole] Salk added that the plaintiffs entered the internship program because they were guaranteed union jobs and that they continued working because they were told they would not receive membership if they stopped.
Marie Louis, BUILD chief operating officer, attended the press conference with other members of the organization to find out who the plaintiffs were. She argued after the press conference that all the plaintiffs signed an agreement that said they would not receive pay or be guaranteed union membership.
“They knew it was an unpaid internship,” Ms. Louis said, adding that the plaintiffs misunderstood the agreement. “We can’t help it if people have an idea in their mind that they laser in on.”
Those lasers, of course, were guided by falsehoods.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys, however, said after the press conference, that a signed agreement does not mean that their clients were not entitled to pay.
“You can’t waive your right to be paid for your labor,” said Molly Thomas-Jensen, a SBLS staff attorney.
Maurice Griffin, 23, of Prospect Heights, was one of the plaintiffs at the conference. Mr. Griffin said that he personally asked James Caldwell, BUILD president and CEO, about union books — membership cards that denote union membership — and that Mr. Caldwell told him he had nothing to worry about. He also said Mr. Caldwell told the class that he himself had seen the union books.
“You can ask all the 36 students,” said Mr. Griffin, “and all 36 will tell you that the said the union books were guaranteed.”
Related coverage...
NY Observer, SUIT: Forest City Broke Union Promises
“Their understanding was that upon being admitted (into the unions), which (BUILD instructors) guaranteed they would be when they completed the program, that they would be given a job on the Atlantic Yards construction site,” Matt Brinckerhoff, one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs, told The Commercial Observer.
Mr. Brinckerhoff added that the training itself was “muddled and haphazard” and taught the participants “various platitudes.”
Gothamist, Atlantic Yards "Interns" Suing Forest City Ratner For Broken Promises
Posted by eric at 5:05 PM
“I was robbed,” claims plaintiff in lawsuit against BUILD and FCR; defendants deny promising jobs and union cards, setting up contest over credibility; claims over unpaid wages in "sham" training program may be easier to prove
Atlantic Yards Report
To City Council Member Letitia James, the leading political opponent of Atlantic Yards, the federal lawsuit filed yesterday by seven would-be Atlantic Yards workers, who claim they were promised construction jobs and union cards after finishing a highly competitive training program, confirms that the project “was the greatest bait and switch in the history of Brooklyn.”
For the workers-- some of whom quit jobs or declined job offers in expectation of post-training work and union membership--it was simply a chance for justice, after going through the 15-week program sponsored by Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) signatory BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), where they learned little and were put to work, without pay, on a mostly unsupervised contracting job.
“We were repeatedly reassured on numerous occasions that all we had to do is to complete the program and we would obtain union books and employment,” said Kathleen Noreiga, 58, an electrician (in video below). She made a point of saying she had rallied for the project with BUILD, which, while offering job training and assistance, has regularly brought Atlantic Yards supporters to public hearings and events. (BUILD CEO James Caldwell has regularly praised Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner as "like an angel sent from God.")
Seven of the 36 workers who went through the program, which concluded last December, joined the suit, announced at a press conference yesterday afternoon. (Videos by Jonathan Barkey)
“I was robbed,” asserted Maurice Griffin (in video below), who quit his non-union carpentry job to do the 15-week, Forest City Ratner-funded program that began last August.
“They guaranteed me a union card, They said it’s not a question of whether we have it, but whether you complete the program. And I completed it. I came every time, early. I did my work. I’m here to let everybody know I’m not going to stand for this.” Griffin later joined a union on his own.
Click thru for much more.
Posted by eric at 12:30 PM
Lawsuit Against Forest City Ratner And The Fallacy Of Relying On A White-owned Monopoly To Create Construction Work For The Minority Community
Noticing New York
I’d like to focus on one particular aspect of the lawsuit, the question of what Forest City Ratner really ought to owe everyone. The plaintiffs are represented by South Brooklyn Legal Services and one of the attorneys I spoke to today commented that it was sort of absurd that Forest City Ratner had to be sued for not delivering what was essentially the jobs “sweetener” promised for getting control over all the acreage associated with Atlantic Yards. I think that actually trivializes the debt that Forest City Ratner is walking out on.
It is astounding to think that with the resources of its huge mega-monopoly Forest City Ratner is stiffing people for even these few jobs. The 22 acres of Atlantic Yards are contiguous to other Ratner-owned acreage, making for 30 contiguous Ratner-owned acres at the site, with 50+ Ratner-owned acres in the area. That’s an awful lot of mega-monopoly tying up resources in the community accompanied by an unwillingness to hand out jobs.
More important, it should not be overlooked that the creation of the Ratner mega-monopoly precluded and destroyed other jobs. Therefore, I don’t think it is a case of Ratner just owing the community or individuals the few jobs that were the promised sweetener in connection with all the Ratner takings; what Ratner owes the community ought to be commensurate with all the jobs destroyed or precluded by the mega-monopoly.
Posted by eric at 12:24 PM
Bait and switch? Ratner sued over ‘sham’ job-training program
The Brooklyn Paper
by Daniel Bush
Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner set up a “sham” job-training program that ended up screwing workers out of promised union positions on his $5-billion mega-project, a bombshell lawsuit charged on Tuesday.
The workers say that they were promised union membership and jobs in exchange for taking a 15-week apprenticeship course in 2010, but were never hired on at the Prospect Heights site — which includes the Barclays Center and 16 residential towers on a 22-acre parcel of land stretching from Flatbush Avenue to Vanderbilt Avenue.
“They told us they would set aside jobs,” said Kathleen Noriega, one of the plaintiffs. “What they did was wrong and misleading.”
Noriega and six other plaintiffs are being represented by South Brooklyn Legal Services, which has long been involved in Atlantic Yards-related suits.
“The project developers … blatantly violated many federal and state statutes designed to protect individuals from exploitation,” said lawyer Molly Thomas-Jensen. “The project developers … also made promises, to community members and directly to the plaintiffs in this case, that they have broken.”
NoLandGrab: We don't see how this could have happened. We had Bruce Ratner's word, for crying out loud.
Posted by eric at 12:14 PM
Tonight, 11/16, 6pm at Cardozo Law School: Battle for Brooklyn Screening and Panel Discussion
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Tonight at 6pm the Cardozo Real Estate Law Association presents a screening of Battle for Brooklyn followed by a panel discussion including, for the first time, both Daniel Goldstein and Matthew Brinckerhoff:
Daniel Goldstein, co-founder of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), the film's protagonist and lead plaintiff on the eminent domain lawsuit at the core of the film;
Matthew Brinckerhoff, Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff & Abady, DDDB legal counsel and attorney for the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case;
Michael Galinsky, Co-Director (with Suki Hawley) of "Battle for Brooklyn," partner of Rumur Films;
Steven Polivy, Chair, Economic Development & Incentives Practice, Akerman Senterfitt LLP.
The film just premiered in Pittsburgh and that city's Post Gazette movie critic called Battle for Brooklyn a "movie for our times," as it captures the zeitgeist like no other film screening today.
The film and panel discussion are free and open to the public. An RSVP is required. RSVP here.
Related content...
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Three Rivers Film Festival serves up wide-ranging choices
"Battle for Brooklyn" captures the circus that typically erupts over developments that will wipe out the homes and businesses of the little people: community groups that noisily take to the streets and council chambers under red-hot TV lights, finger-pointing, lawsuits, war chests and passions running as high as the proposed skyscrapers.
..."Battle for Brooklyn" is illuminating, inspiring, discouraging and even predictable -- funny how those promised local jobs never materialize -- and a movie for our times.
Posted by eric at 11:56 AM
November 15, 2011
Mayor Bloomberg: "You have Bruce Ratner's word. That should be enough for you..."
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Seven construction workers, including former outspoken supporters of Atlantic Yards, promised union cards and construction jobs on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project are filing suit in federal court today against the developer, the community group funded by him—Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD)—and others.
The video clip below is from Battle for Brooklyn. The clip is a response to a reporter's question about whether the Atlantic Yards Community Benefit Agreement (CBA) is legally binding, Mayor Michael Bloomberg answers, "You have Bruce Ratner's word. That should be enough for you and everybody else in this community."
You gotta see it to believe it:
Posted by eric at 11:44 PM
Construction Workers Sue Atlantic Yards Developer, Claiming They Were "Duped"
Workers allege that Forest City Ratner and the non-profit BUILD failed to deliver promised union cards and jobs following unpaid apprenticeship program.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
Claiming they were duped, seven Brooklyn construction workers are sueing the developer of the Atlantic Yards Project and a local community organization for failing to deliver union cards and construction jobs they said were promised at the end of what they call a “sham” job-training program.
“I was robbed,” said Maurice Griffin of Crown Heights at a news conference today in the shadow of the rising Barclays Center. Griffin, like many of the plaintiffs, quit a job to join the program.
”I would never have joined this pre-apprenticeship program if it wasn’t agreed (guaranteed) to me that I would have a union card upon completion,” he said.
Councilwoman Letitia James, who organized the press conference, called both the pre-apprenticeship program and the Atlantic Yards Project “the greatest bait-and-switch in the history of Brooklyn.”
Read on for more of this sordid story.
Photo: Amy Sara Clark/Patch
Related coverage...
NY1, Locals Claim Atlantic Yards Developers Denied Promised Construction Jobs
This is priceless:
Developer Forest City Ratner said, "We have already generated 50 percent of the projected economic activity for phase one. Were it not for the delays brought on by opponents of the project, including some of those behind this law suit, even more people would be employed right now.”
NoLandGrab: "Some of those behind this law suit?" The people "behind" this lawsuit are seven former Atlantic Yards-supporting BUILD members who got screwed over by Forest City & friends.
My Little O [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], Unpaid Wages and broken Promises
The seven plaintiffs participated in a Pre-Apprenticeship Training Program, created by the project developers totrain community residents for construction jobs within the arena and project. The plaintiffs alleged that they were repeatedly and consistently told that upon completion of the program they would earn membership in building trades unions whose workers would be employed by the Project. Instead, they said they never received any offers of employment at Atlantic Yards, and were only employed for two months in the construction of a house on Staten Island, for which they received no wages or other compensation.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Another Atlantic Yards Lawsuit
The suit seeks the recovery of unpaid wages as well as damages based on alleged false promises. The plaintiffs are represented by South Brooklyn Legal Services (a program of Legal Services NYC) and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP.
Atlantic Yards Report, Documents from the lawsuit against BUILD & FCR: the press release and the legal complaint
Posted by eric at 11:26 PM
Brutally weird: Times covers lawsuit against BUILD/FCR amid longer article about promotional event for the Nets
Atlantic Yards Report
So, former supporters and construction trainees of Atlantic Yards Community Development Agreement signatory BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development) held a press conference today to say, basically, we were robbed (because promised union memberships and project jobs didn't pan out, leading to a lawsuit), and how does the New York Times cover it?
In the 11th paragraph of a 19-paragraph CityRoom post headlined Nets Hold a Rally Amid a Lockout and an Uncertain Season.
...My comment (not yet posted):
The framing of the lawsuit--as a subordinate item amid coverage of a far less meaningful promotional event involving the Nets--disserves readers. It deserves its own article, and the juxtaposition is awkward.
Though Caldwell said trainees had signed a waiver of payment, at the press conference--not attended by the Times--a lawyer for the plaintiffs said that such a waiver was unenforceable, and that the workers had to be paid.
As for DePlasco's numbers--that "19 of the trainees found jobs in property management, retail or construction related positions"--the issue is: how many got the union jobs that the plaintiffs said were explicitly promised? (Some are working at McDonald's and Planet Fitness. Only one is working at Atlantic Yards.)
One of the reasons we didn't learn these statistics earlier relates to another issue raised in the lawsuit: Forest City Ratner's failure to hire the Independent Compliance Monitor required by the Community Benefits Agreement.
Posted by eric at 11:14 PM
The missing Independent Compliance Monitor for the Atlantic Yards CBA: it should have reported on the construction job training initiative, now subject of a lawsuit
Atlantic Yards Report
I've written several times about the failure of Forest City Ratner to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor (ICM) as required by the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement.
That failure has saved Forest City up to $100,000 a year and has helped the developer stave off a closer look at total number of jobs at the project site.
Beyond that, it seems, the failure to hire an ICM has diverted scrutiny of Forest City's pre-apprentice training program, the subject of a lawsuit filed today by trainees who said they were promised jobs.
The missing reports
There's no ICM, so we've never seen a report on the training program. However, the CBA, excerpted at right, requires quarterly reports from the Developers to the CBA Coalition (representatives of the eight signatories) and ICM, including:
Number of Community residents presently enrolled in the Pre Apprentice Training initiative; Community Boards in which they reside and percentage of Minority (by category) and women workers; household income; number who successfully completed such initiative, and number who obtained jobs at the Project Site; successful participants length of current employment at the Project Site; percentage of successful participants as to number of total apprentices at Project Site”
(Emphasis added)
Had such reports been issued, the lawsuit might have been averted. Similarly, had figures who advocated for Atlantic Yards by citing the CBA--like Public Advocate Bill de Blasio--spoken up, it would not have taken a lawsuit to bring the lack of a compliance monitor to light.
NoLandGrab: But really, who needs an Independent Compliance Monitor when you have Bruce Ratner's word?!!!
Posted by eric at 12:27 PM
Seven (of 36) trainees who went through job training program for Atlantic Yards construction jobs sue Forest City, BUILD, others, claiming promises were a sham
Atlantic Yards Report
But wait — they had Bruce Ratner's word!
Forest City Ratner and Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) signatory BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development) have made extensive promises regarding construction jobs for locals at the Atlantic Yards project, a new lawsuit contends, but have not come through.
A Daily News exclusive today, headlined Promise of union jobs a lie by Atlantic Yards, suit by construction workers charge, presages a press conference this afternoon about the suit.
The essence of the case
Notably, the plaintiffs include some people who vocally supported the project with the expectation of jobs. The Daily News reports that workers who say they were promised Atlantic Yards construction jobs instead got "a sham training program" and "offers to work in maintenance, a health club and McDonald’s."
...Were workers guaranteed construction work, as alleged? No, BUILD CEO James Caldwell told the newspaper. His organization, along with the deeper-pocketed Forest City Ratner, and individual company executives, are named in the suit.
Forest City declined comment until the company sees the suit. Likely crucial to the case is what specifically the trainees were promised, and how that can be established in court.
Click thru for more.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner, BUILD, James Caldwell Sued in Federal Court Today for Broken Atlantic Yards Promises
Seven construction workers, including former outspoken supporters of Atlantic Yards, promised union cards and construction jobs on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project are filing suit in federal court today against the developer, the community group funded by him, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD), and others.
Remember, it was Mayor Bloomberg who was famously caught on tape, as seen in the film "Battle for Brooklyn," saying that legal agreements aren't necessary because, "You have Bruce Ratner's word. That should be enough for you." It appears that neither his words or agreements carry much weight.
The only promise kept so far is to construct a money losing, community disruptive, environmentally damaging billion dollar arena in the midst of a housing crisis for a team in a league that is currently working its way into oblivion.
Brownstoner, Lawsuit to be Filed Over Atlantic Yards Jobs
One of the plaintiffs had this to say: “I believed I was going to be employed, that jobs were going to come into my community. …It was all lies.” Meanwhile, the president of BUILD says the program never guaranteed construction jobs. Matthew Brinckerhoff, the lawyer representing the plaintiffs along with South Brooklyn Legal Services, is quoted as follows: “It’s galling that people living in the community were conned into enthusiastically supporting this project based on the promise of jobs.”
The Brooklyn Paper, ‘Betrayed’ workers to sue Ratner today
Ratner once boasted that the 22-acre project would create 1,500 jobs per year over a 10-year buildout, but roughly 700 people are currently at work on the arena.
The paltry numbers have prompted disgruntled workers — who backed the project during its approval process five years ago — to rally regularly for jobs.
NoLandGrab: At least the paltry few got construction jobs, unlike these duped trainees.
The Real Deal, Construction workers sue Ratner over false promises at AY
The workers say they enrolled in Ratner's training program for construction workers on the project, weren't fully compensated for the work they performed during the training and afterwards were offered jobs in maintenance, a nearby health club and a McDonald's.
Atlantic Yards Report, Given the lawsuit against BUILD and FCR, will the New York Times revisit the 2005 "modern blueprint" claim?
Remember this 2005 New York Times article about Forest City Ratner and BUILD?
Now there's a lawsuit.
NLG: But wait, people — they had Bruce Ratner's word!
Posted by eric at 11:54 AM
Promise of union jobs a lie by Atlantic Yards, suit by construction workers charge
Seven construction workers to sue Bruce Ratner
NY Daily News
by John Marzulli & Erin Durkin
But they had Bruce Ratner's word!
They say they were promised good paying union jobs on Brooklyn’s largest construction site.
But what they got from what a new lawsuit charges was a sham training program were offers to work in maintenance, a health club and McDonald’s.
Seven construction workers will sue developer Bruce Ratner Tuesday, accusing him of falsely promising them the moon to win political and community approval of his controversial Atlantic Yards project.
He not only failed to deliver the jobs but also stiffed them for work they performed in the training program, they allege.
“I believed I was going to be employed, that jobs were going to come into my community,” said electrician Kathleen Noriega, 58, of Crown Heights.
“It was all lies,” said Noriega, one of the plaintiffs filing suit Tuesday in Brooklyn Federal Court.
The suit contends Ratner claimed plans for a new sports arena for the Nets and 16 residential and commercial skyscrapers would create 17,000 union construction jobs and 8,000 permanent jobs.
Noriega said she was a vocal supporter of the project’s training program, which offered construction workers membership in building trade unions. Many of the organizations that signed on to train the workers, like Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, were bankrolled by Ratner, according to the suit.
BUILD President James Caldwell, who is named as a defendant in the suit, defended the program, saying most of the 36 participants have been placed in maintenance jobs at other Ratner properties.
Caldwell denied anyone was guaranteed construction work.
“Just like Forest City Ratner made adjustments, (in the size of the project) we had to make adjustments,” Caldwell said.
...“It’s galling that people living in the community were conned into enthusiastically supporting this project based on the promise of jobs,” said lawyer Matthew Brinckerhoff who is representing the plaintiffs, along with South Brooklyn Legal Services.
“They were promised union membership with union jobs, instead they got McDonald’s,” Brinckerhoff said.
NoLandGrab: Mr. Caldwell means they had to adjust their lies. Shame.
Posted by eric at 6:24 AM
November 14, 2011
Federal lawsuit to be filed against Forest City Ratner Companies LLC, and others for damages based on unpaid wages and false promises
City Councilmember Letitia James issued the following media advisory this afternoon.
Council Member James, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, South Brooklyn Legal Services, Clergy and Community to Hold Press Conference in Support of Brooklyn Residents Persuaded into Participating in Deceptive Atlantic Yards Training Program
Press Conference This Tuesday, November 15, 3:30pm at 67 Hanson Place and South Elliott place - in front of the District Office of Council Member James
Federal lawsuit to be filed against Forest City Ratner Companies LLC, and others for damages based on unpaid wages and false promises
A group of Brooklyn residents who participated in a job-training program negotiated as part of the Atlantic Yards project plan to file a federal lawsuit against the Atlantic Yards Development Company LLC, Brooklyn Arena LLC, Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, Forest City Ratner Companies LLC, Bruce Ratner and others.
The suit seeks the recovery of unpaid wages as well as damages based on false promises. The plaintiffs are represented by South Brooklyn Legal Services (a program of Legal Services NYC) and Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP.
WHO: Elected Officials, Clergy, Lawyers, and Plaintiffs
WHAT: Press Conference to Announce Lawsuit against Atlantic Yards Development Company LLC and others
WHEN: Tuesday, November 15 at 3:30pm
WHERE: 67 Hanson Place and South Elliott Place in front of the District Office of NYC Council Member Letitia James
NoLandGrab: But Mayor Bloomberg saidwe had Bruce Ratner's word!
Posted by eric at 8:11 PM
Occupy Wall Street finally gets a Brooklyn accent
The Brooklyn Paper
by Eli Rosenberg
The Occupy Wall Street movement finally took on a Brooklyn accent on Saturday, with protesters decrying “crony capitalism” at several controversial sites — rallying most heatedly at a spot that many call the ultimate symbol of corporate control of democracy, the Atlantic Yards megadevelopment.
Occupy Brooklyn protesters started their march at the JP Morgan Chase complex in Downtown’s Metrotech Center, complaining that the bank got a sweetheart tax subsidy deal, but the main target of the anger was Bruce Ratner’s heavily subsidized Atlantic Yards project, which was approved by a secretive state panel in late 2006 without going through the city’s normal public review process.
Related coverage...
Brooklyn Heights Press, Occupy Brooklyn Marches to Atlantic Yards
About 100 “Occupy Brooklyn” supporters gathered at Korean War Veterans Plaza in Downtown Brooklyn on Saturday for teach-ins, performances and a march to sites they say represent corporate greed in Brooklyn, with a heavy emphasis on Atlantic Yards. Younger Occupy Wall Streeters were joined by groups like the Brooklyn Green Party, FUREE and Common Cause. Speakers said that companies like Forest City Ratner and Chase Bank broke their promises to employ thousands of local workers in return for millions of dollars in subsidies. “They’ve gamed the system against the 99 percent,” they said.
Photo: Mary Frost
Posted by eric at 6:31 PM
I Occupied WALL Street(s) & All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt That Made Jay-Z Richer
Reason Hit & Run
by Nick Gillespie
Fresh off his triumphant role in bringing the Atlantic Yards project (a.k.a. The Great Basketball Swindle) to Brooklyn via skeevy biz practices, eminent-domain-abuser and ticket-fixing rapper Jay-Z briefly had a new controversial project: Making a buck by selling t-shirts intended to support the Occupy movement and keeping all that filthy corporate lucre for himself.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
Jay-Z, the 1%, and his decision to drop that "Occupy All Streets" t-shirt
Atlantic Yards Report
Jay-Z's usually pretty good at judging the cultural moment, and floating on the goodwill of fans, but not this past week.
As the New York Post reported yesterday, Jay-Z has pulled his $22 Rocawear t-shirts, which showed “Occupy Wall Street” altered to read “Occupy All Streets” after criticism of his company's failure to share profits with protesters.
Another article on the Post web site, attributed to Newscore, slammed him harder:
Jay-Z, who has had 12 No. 1 albums, has spent much of his career promoting the massive accumulation of wealth and celebrating the people that do so.
The Jay-Z defense
On the other hand, those defending Jay-Z point out that, while he may be in the 1% of wealth, he's earned it through creativity and drive, not through the crony capitalism and unfair rules that the Occupy protesters have decried.
That's a significant point, except it breaks down when it comes to Jay-Z's promotion of Atlantic Yards and the new Brooklyn arena.
Posted by eric at 11:02 AM
Daniel Goldstein speaks out against Atlantic Yards, breaks terms of settlement?
Nets Are Scorching
From the department of "What are pro basketball blogs supposed to write about when there's no pro basketball..."
Famed protester Daniel Goldstein, known best for heading Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn until reaching a settlement with Bruce Ratner worth roughly $3 million, was on hand to protest, stating that “There is no greater monument to crony capitalism in all of Brooklyn than the Atlantic Yards Project.”
According to the terms of Goldstein’s $3 million settlement, he “cannot actively oppose the project.” Oops. While I’m not sure if this qualifies as “actively opposing” under the specific language in the settlement, it’s safe to say this isn’t exactly “actively promoting.”
NoLandGrab: But it is exactly correct.
Posted by eric at 10:50 AM
November 12, 2011
Some questions unanswered from the past week's Atlantic Yards-related news
Atlantic Yards Report
Some questions unanswered from the past week's Atlantic Yards-related news:
Does Forest City Ratner have permission to install bollards at the Atlantic Yards arena site? I asked the Department of Transportation but haven't heard back.
Flood lights at the Vanderbilt Yard, supposed to go on at 6 am, were reported to go on at about 4:30 am. About this one I didn't ask, but wouldn't a proactive Empire State Development, the agency overseeing the project, want to set the record straight?
How much did the various parties spend on the last playground "funded in part" (but promoted in the main) by the Barclays Nets Community Alliance? I asked sponsor Out2Play but haven't heard back.
Here's a bonus: Representative Yvette Clarke issued a press release stating that she took "took Dr. Winslow Sargeant [of the federal Small Business Administration] on a tour throughout key sections of 11th Congressional District of New York such as Brownsville, Prospect Plaza and the Atlantic Yards/Nets Stadium site, which represent areas where small businesses thrive, are currently undergoing development and are in need of federal resources for its revitalization." What?
Posted by eric at 1:46 PM
Darcy James Argue's Brooklyn Babylon
Feast of Music
Darcy Argue likes to think big. As in: writing and performing original jazz with his own 18 piece orchestra. I've seen Darcy play all kinds of places over the past four years - everywhere from small dives like the Bowery Poetry Club to proper clubs like the Jazz Standard and Joe's Pub - and each time, it's been a joyous thrill ride.
Now, Darcy's managed to one-up himself with Brooklyn Babylon: a fully staged, fully integrated sight-and-sound performance currently taking up residence at BAM's Harvey Theater. Commissioned by BAM's Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Babylon tells the story of master carpenter Lev Bezdomni, who is comissioned to build a carousel that will crown the tallest building in the world, which is being constructed in the heart of Brooklyn. The message came through loud and clear, sitting within a crane's length of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards megaplex, where the Nets are set to move in late next year.
Posted by eric at 1:33 PM
November 11, 2011
Is Jay-Z Trying To Profit From Occupy Wall Street?
Business Insider
by Karlee Weinman
Speaking of corporate greed...
He's got 99 problems, and now "the 99%" might be another one.
Rapper Jay-Z is plastering Occupy Wall Street's message onto a new line of T-shirts, to be released Friday under his Rocawear clothing label.
But here's the thing: Rocawear isn't going to share its wealth. A Rocawear spokesperson sent us a statement confirming there's no plan to distribute any of the profits, which will surely pour in from shirt sales, to Occupy Wall Street.
...With Rocawear set to keep proceeds, New York's favorite native son is poised to cash in on his apparent support of a movement that rails against exactly that sort of thing. The irony!
NoLandGrab: "Occupy All Streets" is kinda what Bruce Ratner, with Jay-Z providing cover, has done to Prospect Heights.
Posted by eric at 9:55 PM
Here’s Reminder: Map For Saturday’s Occupy Brooklyn 2:30 PM March To Evict “Corporate Greed” (And Maybe Ratner's “Crony Capitalism”)
Noticing New York
 |
(Above, map of route for Occupy Brooklyn's 2:30 March tomorrow, Saturday the 12th, to “evict corporate greed.” )
Maybe you already know about Occupy Brooklyn’s planned march tomorrow at 2:30 to “evict corporate greed.” If you do, then the map of the proposed march tomorrow should serve as a reminder for that event and also for the teach-ins that begin at 10:00 AM at the Korean War Veterans Plaza at Cadman Plaza which is near Brooklyn Borough Hall, at Cadman Plaza West/East between Tillary and Johnson. If you didn’t know about it before, this is your opportunity to put it in your calendar.
The map of the proposed march should be a reminder of something else: The vastness of Forest City Ratner’s government-assisted mega-monopoly on some of the most valuable and densely zoned real estate in Brooklyn. It is interesting to note how much of the march, which will be 2.5 miles of walking in all, will involve going either over the property of Forest City Ratner or will be tightly flanked by Forest City Ratner’s property.
Posted by eric at 9:48 PM
Is Atlantic Yards (site of OWS protest) an example of "anti-capitalist outrage"? Maybe against crony capitalism
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper previews Occupy Brooklyn events this weekend (here's a map of the march):
Occupy Brooklyn’s events — part of Occupy Wall Street’s official “Occupy Your Block” efforts to connect to communities around the city this weekend — will be centered around Cadman Plaza in Downtown on Saturday and will many traditional liberal groups, including the Green Party, FUREE, Organizing 4 Occupation, the Sierra Club and Brooklyn For Peace.
The fair will culminate with a rally and march in and around Downtown — what one blogger called a “March To the Most Dangerous Traffic Intersections in Brooklyn” — stopping at locations of anti-capitalist outrage, such as Atlantic Yards, and the JP Morgan Chase, where protesters rallied on Thursday.
(Emphasis added)
But Atlantic Yards isn't an example of "anti-capitalist outrage." It's an example of "anti-crony-capitalist outrage."
When Atlantic Yards opponents and critics point to the absence of an RFP (request for proposals) for the Vanderbilt Yard until 18 months after the city and state announced support for Forest City Ratner's proposal, they're arguing not against capitalism but for fair procedures.
Related content...
The Brooklyn Paper, Occupy Brooklyn storms back with a weekend of action in Downtown
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
November 10, 2011
Atlantic Yards Watch: railyard flood lights, supposed to go on at 6 am, yesterday were illuminated 90 minutes earlier
Atlantic Yards Watch
Can we believe the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert?
Ummmm, no?
According to the document, to facilitate early start of work, railyard flood lights are supposed to be turned on at 6am. (Sunrise is after 6:30 am.)
However, according to a neighbor who shot photos and video yesterday and posted them on Atlantic Yards Watch, the lights went on at about 4:30 am.
The impact on residents? Those at 700 Pacific Street, face "extreme excess light pollution," blinding at times, according to the neighbor.
On video
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
Potential Roadblock for Permit Parking Plan
State Sen. Marty Golden and other southern Brooklyn pols are against the idea of permit parking for residents.
Park Slope Patch
by Jamie Schuh
The plan for residential permit parking, lauded by some residents who live near the Barclays Center arena, may not have a chance in Albany, if state Sen. Marty Golden, R–Bay Ridge, has his way.
The Brooklyn Paper reports that though City Council approved the proposal, Golden has called the idea of a voluntary permit parking system “another tax on our communities.”
NoLandGrab: Marty Golden, however, was more than happy to spend a billion dollars of taxpayer money on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at 10:55 AM
8-Bit NYC
Urban Media Archaeology
8-Bit NYC is, in the words of its creator Brett Camper, “a lo-fi web map of New York City, inspired by 8-bit video games.” Camper created a rendering engine that analyzes 16×16 pixel tiles of the OpenStreetMap to determine the individual tiles’ content (a road, a park, etc.) and replace it with the appropriate 8-bit style bitmap tile. 8-Bit NYC can be considered “fake 8-bit” in the sense that it essentially takes higher fidelity OpenStreet maps and down-samples them, effectively stripping information that was once available.
...My application of the map explicitly applies 8-Bit NYC’s implied heroic quest to its basemap. Perhaps to Alison Sant’s dismay, 8-Bit’s lo-fi orthogonal geometry makes a great canvas on which to affix a narrative. With a few additions, 8-Bit NYC can make for a provocative tool in telling a story, combining the similar nostalgia of antique illustrated maps and video games’ linear progression. Draw a path from Manhattan through Brooklyn Heights, where I’ve added a few 8-bit skyscrapers, and toward Atlantic Yards, and we can see a simple movement of vertical development starting in the city, crossing into Brooklyn and creeping toward its center. Using hallmarks of video game good and evil, we can illustrate the use of eminent domain in Atlantic Yards as a monstrous bulldozer, plowing down Snoopy and his house. Not the most nuanced argument, but there are certainly circumstances where such reductions could be useful.
My Atlantic Yards application:
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Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
November 9, 2011
AKRF contract for Supplementary EIS: up to $1.7 million (paid by FCR)
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of rearranging deck chairs...
Last Thursday, at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, Empire State Development (Corporation), reported that the agency board approved extension of its contract with environmental consultant AKRF for a “substantial amount.”
I followed up and learned the sum: up to $1.7 million. Such environmental review costs are paid by the applicant, Forest City Ratner.
AKRF is beginning the process of working on the scope for an Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) regarding the impacts of an extended project buildout, 25 years versus the studied ten years.
After the draft scope of work is finalized in-house, Hankin said, "we will be going to the public, soliciting comments.” No schedule has been set.
Posted by eric at 12:01 PM
November 8, 2011
Let Me Ascertain You: Podcast Series Launch!
The Civilians Blog
Welcome to the very first episode Let Me Ascertain You: The Civilians Podcast Series!
Let Me Ascertain You is a weekly podcast series drawn from the company’s ongoing live cabaret series of the same title and including the best material from a decade of creative investigation. The episodes cover topics such as Occupy Wall Street, Atlantic Yards, the adult entertainment industry, Evangelical Christianity, and more.
Our first episode features performances of interviews about Atlantic Yards with Brooklynites about the controversy over the largest development project in Brooklyn's history.
...This episode features the performance of interviews with Atlantic Yards bloggers, local business owners, residents, and activists, examining how the fate of Brooklyn and New York City is decided and what can be learned from this ongoing saga of politics, money, and the places we call home. The material was collected for the company's play In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards.
...TO SUBSCRIBE TO THE LET ME ASCERTAIN YOU PODCAST SERIES ON ITUNES, PLEASE CLICK HERE!
Posted by eric at 10:40 PM
Razing a New Tower of Babel
THe Wall Street Journal
by Tad Hendrickson
As Manhattan sees its skyline altered once again by the new World Trade Center tower, and downtown Brooklyn watches the emergence of the Barclays Center arena, big digs are taking up a lot of physical and psychic space in New York City.
It's fitting, then, that down the road from the Nets' new home at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, these and other themes underpin a ground-breaking new multimedia work called "Brooklyn Babylon," which begins a four-day run Wednesday as part of the BAM's Next Wave Festival.
Devised by Grammy-nominated composer/arranger Darcy James Argue and graphic artist Danijel Zezelj, "Brooklyn Babylon" presents a new dystopian version of the Tower of Babel fable, wherein the mayor of Brooklyn, in a grand act of hubris, decides to build the tallest building in the world. The story also follows an Eastern Europe immigrant carpenter, who lives in the neighborhood where the tower is being erected, as he builds a carousel atop the structure and becomes an accomplice to the destruction of his beloved neighborhood.
"I think people are going to draw whatever conclusions they want to draw from the story—whether it is related to Atlantic Yards or other projects," Mr. Argue said. "We wanted to be broader than that, but there is certainly resonance with the fact that it is happening right around the corner from where we happen to be performing the work."
Posted by eric at 10:28 PM
Public Hearings For Big Real Estate Projects: Refining Your Sense of the Absurd
Noticing New York
What’s the difference between “surreal” and “Kafkaesque”?
This is the kind of distinction you will find yourself making if you want to become a connoisseur of the flavors that public hearing futility comes in.
I just wrote about public hearings held where it is a forgone conclusion that those testifying are going to be ignored by those holding the hearing. And I wrote about a famous incident where, at one hearing, Jane Jacobs was arrested for protesting such absurdity. (See: Wednesday, November 2, 2011, Big Politically-Connected Real Estate Projects: Ignoring The Public Majority With Futile “Participatory Democracy” Hearing Process.)
Jane Jacobs suggested the intent of the hearing she was attending might have been considered simply as a steam valve by those holding it to help abate public indignation and wrath. And that gets into something else discussed, whether when attending such a hearing you should address yourself to those holding the hearing who won’t listen to you or, to make yourself feel better, to an audience of other members of the public who feel as you do. That assumes you are let into the hearing at all.
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
Rogues Gallery: The AIANY (“American Institute of Architects New York”) Subway Corridor Posters Under the IFC Center Showing “Urbanized”
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White notices something familiar on a subway advert, and offers a remedy.
On our way to catch and write about “Urbanized,” the new Gary Hustwit documentary about urban design we discovered, heading up from the A Train, that the subway corridor directly under the IFC Center theater hosting the film is lined with AIANY (“American Institute of Architects New York”) posters featuring different architectural projects. Some of those images are of Hall of Shame subsidy grabbers, and for sure at least the pictures of the of the net-public-loss Atlantic Yards Prokhorov/Ratner (“Barclays”) basketball arena are destined to be disgruntling.
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...
The subway images promoting the Prokhorov/Ratner arena and these other government assisted, government subsidized projects is also part of something else that has been a Noticing New York preoccupation recently: The pummeling we are getting everywhere we go reflecting a severe imbalance in the public dialogue delivered via paid speech. Big picture, the skewing of wealth in this country is working in conjunction with the increasing privatization of the traditional avenues and elements of public speech (including but not limited to public spaces and streets in which to speak). That means that we are forever being subjected to ubiquitous, insistent cues and reinforcements of (for example) the way Forest City Ratner wants things perceived.
Posted by eric at 9:58 AM
Pulitzer Prize Winner Jennifer Egan Just Showed Up With Jonathan Lethem At Occupy Wall Street
Business Insider
by Kevin Lincoln
Authors Jonathan Lethem and Lynn Nottage spoke to the Occupy Wall Street crowd in Zuccotti Park recently, and they were joined by a third member of DDDB's Advisory Board.
Though Egan didn't speak to the assembled listeners, she told Business Insider that she saw herself as an observer at the protests.
"Honestly, I feel behind on how the movement has evolved," she said. "I just wanted to support Jonathan. We worked together to oppose the Atlantic Yards Project and I applaud his passion and willingness to put himself out there."
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
November 7, 2011
Big Politically-Connected Real Estate Projects: Ignoring The Public Majority With Futile “Participatory Democracy” Hearing Process
Noticing New York
When I heard Bill Maher on his Real Time show a week ago offer his thesis about the futility of the forms of participatory democracy into which we are routinely channeled by those with the political upper hand I couldn’t help but think of the public hearing process in New York City with respect to big real estate projects. . . I am not thinking about all real estate projects, but the “done deals,” the “wired deals” involving those you know are the politically connected heavyweights.
Maher was speaking about the complacent assurance of plutocrats that they’ve cornered the political market and therefore can expect to have the Occupy Wall Street 99% boxed in, just so long as the opposition movement can be channeled into the regular and routine forms of civic contest. Then plutocrats know that the 99% “will lose” if they can be channeled into the normal ways of doing political battle, says Maher, because “the other side [the plutocratic side] has all the lobbyists and all the suits.” Or, as Rachel Maddow observed in the same conversation, when the 99% does it the way the plutocrats would like, an out-gunned 99% can be ignored.
That’s why, says Maher, the plutocrats are intent on having the opposition do it THEIR way.
...While Atlantic Yards is not the best example of the public being channeled into conventional participatory processes so they can then be ignored, it is a good example of the tinkering around the edges that occurs as things are engineered when the powers-that-be want a preordained result. Had those in power not had some appreciation of how massively objectionable to the public the Forest City Ratner project was likely to be they might not have decided to override standard public review process to deliver the deal to Ratner.
NoLandGrab: Here's one recent example of how to not play by the rules.
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
November 4, 2011
REMINDER: Tonight — Battle for Brooklyn at the Park Slope Food Coop
Just a quick reminder that Battle for Brooklyn, the critically acclaimed documentary film chronicling the fight to stop Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, will screen for free tonight at the Park Slope Food Coop.
Battle for Brooklyn
Park Slope Food Coop
Friday, November 4th, 7 p.m.
782 Union Street [Map]
(free, and open to both Coop members and non-members)
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with protagonist and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn co-founder Daniel Goldstein.
And don't forget the two screenings this weekend at indieScreen!
Posted by eric at 3:56 PM
More from the AY District Service Cabinet: SEIS process begins; progress on noise complaints; James's dismay at lack of public input; still waiting for demand management plan
Atlantic Yards Report
The summary:
- Empire State Development (aka Empire State Development Corporation) has begun work on a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) regarding the impacts of an extended project buildout
- In response to noise complaints, Forest City's contractors improved equipment and adjusted schedules to reduce impacts
- FCR is supervising additional nearby infrastructure work that's not connected to Atlantic Yards but must be done before the arena opens
- Council Member Letitia James expressed dismay at the lack of public input
- A transportation demand management plan will arrive slightly later than initially promised
- Rodent problems persist in some areas near the project site
- No decision has been announced on the use of modular parking
- The state has not yet hired a promised Atlantic Yards staffer
..."Not how government should work"
[James] spoke with a palpable sense of grievance. “I just don't want to be in a position where, we are a couple of months out from opening this arena, you present us with a plan, and then say you’ve got 30 days to respond to it. It's just not fair. It’s just not right. That’s not how government should work. It's not transparent. It’s government from the top down as opposed to the bottom up. It's all the things that I abhor and everything that I oppose.”
“So I would hope that you would consider not only the views of community, this is coming from me”--James pointed to herself--” who I am, what I stand for. The way we are moving toward the opening day of this arena leaves the community on the outside looking in, as evident by the fact that they're back there.”
She referenced three Prospect Heights residents sitting on chairs behind her, likely a fraction of those who might come had the meeting not been held during business hours.
Posted by eric at 12:13 PM
Weekend Events
Brownstoner
Battle For Brooklyn at IndieScreen
Battle for Brooklyn is screening at Williamsburg’s indieScreen this weekend. It is an intensely intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by owners and residents facing condemnation of their property to make way for the controversial Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in the heart of Brooklyn. Shot over seven years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an epic tale of how far people will go to fight for what they believe in. Showing Saturday and Sunday at 5pm, buy tickets here.
Posted by eric at 11:33 AM
Whither the AY Independent Compliance Monitor? It's up to the CBA executive committee, which last met four months ago. Also, an update on job numbers and BUILD's role.
Atlantic Yards Report
Speaking of bad CBAs...
Council Member Letitia James brought up an issue I raised recently in City Limits. “In the CBA, there’s a provision...which talks about an Independent Compliance Monitor,” she said. “ Is Forest City Ratner going to hire that compliance monitor and are you going to adhere to the provisions of the CBA?”
“Yes. I mean, the, um, all the matters in the CBA will be adhered to,” Forest City executive Jane Marshall replied, not all that firmly. “There’s an executive committee that has to decide when it wants to do an RFP for a Compliance Monitor.”
“When does that Executive Committee meet and where, and how often?” asked James.
“Typically--it’s usually typically every other month,” Marshall responded.
“And who chairs that?”
“Dee Adossa, from BEE [Brooklyn Endeavor Experience].”
“When was the last time they had a meeting?”
“I think it was actually four months ago, but that doesn't mean we don't communicate,” Marshall said. “We have biweekly calls with the chair, and we have meetings with all of the groups all of the time.” She noted that the groups have different mandates, “and so we work with them based on what their mandate is.”
“And so the compliance monitor will be hired when?” pressed James.
“When the executive committee decides,” responded Marshall.
James later pointed out that the purpose of the ICM is to monitor employment and contracting. "It appears," she said drily, "that person will be hired over the next year when construction is completed."
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
CBAs: Public Power, Shared Prosperity
Policy Shop
by Jack Temple
Are Community Benefits Agreements the tonic for the nation's increasing economic disparity?
Take, for example, the new accountable development movement. As I've written before, this movement -- largely led by communuity organizing groups and labor unions -- aims to combat urban inequality and promote fair local economic development. While this movement has deployed a range of tactics and strategies, one in particuar -- the negotiation of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) -- has succeeded in extracting serious amounts of cash from corporations and developers to support living wage jobs, affordable housing, and worker training in over 15 major cities in the United States.
He must not have seen the Atlantic Yards CBA.
Oh, wait...
To be sure, the record for CBAs is not perfect: the conditions set out by the CBA for the Atlantic Yards Project in Brooklyn, NY have remained unmet largely because the community organizations that were signatories to the agreement have benefited financially from the developer and have declined to pursue legal action.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
November 3, 2011
Paper of Record?
Battle for Brooklyn
We're sure the business relationship between The New York Times and Forest City Ratner Companies has nothing to do with this. Right? Surely, it's just a coincidence. Right?
About a month ago we screened our film “Battle for Brooklyn” in Bellingham Washington. After the film I mentioned to people that they could support the film by writing reviews on the NY Times readers review section. At that point we had 12 powerfully positive reviews and a five star rating (based on 84 votes). A couple of days later I checked to see if anyone had written a review. There was a new review, but the site now said that the film had 29 ratings and a 1 star. Obviously something was wrong.
I contacted a friend at the NY Times to see if he could help. He got the run around for a few days, but was finally told that it was a data issue. Apparently, when they ported the data from one place to another it went cockeyed. At this point I wrote to the film editor, who had been contacted by my friend about the problem. I asked, if they couldn’t fix the data right away, that they make a note on the page to let people know that the data was inaccurate. I was told it was “out of their hands.” Apparently its a “product development” issue.
I understand that data problems happen. However, once the data is published, it becomes an editorial problem. In the age of crowd sourced information, where does responsibility for erroneous information lie?
...After three weeks of waiting for the problem to be fixed, I finally contacted the public editor. I was told that they would look into it. That was one week ago.
NoLandGrab: As Atlantic Yard Report's Norman Oder has often pointed out, given the business relationship between FCRC and The Times (the former developed the latter's headquarters building a few years ago), the paper should be exacting in its coverage. Yet today, nearly eight years after the Atlantic Yards project was announced, they were still erroneously locating it in Downtown Brooklyn. More like the Paper of Wreckord.
Posted by eric at 11:43 PM
November 2, 2011
Some people are still interested in Atlantic Yards and the failure to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor
Atlantic Yards Report
From the latest City Limits newsletter: the most read/shared article in the last week or so was my essay on The Unfulfilled Promises of Atlantic Yards, focusing on the failure to hire the promised Independent Compliance Monitor for the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement.
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Posted by eric at 6:39 PM
Compressing the story, and getting it wrong: the Real Deal on Ratner's Atlantic Yards comeback (and was FCR spokesman accurate in saying first building will start this year?)
Atlantic Yards Report
From an 11/1/11 article in the Real Deal headlined Climbing back to the top: A look at some of real estate's most impressive comebacks:
Indeed, just when Atlantic Yards -- the 22-acre combination housing development/basketball stadium -- seemed dead, developer Bruce Ratner got the project back on track, partly by dropping starchitect Frank Gehry's pricey design for a more prosaic one from SHoP Architects. Ratner, who runs Forest City Ratner Enterprises, also eliminated much of the previously planned housing from the site, won some key lawsuits and even paid his chief antagonist, Daniel Goldstein, founder of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, $3 million to relocate.
Much of the opposition was directed at plans to use eminent domain to remove homes and businesses that stood in the way of the project.
Critics might not be mollified by the changes at the project, which broke ground last year. To wit: The arena, promised as a model of urban integration, will be flanked by several parking lots, and might not look that much different from any suburban basketball arena. Still, it will have at least three apartment buildings, according to Forest City spokesman Joe DePlasco. He said construction on one of those building will begin this year. And, he said, the arena is on track to open in time for the 2012 NBA season.
Probably the most interesting statement here is DePlasco's claim that construction on one of the buildings will begin this year, especially since Empire State Development CEO Kenneth Adams said September 26 that groundbreaking will be in the first quarter of 2012.
Compressing the story, and getting it wrong
But it's also interesting to see how the story gets compressed.
Related content...
The Real Deal, Climbing back to the top: A look at some of real estate's most impressive comebacks
It was on, then it was off, and now the new Nets basketball arena is on again -- albeit in a severely truncated form. Brooklyn residents have been buzzing about the fact that, after years of protracted legal battles, the arena is now quickly taking form at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
Posted by eric at 10:46 AM
TODAY ONLY: John Wesley Harding's THE SOUND OF HIS OWN VOICE digital album only $3.99!
Yep Roc Records
Today only, indie record label Yep Roc Records is offering a digital download of multi-talented DDDB Advisory Board member John Wesley Harding's new record, The Sound of His Own Voice, for just $3.99.
It features the single There's a Starbucks (Where the Starbuck's Used to Be), which pays homage to the Atlantic Yards fight.
Posted by eric at 10:26 AM
Pop Filter Hot Pick: Three Rivers Film Festival
POP City
by Jennifer Baron
Hey loyal Pittsburgh NLG readers: Battle for Brooklyn is coming your way!
You don't need to trek all of the way to Park City to experience some of cinema's top new documentaries, contemporary international films and restored classics. For three decades and counting, the homegrown Three Rivers Film Festival has invigorated the local cinema community with its November program of visiting filmmakers, informal and insightful discussions, live music, and a celebratory opening bash.
...On Nov. 12 at 7:30 p.m., Brooklyn-based director-editor team Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley will be in town to present their new award-winning documentary, Battle for Brooklyn, which will be followed by a panel discussion featuring local architect Rob Pfaffmann. Shot over seven years and compiled from 500 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn chronicles the very public and passionate fight waged by owners and residents facing condemnation of their property to make way for the controversial Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build skyscrapers and a new NBA basketball arena in the heart of Brooklyn. Described as a "gripping David and Goliath story," the film examines issues surrounding eminent domain, historic preservation and the use of public dollars to support private development.
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
November 1, 2011
This Weekend See "Battle for Brooklyn" In Brooklyn
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
This weekend there are three screenings of the critically-acclaimed film, Battle for Brooklyn, in Brooklyn:
Friday November 4th. 7pm
Park Slope Coop
782 Union Street [Map]
(free, and open to Coop members and non-members)
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with protagonist and DDDB co-founder Daniel Goldstein.
Don't forget the two showings at indieScreen, too.
Posted by eric at 9:41 PM
Atlantic Grave Yards
Unhappy Halloween? We snapped a photo of this ghoulish "Welcome Nets" display on Dean Street in Boerum Hill.
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Posted by eric at 5:27 PM
Battle for Brooklyn | Nov 5 and 6 at 5pm
indieScreen CineClub
Battle for Brooklyn is screening at Williamsburg's indieScreen this weekend.
Dirs. Suki Hawley & Michael Galinsky | 93min | Doc | US | 2011
2011 Brooklyn Film Festival’s Best Documentary
Cast: Daniel Goldstein, Shabnam Merchant, Patti Hagan, Letitia James, Norman Siegel, Marty Markowitz, Bruce Ratner, Michael Bloomberg, Bruce Bender
BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an intensely intimate look at the very public and passionate fight waged by owners and residents facing condemnation of their property to make way for the controversial Atlantic Yards project, a massive plan to build 16 skyscrapers and a basketball arena for the New Jersey Nets in the heart of Brooklyn. Shot over seven years and compiled from almost 500 hours of footage, BATTLE for BROOKLYN is an epic tale of how far people will go to fight for what they believe in.
Posted by eric at 12:19 PM
AY unicorns: the Independent Compliance Monitor and the Community & Government Relations Manager (maybe we'll learn about them Thursday)
Atlantic Yards Report
Are there Atlantic Yards unicorns?
The Independent Compliance Monitor required by the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement is at least 18 months late and arguably more than five years late.
The Community and Government Relations Manager promised by Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, was first sought in June.
These positions remain unfilled. Like the unicorn, they are, at least for now, mythical beings.
What's the impact? Less oversight. Cui bono?
Maybe we'll learn more Thursday about progress toward filling those positions, at the bi-monthly Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting, scheduled for 9:30 am at Borough Hall.
NoLandGrab: Huh! We thought Cui Bono was on Dancing with the Stars.
Posted by eric at 12:10 PM
Forest City and the Development of Prefab Plans
Brownstoner
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Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder has an extremely in-depth look at a lawsuit between two companies that Forest City Ratner worked with that sheds light on how the developer has been examining using modular construction at Atlantic Yards. The lawsuit, which was settled in August with confidentiality clauses, was brought by a company called Kullman Buildings Corp. against a firm called XSite Modular. XSite is comprised of several former Kullman employees. The suit alleged that Forest City “was effectively able to circumvent Kullman’s refusal to turn over the ownership rights in this system by the fact that Kullman’s key employees collaborated a plan to work directly with FCRC under the formation of a new rival company.” XSite entered into a contract with Forest City early this year and the developer paid for XSite’s defense. Kullman, which had been working with Forest City for a couple years, had also been up for the contract, which involved helping the developer develop a system for designing and manufacturing heretofore-untested super-tall modular buildings.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
October 31, 2011
The secret history of Forest City's prefab plans: partner modular firm charged with sneaky business, but settlement resolves lawsuit; case file reveals threat by FCR exec
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has a fascinating exclusive on the back story to Forest City Ratner's exploration of modular building techniques for Atlantic Yards. Biggest non-surprise: FCR dancing around shady dealings and legal action.
The first third of this article describes the outline of the story; the rest delves into further depth. The article is based on my reading of the case file in the lawsuit described below (Kullman Buildings Corp. vs. XSite Modular), as well as additional comments from architect James Garrison.
I contacted Forest City's spokesman this morning to ask for comment on behalf of the company and its partner XSite and was told, "As of now, they will not comment." I will post updates should they develop.
Developer Forest City Ratner’s ambition to build modular towers at record-setting heights, which could make Atlantic Yards profitable and launch a new prefab business, has provoked curiosity, speculation, and concern since reports of such plans surfaced in March 2011.
After all, with modular construction, Forest City might cut costs and construction time considerably. Atlantic Yards, now likely to take decades, could be completed closer to the long-promised ten-year schedule, albeit with question marks about its durability, diminished spending on jobs, and lowered tax revenues.
And, previously unreported, the modular venture has a contentious, litigious history, which for months slowed Forest City's efforts.
Today, while Forest City still faces challenges to go modular, including union negotiations and investment to start a factory, it has cleared a major hurdle.
By virtue of a legal settlement in August involving its business partner, FCR gained the expertise and financial terms it sought for assistance "in the development and implementation of a system and methodology of designing, manufacturing, and constructing modular" high-rise buildings "in a cost effective manner."
The charges in the lawsuit, aired in numerous legal papers, were settled before adjudication, thus leaving the full story ambiguous. The judge did issue two temporary restraining orders, lending some credence to the plaintiff's claims of potential harm caused by FCR's partner, whose legal defense the developer apparently funded.
The essence of the lawsuit
From Forest City's perspective, it was trying to negotiate the right transaction with the right partner, figuring out how to build 35-story-plus towers at a time when the tallest modular building rises only 25 stories. (The taller the building, the more complex the challenge, given wind and seismic stresses.)
To the Kullman Buildings Corp., which lost a potential contract and apparently has since gone out of business, Forest City benefited from its partner's alleged sneaky tactics.
As Kullman alleged in its lawsuit, FCR "was effectively able to circumvent Kullman's refusal to turn over the ownership rights in this system by the fact that Kullman's key employees collaborated a plan to work directly with FCRC under the formation of a new rival company."
Kullman not only refused to give up some rights to proprietary technology, it sought a royalty rate higher than Forest City would pay, and its CEO sought to change another key contract feature.
Forest City ceased negotiations and soon signed a contract with a new firm, XSite Modular, which agreed to a deal with different contours, including a lower price and less control of intellectual property than Kullman had sought.
XSite is staffed by former Kullman employees recruited by the recently-fired Kullman second-in-command, even as at least one was participating in communications on behalf of the firm regarding the Forest City contract.
Kullman sued XSite and six employees. The defense, denying the allegations, pointed out that employees had not signed non-compete agreements and that Kullman had failed to identify specific proprietary technology.
While the plaintiff's claims likely overreached--if Forest City had already decided to drop Kullman, could the defendants have caused the loss of that future contract?--Kullman argued that the defendants, among other things, faced a common-law duty not to act against the interests of their employer while still working there.
Forest City was not named in the suit, nor did it provoke the formation of XSite. Still, FCR played a key role, supplying testimony and, according to documents in the suit, agreeing to pay the defendants' legal fees.
Click thru for the full story.
Posted by eric at 2:17 PM
Occupying the Institutions.
Rumur
by Michael Galinsky
If you watch one piece of film this week, make sure it's the one posted below.
Last week on buzzflash I wrote about the connection between our film “Battle for Brooklyn” and OWS. Last year, as we completed Battle, we started to make a film about education in NY. We saw intense similarities between the way in which parents were shut out of the education process and the way in which communities were shut out of the development process. Our daughters’ school felt under attack by the DOE, and we heard rumors that they planned on putting a charter school in our building. We started to examine the way in which decisions were made and information flowed, and we found a thoroughly corrupted system that was gamed to shut out parent and community involvement. It was once again, a top down management style that did not take into consideration the voices of those most affected by decision makers.
The process, of housing one school inside another has a tendency to pit neighbor against neighbor, forcing them to fight over scarce resources in the guise of fostering competition. If the community is divided, those in power have a much easier time of doing what they want. We witnessed both development fights and school fights using sham public forums to create the impression of public involvement. However these public meetings were almost always overrun by division. We saw this time and time again in the Atlantic Yards fight, and it was clearly taking place in the schools fight.
...This year the people took over the PEP meeting using consensus techniques learned at Occupy Wall Street, rendering those in power essentially useless. Thankfully it was captured by meerkat media collective so that we have direct evidence that the occupy movement has moved from anger to rage to action.
From the first moments of my first visit to occupy wall street I had a sense that something momentous was taking place. This morning, when I saw this video by meerkat media that cinematically captures the people taking control in a consensus model it was clear that the movement has powerful legs to carry it.
NoLandGrab: We'd like to think that the folks at the PEP meeting learned from the mistakes of those of us who earnestly testified at the ESDC's rigged Atlantic Yards hearings, when we thought that if we just laid out all the facts about the unsolvable environmental impacts, reason would prevail. We were wrong. Don't get fooled again: sham democracy isn't democracy — it's a sham.
Posted by eric at 12:42 PM
Unhappy Halloween: Recalling Last Year’s Tricky “Treats”: The Ghastly Ghosts Lurking In PR Messages From Atlantic Yards To Zucotti Park
Noticing New York
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Halloween is upon us. So it seemed like the right occasion to recall the gruesome details of the scarifying PR packages the New York Times and CNG's Brooklyn Paper dumped on the doorsteps of Brooklyn residents one year ago for Halloween weekend.
Posted by eric at 12:01 PM
On official abdication of responsibility, and cheerleading editorials
Atlantic Yards Report
Let's take a look at an interesting column today about the impact of political and journalistic forces. I've left some identifiers blank until the bottom:
So how does [blank] do it? It starts with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
No mayor in recent history has abdicated his responsibilities in [blank] as has Bloomberg.
...Second, there is the compliant media, reflected in the cheerleading editorials of the Daily News. That was the paper with the once-proud motto, to contrast it with the Post, “The City’s Honest Voice.”
That motto is as dead as the dodo.
This is from Ray Kelly: Too Much Respect, from Leonard Levitt's NYPD Confidential blog, and the blanks reference police commissioner Kelly and police department oversight.
Bloomberg is only partly responsible for Atlantic Yards--the state has more responsibility--but, in both cases, they've mostly let developer Forest City Ratner take the lead, complying, for example, with Forest City's 2009 request to renegotiate its deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
And the Daily News has had the most cheerleading editorials about Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
Annenberg Center extends outreach to West Philly
The Daily Pennsylvanian
by Shelli Gimelstein
A heads-up to all our loyal readers in New York's sixth borough — In the Footprint is coming to Philadelphia.
Since 1971, the Annenberg Center has hosted a variety of acts ranging from American Indian tribal dancers to the Mask & Wig Club. Now, it is using its cultural resources to expand its role in the West Philadelphia community.
...In addition to its elementary- and middle-school outreach efforts, from Jan. 18. to Jan. 29 the Annenberg Center will be presenting the play In the Footprint – The Battle Over Atlantic Yards in order to attract more adult audiences. Epstein believes the play, about a controversial development project in Brooklyn, will have “strong resonance in Philadelphia due to [ongoing construction] projects around Penn’s campus.”
Annenberg hopes to use the play to “spark community engagement and conversation due to the nature of this performance,” spokeswoman Sarah Fergus wrote in an email.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
October 30, 2011
Neighbor: Edgemont Resident MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Vice President of Commercial and Residential Development at Forest City Ratner Companies
Westchester Magazine
By Deborah Skolnik
Eminent domain abuse, bypassing local representation, broken promises -- it's all okay because FCR VP MaryAnne Gilmartin, who was put in charge of the Atlantic Yards project after the sudden departure of predecessor Jim Stuckey, "...looks lovely. With shiny, coiffed brunette hair, a metallic dress, and twinkling blue eyes,.."
By 2007, Gilmartin was Ratner’s No. 3 in the company, and his No. 1 choice to take over stewardship of its massive Atlantic Yards development project, a $4 billion complex consisting of residential and commercial buildings, as well as an arena, all situated over an active rail yard. “It’s a run-down and decrepit area where the LIRR used to park and service trains,” Gilmartin says. “It’s been a labor of love for more than seven years. Of the six thousand housing units, more than two thousand will be affordable housing. It’s bringing in construction jobs and jobs for locals. And by relocating the Nets here, we’ll be bringing pro sports back to the borough that’s never recovered from the loss of the Dodgers.”
Then why all the fuss? Atlantic Yards has been the subject of several lawsuits and numerous protests. A journalist, Norman Oder, maintains a blog, atlanticyardsreport.com, that chronicles Forest City Ratner’s every move on the project. Another blog run by the anti-Yards group Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (dddb.net) is highly critical. There’s even a movie, Battle for Brooklyn, about locals taking a stand. “The issue for many of these people is the way that some of the land was assembled through eminent domain,” Gilmartin says. “Some other people think it will make the area’s population too dense. And others don’t want a stadium in their backyard. I won’t speak in detail for the opposition.”
The opposition can speak for itself. “Forest City’s successes are inextricably related to the acquisition of public subsidies,” Norman Oder says. “Their successes are also related to major spending on lobbying, and substantial political and charitable contributions, as well as hardball tactics.” Oder also points out how initial grand promises for the Yard have been scaled back (architect Frank Gehry is no longer involved) and how many of the promised union construction jobs didn’t pan out. He cries foul on slick money-saving moves he feels Ratner made, such as convincing authorities to condemn certain land parcels in stages rather than at once. The year the New York Times building was completed, Crain’s crowned Gilmartin one of the 100 Most Powerful Women in New York.
Gilmartin doesn’t escape personal criticism either. “Look, I’ll be honest. I don’t like her,” says Daniel Goldstein, the last person to cede his apartment to the Yards project (for a reported $3 million) and the founder of DDDB. When Gilmartin first approached him to discuss a buyout, he says, she requested confidentiality, then breached it. “A friend’s child goes to the same school as her kids, and told his mom Gilmartin came to talk to the class about the Yards and gave them Nets swag,” he says. “Apparently she told them that they were building houses for poor people and bringing in a basketball team, but that a mean man named Daniel Goldstein wouldn’t leave. I wasn’t there, obviously. Who knows, maybe she said I was standing up for my beliefs. But to discuss me at all with a bunch of third graders? That’s warped.” He also feels Gilmartin portrayed his settlement to the media as “having been all about money, when the big holdup was, they wanted me to accept a gag order and I kept refusing.”
Oder is no Gilmartin fan either. “She commutes by chauffeured car to Brooklyn and strikes me as comfortable among real estate peers, but chilly at the few—and heavily managed—opportunities she has to interact with Brooklynites with qualms about Atlantic Yards,” he says.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, In Westchester magazine, a heroic profile of FCR's Gilmartin, with some acknowledgment of controversy
Reporters aiming to profile Forest City Ratner executives have a couple of options: there's the route of total sycophancy, as with the Real Deal's portrait of CEO Bruce Ratner, or the path of complication, as with a piece in the Forward on Ratner.
Given that Westchester Magazine is one of those glossy publications with a booster-ish edge, it's unsurprising that the publication's profile of FCR executive MaryAnne Gilmartin emphasizes triumph: Neighbor: Edgemont Resident MaryAnne Gilmartin, Executive Vice President of Commercial and Residential Development at Forest City Ratner Companies: She’s overseen some of the area’s largest real-estate projects. But before MaryAnne Gilmartin could become a force among New York’s developers, she had to build up something else from nearly nothing: herself.
The summary:
If the woman in front of [FCR's] 8 Spruce Street is a household name, the woman behind it is less so, though remarkable in her own right: MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of commercial and residential development at Forest City Ratner Companies. Indeed, the Spruce tower is far from the only mark this innovative and tenacious builder has left on the skyline. The Edgemont mom of three made her first splash by winning the contract to build the New York Times building, an intricately designed tower that brought new life to Eighth Avenue. In Brooklyn, she’s helping to shape Atlantic Yards, a complex of residential and commercial buildings that will also be the new home of the New Jersey Nets. Right here in Yonkers, her handiwork can be seen at Ridge Hill, a cluster of stores, offices, and residences beckoning like Mecca off the Sprain Brook. “They’re more than just buildings to me,” Gilmartin says of her projects. “They sort of become like my children.”
Some controversy
However, the article acknowledges some controversy:
Problem children, some. Atlantic Yards has been a focal point of bitter controversy going on a decade, with certain locals protesting everything from the destruction of neighborhood character to use of eminent domain. Ridge Hill, too, inspired opposition and incited scandal. Smack in the middle of the Sturm und Drang, helping her company’s visions go from point A (abstraction) to point B (built!) is Gilmartin, poised and proud. “We tend to take things on only when they’re complicated,” she declares.
And if you think her present life sounds complicated, wait till you hear about her past.
In other words, the article stresses how Gilmartin, who "looks lovely" during a meeting at a "posh Yonkers restaurant," survived a painful family life by working hard, getting a scholarship (and working her way through school), and graduating Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude. (Yet, she still doesn't understand Atlantic Yards affordable housing.)
Posted by steve at 11:49 PM
October 28, 2011
Jay Z Challenged on Claim That New Stadium Employs “Thousands and Thousands”
The Brooklyn Ink
Rapper Jay Z, a minority stakeholder in the Brooklyn Nets, gave questionable employment numbers for the new stadium in an interview with Rosanna Scotto of Channel 5′s “Good Day New York.”
Salon [aka Norman Oder] explains...
Posted by eric at 1:41 PM
October 27, 2011
Longing For Correcting Images to Jay-Z’s Hip-Hop Hype and Ratner’s Atlantic Yards “Strategy of Distraction”
Noticing New York
Is Jay-Z in the dark about the realities of Atlantic Yards, or is he in the know and a bit discomfited by it all? Michael D.D. White offers a third option.
Noticing New York can propose a third theory, one that could be considered a hybrid of the other two and one that can go a long way to explain Jay-Z’s sour puss. Noticing New York sallied forth with this theory once before.
The theory?: Jay-Z signed on to an agreement to promote Atlantic Yards once upon a time when he didn’t understand the facts of the megadevelopment but forgot at that time to include in the agreement he signed what is known in the entertainment industry as a “reverse morality” or “reverse morals” clause, a clause that had it been included in his contract, could by its design have given Jay-Z ample opportunity to walk out on the project given the shameful conduct of his partners to date.
NoLandGrab: Allow us to propose a fourth theory. Given that Jay put money before morality in his pre-stardom drug-dealing days, to borrow a line from fellow hip hop star Eminem, maybe he "just don't give a f**k."
Photo: Tracy Collins
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, From Noticing New York: another take on Jay-Z, and some corrective images
Michael D. D. White, in a Noticing New York post headlined Longing For Correcting Images to Jay-Z’s Hip-Hop Hype and Ratner’s Atlantic Yards “Strategy of Distraction”, suggests ways to amend the promotional images of Jay-Z and his Atlantic Yards partners, as in the example below.
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Posted by eric at 12:02 PM
Blogger calls out Jay-Z for overstating benefits of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project
NY Daily News Sports ITeam Blog
by Michael O'Keeffe
Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder, writing for Salon this week, points out that politicians and developers aren't the only ones who have made inflated claims about Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn basketball arena. Oder calls out Jay-Z, the hip-hop artist who owns a tiny slice of the Nets, for overstating the benefits of Ratner's massive real estate project.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Jay-Z Doesn't Deserve a Free Pass for Broken Promises of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder, fresh off a column in City Limits, move on to Salon.com to take a long look at why hip-hop icon and less-than-one-percent-but-always-out-in-front-owner of the New Jersey Nets Jay-Z should not get a free pass when it comes to the broken promises of Atlantic Yards by his partners Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov.
Posted by eric at 11:41 AM
#AtlanticYards and #OccupyWallStreet
Atlantic Yards Report
Is Atlantic Yards like Occupy Wall Street?
On the October 23 edition of the Hot 97 roundtable dialogue Street Soldiers, concerning Occupy Wall Street, guest Autumn Marie made the point, at about 11:10:
"That same corporate interest is what's controlling the prison-industrial complex... That same corporate interest is what is bringing the Nets stadium, right, to Brooklyn. The same thing is causing eminent domain around the city."
Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker Michael Galinsky writes, in The OWS Battle to End Crony Capitalism Was Presaged in the Battle for Brooklyn:
Our film lays bare all of the elements that have enraged the masses. An extreme version of corptocracy-a willing government taken over by corporate interests against the interests of the people-in which a developer plans a project, calls all the shots, and gets the government to steamroll the public process and provide unbelievable levels of subsidies. The media follows the corporate script, reporting on the story when the developer issues press releases, and dutifully repeating ridiculous assertions about revenues, housing, and jobs without doing any due diligence whatsoever. As a citizen, it was infuriating and mind numbing. As a filmmaker, it was painful.
Note that the intro states inaccurately that the rest of the site is "currently basically a big parking lot."
Posted by eric at 11:29 AM
October 26, 2011
Is Jay-Z just insulated from the Atlantic Yards reality? Or does he understand the hustle, but sometimes feels uncomfortable?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder peruses photos of Jay-Z and company for clues about the "cultural icon's" pysche.
In response to my article on Jay-Z yesterday, one reader suggested that maybe the "cultural icon" just doesn't know the facts behind Atlantic Yards. After all, he tends to arrive and leave via Maybach, and is coddled and cheered along the way.
Maybe. But maybe he does understand the Atlantic Yards hustle, And while he certainly knows how to enthuse about the team and arena, maybe he's a bit uncomfortable with some of his partners.
...Doesn't Jay-Z look a little.... out of sorts when forced to hang out with Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz?
NoLandGrab: Or maybe Oder is just giving Jay-Z too much credit. Our take? Of course he doesn't want to hang with a bunch of doofus sleazeballs, but to Jay, it's a business, man.
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
The OWS Battle to End Crony Capitalism Was Presaged in the Battle for Brooklyn
BuzzFlash.com
by Michael Galinsky
The Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker pens a compelling essay about how the film and Occupy Wall Street are cut from the same cloth.
Six months after the project was announced, faced with the threat of eminent domain and a multi-year battle to save their homes, almost all of the condo-owners in the footprint accepted a buyout from the developer. It was later learned the buyouts had actually been paid for with public money. This left Daniel Goldstein as the only person living in his 31-unit building. The media portrayed him as a NIMBY who was standing in the way of necessary and publicly beneficial "progress." Thousands of his neighbors stood with him, and appreciated what he had done, but outside the circle of people who really knew what was going on, there was an effort to characterize him as a villain.
The larger community surrounding the project's footprint was somewhat divided about the development plan, but there was a strong base of opposition. To counter this movement, the developer went right to the corporate playbook and started to buy off community groups and purchase help from others to support the project. When the press treats reporting like theater, reality gets lost in the shuffle. In the papers and on TV, the community group actively fighting the project and supported by thousands of donations from local residents, gets the he said/ she said treatment in relation to the developer. Nearly every news story gets launched by a corporate press release,