September 27, 2012
At Barclays Center plaza, sponsored by the Daily News, a Daily News banner
Atlantic Yards Report
A reward for their unflagging, unquestioning, unholy and unhinged support for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
 |
Photo: AYInfoNYC
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Two Dailies Partnered Now With Forest City Ratner. Rupert, Whatcha Waiting For?
So the New York Times Company partnered with Forest City Ratner, using eminent domain, to build the paper's new headquarters. And now the plaza in front of the arena is proudly sponsored by the Daily News.
Does this mean Murdoch will now be friends with the enemy of his enemies? If so, see you at the AYCrimeScene events tonight.
Posted by eric at 6:19 PM
Daily News goes rogue: critics "filed 200 eminent domain lawsuits"
Atlantic Yards Report
From a not completely cogent Daily News article posted last night and headlined Barclays Center set to dazzle at Brooklyn’s new Crossroads of the World: As top acts line up to schedule a gig at the gleaming new arena, critics continue to curse its arrival:
Critics — who filed 200 eminent domain lawsuits protesting what they called a “sham” environmental review process — say the 2,250 affordable housing units promised, along with rail renovations and open space, still have not been provided.
Um, there were two eminent domain lawsuits, plus another challenging the act of condemnation.
And those suits challenged the taking of private property, not the environmental review.
NoLandGrab: Perhaps the naming rights to the "Daily News Plaza" have addled their brains (even more than usual).
Related content...
NY Daily News, Barclays Center set to dazzle at Brooklyn’s new Crossroads of the World
Here's the buried lead...
So far, only 200 of the 2,000 new jobs produced by the arena are full-time, Forest City Ratner officials conceded.
Posted by eric at 9:34 AM
September 26, 2012
NY Times Attacks Courageous Brooklyn Anti-Development Activist
BeyondChron
by Randy Shaw
Does it really take indy media from the other coast to figure this out?
Daniel Goldstein spent years battling the Atlantic Yard Development project in Brooklyn, which saw Forest City Ratner---the development partner with the New York Times Company for its headquarters-- skirt the democratic process and every jobs and affordable housing commitment it made to the community. The rigged approval process for the mammoth project was upheld by New York’s highest court, and the Barclay Center soon opens---without any accompanying affordable housing units. The Times has apparently not forgiven Goldstein for opposing Ratner, for it ran a huge September 25 story on a neighbor’s opposition to Goldstein’s adding an extension on his single family home. Unlike Atlantic Yards, which required massive rezoning and a gift of public land to the developer, Goldstein’s project complies with existing zoning---but that did not stop the Times from analogizing opposition to his extension with Goldstein’s protests against Atlantic Yards.
...Goldstein lost his activist struggle and related lawsuit, and because his home was taken by eminent domain, he was compensated to move. He relocated to Brooklyn’s South Park Slope neighborhood, likely seeking to live in peace after devoting his life to defeat a project that symbolizes---as much as any Robert Moses outrage---how New York City development interests avoid democratic control and ignore community concerns.
But after the NY Times learned that Goldstein is building an extension on his house, the paper concluded that the critic of Atlantic Yards has set off “a real estate battle of his own.” Does this new battle involve thousands marching in the streets in protest, as occurred with Atlantic Yards? Is Goldstein following Ratner’s lead and seeking massive zoning variances and public subsidies for his “development”?
The obvious answer to both question is no.
...Sounds like a classic case of next- door- neighbor nimbyism. Yet the Times attempted to compare this neighbor’s opposition to the thousands of community residents who joined with Goldstein in a multi-year struggle to stop the decimation of a residential community. The Times was so committed to falsely and maliciously portraying Goldstein as a hypocrite toward development that it highlighted its story on the front page of the national edition.
I’m sure Bruce Ratner and his buddies at the NY Times Corp. are having a good laugh over the story, but neither can ignore the fundamental truth: None of Forest City Ratner’s promises about jobs and affordable housing at Atlantic Yards have been implemented, and attacking Goldstein only remind readers of this record.
NoLandGrab: In fact, the opposition to the Atlantic Yards project has only landed on the front page of The Times twice — when Goldstein reached his settlement for compensation for his home after it was seized, and now this nonsense. And people wonder if the paper has an objectivity problem? Cancel our subscription.
Posted by eric at 12:48 PM
An open letter to the New York Times Public Editor: when it comes to Atlantic Yards, the editor heading the Corrections desk denies reality
Atlantic Yards Report
Dear Ms. Sullivan,
On Saturday, Sept. 22, I attempted to get the New York Times to correct three clear, easily checkable errors in the upcoming Sept. 23 cover story in the Metropolitan section by Liz Robbins about the new Brooklyn arena, headlined In Brooklyn, Bracing for Hurricane Barclays.
I wrote to, among other people, Senior Editor in charge of Corrections Greg Brock, last month lauded by your predecessor as leading a "powerful engine of accountability."
My experience with Mr. Brock, unfortunately, has gone in the exact opposite direction: a tendency to downplay, disavow, and evade errors, coupled with a reflexive nastiness that is unworthy of that position.
The upshot: the uncorrected errors led to a less skeptical view of the controversial Atlantic Yards project than the facts would suggest.
Please take a look at this verbatim correspondence, augmented only by graphics and slight punctuation changes.
NoLandGrab: Seriously. The Times's reticence at correcting Atlantic Yards-related errors is warped, and embarrassing.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, The Times' Corrections Desk, Headed by Greg Brock, Denies Reality When It Comes to Atlantic Yards
The New York Times Company, which partnered with Forest City Ratner to use eminent domain to build its new headquarters, has a problem. They are, overall, soft on their former development partner, editorially in favor of their development partner, and they have a "corrections editor" who refuses to correct clear errors of fact—errors which consistently shine a better light on the developer than the facts would and that impugn project opponents.
Posted by eric at 11:18 AM
September 24, 2012
Ratner and Prokhorov's Arena is Built for a Bank, Not Brooklyn
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Some of the press gets it. Barclays Center was built for a bank, a scandal ridden one at that, and one which Mark Jacobson describes thusly in his excellent NY Mag cover story, "The Nets are owned by a Russian oligarch and will play in an arena named for a bank (which reportedly paid $200 million for the naming rights) whose senior officials in France voluntarily handed over names of its Jewish employees to the Nazis, a hedge just in case the Germans won the war. Oh, yeah, let's go bang a thunderstick for them."
NoLandGrab: Yay, team?
Posted by eric at 8:02 PM
Stephen Witt lets us in on some spoilers from his new novel
MEET THE MAN RESPONSIBLE FOR BRINGING THE NETS TO BROOKLYN
Brooklyn Daily
by Will Bredderman
Here's a new take on the Atlantic Yards creation myth, courtesy of the man who never let reality get in the way of his "reporting" on Atlantic Yards.
Former Courier Life reporter and longtime busker Stephen Witt says he is responsible for bringing the Nets to Brooklyn, but that doesn’t mean his second novel, “The Street Singer,” the tale of a subway performer who gets an arena built in his home town, is the story of his life . How do we know? Because reporter Will Bredderman had a chat with him about his new tome. Here’s how it went down:
Will Bredderman: So how did you get the Nets to come to Brooklyn?
Stephen Witt: I covered Borough President Markowitz’s first state of the borough address, and he talked about getting a basketball team to move to Brooklyn. So I took it upon myself to call the NBA to see if the Knicks had an exclusive on Brooklyn. I asked if there could be a new team in Brooklyn and the NBA said no, there could only be a move. But at that time, the Nets were in the finals, and they weren’t filling their stadium, so I called the Nets owner, Lewis Katz, and I asked if he’d be willing to move the team. He said he wasn’t against it, so I called Marty and I said, “Call this guy, I think he’ll move the team.” And I gave Marty the guy’s number. Marty gave me a call in February of 2003 and told me “I really think I hooked a big fish.” I wrote an article for the Village Voice about it, and that’s how it all got started. A couple months later they made the big announcement.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder might have to start referring to him as the "delirious Stephen Witt."
Posted by eric at 1:19 PM
Brooklyn Paper/Courier-Life publish special section: "Brooklyn welcomes its new arena"
Atlantic Yards Report
Both the Brooklyn Paper and its sibling Courier Life/Brooklyn Daily, both owned by Rupert Murdoch's Community Newspaper Group, offer a 24-page special section saluting the Barclays Center.
(I believe it's also in Murdoch's New York Post.)
Yes, there's a big ad from the arena, as well as from local businesses. Yes, there's a big ad from the arena in the regular issue of the weeklies, as well.
So it's not surprising that the content is celebratory.
...Flashback
Could you believe that the Brooklyn Paper published a 1/24/04 editorial by its founder, Ed Weintrob, headlined The real story is the land grab, not the Nets:
That the Nets are coming is beside the point. And that is the real story, a story masterfully buried by developer Bruce Ratner and his media shills. (When the New York Times is your real estate partner, it’s amazing the story its pages will tell — more than three pages featuring nine upbeat, luciously illustrated stories in Thursday’s edition.) The real story is that the Atlantic Yards project — and its companion Downtown Brooklyn Plan — is not about the Nets (whose stadium would occupy a tiny part of the massive site), it’s about a land grab by Ratner and his political clients, the largest, most expensive government seizure of private property for private benefit ever in Brooklyn.
The Brooklyn Paper was sold in 2009.
Related coverage...
Noticing New York, Isn’t That Cute?: Cover of Brooklyn Paper Special Section Fawning Over Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Arena Feints At Mention of LIBOR Scandal
The cover of a “special 24-page section” the Rupert Murdoch-owned Brooklyn Paper issued today to fawn appreciatively over the Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” basketball arena feints at mention of, and almost seems to refer to, the LIBOR interest rate-fixing scandal for which the Barclays Bank name is a virtual synonym.- And then it actually doesn’t- Just the reverse in fact.
The plastered headline “Banking on Barclays” punningly/cunningly (?) evokes the presumed reliability of the banking practices behind the “Barclays” name. It does that notwithstanding that most people who actually read real news should think of LIBOR instead.
But, in truth, the Brooklyn Paper is probably not thinking in this vein: The Brooklyn Paper has never devoted one jot of ink, or even a few electrons of its web edition articles, to spelling out the acronym LIBOR and that includes the nine new feature articles inside the “special section” all of which mention “Barclays” repeatedly. . .
. . . One of them is appallingly titled: “The People’s Arena!”
Atlantic Yards Report, The "Barclays countdown" in this week's issues of Metro
Let's take a look at this week's installments of the "Barclays countdown" in the free weekly Metro. Is it just a coincidence that editorial content is coupled with copious Barclays Center advertising?
Posted by eric at 1:06 PM
September 17, 2012
Brooklyn/L magazines: "50 Things You Should Know about the Brooklyn Nets" (and the magic of ad support)
Atlantic Yards Report
The Fall 2012 issue of Brooklyn Magazine contains three pages of "50 Things You Should Know about the Brooklyn Nets," including tidbits conveyed in Nets advertising (Brook Lopez is "Batman's Biggest Fan") and that Brooklyn businesses Nathan's and Junior's will sell food at the Barclays Center arena.
One online commenter adds, "51. Barclays Center, is the web re-launch sponsor of Brooklyn magazine, hence the puff piece."
Also note the advertisement (right) on the facing page of the article, as it appears in print.
The list also appears in The L Magazine.
Related content...
Brooklyn Magazine, 50 Things You Should Know about the Brooklyn Nets
Here are some of the choice tidbits:
NO. 9 Not all Brooklyn Nets marry Kardashians. Forward Shelden Williams (#33) is married to WNBA star (and Olympian!) Candace Parker, who was also the first woman ever to win a slam dunk contest.
NO. 10 Williams was also a member of the National Honors Society. [UPDATE: Shelden Williams signed a professional contract in France, on August 28th, after the print issue in which this story first appeared went to press]
Doh!
Posted by eric at 8:44 PM
NY Times Runs 3rd Article Mentioning That, Given Scandal, Promotionally Naming Subway Stations & Arena “Barclays” Is Problematic
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White follows up on today's City Room article about the MTA selling ad space — and naming rights.
Today the New York Times ran its third article including a mention of an obvious elephant in the media stream world: That promotionally christening of MTA subway stations and the heavily susbisidized Forest City Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov “Barclays,” the name of the British Bank whose name is virtually synonymous with the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal of which that bank is a big part, could be awkward. See: New Territory for Ads, With a Moving Target, by David W. Dunlap, September 16, 2012.
...Barclays may, indeed, go out of business but professor Vaidhyanathan’s other “what if” is just a tad off: Barclays has already entered into a £290m ($450m) fine agreement with the United States and Great Britain for manipulating LIBOR rates. Its manipulation is already acknowledged by that agreement and the payment of the fine, but one purpose of the bank’s payment of that fine was to preclude criminal prosecution and conviction of the bank. Nevertheless, Barclays traders and possibly Barclays executives are likely to be criminally prosecuted, possibly convicted, separately.
Notwithstanding that this is the third Times article with a conceding mentioning that the publicly-financed parading of the “Barclays” name is obviously awkward, the sober observance of that fact in three articles is far outweighed by the many more celebratory articles the Times is running about the opening of the new “Barclays” center including the one featured on the front page of its special-edition Sunday Styles Magazine proclaiming Jay-Z in its front-cover caption to be “civic-minded” for promoting the arena, scandalous history and scandalous name “Barclays” name notwithstanding.
The Times has launched into its promotions without mention of its business relationship with the arena’s developer. Furthermore, the Times’ relentless promotion of the developer/subsidy collector’s Atlantic Yards from its unveiling forward probably tipped the balance for the materialization of a boondoggle that is costly to the public in so many ways. Such being the “Times Effect” on this issue, the clever casualness of the article’s conclusion equating of the naming of the subway transit hubs after “Barclays” with the naming of “Times Square” could be considered somewhat chilling- because there is less coincidence than implied:
Alternately, however, what if the bank and the new name show some staying power? After all, “Times Square” seems to have caught on.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, In Times article on MTA advertising, a willingness to downplay the Barclays taint
The close of a New York Times article today, published online as New Territory for Ads, With a Moving Target:
Professor [Siva] Vaidhyanathan, for one, would like to see some more restraint. He bristled at the Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center name. “What happens if Barclays is convicted of massive fraud in the Libor scandal?” he asked. “What happens if Barclays goes out of business?” Alternately, however, what if the bank and the new name show some staying power? After all, “Times Square” seems to have caught on.
That's a little pat, isn't it? First of all, the naming rights agreement is only for 20 years. Second, Vaidhyanathan, despite his criticism, was a little generous: Barclays doesn't need to be convicted to be tainted. It's already paid some $450 million in fines.
Posted by eric at 8:22 PM
September 16, 2012
In Sohn's Motherland, a film called Atlantic Yards (which differs from the film in PPW)
Atlantic Yards Report
Amy Sohn's dishy, satirical Motherland, a high-end soap opera set mostly in Park Slope and drenched in local detail (reviews here and here) and dark views of parenthood and marriage, has recurring references to a film called Atlantic Yards.
The film seems to have morphed from its description in the prequel, Prospect Park West, as "a thriller about gentrification and terrorism" with "a terror cell run out of a muffin shop, and a corrupt borough president funneling money to the terrorists, and then there's this weathered Seventy-eighth Precinct cop who catches on to the scheme and winds up saving the day."
Rest assured, it's not based on the actual story of Brooklyn's most controversial development project--after all, Brooklyn's current Borough President has his ethical challenges, but he's no cokehead. But the new description is kind of ominous nonetheless: The gentrification blues
...
Sohn's good at referencing the class and style signifiers of gentrification, as well as registering generational frustration. One veteran Park Sloper thinks:
It was a strange feeling to live in a neighborhood you could no longer afford. You were the reason values had gone up, and yet you were invisible.
In another passage, a woman who runs a chi-chi store on gentrifying Fourth Avenue reflects on her mixed feelings:
Hipsters now did beer runs on bicycles to the bars up and down the avenue. The Nets arena was going through; they had already broken ground and you could see it rising as you passed. Poor people would soon be booted out to make way for high-end retail shops. Rebecca had been part of the transformation, but it was taking off on its own. You walked down the same street a thousand times, and then one day, everything was different.
Just for the record, such trends, however representative of broader societal shifts, are also driven by policy: the state's override of city zoning to permit the arena, and the city's re-zoning of Fourth Avenue.
Posted by steve at 5:17 PM
Brooklyn Rail's Hamm: an eyesore arena named for a crooked bank, but "I’m trying to figure out how to come to terms with it" (and the logos are "pretty cool")
Atlantic Yards Report
From Ted Hamm's CityNotes column in The Brooklyn Rail's September 2012 issue, This Is It?:
It was a hot afternoon in July when I first felt the sting. As I approached my destination on the D train, the conductor announced the stop’s new name, “Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center.” And sure enough, when I got off, the new signs on the platform were there to greet me. With little fanfare, a crooked bank had made its imprint on the most central subway stop in Brooklyn. Ouch.
The sensory impact of Barclays is just a bit larger above ground, of course. The choice of baby blue for the enormous sign on the new arena merely adds injury to the insulting use of rusty beams. In an unintentionally satirical piece in the Times, Elizabeth Harris managed to find a few admirers of the prematurely decayed aesthetic. Meanwhile, over the summer I asked at least a couple dozen folks to share their views regarding the new arena’s exterior. Rest assured that they unanimously offered variations on the immortal words of Ignatius J. Reilly: the design is indeed “a most egregious offense against taste and decency.”
Another Ratner eyesore has thus grown in Brooklyn. We don’t need Nostradamus to tell us that traffic and parking will be a nightmare, or that if everyone miraculously does take public transportation, the Atlantic Terminal and adjoining subway station will be complete chaos for the many thousands of people just going about their business. Coney Island was once seen as the preferred site for the arena by Marty Markowitz and many planners, and to this day Coney needs a year-round draw. If the Barclays Center turns downtown into a perpetual cluster-you-know-what, many folks will be longing for the road not taken.
Still and yet, I am conflicted. The arena ain’t going nowhere in the near future. My tax dollars and yours went into building it, so I’m trying to figure out how to come to terms with it. And though I’m not a Nets fan, I must admit that I find the black-and-white team logos and gear to be pretty cool. At the risk of sounding too bipartisan, I can thus understand why many folks are excited, and others dismayed, about the arena. I’m just hoping that everyone gets out of my way when I’m trying to get home.Sure, I understand why many folks are excited, too. And I suspect that those using the arena will like it--well, at least when they get the kinks worked out.
At the same time, I also suspect that a good number of neighbors previously un-roused by the project will, by necessity, become more civically active.
Posted by steve at 5:07 PM
September 9, 2012
Jay-Z: "Civic-Minded Hip-Hop Mogul" or "The House that Hova Hyped"?
Atlantic Yards Report
I already critiqued the fawning interview/essay about Jay-Z in the New York Times's Sunday T Magazine ad-jammed supplement, but the cover line deserves notice too: "The Civic-Minded Hip-Hop Mogul Holds Court With Zadie Smith."
Civic-Minded? That sounds like a termed dreamed up by, or in syncrhonicity with, developer Bruce Ratner's p.r. advisors, who have him regularly self-reporting as a "civic developer," a gauzy term that implies a social mission rather than a calculation that something beyond the minimum--better architecture, subsidized housing, jobs (?!)--is necessary to get a project passed.
So, while the article, headlined "The House That Hova Built," says little about the Barclays Center, it is indeed, as I put it, "The House That Hova Hyped." Jay-Z is portrayed, at the arena, wearing expensive clothes--this is a fashion magazine supplement--and being cited for "civic" goals like making sure "Brooklyn" was part of the name of the Nets when they moved from New Jersey. (Civic? That's marketing.)
Some cautions
Not everybody was buying it. Shane Danaher wrote in Music is My Oxygen:
Yesterday’s New York Times profile of Jay-Z (courtesy of unimpeachable novelist/memoirist Zadie Smith) took a precariously laudatory tone toward its subject, a tack that helped both to highlight the Jiggaman’s extant qualities (of which there are many) as well as the contradictions that make those qualities such a tough pill to swallow.
The article’s cause célèbre—the opening of the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, which will house the partly-Hova-owned New York Nets—exemplifies this apparent contradiction.
Housed in Jay-Z’s neighborhood of origin, the center will drive economic resurgence in a region long considered low on the social rungs. However, it’s hard to say whether Jay’s involvement is better described as charity or mercantilism, since he undoubtedly stands to add to his $460 million personal fortune as an upshot of the deal....While [Smith's] optimistic view of the [latest Jay-Z/Kanye West] LP [Watch the Throne] casts it as a manifesto for community empowerment, other critics have looked with scorn on the album’s baroque materialism, especially coming as it did in the midst of the vituperative, if somewhat soft-headed, Occupy Wall Street movement.
The truth is that Smith, however talented and interesting, is not unimpeachable. neither is Jay-Z. (Oh, and the center will not "drive economic resurgence" in Jay-Z's "neighborhood of origin.")
Posted by steve at 10:33 PM
Battle for Brooklyn documentary going national, local in next six weeks
Atlantic Yards Report
As the Barclays Center opening approaches, an alternative narrative is available in the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which will screen in New York, in cities nationally, and on national TV. (Press and reviews here.)
New York City Dates:
Wednesday, September 19 — Brooklyn
Park Slope’s Old First Brooklyn Church - presented by the Fifth Ave Committee
Tuesday, Sept 25, 9pm — Brooklyn
Indiescreen, Brooklyn
Tuesday, Sept 25 — Staten Island
ETG cafe on Staten Island Wednesday, Sept 26 — Brooklyn
Brooklyn Ethical Culture Society as part of Brooklyn Reconstructed
Thursday, Sept 27 — Manhattan
Maysles Cinema in Harlem
Bronx and Queens screenings TBANationwide Dates:
Chicago, September 24, 7pm at Facets
Fort Lauderdale, September 24, 7pm at Cinema Paradiso
Washington, D.C., September 25 at West End Cinema
Seattle, September 25 at the Northwest Film Forum
Bellingham, WA, October 1 at Pickford Film Center
Dallas, October 1 at Studio Movie GrilleNationwide screenings of the film will include a recently filmed Q & A with the filmmakers and the film’s protagonist and a discussion after the film with the audience.
On national TV
A press release:
DIRECTV's Audience Network, known for its daring entertainment programming, will take viewers a step further into the realm of the deeply provocative with the premiere of Something to Talk About, a series of socially and culturally relevant documentaries presented in association with Brainstorm Media, beginning in October exclusively on DIRECTV. In certain cities, the films will be screened in theaters starting in late September and, in select locations, will include live discussions following the screenings.
The twelve-part series will kick-off with the broadcast premiere of BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN, on Saturday, Oct. 20 at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT
Posted by steve at 10:12 PM
September 7, 2012
A round-up of promotional Barclays Center tidbits in the Metro newspaper; is arena designed by Frank Gehry and in Fort Greene?
Atlantic Yards Report
From the ESPN the Magazine school of "journalism"...
The free daily Metro is offering a "tidbit daily" about the Barclays Center arena until opening day on Friday, Sept. 28.
While the tidbits seem as promotional as the sponsored special section that appeared Aug. 28, some of them have rookie errors that seem prepared not with the help of the arena's p.r. consultants but by an intern working from a not-quite-complete clip file.
...(Note: the arena's not designed by Frank Gehry; he did the original design. The arena's designed by Ellerbe Becket and SHoP.)
Posted by eric at 11:32 AM
September 6, 2012
NY Times Report On Public Officials Suing On `Broadening' LIBOR/Barclays Scandal Doesn’t `Broaden' To Mention “Barclays” Center
Noticing New York
In a new article (in today’s print edition) the New York Times has continued reporting about how government officials around the country are “working intensely behind the scenes to build a case for suing the nation’s largest banks” in connection with the LIBOR/Barclays rate fixing scandal. . . .
(See: Banks Face Suits as States Weigh Libor Losses, by Nathaniel Popper, September 4, 2012.)
. . . It’s the second Times article about such government lawsuits. Once again, the article doesn’t report that local New York government lawsuits against Barclays Bank would occur, ironically, just as the New York taxpayers are providing massive subsidy for the promotion of Barclays Bank with the opening of the Ratner/Prokhorov basketball arena to which the “Barclays” name is being affixed.
Click through for more, including a quiz challenging readers to guess the difference between The Times's real estate and sports sections.
Posted by eric at 12:36 PM
September 4, 2012
OMG, where will the Nets players live? Times devotes two articles, six reporters, to investigation, promotion
Atlantic Yards Report
In a Sports section front-page story (B7) headlined Nets Will Play in Brooklyn but Will Practice and Live Outside Borough, the New York Times relies on five reporters to explore the vital conundrum, as expressed in the article's closing paragraph:
Brooklyn seems ready to adopt the Nets. It may be a while before the Nets adopt Brooklyn.
Of course the "ready to adopt" is evidenced, in the main, by the team's extensive advertising campaign--and the Times's promotion, in two articles covering at least 1.6 pages today (and nearly 3 pages a few weeks back).
Because the Nets will practice in New Jersey for two years--they're looking for a site in Red Hook--the players are mainly living in New Jersey or Manhattan. Howard Beck writes:
The team is making plans to ease the commuting strain. The Nets will provide hotel rooms in Brooklyn on game days, allowing them to hold a morning shootaround at the arena’s practice court without forcing players to crisscross Manhattan multiple times before tipoff.
And guess what, Alabama native Gerald Wallace says "I’m afraid of the city... Hopefully, I can find a driver to take me back and forth.”
So much for arena slogan of "Eleven Trains. One Destination."
Related content...
The Times loves nothing more than its development partner's basketball arena, hollow Brooklyn-themed "trend" pieces, and a chance to mention the Park Slope Food Coop. And wrapping them all in one package? Better than winning a Pulitzer!
The New York Times, Nets Will Play in Brooklyn but Will Practice and Live Outside Borough
The Nets will call Brooklyn home this fall, but you won’t find them bagging organic tomatoes at the Park Slope Food Co-op, antique hunting at the Brooklyn Flea or enjoying a pleasant fall evening on the nearest brownstone stoop. For reasons both practical and personal, the Brooklyn Nets will not be living in Brooklyn, at least for their inaugural season.
The New York Times, Nets Players May Find Brooklyn a Tempting Place to Live
For now, Nets players may be Brooklyn in name only, since they will practice and live elsewhere.
But given the chance to spend a little more time in the borough, and on the blocks beyond the Barclays Center, they might reach the same conclusion that waves of ex-Manhattanites, fresh college grads and longtime locals already have — that Brooklyn is a fairly trendy, sort of chic and all in all pretty nice place to live.
Posted by eric at 11:16 AM
September 3, 2012
When the press is lied to, shouldn't it fight back? With politics, that's started, but with Atlantic Yards, stenography too often rules
Atlantic Yards Report
The press is getting better, right? See this overview by PressThink blogger and media theorist Jay Rosen of NYU, which cites, among other things, the notably bold news headline from the Times's 8/31/12 article Facts Take a Beating in Acceptance Speeches:
Representative Paul D. Ryan used his convention speech on Wednesday to fault President Obama for failing to act on a deficit-reduction plan that he himself had helped kill. He chided Democrats for seeking $716 billion in Medicare cuts that he too had sought. And he lamented the nation’s credit rating — which was downgraded after a debt-ceiling standoff that he and other House Republicans helped instigate.
And Mitt Romney, in his acceptance speech on Thursday night, asserted that President Obama’s policies had “not helped create jobs” and that Mr. Obama had gone on an “apology tour” for America. He also warned that the president’s Medicare cuts would “hurt today’s seniors,” claims that have already been labeled false or misleading.
The two speeches — peppered with statements that were incorrect or incomplete — seemed to signal the arrival of a new kind of presidential campaign, one in which concerns about fact-checking have been largely set aside.
...Yet the press not infrequently stenographically reports, without corrective comment, misleading, deceptive, or self-servingly incomplete statements about Atlantic Yards from developer Forest City Ratner.
Posted by eric at 1:34 PM
September 2, 2012
Jay-Z article from Times survives without rebuttal about gift suite, skepticism about special deals
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times buffed Jay-Z, and hardly a discouraging word was heard. I wrote a letter to the paper that somehow didn't get printed:
"With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook" (front page, Aug. 16) could have used more skepticism about the marketing of Jay-Z. For example, in June, the Nets told the New York Post that the rapper had not only designed the 11 exclusive Vault suites, he'd purchased the first one. The Times reported, without referencing the previous promotion, that Jay-Z paid nothing for his suite, worth $550,000 a year.
In a Launch Magazine interview 8/27/12, the writer of the Times article, David Halbfinger, described feedback on the article:
It was one of the top read stories of the day and the most e-mailed and most blogged about. I know the Nets are aware of the story and besides the league’s concern about the issue of uniform colors and skin color, I think by and large they were pleased with the story. There are people in Brooklyn who are critical of the project who are somewhat critical of the piece because it’s too laudatory but not everyone is going to be happy.
Maybe "not everyone is going to be happy" because some of them noticed the lack of skepticism in the article, also cited here.
Posted by steve at 3:17 PM
Metro begins daily (advertorial-ish) tidbits about Barclays Center
Atlantic Yards Report
Hot on the heels of the special section sponsored by the Barclays Center, the free daily Metro--the closest thing to the Ratner-sponsored Brooklyn Standard today--has begun a daily series of "tidbits" about the arena.
They're not marked as advertorial, but they're pretty darn close.The article yesterday was headlined "Barclays Center countdown until opening is on":
The new Barclays Center opens in 28 days! Metro will offer a tidbit — or two — about the new development every day until opening day.
Disappointment over a rejected request to serve liquor until 2 a.m. has turned into a bit of gloating at the realization that Barclays’ 1 a.m. cutoff means venue attendees can drink an hour later than their MSG counterparts. Barclays 1, MSG 0.
On top of that, word has gotten out that the Rolling Stones will be playing two shows in New York City in November.
In another triumph over MSG, the Barclays Center will be playing host to both Stones concerts.For some reason, Metro seems to be channeling the thoughts of arena executives whose "disappointment" turned to "a bit of gloating." Wouldn't a real newspaper have acknowledged community concerns as well as arena executives' failure to disclose that after-hours drinking plan?
Posted by steve at 3:14 PM
August 30, 2012
Secondhand coverage of arena liquor license gets much wrong; Times wrongly claims MSG/Yankee Stadium have similar policies, cites "opponents" while Forest City calls them "neighbors"
Atlantic Yards Report
No other reporters bothered to show up at the State Liquor Authority meeting yesterday that included the Barclays Center liquor license, nor did they apparently watch the webcast, because the coverage is devoid of any quotes from the meeting or any sense why arena operators resisted--though assented to--a final cut-off of liquor sales at 1 am.
Nor did any of the coverage acknowledge the feeling of bad faith generated by the arena operators' failure to disclose the plan for after-hours service or the continuing construction violations.
...The Times, perhaps relying on a clip file that claimed "die-hard opponents are still resisting [and trying to] block the arena from speedily receiving a liquor license," reported:
Additionally, opponents of the project have been complaining of an increase in the number of surrounding businesses seeking liquor licenses, which they fear will entice people leaving events at the arena to linger in the area and continue to imbibe.
Forest City Ratner, the developer for the 22-acre Atlantic Yards site that includes the Barclays Center, has played down those concerns. “Community boards and nearby residents are concerned that people could be rowdy or noisy,” Joe DePlasco, a spokesman for Forest City, said. “Obviously there are strict rules in place in terms of drinking.” The staff, he said, is trained not to serve alcohol to anyone who appears to have too much. “We want a policy that is courteous to our neighbors,” he added.
There you have it, folks. The official Forest City Ratner spokesman says "Community boards and nearby residents" and "neighbors," while the Times deems them "opponents."
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
August 29, 2012
In Metro, special section "in association with Barclays Center" sure looks like advertorial
Atlantic Yards Report
Who needs a fake newspaper when a (semi-)real newspaper will do the job for you?
 |
I called Metro to ask whether in fact the Barclays Center sponsored the four-page coverage. (Note that the arena will not look like that because 1) the towers haven't been built and 2) the building is way larger than that, unless you're in a hovercraft with special spectacles.)
I haven't gotten a confirmation, but on the fifth page, you see, there's this ad. (Update: the one article published online later added this explanation: This article is part of a sponsored special section Metro ran on Tuesday, Aug. 28 about the Barclays Center.)
...Wouldja believe that Metro quoted two people on the street, and both are excited about the arena because 1) they can walk to the arena and 2) "live sports bring such an infectious energy and cameraderie"?
Paul Zumoff is quoted in the article at bottom as saying the arena would "add value to the arena." Could he be the same Paul Zumoff who works as a real estate broker?
Related content...
Metro, One month until Barclays Center opens on Sept. 28
"There were a lot of challenges along the way," Brett Yormark, CEO of Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Nets, told Metro. "The economy, ongoing litigation that existed here in Brooklyn for the project, the NBA lockout and an eroding fan base in New Jersey all worked against us."
"But at the end of the day, we overcame," he said. "It was Bruce Ratner’s vision that kept us all going."
NoLandGrab: Oh, please.
Posted by eric at 1:15 PM
August 27, 2012
Would private-sector version of alleged harasser Vito Lopez get "fired in a heartbeat" (as per Daily News)? Maybe not if it's Forest City and Jim Stuckey
Atlantic Yards Report
The career of Bushwick Assemblyman and Kings County Democratic Party Chair Vito Lopez is gravely wounded, perhaps mortally so, and not by accusations of political chicanery, steering funds to the social service empire he founded, or ensuring that his girlfriend and a political ally, who run that empire, get paid very well.
Instead, it's an ethics committee finding of sexual harassment, which, though not a full legal proceeding, involves some investigation. Lopez denies the allegations.
...As it happened, a somewhat parallel situation--it's not clear precisely how much--happened at private-sector Forest City Ratner regarding Jim Stuckey, who headed Atlantic Yards, but there was no firing "in a heartbeat" but rather some resistance at first.
...Stuckey has since been sued for harassing a subordinate at NYU, and left the university; both defendants are fighting the charges, and the case is pending.
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
August 26, 2012
New York Times Public Editor says goodbye without a word about Atlantic Yards/Forest City, offers dubious praise for corrections desk
Atlantic Yards Report
If the job description of The New York Times's Public Editor includes "drive Norman Oder to distraction," then the office has been a resounding success.
New York Times Public Editor Arthur Brisbane says goodbye after two years without a word about Atlantic Yards and Forest City Ratner, despite ample opportunity to weigh in on such basic things as whether and how the Times should disclose its business relationship to Forest City, or even the glaring decision to devote such Sports section real estate to photos of Brooklyn Nets advertising.
From his column in tomorrow's paper, Success and Risk as The Times Transforms:
Two years ago, when I wrote my “why on earth” column, I suggested that the pace of change called for a re-emphasis on “transparency, accountability, humility.” Looking back now, I think The Times could do better with these.
The Times is hardly transparent. A reader still has to work very hard to find any Times policies online (though some are tucked away there), and there is still no place where Times editors speak on the issues. As for humility, well, The Times is Lake Wobegon on steroids (everybody’s way above average). I don’t remember many autopsies in which, as we assembled over the body, anyone conceded that maybe this could have been done differently.
The strong suit, though, is the corrections desk, led by Greg Brock, where thousands of errors are somehow adjudicated every year. This is a powerful engine of accountability, unmatched by any other corrections operation I have seen, and a potential foundation element for a portal where The Times could prominently display “transparency, accountability, humility.”
A failure of accountability
Actually, errors aren't always adjudicated well, nor does Brock display “transparency, accountability, humility.”
He's actually kind of a dyspeptic character when challenged, not only by me but by, for example Brad Friedman of The Brad Blog (re ACORN/pimp coverage).
NoLandGrab: Oder is doing Brock a favor in calling him "dyspeptic," since the latter's exchanges with Oder actually make him sound like a sniveling weenie.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The new Times Public Editor sees role as "smart aggregator" and "forum organizer" (which should mean more attention to public critiques)
Imagine what acknowledgment of public critiques might bring. The Public Editor would actually have had to take seriously the evidence that the Barclays Center naming rights deal was closer to $200 million than $400 million, rather than let his assistant blow me off.
Then the Public Editor would link to news that the evidence was valid.
With Atlantic Yards, as I wrote yesterday, there would be ample opportunity for further inquiry.
Atlantic Yards Report, Times quietly replaces misleading Atlantic Yards graphic, without correction
Atlantic Yards Report, Has the Bloomberg administration "built" more than 130,000 units of affordable housing? No, but that's not what the Times reported
Atlantic Yards Report, Is the arena "a month ahead of schedule"? Times stenography takes Ratner at face value
Posted by eric at 10:24 AM
August 22, 2012
The backlash to NY Mag writer's portrait of "pleasant and affable" Bruce Ratner; in 2003, sports biz reporter transcended "engaging" Ratner to note, "people are doing this to make money"
Atlantic Yards Report
The backlash to Will Leitch's big, conclusory New York Magazine Barclays Center feature ("This is no longer... an example of private might overcoming public interest") continues, thanks to the author's admission in a sidebar:
* We talked to a ton of people for this story, but without question, the most pleasant and affable person we talked to was ... Bruce Ratner. The controversial — to say the least — real estate magnate is not known for this warmth and cuddliness, but in all honesty, his aw-shucks demeanor was disarming, to say the least. (This is not entirely because he thought our son was cute, though he did and that never hurts.) We don't know if he'll be happy with everything that's in the story, but for a guy who had a whole theatrical documentary made about how awful he is, we were surprised by how likable we found him in person.
Well, "we" clearly didn't talk to enough people--not even colleagues--who might give "us" a more rounded perspective.
Turning on the b.s. detector
The thing is, journalists don't have to know about the gag orders and the broken promises and the lobbying/p.r. spending that are part of Forest City Ratner's hardball business practices.
They just should be professional and turn on the b.s. detector. For example, here's Matthew Futterman, then a sports business reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger, talking on the 12/12/03 Brian Lehrer Show:
I like Bruce Ratner very much personally. He’s a very engaging person, he’s very enthusiastic, and I think he’s sincere, he has his heart in the right place, but it’s amazing how similar he sounds to the people who wanted to build the arena in Newark five years ago, in terms of, y’know, 'we’re doing this for the community, and we’re doing this for the kids, it’s important for them.'
...Doc director responds
And Leitch dissed Battle for Brooklyn, which he may not have actually watched. Director Mike Galinsky responded in a comment:
I try to stay out of the fray but I take exception to the idea that "Battle for Brooklyn" was devoted to making Ratner look bad. This kind of dismissive throw away line about our 8 years of work plays into the FCR playbook, and its simply not true. In fact major project proponent Errol Louis, on NY1's Inside City Hall, called the movie very fair, as did James Caldwell from BUILD when he saw it. As you can see from the link you posted, over 100 NY Times readers have given it an average 5 star rating and a slew of positive reviews. I'm curious to know if you saw it yourself or if you are simply quoting Bruce Ratner. What the film does do is follow the opposition, which was largely denied a hearing in the main stream press. To qoute your colleague Chris Smith from a year ago (well before the current FCR charm offensive) "Battle for Brooklyn is at its best showing how Atlantic Yards used the pretense of democracy to enrich the powerful, but how it also energized actual citizens to fight the good fight. Seeing the girders climb for the Nets' new home, though, there’s little comfort in being noble losers." Articles like yours give creedence to both Ratner's and Bloomberg's idea that "No one's going to remember how long it took. They are going to just look and see that it was done". Our goal is to explode this myth of power and try to help people to remember so this kind of corrupt kleptocratic nonsense isn't so easy to pull off next time.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
August 20, 2012
NY Mag on Barclays Center: battle is over, Ratner won (um, what about "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops"?)
Atlantic Yards Report
The headline on the major New York magazine feature on the new Brooklyn arena is this: Game Time: The fighting is over; Bruce Ratner’s Barclays Center is here. Now that he’s built it, will they come?
Oh.
Now it's surely legitimate to ask how well the arena might sell tickets, which is the ultimate question in the subheading--though, curiously enough, one big variable is missing: the (cramped) potential for pro hockey.
But to mostly dismiss the history, the ongoing controversy, and the current challenge of operating the arena is just a little myopic. (Hint: even arena-goers might care that the Barclays Center lost its general manager and that operators will have mere weeks, rather than months, to test the building. Or that the parking doesn't quite work.)
Author Will Leitch writes:
This is no longer a public debate, or a public outrage, or a theoretical construct, or an example of private might overcoming public interest. That battle is over, and Bruce Ratner won it. It is now part of the new Brooklyn reality. It is the centerpiece of how the borough, and the city, will be seen for generations to come. It is undeniably here.
The lingering controversy
Well, yeah, it's here. As one commenter tried to remind the author, Atlantic Yards was supposed to be about "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops," not merely an arena. What about the people who bought into that?
And another pointed out, there's still public outrage, but the author didn't bother to talk to anyone outside arena backers and sports folks.
Posted by eric at 12:09 PM
The Times, Channeling The Brooklyn Standard, Runs Free Ad Insert for Bruce Ratner
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
 |
Apparently it wasn't enough for the NY Times to devote a fluffy front page article to Jay-Z's 0.0666% ownership of the Brooklyn Nets. Three days later the paper of record became Ad Week, running a 3-page photo spread in the 8-page Saturday sports section promoting the Nets' marketing campaign.
Reminds us quite a lot of Forest City Ratner's fake tabloid The Brooklyn Standard.
Related content...
The New York Times, link
In case you missed The Times's latest photo essay, in which they forgot to disclose their business relationship with the Nets' arena builder/operator and minority owner.
Posted by eric at 11:23 AM
August 19, 2012
Trying to rename Brooklyn "Forest City"? Maybe not so much, but Barclays Center, as in BCTV, and Brooklyn Nets step up
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember how roots rocker John Pinamonti, in his elegiac 2007 fight song "The Burrow," warned:
Makes me sad, yeah it's such a pity
They're trying to rename Brooklyn "Forest City"Well, that's not so anymore. The names we hear are The Brooklyn Nets, whose promotional efforts get compounded by press promotion, and the Barclays Center, the latter named--despite Michael D. D. White's efforts in Noticing New York--mostly unsullied by the Barclays scandal.
"Visit BCTV to watch what's happening around Brooklyn and Barclays Center," the arena home page urges, referring to the in-house video channel, which of course comes with a sponsor, Ortsbo.
Posted by steve at 11:05 PM
"In Brooklyn, It’s All Nets": Times slideshow (and Sports section three-pager) about Nets marketing reinforces Nets marketing
Atlantic Yards Report
In Brooklyn, It’s All Nets, declares a 12-slide slideshow online at the New York Times's Sports section. It also occupies the top two-thirds of the Sports section front in print, plus a two-page center spread:
The Nets don’t officially step on the court in Brooklyn until the fall. But the team’s imprint is already evident, even ubiquitous, around the borough.
Well, duh, because most of the examples involve advertising.
Posted by steve at 11:00 PM
August 15, 2012
With Discordant Synchronicity The “Barclays” Center Will Open At LIBOR Scandal’s Peak: What The New York Times Is And Isn’t Covering
Noticing New York
Good news reporting needs to be integrative. You make reported news events more meaningful to your readership when you acknowledge the broader context in which those events are taking place and how they likely relate to your readership community. Compartmentalization of the news may sidestep cognitive dissonance but it is nonetheless a disservice to anyone wanting to make sense of the world.
I am thinking about this because I am thinking about how the New York Times is reporting the LIBOR interest rate-rigging scandal in connection with which the name “Barclays” has become a new shorthand synonym for how low the ethical standards of Wall Street can sink. How will the Times relate that reporting to what is relevant to residents of its home town, New York City?
A Times Search Centering on "Barclays" vs. One Centering on "Barclays Center"
If you do a search of the New York Times site for the word “Barclays” everything that comes up first is relevant to the scandal notoriously besmirching the bank’s name; see below.
...Conversely, with the Barclays LIBOR scandal so prominently in news in recent weeks, if you do a 30 day search of the Times site for the term “Barclays Center,” the new Forest City Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov-owned basketball arena scheduled to open soon, and therefore destined to open contemporaneously with criminal indictments of Barclays traders, you get a list of hype and hoopla articles about the center that make no mention of the darkening cloud of the Barclays scandal; see below.
Posted by eric at 9:42 PM
The Wall Street Journal Pitches Big Fluffy Cotton Balls to Bruce Ratner
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Surprise, surprise, the world's greatest man, Bruce Ratner, gets fluffed by The Wall Street Journal:
At one point Ratner is asked if he is planning on running for office. Why would he do that, he already has far more control over NYC and NYS government then he'd have as a lowly elected official.
Posted by eric at 9:03 PM
August 13, 2012
Daily News exclusive news/advertising hybrid: John Legend will inaugurate branded Barclays Center theater
Atlantic Yards Report
The Daily News has an exclusive, though I wouldn't call it a scoop, headlined R&B star John Legend to christen Barclays Center intimate 6,000-seat theater: Tickets for Oct. 29 show go on sale Friday. Arena's Cushman & Wakefield Theater carved into future home of the Brooklyn Nets.
From the article:
The Barclays Center will include a new intimate theater space — and it’s set to be christened by a Legend, the Daily News has learned.
R&B star John Legend will be the first artist to open the arena’s Cushman & Wakefield Theater, a small-stage setting cordoned off within the larger venue.
Tickets for the Oct. 29 show go on sale Friday.
The micro theater — created with a specially designed curtain system — can seat between 4,000 and 6,000 guests. The full arena seats 18,200 for basketball games and up to 19,000 for larger concerts.
“It makes the stage feel like the focal point in the performance,” Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark said about the cozier space.
The thick black curtains will be stored on top of the arena’s rafters and mechanically lowered when needed for smaller events, including local music festivals, boxing matches and children theater acts.
Global real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield was entitled to the naming rights for the theater as a founding partner that contributes at least $2 million a year.
Now how exactly did the Daily News "learn" this information? Yormark clearly told them, gaining bounce from the "exclusive," accompanied by two photos and a graphic, shortly before issuing a general press release.
The operative quote here is from British newspaper publisher Lord Northcliffe:
News is what somebody somewhere wants to suppress; all the rest is advertising.
Related content...
NY Daily News, R&B star John Legend to christen Barclays Center intimate 6,000-seat theater
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
August 5, 2012
"We are finally living out our creed": "natural orator" Jay-Z shills for Budweiser, while wearing Nets cap
Atlantic Yards Report
In a December 2010 New York Observer profile of Jay-Z, Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah observed that "Jay-Z is a natural orator; he can say much or nothing, and it not only sounds good, it also sounds heartfelt."
Indeed. Check out this "Jay-Z Budweiser 2012 London Olympics Commercial," which at one point shows him wearing a Brooklyn Nets cap. Synergy!
Posted by steve at 7:08 PM
August 1, 2012
Daily News columnist Hamill: "once-forgotten area of weedy rail yards... will be the entertainment pacemaker"
Atlantic Yards Report
New York Daily News columnist Dennis Hamill is not as much an abusurdist as his New York Post counterpart Andrea Peyser, though 1) that's a pretty high bar and 2) they both seem to have forgotten the 10,000 office jobs that so enthused them.
But, as in the past, he remains a reliable conveyor of developer Bruce Ratner's press releases. Today, in A whole new arena: Brooklyn's O'Malley curse begins to end in 60 days, he writes:
this once-forgotten area of weedy rail yards, empty lots and a few blocks of vital homes claimed in eminent domain will be the entertainment pacemaker of our most populous borough.
He seems to not know that parent Forest City Enterprises then-CEO Chuck Ratner called it a "great piece of real estate." Or that two-thirds of the "weedy rail yards"--the "blight" that this project was supposed to overcome--have not been developed, because Forest City Ratner has not started paying for them.
Posted by eric at 7:48 PM
July 25, 2012
What Planet Is Andrea Peyser Living on?
Brownstoner
NY Post columnist Andrea Peyser has said some ridiculous things in her day, but her fawning column yesterday about Bruce Ratner and the Barclays Arena may take the cake. Here’s one of the gems:
When Barclays is christened this fall as home of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, Ratner will have pulled off the seemingly impossible. Almost single-handedly, he’ll have brought the Borough of Kings, long neglected and overshadowed by Manhattan, back to buzzworthy health.
What planet is this woman living on? Seriously. Sure, plenty of folks are now excited about the games and concerts that will come to the area in the fall, but the arena’s riding on the coattails of a bottoms-up resurgence that’s been building for many, many years and would have been plenty strong without any help from Ratner. The land where the arena’s being built was never blighted and the borough’s been getting plenty of buzz without any help from Ratner et al. For more mockery and dissection, see Norman Oder’s take(down) on AYR.
NoLandGrab: Is Andrea Peyser, the psycho arena lady who pens a column for the NY Post, nuts? Or maybe Peyser, the hater of neighborhood activists (and bike lanes), is just an incompetent, overpromoted, overzealous newspaper hack.
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
July 24, 2012
Two of Our Favorite Brooklynites, Bruce Ratner and Andrea Peyser, Tour the Barclays Center
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
We're not certain, but we think that headline might be mocking its subjects.
A lot of bombast has been spread on both sides of the great Barclays Center battle of the past decade, but Andrea Peyser manages to take the cake as she always does, along with the amazing “photo composite” the Post put together of Bruce Ratner as ring leader.
...The buzz is back! But not without alienating the poor, project-dwelling locals. How about those $30 tickets for all! Without this, there would be nothing but needles littering the borough’s beloved brownstones.
When I toured this site in 2004, it was a disgrace. It was scarred with toxic rail yards that had squatted on this spot, like a disease, for decades. Then I spied a pile of hypodermic needles.
It was long past time to breathe air back into Brooklyn. Or shut the lights and get the hell out.
Brooklyn 2.0: We’ll leave the lights on for you.
Image: NY Post
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
July 23, 2012
Advice for the New York Times's New Public Editor
The Huffington Post
by Daniel R. Schwarz
On July 16, the New York Times announced that its fifth public editor would be Margaret M. Sullivan, "the first woman to hold this position."
...With the appointment of Ms. Sullivan, this is a good time to review what the public editor position has accomplished and where it has failed.
...By consulting outside financial experts, the public editor must, when necessary, shine an informed light on the Times's financial relationship with both Mexican magnate Carlos Slim and with the Forest City Ratner real estate company, which now owns the entire new Times building and leases the Times's floors back to it.
Posted by eric at 9:44 AM
July 12, 2012
Getting played: media outlets take bait that demand for first three Jay-Z shows prompted two more
Atlantic Yards Report
Let's recap. In May, Barclays Center/Nets CEO Brett Yormark let slip that Jay-Z would perform five shows at the new arena.
This week, they announced three shows would go on sale. Those tickets sold quickly.
Then, a new announcement: two more shows. The media took the bait. The Daily News reported:
Due to incredible demand for presale tickets for his initial three concerts, Hova will also perform shows on Oct. 3 and Oct. 4.
Related content...
More cases in point. Like moths to an LED flame.
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], BREAKING: Jay-Z Will Add Two More Nights to Barclays Center Kickoff
NY Post, Jay-Z's Barclays concerts already hot tickets
Ditmas Park Patch, Jay-Z Adds Two New Nights at Barclays Center
Posted by eric at 12:57 PM
July 8, 2012
In Brooklyn, a Friend Is a Hero in Disguise
The New York Times
by Kevin Baker
A friend of the late newspaperman Dennis Holt reveals that as a young man, Holt acted courageously during the first attempt to integrate the University of Alabama. Sadly, he clearly lost that moral compass when it came to Atlantic Yards.
Then, in 1993, a book came out that made us see him in a whole new light: E. Culpepper Clark’s superb history of the long fight to integrate the University of Alabama, “The Schoolhouse Door.” It begins with the effort to enroll a young black woman named Autherine Lucy at the university in February 1956. And there, to our surprise, was Dennis Holt.
The appearance of the incredibly courageous Ms. Lucy triggered wild rioting by Alabama students, considerably augmented by outside agitators. The mob roamed freely about the campus for hours, screaming racial epithets, setting fires, attacking a passing black motorist, and even pelting the wife of the university president with eggs and rocks when she tried to appeal for calm. Ms. Lucy was fortunate to escape with her life.
Dennis, we discovered, was president of the arts and sciences college council of Alabama at the time, “brilliant, eloquent and popular,” and the national college debate champion. Along with a handful of other brave students, he turned away a group of drunken rioters seeking to break into the university president’s residence. Dennis and his companions told them, “You’re not going anywhere.”
The next day, Alabama’s board of trustees gave in to the mob, and voted to ban Ms. Lucy from campus for her own safety. It was a dishonor that Dennis and his fellow student leaders were not willing to share. They held a public meeting, in which Dennis described the people he had kept from entering the president’s mansion as “two high school boys and a man so drunk he could barely lurch.” Turning them back wasn’t hard: “That’s all it took — just a little resistance.”
NoLandGrab: Holt made deriding the resistance to Atlantic Yards a regular, recurring theme in his columns. Guess he was afraid to stand up to Bruce Ratner's bullying.
Posted by eric at 9:53 PM
July 7, 2012
Play Their Hearts Out: youth basketball and the shoe purveyors (like Adidas, coming to Barclays Center) that are "going to do what's good for their companies" (plus: the Dwight Howard angle)
Atlantic Yards Report
Basketball, the American game, the city game, the Brooklyn game--it takes armadas of talented youth, puts them through years of effort and hope and in many cases illusion, and a select few make it to college, with a trickle going pro, earning the riches to (in many cases) vault their families from poverty.
We see the successes most often, not the casualties, though we're hardly unaware. But the casualties go deep.
According to a gripping book about youth basketball, there's a lot of collateral damage, fueled by a star-making machine of hype (recruiters' newsletters and premature Sports Illustrated coverage); manipulation (AAU coaches promising the world but more in it for themselves), and money (sneaker companies wanting a piece of the action from ever younger kids, throwing swag to coaches, who can dangle it in front of recruits, as well as events they can run and earn six figures).
Posted by steve at 6:23 PM
June 8, 2012
Brooklyn Eagle Columnist Dennis Holt Dies at 83
mcbrooklyn
While many news sources report about events happening in the borough, Holt reported on the history leading up to these events and their long-term implications. While we didn't agree with him about everything (Atlantic Yards, for example), time after time he turned out to be prescient.
Holt has been called a Brooklyn treasure, like Junior's cheesecake, and dean of Brooklyn reporters. His voice will be missed.
Posted by eric at 9:24 AM
June 7, 2012
Brooklyn Eagle's Dennis Holt, dean of Brooklyn reporters, dies at 83
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
Dennis Holt, longtime Brooklyn newspaper columnist and an inveterate booster of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project (and, consequently, a not-infrequent target of NoLandGrab's jibes) has passed away. While we rarely took the same side on local development issues, we're sorry to see him go. Our condolences to Mr. Holt's family and friends.
Dennis Holt, longtime columnist and staff writer for the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and sister publications including the Brooklyn Heights Press, died on Thursday after complications from a fall in his home on May 14.
Mr. Holt was 83 years old.
He suffered broken ribs and a blow to the head, made worse by one of his medications, a blood thinner.
After serving many years as press advisor to a number of elected officials, including former Rep. Stephen Solarz, Mr. Holt was one of the founding editors of the award-winning Brooklyn Phoenix newspaper in 1972. In the mid-1990s, when the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was revived and merged with the existing Brooklyn Daily Bulletin, Mr. Holt became a senior editor and columnist.
He was an active contributor to the Eagle family of publications until his fall, writing the "Brooklyn Broadside" column and other features.
Plans for a memorial service are pending.
Posted by eric at 10:41 PM
June 2, 2012
Journalists talk shop: the Times's selective attention, the Observer's mandate to be "less wonky," and the fuzziness of a Post reporter on Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The Architects' Newspaper reports on a panel discussion regarding coverage of architecture, development, and the media.
A couple of comments were particularly intriguing. I've bolded the questions, as appearing in the transcript, and appended my reactions.
How much interest in, and knowledge of, architecture do you assume there is among your readers?
Robin Pogrebin, culture reporter at The New York Times:
I get pitched in 100 to 200 emails a day; and I feel terrible about what might be falling through the cracks. I know the bar has become somewhat higher in terms of what we write about. Why should we write about this one? That is a hard question to answer. Ideally, it is a story that has larger implications beyond just the project itself: something about it represents a trend; or there’s a controversy about it (for better or worse); or a window into architecture through another route, say, the controversy about naming of Miami Art Museum.
Pogrebin writes for the culture desk, not the Metro section, but I suspect some of the same rationale goes into coverage--and not--of large projects like Atlantic Yards. The Times does not feel compelled to cover it steadily--witness the non-coverage of the Neighborhood Protection Plan--which means understanding diminishes.
Are you pressured to cover subjects, or projects?
Matt Chaban, real estate editor and reporter at The New York Observer:
I have been told to be less wonky. I have been told to stop invoking Robert Moses. We write almost not at all about architecture except in terms of development; we do a lot of residential real estate and industry types fighting each other. I have been asked to profile architects—for example Tod Williams and Billie Tsien because of the Barnes Museum opening—but that goes in the culture section. It’s not considered hard news.
Less wonky? That's too bad.
Because only a semi-sophisticated understanding of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs would lead reporters not to swallow an unsupportable statement like City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden's claim, in the New York Times, that the Bloomberg administration blends the two.
Posted by steve at 6:52 PM
May 14, 2012
"Brooklyn native" Jimmy Kimmel to broadcast from Brooklyn, to coincide with NBA season
Atlantic Yards Report
"Late-night comedian and Brooklyn native Jimmy Kimmel is taking his show on the road to broadcast from his home borough this fall," reported the Daily News today.
"Jimmy Kimmel is heading home," said the Hollywood Reporter.
The Brooklyn Paper did a whole Q&A, far more space than it devoted to the documentary film Battle for Brooklyn.
Well, Kimmel's family moved from Mill Basin to Las Vegas when he was nine. But just like announcer David Diamante, who moved to Brooklyn at age 30, is described as a fifth-generation Brooklynite, so too can Kimmel be claimed.
Posted by eric at 4:29 PM
'Jimmy Kimmel Live' to Broadcast from Host's Native Brooklyn in October
The comedian will tape a week's worth of shows beginning Oct. 29, pegged to the inaugural season of the New York City borough's Nets pro basketball team.
The Hollywood Reporter
by Lacey Rose
Et tu, Jimmy Kimmel?
Jimmy Kimmel is heading home.
ABC’s late night host announced on Live! with Kelly Monday that he’ll be uprooting Jimmy Kimmel Live to his native Brooklyn for a week of shows beginning Oct. 29. The move is set to coincide with the inaugural season of the newly minted Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center, with Kimmel broadcasting from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM).
Posted by eric at 11:05 AM
May 10, 2012
So complain-y! The Times's Streisand coverage treats "neighborhood critics" as making allegations, not winning a big court case
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times, heretofore uninterested in the number of jobs at the Barclays Center arena, goes long in the CityRoom blog and in today's paper with A Daughter of Brooklyn, Now Known as ‘Barbra,’ Will Return to Perform.
This passage gives a nod to larger issues:
Because of Ms. Streisand’s identification with Brooklyn, the Streisand concert is a feather in the cap of the promoters of the arena, which will hold 220 entertainment events a year. Concerts by Jay-Z, Leonard Cohen and Andrea Bocelli are scheduled, as well as the roughly 40 home games of the newly christened Brooklyn Nets basketball team. The developers have been fighting neighborhood critics who say the crowds and traffic will overwhelm quiet small-scale neighborhoods. News of the concert was first mentioned on a blog that tracks the issue, Atlantic Yards Report.
Getting all complain-y
Isn't it unfortunate that developer Forest City Ratner has to be fighting "neighborhood critics," who sound so complain-y. The "he said, she said phrasing" sounds like another example of "the usual tumult," the Times's dismissive August 2009 phrase regarding the public process concerning the re-approval of Atlantic Yards.
The thing is, there's reason to get all complain-y.
Related content...
City Room, A Streisand Encore, 5 Decades Overdue
The concert gets its own creation myth:
Bruce Ratner, the developer of Barclays Center, said that two years ago he received a phone call from Marty Markowitz, Brooklyn’s borough president, urging him to call Martin Erlichman, Ms. Streisand’s longtime manager, about arranging a Brooklyn concert.
“He said, ‘This is possible but I have to discuss it with Barbra,’ ” Mr. Ratner recalled of his conversation with Mr. Erlichman.
Posted by eric at 12:11 PM
May 6, 2012
Jay-Z and the Mushnick controversy
Atlantic Yards Report
New York Post media columnist Phil Mushnick has stirred up a huge backlash with an item in his column slamming Jay-Z (who also was pictured "riding" a bulldozer by a camera-wielding construction worker with a line to TMZ):
As long as the Nets are allowing Jay-Z to call their marketing shots — what a shock that he chose black and white as the new team colors to stress, as the Nets explained, their new “urban” home — why not have him apply the full Jay-Z treatment?
Why the Brooklyn Nets when they can be the New York N------s? The cheerleaders could be the Brooklyn B----hes or Hoes. Team logo? A 9 mm with hollow-tip shell casings strewn beneath. Wanna be Jay-Z hip? Then go all the way!Yes, this is dumb and offensive on several levels. (Does a black-and-white color scheme have a racial angle?) It's provoked a roundup of critical responses (as collected by NetsDaily).
Posted by steve at 11:03 PM
April 26, 2012
In today's Times, the lead story regards loss of $19M (or so) taxpayer funds; compare that to coverage of the MTA deal
Atlantic Yards Report
From today's New York Times, lead story, headlined Company Admits It Bilked Clients on Big Projects:
The giant construction company that worked on Citi Field, the renovation of Grand Central Terminal and scores of other high-profile projects has admitted to a huge fraud scheme in which it overbilled clients for more than a decade and has agreed to pay $56 million in fines and restitution to avoid criminal charges, federal prosecutors announced Tuesday.
...The scheme carried out by the company defrauded government agencies and private developers of about $19 million, much of it tax money, Ms. Lynch said at a news conference. She was joined by officials from several other agencies to announce a deferred-prosecution agreement.
But the amount is most likely far higher because prosecutors said they believed that Lend Lease conducted the practice for decades and that it extended to other companies.
So, um, some $19 million, most of it tax money, was misappropriated? That's news.
But when Forest City Ratner renegotiates a deal with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to save much more than that--well, that's buried in an un-bylined short.
Yes, one's a crime and the other a politically freighted negotiation. But there's a similar bottom line: a cost to the public, and a private gain.
NoLandGrab: Stealing is stealing, whether it's sanctioned by government or not.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
April 19, 2012
Impact of Atlantic Yards arena, actually, will be felt a lot more when new/empty spaces get filled
Atlantic Yards Report
Has the advent of the Barclays Center really changed retail in the blocks around it?
That was the theme of a misguided Times article Tuesday, which focused significantly on gentrification-led change (see the map below, highlighting small establishments), while missing the fact that such change had nothing to do with reclaiming the enduring "scar" of the Vanderbilt Yard.
The map even missed the burger boom outlined by the Brooklyn Paper, which, that article suggests, is partly driven by the arena for Five Guys, but not for 67 Burger.
Meanwhile, the Times scanted the opportunity to address issues of accountability, such as the five-month delay in the Transportation Demand Management plan or the Appellate Division's smackdown of the Empire State Development Corporation. And that raises questions about whether local officials are prepared to address arena impacts on the residential blocks.
What's coming
While the area around the Barclays Center is changing, and there's significant retail demand for open spaces, what struck me last night as I walked Flatbush Avenue is how much more change there will be.
There are several major spaces empty, or not yet open, unmentioned in the Times's oddly-focused map....
Posted by eric at 11:52 AM
April 17, 2012
In Times Metro section, a pseudo-scandal gets far more attention than an unaccountable agency
Atlantic Yards Report
Today's New York Times coverage of a pseudo-scandal, the maintenance of a "dossier" by Governor Andrew Cuomo's staff on political reporter Liz Benjamin: 17 paragraphs.
Today's New York Times coverage of an unaccountable agency, a state appellate court's decision slamming the Empire State Development Corporation for its environmental review of Atlantic Yards: 2 paragraphs.
Posted by eric at 11:15 PM
Times focuses on retail changes near arena site, suggests blight of "dreary" rail yards transformed & "die-hard opponents" worried about liquor license (nah)
An article in today's New York Times about the Atlantic Yards project illustrates, yet again, how the Times neglects covering Brooklyn and is out of touch. Fortunately, Norman Oder points out what the Times seems unable to understand.
Atlantic Yards Report
I can't say I didn't predict that the New York Times would cover last week's appellate court ruling parenthetically, essentially dismissing an important rebuke to the state agency that has championed Atlantic Yards.
Instead, the Times's Impact of Atlantic Yards, for Good or Ill, Is Already Felt, complete with several photos, focuses on retail changes near Flatbush Avenue, some accelerated by the arena, some already in process, and pretty much ignores issues of accountability:
the reality is that the Atlantic Yards project has already done the very thing that critics feared and supporters promoted: transform surrounding neighborhoods prized for their streets of tree-lined brownstones and low-key living.
Was an arena really needed to accelerate retail along Flatbush Avenue? How about a rezoning of the few blocks zoned industrial and an effort to market the Vanderbilt Yard?
...
Here's the most deceptive passage:
For Forest City Ratner, the developer of the project, which was strongly backed by many city leaders, the changes are evidence that the arena has already met its goal of transforming a dreary section of Brooklyn — the Long Island Rail Road’s rail yards and surrounding industrial buildings, which the company’s spokesman described as “ a scar that divided the neighborhood.”
“That’s a sign of economic vitality, something that’s good for the borough,” said Joe DePlasco, the Ratner spokesman.In other words, the project has successfully removed the blight that was the justification for eminent domain.
It hasn't.
Forest City Ratner hasn't even paid the MTA for the development rights to most of the railyard. It renegotiated a 22-year schedule to pay. As for the "surrounding industrial buildings," the largest (the Ward Bakery) was torn down for the interim surface parking lot (bookended by a historic district), and other large ones were condo conversions torn down for the arena (Spalding, Atlantic Arts).
Rather, the combination of the arena, and dense nearby residential populations, has driven up rents. And, as Chuck Ratner, then CEO of parent Forest City Enterprises, once said, "it's a great piece of real estate" (not a "dreary section of Brooklyn"). Map from NY Times, annotations in blue
Related coverage...
New York Times, Impact of Atlantic Yards, for Good or Ill, Is Already Felt
The battle over Atlantic Yards has already raged longer than the Civil War, with eight years of protests, petitions and lawsuits seeking to halt a project that promised to reshape the heart of Brooklyn.
Even now, as the oyster-shaped basketball arena that will anchor a 22-acre housing and office complex rises against the low-slung Brooklyn skyline, die-hard opponents are still resisting. Last week they packed a hearing held by two community boards to block the arena from speedily receiving a liquor license.
But almost six months before the Barclays Center opens its doors to the Nets, Brooklyn’s first major professional sports team since the lamented Dodgers, the reality is that the Atlantic Yards project has already done the very thing that critics feared and supporters promoted: transform surrounding neighborhoods prized for their streets of tree-lined brownstones and low-key living.
Posted by steve at 9:14 AM
April 15, 2012
To NetsDaily, neighborhood concerns about the arena broadcast support area translate to "more finishing touches"
Atlantic Yards Report
This is fairly minor stuff, but it again illustrates the disdain that Net Income (aka Bob Windrem), the chief contributor to the NetsDaily blog, has for the Brooklyn neighborhood where the Barclays Center is being built.
What to him is "More Finishing Touches" links to a Brownstoner post, More AY Concerns, This Time About Broadcasting Space.
Slightly different, but, then again, Windrem once crowed, "I don’t care what happens to these people…not one iota."
And Mr. Income, not exactly a regular visitor to Brooklyn, seems to think that the site at issue, across from the arena block, used to be home to Freddy's Bar. Not so. It used to include two houses, as shown in the graphics here. Freddy's was located on the arena block.
Posted by steve at 9:56 PM
Today's Times Metro section: why no room for coverage of the Atlantic Yards decision?
Atlantic Yards
Below is the list of articles in the New York Times's New York pages today. Might the Times have room for coverage of the decision in the Atlantic Yards lawsuit? No.
Isn't a court's unanimous rebuke to the state economic development agency meaningful? Doesn't it confirm widespread concern about a lack of accountability by the state and developer Forest City Ratner, which, as the Times periodically (but not always) reminds us, was the newspaper's business partner in building the Times Tower?
An article about it would not represent enterprise journalism, which requires actual digging by reporters. All the Times had to do was to boil down a legal opinion (a day late) and add some quotes.
After all, that article on vintage trains came with two large photos. And the obsession with the red-tailed hawks, however charming, is really made for ongoing online coverage.
Posted by steve at 9:39 PM
April 14, 2012
On the wrong side of history: how, in hindsight, the Municipal Art Society should have joined the Atlantic Yards litigation, and why the press would have paid more attention
Atlantic Yards Report
Imagine where we'd be if the Municipal Art Society (MAS), the venerable preservation and planning organization that spawned the BrooklynSpeaks coalition and has advocated for Atlantic Yards reforms, had not chosen to leave that coalition when several of its members sued the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) over its failure to study the impacts of a delayed project buildout.
We might be reading a lot more about the aftermath of that suit, a severe rebuke from the courts to the state and developer Forest City Ratner, and a reminder about the lack of accountability regarding Atlantic Yards.
MAS, which has the ear of city elites (see this 8/6/06 New York Times editorial on AY or its role in debating the expansion of NYU), would have joined the press release--or sent out its own--announcing the unanimous victory April 12 in appellate court by the community coalitions challenging the state.
The New York Times, which has so far ignored the news, would have had to take it more seriously, at least in a news story, if not an editorial.
And MAS would have been on the right side of history in this case, recognizing that BrooklynSpeaks, formed in September 2006 as an alternative to the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) opposition strategy, had found negotiation to be fruitless.
Posted by steve at 5:38 PM
An editorial in the Times slamming Gov. Christie for "political bluster"--and why similar criticism could apply to the ESDC over Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
From a New York Times editorial yesterday headlined Gov. Christie and the Tunnel Project:
If you find yourself in a stopped train in a Hudson River tunnel, or in a vehicle on a choked highway, in coming years, at least you will know why. In his drive to become the darling of the cut-costs-at-all-costs Republican crowd, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey ignored real economic analysis and relied on exaggerated worst-case scenarios to kill the largest public transit project in the nation in 2010.
...Now, a report from the Government Accountability Office makes it clear that the cost-cutting talk was political bluster.
What about AY?
We're not going to see a Times editorial on the appellate court ruling April 12 rebuking the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) for misleading the public about Atlantic Yards. (Why not? "Too many roadblocks and politics," to quote a certain cop.)
But someone could write this:
If you find yourself in gridlock in Prospect Heights, or hear people in the neighborhoods around the Atlantic Yards site complaining about ongoing construction in the year 2030, at least you will know why. In their zeal to get the Barclays Center arena in gear, the Empire State Development Corporation ignored real environmental analysis and relied on exaggerated worst-case scenarios to re-approve the Atlantic Yards mega-project in 2009.
...Now, a unanimous decision from an appellate court makes it clear that the agency's estimate that the project could be completed in a decade, and that the worst-case impacts had been studied, was expedient bluster.Yes, the Access to the Region's Core project Christie killed was a bigger deal than Atlantic Yards. But the issue of public accountability is very similar.
Posted by steve at 5:35 PM
April 12, 2012
Prokhorov in Brooklyn: the conquering hero, except to one columnist paying attention
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder also rounds up the saturation coverage of The Great Prokhorov, some of which we've already covered.
Well, Nets principal owner Mikhail Prokhorov came to Brooklyn Tuesday to look at the under-construction Barclays Center arena and pretty much conquered the fawning sports press, with one notable exception.
(Prokhorov with Bruce Ratner, in photo from the Nets' web site.)
Here are some of the headlines, which hint at the low level of actual news:
- Owner Says the Nets and New Arena Remain Hard-Hat Zones, New York Times
- Nets owner Prokhorov starts courting Deron, New York Post
- Mikhail Prokhorov ready for "throwdown’ over Deron Williams, New York Daily News
- Nets owner Prokhorov jokes about "crushing" Mark Cuban over Deron Williams, The Record
- Prokhorov speaks in Brooklyn, NJ Nets Nation
- NETS: 6 Months Out, Prokhorov Tours Barclays Center Site, Nets site
- Nets’ Brooklyn Dream Is A Reality, NBA.com
- Mikhail Prokhorov dishes on D-Will, ESPN New York (with video)
- Prokhorov challenges Cuban to duel, weighs in on Dwight, D-Will. CBS Sports
- Mikhail Prokhorov vows to crush Mark Cuban in kickboxing if Deron Williams signs with Mavericks, Sporting News
- In His Rising Arena, Nets Owner Prokhorov Foresees His Team As NBA Chamption, NY1 (with video)
The NY1 piece is particularly egregious, since it's not "his" arena (he's junior partner to Bruce Ratner in operating a nominally state-owned facility), nor does he "foresee" so much as "aspire" or "b.s."
...No AYR at the press conference
Why wasn't I there? I was told it was for "accredited media" only, so they wouldn't let me in.
Then again, Prokhorov, according to the boosterish NetsDaily blogger "Net Income," aka Bob Windrem, "appreciates bloggers in both sports and politics" and was welcomed to Prokhorov's luxury box. It apparently depends on the bloggers.
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
April 11, 2012
As Brooklyn Paper whiffs on liquor license story, Veconi (on Patch) points out the unknowns--and how arena operators don't (yet) get it
Atlantic Yards Report
So what if the Brooklyn Paper's print deadlines might cut into coverage of Tuesday night events.
Would you believe the newspaper ignored the joint Community Board meeting last night on the Barclays Center liquor license?
It did.
(Former Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman, now at The Local, did a solid job covering it.)
Instead, the newspaper brings us the news and fluff listed at right.
Patch, by the way, had a reporter there, but I haven't seen a story yet.
Posted by eric at 10:41 PM
April 8, 2012
A note from Stephen Witt (but not on AY): "I will be vigilant to be watchful against my own tendencies to have personal axes [to] grind"
Atlantic Yards Report
Readers of this blog know that I have had my differences with the notorious Stephen Witt, known for his irresponsible coverage of Atlantic Yards and, perhaps, a novel based on the Atlantic Yards saga.
Well, others have questioned his credibility. Consider a front-page apology March 8 from David Mark Greaves, publisher of the Bed-Stuy-based Our Time Press, where Witt now works as a Senior Editor:
In last week’s issue of Our Time Press, editor Stephen Witt allowed his emotions to distort his reporting and what resulted were unfair, baseless and unwarranted attacks on the Vannguard Independent Democratic Association...
To further the damage I, who had the responsibility to read the column beyond the headline, did not do my job, and as a result it went out unedited and unproofed, full of errors and rancorous opinion.
The publishers have made Mr. Witt fully aware of the disaster this is... Both Mr. Witt and I deeply apologize for the complete lack of professionalism in allowing that material to appear in the paper.Witt, who also writes columns, has the right to write opinion--and his problematic report is now labeled "Opinion." The problem is when the opinion is based on little evidence. Witt wrote apologetically:
Henceforth, I will be vigilant to be watchful against my own tendencies to have personal axes [to] grind.
...
Note that no such apology about Witt's reporting ever came from the editors of the Courier-Life chain, which had a larger budget and presumably (but perhaps not) more opportunity for editing.
There Witt covered Atlantic Yards by finding bizarre angles such as letting project supporters claim that project foes were the "real land grabbers" because they moved into former industrial buildings that had been closed and then renovated.
Posted by steve at 8:55 PM
April 7, 2012
Is there a place where ideas aren't for sale? Thomas Frank says, "Money has transformed every watchdog"
Atlantic Yards Report
Thomas Frank, in the latest issue of The Baffler, Too Smart to Fail: Notes on an Age of Folly:
I can remember the contempt I felt when I read [Doug] Bandow’s essay, back in 2006. Of course there was a place where ideas weren’t simply for sale, I thought—it was called the professions. Ethical standards kept professionals independent of their clients’ gross pecuniary interests.
These days, though, I’m not so sure. Money has transformed every watchdog, every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen. Accountants were no match for Enron. Corporate boards are rubber stamps. Hospitals break unions, and, with an eye toward future donations, electronically single out rich patients for more luxurious treatment.
Too broad a brush? Or does the Atlantic Yards saga offer some backup?
Posted by steve at 2:59 PM
April 3, 2012
Channel 13, New York’s Premier Public Television Station, Provides Promotion For The Ratner/Prokhorov Barclays Basketball Arena: What To Do About It?
Noticing New York
All right, I have to admit it. This article is structured as crescendo of rage. So the further you read the more you will find that is absolutely appalling. I am writing about Channel Thirteen's promotional endorsement of the Bruce Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov basketball arena being built where the brownstone neighborhoods of Park Slope, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill, and Prospect Heights converge.
...The very beginning of February (February 3rd) I was watching evening TV when an intrusion presented itself on Channel 13, the city’s premier public television station, a station I gratefully thank for presenting programs such as the probing and analytical issue-oriented “Frontline,” “Nova” which frequently covers environmental important subjects as global warming, “The American Experience, which provides overviews of the American past and many more public affairs oriented programs including such things as local coverage of State of the State and City and budget addresses by the governor and mayor. What intruded into my theoretically `commercial free’ public television evening was a promotion for the new publicly-harmful “Barclays” basketball arena being developed by Bruce Ratner and Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Follow the link for much more.
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
March 31, 2012
Brooklyn Barclays Center Sends Ratner, Daily News Into Frenzy
New York Magazine Daily Intel
by Eliza Shapiro
Ratner, who has been unfavorably compared to a modern-day Robert Moses, has waged a long and costly battle for the space over the last decade. He is also finding an outlet for his excitement in hyperbole: “This is the first truly 21st-century building in New York City.” He also calls it "the greatest arena I've ever seen."
Sheftell likens the space to other great New York "civic spaces" like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The excitement is spreading — at least to other people with major investments in the project. "When the Nets get good, the place is going to hop," said Gregg Pasquarelli, a partner at SHoP, one of the architecture firms that designed the Center.
Posted by eric at 11:31 PM
March 28, 2012
"Brooklynized" water gets low marks in NY Mag's Approval Matrix
Atlantic Yards Report
New York Magazine's Approval Matrix doesn't think much of the Barclays Center's embrace of "Brooklynized" water devised in Florida:
Posted by steve at 6:33 AM
March 25, 2012
Times Public Editor: let's worry about an overplayed article (about Mitt Romney); the same criticism should have been operative in 2006
Atlantic Yards Report
From the New York Times's Public Editor, Arthur Brisbane, in When Packaging Oversteps the Facts:
A NEWS article ultimately is judged on much more than its raw factual ingredients. Its points of emphasis, headline, length and position on the page combine to couch the article in a way that delivers its intended meaning and significance.
...“This is a reminder that the fairest story in the world can seem exaggerated when it’s overplayed,” added Mr. [Jerry] Ceppos, a former executive editor of The San Jose Mercury News.
The column concerns a front-page article on Mitt Romney and his passive investment in a fund that owns a company used by China to suppress dissidents.
But couldn't the criticisms--and even more of them--have been applied to the Times's misguided 2006 lead story about the phantom Atlantic Yards scaleback? That time, however, Brisbane's predecessor pronounced all OK, and failed, unlike Brisbane, to survey some other experts.
Posted by steve at 11:37 PM
March 18, 2012
The Sydney Schanberg back story: "the city's newspapers, like the big politicians," were part of "the shame of Westway"
Atlantic Yards Report
The other day, in writing about the estimable Times Metro columnist Michael Powell's understandable but still dismaying decision to steer clear of the Yonkers corruption trial, I made reference to columnist Sydney Schanberg, who crossed a line with his bosses in the mid-1980s.
The episode is instructive, though it doesn't suggest direct parallels, since Schanberg was an opinion columnist, on the Op-Ed page, while Powell is a Metro columnist, his conclusions based more firmly in reporting.
Could you imagine if the Times had an Op-Ed columnist willing to critique the paper itself? What might he/she have said about that softball interview with Bruce Ratner last week, which didn't even mention the Yonkers corruption trial that, even to a business booster like Greg David of Crain's, made the company look bad?
Or what might such a columnist say about the Times's Sunday Real Estate section, which has nothing to say to the 99%--or, in New York City, maybe the 80%.
...
When Greg David of business-friendly Crain's suggests that the dailies under-covered the Yonkers trial, giving Ratner a pass, that's worth noticing. And, yes, the Times has picked up coverage of the defense case. But the newspaper missed the chance to cover the Forest City Ratner in detail.
And even in covering the defense case, the Times's beat reporter missed a piece of piquant testimony regarding Forest City Ratner's due diligence: Zehy Jereis, the fixer Forest City hired for an essentially no-show job, had such nonexistent computer skills he was incapable of creating a Word document.
(The reporter had actually left the courtroom, presumably calculating, not implausibly, that he had more than enough material from Jereis's direct testimony to fill the allotted space.)
Posted by steve at 11:37 PM
March 17, 2012
CNG Watch: Brooklyn Paper/Courier-Life ignore District Service Cabinet meeting, as they reap Barclays Center advertising
Atlantic Yards Report
Rupert Murdoch's Community Newspaper Group, which owns the Brooklyn Paper and the Courier-Life chain, didn't send any reporters to the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting Thursday.
Is it just that the news about governmental oversight is "boring" (as opposed to, say, news about the "burger boom")? Or do the newspapers want to avoid "bad" news as they feature Barclays Center advertising? Both?
| From this week's Brooklyn Paper: |
|
Posted by steve at 11:17 PM
March 15, 2012
Powell on pause? Crusading Times columnist sits out Yonkers corruption trial (involving Forest City Ratner) that he put on the agenda
Atlantic Yards Report
Michael Powell was on a roll. The Times's crusading "Gotham" columnist, who since his debut last May has challenged the mayor, the governor, and other pillars of the power structure, had Brooklyn developer Forest City Ratner--tinged but not charged in two political corruption cases--in his sights.
After Powell's January 10 column (A Developer Between Legal Clouds), former Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum even wrote a letter to the Times, insisting that developer Bruce Ratner "has always demonstrated the highest ethical standards and behavior."
Powell, a one-time tenant organizer and political reporter, was undeterred, despite Ratner's ties to his Times bosses. In Powell's February 14 column (Tracking the Tentacles of Corruption), he raised an eyebrow at Gotbaum's letter, suggesting that Ratner's "willingness to tuck affordable apartments into his gleaming towers [at Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards] is perhaps a reasonable political tradeoff rather than a testament to his character."
Shortly after that, Powell, on Twitter reported that three Forest City executives could testify in the corruption trial regarding the developer's Ridge Hill retail/residential project in Yonkers. It passed only after a City Council Member Sandy Annabi, long opposed to the project, flipped her vote, allegedly because she had long been taking cash from political ally Zehy Jereis, who later got a no-show job from Forest City.
After that, silence.
People asked me: Why did he sit it out? Did someone get to him?
When I queried him last week, Powell said he has complete editorial freedom, but had to make some choices for his weekly column under time pressure.
Keep reading — it's well worth it.
Posted by eric at 1:08 PM
March 11, 2012
Is the Barclays Center ugly? Is that the right question?
Atlantic Yards Report
The results of a Patch poll--is the Barclays Center ugly?--are hardly scientific:
...
But one commenter on the Patch poll raised a larger question:
Even if the architecture was beautiful, which it isn't, it is ugly in the sense that it is a product of political corruption. A big developer takes public money, over the objection of much of the affected community, to build something we didn't need which will have many noxious effects on the community (traffic, pollution, noise, etc.), Promised benefits (jobs, affordable housing) disappear from the discussion as soon as its approved. Which poltiician is trying to get Forrest City Ratner to repay the public for the missing benefits? When did capitalism become I'll risk your money for my gain?
Those points, of course, can be debated, but the fact is this: Atlantic Yards was sold to the public as a package deal, with the overall benefits said to trump the overall costs. Any preliminary assessment, however, has to reckon with the failure to deliver that package, as well as the sketchiness of the promises to begin with.
Posted by steve at 11:54 PM
Waiting for Kimmelman: everyone's talking about the new Times architecture critic; some wonder when he'll write about Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Michael Kimmelman, the new New York Times architecture critic who seems to care more about context and urbanism than starchitects, is getting a lot of ink these days. At a panel at the Architecture Center last week, as reported in Capital New York, he--along with his predecessors--was the elephant in the room:
All of these critics said that the idea that the entire architectural press had become caught up with the star architects, and object architecture, was not accurate; but that to the extent it was true, it was a monster the Times created over the last decade or more.
...The Times' choice of Kimmelman after [Nicolai] Ouroussoff (whose name was never mentioned, despite obvious references to his tenure at the newspaper) was so extreme that it elicited from [ex-Times critic and current New Yorker critic Paul] Goldberger the idea of a pendulum, which in popular opinion about architecture has swung away from star architects, towards something closer to home. And how The New York Times, in designating its critic, has a unique power to push the pendulum either way.The Times's inaugural critic was Ada Louise Huxtable, followed by Goldberger, then the more starchitect-oriented Herbert Muschamp and Ourossoff:
“I tried, when I followed her, to keep the sense of engagement with the city going as much as possible, and to write a fair amount about issues again of planning and zoning and so forth,” Goldberger said. “That faded from the Times for a while, and it’s a good sign that the current critic is eager to bring that back.”
...
The Observer's Matt Chaban praised Kimmelman for not comparing buildings to similar ones--"peg versus peg":
Kimmelman seems to care very little for these games and would rather focus on whether or not that peg fits into the hole into which it has been placed, something that really does not happen enough. The only problem is it can lead to articles that read quite a lot alike. At least that is the superficial reading.
Nevermind the fact that there are myriad projects waiting to be weighed in on—the new apartments at Atlantic Yards, or the ones at Brooklyn Bridge Park, or Frank Gehry’s new Signature Theater all come to mind. Far be it from us to give marching orders to Mr. Kimmelman, but the people are dying to know what he thinks, and these are all still projects that could be considered in the lens of cities, too.
While some critics, such as New York Magazine's Justin Davidson (pro) and the Real Deal's James Gardner (unenthusiastic if not quite con), have commented on the SHoP-designed plans for three modular towers, I'd suggest it's premature.
Why? Architecture critics have a history on commenting on plans that don't come to fruition. Maybe they should wait to see if this plan is, in fact, going forward.
Posted by steve at 11:47 PM
March 4, 2012
Why journalism is important: "to fill the space that grows between the two parts of democracy: the governed and the governors
Atlantic Yards Report
Jay Rosen, the NYU journalism scholar and, among other things, coiner of the very useful "View from Nowhere" observation, explains:
Why I study journalism and criticize it and try to make it better when I can figure out how.
The reason is there in this quote from Thinking the Twentieth Century, by Tony Judt with Timothy Snyder. (Penguin Books, 2012)Democracies corrode quite fast; they corrode linguistically, or rhetorically if you like— that’s the Orwellian point about language. They corrode because most people don’t care about them. Notice that the European Union, whose first parliamentary elections were held in 1979 and had an average turnout of over 62 percent, is now looking at turnout of less than 30 percent, even though the European Parliament matters more now and has more power. The difficulty of sustaining voluntary interest in the business of choosing the people who will rule over you is well attested. And the reason why we need intellectuals, as well as all the good journalists we can find, is to fill the space that grows between the two parts of democracy: the governed and the governors.
Tony Judt, who lived upstairs from me, was one of the great students of the West, and did as much as anyone I know to warn of the corrosives of his time.
Politics, I shouldn't have to remind people, extends beyond elections and legislatures to things like development projects.
Posted by steve at 9:27 PM
March 1, 2012
Times finally publishes article on Ridge Hill trial, lets flack DePlasco defend Forest City against unidentified "critics," downplays developer's dubious behavior
Atlantic Yards Report
So, after three days of testimony from Forest City Ratner officials, and a one-day grace period, the New York Times today finally publishes an article about the Ridge Hill project and Yonkers corruption, Window Into Developer’s Relentless Quest to Get a Yonkers Project Approved.
It's a serviceable, but way too truncated summary of the drama in the federal case against consultant Zehy Jereis and ex-City Council Member Sandy Annabi, which I've covered at length on this blog.
Because several days of testimony are compressed into one article--rather than publishing daily articles, even online--key details are lost. But it's just enough for the Times to be able to defend itself against charges it had ignored the project.
Leaning Ratner's way
But the ending does lean Ratner's way:
A Forest City spokesman, Joseph DePlasco, said on Wednesday that critics had focused unfairly on the developer’s role. “This is really about a company trying with great difficulty to navigate the byzantine maze of politics in Yonkers,” he said.
Well, no critics are mentioned in the article, so the Times let DePlasco leave the impression that the developer's facing a phantom.
Lame ending ignores developer's dubiousness
The article closes:
As for [ex-Forest City executive] Mr. [Bruce] Bender, he testified that he had always been hopeful that the developer would prevail in its lobbying effort.
“In my experience in over 30 years of government,” he said, “when it comes to politics, there is nothing impossible.”
That's a completely lame conclusion.
The central mystery of Ridge Hill, still extant, is why Forest City, the main beneficiary of Annabi's vote change, emerges unscathed.
The developer was not charged with wrongdoing, but it clearly behaved dubiously--details omitted from the Times coverage.
Posted by eric at 10:31 AM
February 29, 2012
What the Times put in the Metro section instead of covering the Yonkers corruption case involving Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill project
Atlantic Yards Report
Just in case you're wondering what articles New York Times editors decided to put in today's Metro section while continuing to avoid the Yonkers corruption trial involving Forest City Ratner's Ridge Hill project, consider the following.
The first weighty article, in fact, appeared on the section front, as indicated at right.
Familiar Guest at a Bronx Home: An Out-of-Control Vehicle
A Season Premiere, a Falling Man and Memories of 9/11
Ex-Marine Arrested on Gun Charge Had Poor Record, Manhattan Prosecutor Says
Brooklyn Police Officer Is Accused of Driving Patrol Car While Drunk
Posted by eric at 10:08 PM
Did Forest City Ratner get "bilked" by Yonkers defendant (as suggested in 2010 Times coverage)? Trial testimony indicates the opposite
Atlantic Yards Report
You haven't read it in the New York Times, because the newspaper has chosen to avoid recent coverage of the Yonkers corruption trial (though not saturation coverage of the latest Pale Male twist).
But in the past few days, two Forest City Ratner witnesses demolished the sloppy, dishonest phrasing in the Times's 1/6/10 report, Ex-Official in Yonkers Faces Charges of Corruption.
Back then, the Times suggested that Zehy Jereis, the go-between accused of engineering Ex-Council Member Sandy Annabi's vote to green-light the Ridge Hill project, was "accused of bilking" Forest City.
![](http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5eEwQu1svL0/T02dA4oyzbI/AAAAAAAANdw/f3JQSF6Ftbc/s1600/ishot-3733.jpg"") |
Got "bilked"?
Any fair reading of the indictment and the term "bilk" should have let a sentient being conclude that Forest City did not get bilked.
Indeed, as Michael D.D. White pointed out in his Noticing New York blog, it strained credulity for the Times to report that "Forest City Ratner, a real estate firm whose specialty is collecting government subsidies through its relentless cultivation of public officials, was outsmarted" by the defendants.
It wasn't.
NoLandGrab: Funny, but The Times has never postulated that Brooklynites and New York's taxpayers have been "bilked" by demonstrator-of-"the highest ethical standards and behavior" Bruce Ratner's phony promises of jobs and affordable housing.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
February 28, 2012
The dailies ignore on the Yonkers corruption trial; what's wrong with the Times?
Atlantic Yards Report
So Bruce Bender, long the top government relations official for Forest City Ratner and former Chief of Staff for Council Speaker Peter Vallone, testifies yesterday in federal court about the developer's nearly desperate search for the vote that green-lighted the Ridge Hill project in Yonkers--a process that led to corruption charges against two others--and what do the New York dailies do?
They ignore it. (The suburban Journal News has been covering the story.)
You can almost understand the New York Post, which did have a reporter there (and did cover the testimony last week of Bender's colleague Scott Cantone), and the New York Daily News, which didn't send a reporter.
The tabloids want juicy headlines, though, by my lights, Bender's memo to lobbyist Mike Spano, now the mayor of Yonkers, qualifies as juicy insight into how development and politics really work:
"No fucking around. Get Sandy on board. Tell your brother we need help now."
Sandy would be Council Member Sandy Annabi, now on trial, and the brother would be Yonkers powerbroker Nick Spano, a longtime state Senator turned legislator with his own recent legal troubles.
What happened to the Times?
The New York Times? Well, their federal courts reporter was in the room, diligently taking notes. I'm sure he was capable of delivering a solid report. Maybe he even wrote one.
Someone decided no, maybe the same someone who decided the MTA deal Forest City Ratner renegotiated in 2009 was worth just five short paragraphs in print, or an article on the Nets' efforts to woo fans was worth 18 paragraphs.
Posted by eric at 12:35 PM
February 1, 2012
Deconstructing the latest softball Ratner interview: plans for affordable housing are even shakier than before, and Ratner's tense even with a friendly publication
Atlantic Yards Report
This New York Observer article, Waiting for Bruce: The Commercial Observer Tours Atlantic Yards Arena, is such a nada-burger that it deserves some off the cuff annotation.
The article is in italics, my commentary not. I'm not sure why it was published other than a generalized desire by the Commercial Observer, which is owned by a real estate mogul, to play nice with Bruce. (Well, here's the justification, I guess: slideshow.)
A chauffered Lexus LS sedan pulled up to the corner of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue and out slid Bruce Ratner from the back seat. He was 15 minutes late.
In a navy suit with a merino v-neck sweater over a dress shirt with no tie and an open collar, he was also underdresed for the sunny but windy chill swirling across the $1 billion Barclays Center that his firm Forest City Ratner is well into building at the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn.
“I thought it was going to be 50 degrees,” Mr. Ratner said, immediately noticing the cold.
This is what's called "setting the scene."
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner Loses Tempter in Softball Barclays Center Interview
Such petulance just because a friendly publication's reporter was attempting to dig a wee tiny bit and perhaps broke the restrictions of Mr. Ratner's narrow interview ground rules? Of course Mr. Ratner wouldn't want to talk about anything besides the arena...because there is nothing to say about any of the rest of the phantom project.
Posted by eric at 11:40 PM
January 29, 2012
NetsDaily editor says Prokhorov's feelings toward US have been shaped by reception by Nets fans, ignores his own role as chief cheerleader
Atlantic Yards Report
.>A 1/26/12 post on Nets Daily, Did Fans' Reaction Help Prokhorov's View of U.S., West?, contains a glaringly obvious omission:
Those close to Mikhail Prokhorov say his feelings toward the United States have evolved, shaped, in part, by his experience as the Nets owner. When he purchased the team he didn't know what to expect. Would there be suspicions? a Cold War hangover?
But they say he was pleasantly surprised by reaction he got from NBA owners and particularly Nets fans. As one said, he found it all quite endearing. Now are we starting to see the product of that in his foreign policy pronouncements as he runs for Russian president? Seems so. On Tuesday he told an English language television outlet that it's time for Russia to embrace the West.(Emphasis added)
Particularly Nets fans? The Nets fan who's led the embrace of Prokhorov is the author of that post, site editor "Net Income," aka Bob Windrem.
A 4/26/10 Times Sports Section article, headlined Russian Billionaire Is White Knight for the Nets, stated:
The NetsDaily blog has dubbed him “the Most Interesting Man in the World,” after the suave fellow in the beer commercials.
That dubbing came from "Net Income" in a 6/26/09 post.
Windrem earlier even wrote a profile for MSNBC quoting the words and work of "Net Income," but didn't acknowledge on MSNBC that he's the lead contributor to NetsDaily.
A 10/31/10 New York Times Magazine cover story on Prokhorov, headlined The Playboy and His Power Games, reported:
Prokhorov had invited anyone who couldn’t manage the rasp in the middle of “Mikhail” to call him Mike, but on NetsDaily, the premier Nets fan Web site, he quickly emerged as “Proky.” Proky was the sweet sound of salvation. The Web site editor (a 65-year-old New York-based television producer anxious to keep his old- and new-media identities separate) coined a phrase for the euphoria coursing through reader comments: the Prokhorov Effect.
Why does he want to keep his identities separate? Because he shoots from the hip and makes claims--and gets nasty--that he wouldn't do as "Bob Windrem."
Posted by steve at 10:11 PM
January 23, 2012
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
January 18, 2012
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
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 15, 2012
Looking beyond the Brooklyn Brand(s)
Atlantic Yards Report
In Time for Brooklyn (and its Fans) to Go Beyond the Brand, in City Limits' new Brooklyn Bureau, Marilyn Gelber of the Brooklyn Community Foundation wrote 1/5/12:
But justifiable pride of place should not make us reluctant to look deeper and examine serious challenges to Brooklyn's well being.
...Right now in the media there are two Brooklyns: the Brooklyn of artisanal cheese shops and the Brooklyn of murder and mayhem.
While we love that there's no shortage of ink on how “cool” Brooklyn is, there's an egregious lack of reporting dedicated to civic and social issues in what would be the nation's fourth largest city. We're not comfortable with the idea of Brooklyn being split apart by income disparity and selective investment, and the general media paying attention to just a sliver of what's happening here.
So the Brooklyn Bureau will not only offer new reportage across Brooklyn put also publish a series of Neighborhood Profiles for each of Brooklyn's 18 Community Districts, produced by the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College.
In the spring, that will lead to "the first ever Borough-wide Brooklyn Trends Report, examining the strength of our collective local economy, housing stock, health and healthcare, public safety, education system, environment, and the arts."
Posted by steve at 7:27 PM
'Battle for Brooklyn' Debuts At Artisphere
Clarendon-Courthouse-Rosslyn Patch
Here is a glowing review for the Atlantic Yards fight documentary "Battle for "Brooklyn" as it plays just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.
Ratner and his company Forest City's $2.5 billion Atlantic Yards project is set to bring the New Jersey Nets to the borrough of Brooklyn, along with several massive residential towers and a mess of mixed-use buildings.
To accomplish this, Ratner wages an impeccable but ethically questionable PR campaign and -- thanks to political favoritism and an array of dubious tactics -- is able to comdemn an entire neighborhood, execute a hefty landgrab by way of eminent domain, and receive a sweetheart deal from the Mass Transit Authority as well as hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer kickbacks and subsidies.
...
Michael Galinsky, who directed the documentary with Suki Hawley, adds further perspective.
But "Battle for Brooklyn" is not only about eminent domain abuse and crony capitalism but also the failure of mainstream media. Throughout the film, it's clear that Forest City/Ratner press releases routinely win out to any fair journalistic depiction of the struggle.
"It's as much about media as it is about anything else," Galinsky said. "Many New Yorkers who've seen the film told us they felt like they slept through this whole ordeal." That's because very few outlets were willing to tell this story in real time.
Posted by steve at 7:15 PM
January 14, 2012
Another columnist enraptured by the Jay-Z & Beyonce baby: "it’s a nice diversion to think about a child born with a silver spoon"
Atlantic Yards Report
The notorious Stephen Witt, opening in his Our Time Press column on Blue Ivy Carter, writes:
Although I don’t shoot at the same baskets or pay the same taxes, I’m as bubbling over with joy as the average schmo over Jay-Z and Beyonce finally having a little bundle of joy.
Did the average schmo (beyond faux schmo Denis Hamill) really care? Or just the schmo who hugged Bruce Ratner?
Posted by steve at 10:26 PM
The Times? An advocate for readers, or a stenographer for politicians (and others in power)
Atlantic Yards Report
Clay Shirky, in the Guardian, has a wise follow-up to the "Truth Vigilante" question:
The immediate fallout from [Public Editor Arthur] Brisbane's question will be minor – no paper in the United States, not even the Times (as its editor partially concedes), has enough staff to express continuous skepticism about political speech – but there may yet be a lasting effect to be reckoned with. Having asked, in a completely innocent way, whether the Times should behave like an advocate for the readers, rather than a stenographer to politicians, the question cannot now be unasked. Every day in which the Times (and indeed, most US papers) fail at what has clearly surfaced as their readers' preference on the matter will be a day in which that gap remains uncomfortably visible.
And that includes when politicians are talking about Atlantic Yards--and when developers do so, as well.
Posted by steve at 10:18 PM
Things to do Jan. 11 - Jan. 18
The Washington Post
By Jillian S. Sowah
“Battle for Brooklyn,” the acclaimed documentary tells the story of the Atlantic Yards project—Bruce Ratner’s billion-dollar plan for a massive Brooklyn development including 8 million square feet of new apartments, offices and stores, centered on a basketball arena for the New York Nets. 8 p.m. Friday, 5 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 6 p.m. Sunday, Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington. $7. 703-875-1100.
Posted by steve at 10:16 PM
January 13, 2012
Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante?
The New York Times
by Arthur S. Brisbane
God, these guys just don't get it, do they?
I’m looking for reader input on whether and when New York Times news reporters should challenge “facts” that are asserted by newsmakers they write about.
NoLandGrab: No, Times, you should just keep your heads firmly up your arses, regurgitate the b.s. spewed by your "development partner," devote a single graf to an "opponent" or "critic," and call it a day. Jeezus.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, The Times, the "Truth Vigilante" uproar, and the journalism of verification
Should The Times Be a Truth Vigilante? wrote New York Times ombudsman Arthur Brisbane, occasioning nearly universal shouts of "yes," including from his colleagues, all dissected interestingly by Jay Rosen on his Press Think blog.
No one mentioned, as far as I can tell, former executive editor Bill Keller's useful formulation of "the journalism of verification," which is the newspaper's job. And while most of the discussion today concerned political coverage, we should remember that the Times has fallen short so many times regarding Atlantic Yards, such as:
Atlantic Yards Report, Rethinking the role of news ombudsman: "aggregate, curate, debate" (which would mean linking to sites like AYR)
Journalist and author Dan Gillmor, in What a 21st Century News Ombudsman Should Do: Aggregate, Curate, Debate, responds to the Times's "Truth Vigilante" dust-up and a Washington Post column by commenting:
These pieces highlighted how strange the ombudsman’s job has become, and why I think it needs to be updated in this networked age. Here’s how I’d change it, and I hope both of these men will consider at least adding some of these ideas to their portfolio. There would be two main approaches: aggregation and conversation.
Posted by eric at 12:24 AM
January 11, 2012
Prokhorov on NetsDaily? Sure, but not that MSNBC profile by Robert Windrem, aka "Net Income"
Atlantic Yards Report
Citing news articles and even coverage in Russian (via Google Translate), NetsDaily, via chief editor "Net Income," does not typically hold back in its coverage of Nets principal owner Mikhail Prokhorov.
Except, curiously enough, there's been no mention of Monday's MSNBC profile by Robert (Bob) Windrem, aka Net Income. Maybe that's because Windrem was quoting himself. Or because Windrem was described merely as a "senior investigative producer for NBC News and a Nets season ticket holder."
He's a lot more than that. Windrem knows he has to stay professional.
His pseudonymous alter ego--not so much. His lust for a new arena for his favorite team--"NI is the biggest Brooklyn fan on this website," one commenter observed--means that, too often, the end justifies the means.
Posted by eric at 12:10 PM
Daily News columnis Hamill, always happy to buff the Brooklyn Nets, salutes Jay-Z, ignores "ethical pickle"
Atlantic Yards Report
Daily News columnist Denis Hamill, who thinks the Brooklyn Nets can give Brooklyn a soul, swallowed Forest City Ratner promotional spin, and saluted those building the arena, deserves notice for his celebratory column yesterday.
You see, Hamill back in December 2002 met Jay-Z when the "shy and humble" rapper was reading to fifth-graders--JAY-Z GIVES KIDS GIFT OF EXAMPLE--and remains quite impressed.
The "ethical pickle'
Jay-Z's a reader, and that fueled his writing skills and helped get him out of the projects, Hamill related back in 2002 and again yesterday. Yes, a dedication to reading is an admirable thing, and it allowed Jay-Z to build on his skills and gifts.
But Jay-Z, in case Hamill needs a reminder, also exited the projects because he was a drug dealer, and that, as writer Sam Anderson once put it, "the ethical pickle at the core of the Jay-Z myth."
Posted by eric at 11:42 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
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
January 8, 2012
Horse-race coverage of sports, politics, and business--and an egregious AY example
Atlantic Yards Report
From a 1/3/12 column by Reuters media columnist Jack Shafer, Presidential campaigns, sports writing, and the fine art of pretending:
The jobs of political reporters and sports writers are almost identical: Determine who is ahead and who is behind; get inside the heads of the participants; decode the relevant strategies and tactics; and find a way to convert reader interest into sustainable enthusiasm.
And that extends also to business:
[Washington Post reporter Paul] Farhi, who has reported on business, sports, politics, and the media, says business coverage also obsesses on winners and numbers. “Maybe all journalism is about success and failure, and we see it more clearly in sports,” he said.
And, I'd argue, that misses meaning.
The Times on AY
Remember the New York Times's horse-race analysis in the 6/9/05 article headlined Unlike Stadium on West Side, an Arena in Brooklyn Is Still a Go?
While the Brooklyn plan still has hurdles, its progress so far is providing an object lesson in how to navigate big projects through the often treacherous and choppy waters of New York state and city politics. In the Brooklyn project, backers have aggressively courted the local community since the project's inception, trying to placate those who could be its most aggressive foes. Perhaps most important, they have reached out to Mr. [Assembly Speaker Sheldon] Silver.
(Emphasis added)
Object lesson? Not anymore. Nor for a long while.
Posted by steve at 10:37 PM
January 6, 2012
FCR's Gilmartin tells Crain's that shutdown of facade fabricator will not cause delays. How will the other steel plates be delivered? They're not saying.
Atlantic Yards Report
The ever-penetrating Crain's New York Business gets Forest City Ratner on the phone to say that, never mind, nothing's wrong. In Barclays Center developer says show will go on, Crain's reports:
The developer of the Barclays Center arena in downtown Brooklyn says that the year-end demise of the company that is fabricating the weathered steel for the arena's distinctive façade will not result in any construction delays. ...“We are concerned when any of our partners has problems, but we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, referring to steel fabricator ASI Limited having gone out of business. “We can still continue with construction.”
Of course they can still continue with construction. The question is where they get the specially fabricated, pre-weathered steel. It's not an off-the-shelf product. Crain's continues:
Ms. Gilmartin said that a large portion of the weathered steel had already been erected. She couldn't immediately say how much still needed to go up. She added that Forest City is working to insure the steel will continue to be made and to be delivered to the site in a timely fashion, but declined to offer details.
That's plenty vague; they won't say how much work is left, and they won't say how they'll get the steel. Of course it's possible that ASI Limited will reopen, which is likely the best-case scenario, and all will work out. But it's also possible that the construction schedule, which has already slipped, as I reported this morning, could slip more.
Posted by eric at 12:16 PM
December 31, 2011
AY down the memory hole: Times says arena will "undoubtedly transform Downtown Brooklyn"
Atlantic Yards Report
In a year-ahead front-page article in tomorrow's Metropolitan section, the New York Times offers a three-paragraph summary for Brooklyn, mostly about Atlantic Yards:
When the sports arena that anchors the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project finally opens in September, after more than eight years of lawsuits and construction delays, it will undoubtedly transform Downtown Brooklyn.
Downtown Brooklyn? Didn't the Times more than five years ago acknowledge in a mega-correction that Downtown Brooklyn was an inaccurate designation for the project?
In a 4/17/11 article about living in Prospect Heights, the Times included Atlantic Yards and the arena site within the bounds of the neighborhood. See graphic at right.
(Arguably, the northern and western edges of the arena site, which border wide avenues, might extend Downtown Brooklyn. But walk down Dean Street from the surface parking lot on the southeast block of the site, and enter from Dean Street? That's not Downtown.)
Also, was it merely "more than eight years of lawsuits and construction delays"? What about Forest City Ratner's desperate search for new capital, from a Russian oligarch seeking to burnish his image to Chinese investors seeking green cards?
...
The initial paragraph continues:
But will the 19,000-seat Barclays Center, soon to be home to the Nets and host to Jay-Z, the circus and 200 other events a year, 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?
So it's "most officials" vs. "some residents"? What if it's both?
After all, what "most officials" predict is not exactly a stretch, since an arena, by definition, attracts certain kind of entertainment and commerce.
And won't it create a vortex of traffic, as the Times itself has warned, as well as other untoward local effects, as Atlantic Yards Watch regularly documents?
Related content...
The New York Times, What to Expect in New York in 2012
Posted by steve at 6:05 PM
The Atlantic Yards meme gets a boost in 2011, with more coming from a journalist's novel
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote in March how a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority used the term Atlantic Yards--a marketing term for a 22-acre project, some of which is still in private hands--for the agency's 8.5 acre Vanderbilt Yard.
In April, one of the MTA's watchdogs similarly used the term Atlantic Yards to describe the property the agency marketed.
And in a manuscript
You'd think that a journalist writing about Atlantic Yards would know better, but not the notorious Stephen Witt, who's written an AY novel called The Street Singer. The Daily News gave it unaccountable publicity earlier this month, but not until AY opponent Patti Hagan gave me the hard copy of the article did I see an excerpt from the manuscript, which included this:
"Thaddeus Hoover," I said, suddenly recognizing the name. You're the guy who wants to bring the Nets to Brooklyn and build an arena at the Atlantic Yards."
"No, I'm the man who will build the arena and bring Brooklyn its first major professional sports team since the Dodgers left for California."
As Tad spoke, I though about Goody Brats saying Hoover was sucking up the neighborhood. It was kind of funny. Here I was having a drink with the land grabber himself.
Put aside the not-so-naturalistic dialogue and the Zelig-like wish fulfillment--Witt did once enthusiastically hug Ratner--and remember, Atlantic Yards was not a place.
Posted by steve at 5:54 PM
December 29, 2011
AY down the memory hole: Capital declares Kuntzman's Brooklyn Paper "got massive mileage out of the Atlantic Yards saga"
Atlantic Yards Report
From Hey Honeys! 'King of Brooklyn' Gersh Kuntzman heads off to academe, to instruct young gumshoes, in Capital (tagline: This is How New York Works), about the Gershification of the Brooklyn Paper:
It also meant transforming what was already a well-respected community publication, with its informative re-caps of local board meetings and dutiful coverage of provincial affairs, into the type of scrappy news product that could command the interest and respect not only of its neighborhood constituents, but of those media elites across the river.
“What I did,” said Kuntzman, more modestly, “was, I took a very, very strong paper, I cut the story length in half, and I added a kind of tabloid brashness."
And nothing was lost?
What about AY?
Writes Joe Pompeo:
Apart from the bottled water wars, some other classics from Kuntzman’s Brooklyn Paper canon, outside its signature beats like bike lanes and local development (it got massive mileage out of the Atlantic Yards saga), include the horrific geese-slaughtering of July 2010, the infamous 6-year-old sidewalk chalk vandal of Park Slope, and the editor’s rather racy real estate porn spoof...
Here's the comment I tried to post:
The Brooklyn Paper "got massive mileage out of the Atlantic Yards saga"?
Here's what the BP hasn't covered:
-Forest City Ratner's effort to raise $249 million from immigrant (mostly Chinese) investors seeking green cards via the EB-5 program.
--Borough President Marty Markowitz's willingness to shill for that effort by making a video claiming that "Brooklyn is 1000 percent behind Atlantic Yards."
--Forest City Ratner's unwillingness to hire the Independent Compliance Monitor required by the much-promoted Community Benefits Agreement.
Related content...
Capital, Hey Honeys! 'King of Brooklyn' Gersh Kuntzman heads off to academe, to instruct young gumshoes
Posted by eric at 9:27 AM
December 20, 2011
Times gives lavish space to puff piece on new Nets announcer, ignores "sordid history" (by the way, he says cigars are healthier than cigarettes)
Atlantic Yards Report
Sure, Kim Jong-Il is dead, the Eurozone economies are in shambles, and it's an all-out race to the bottom among Republican presidential hopefuls, but whoa — get a load of that new Nets PA announcer's hair!
Number of paragraphs about Atlantic Yards in front-page New York Times article yesterday about EB-5 projects that stretch the rules: 1.
Number of paragraphs in Sports section article today about new Nets announcer David Diamante: 21.
A bit of a puff piece
The Times article, headlined New Nets Announcer Shows Flair and Hair, lets him describe his various jobs and hobbies--motorcyclist, DJ, surfer, boxing announcer. He's got long dreadlocks...
Related content...
The New York Times, Nets Announcer Shows Flair and Hair
Diamante was not among the original 400 prospective announcers who auditioned for the Nets in September. After learning of the tryouts, he contacted Nets representatives and was included in the final round of 20 announcers in October. He got the job, signed a multiyear contract and last week announced his first game with the team, at its current home in Newark.
NoLandGrab: Yet one more example of the flawed process surrounding Atlantic Yards.
The Brooklyn Paper, Brooklyn man to be the voice of the Barclays Center
The team will get a side benefit from hiring Diamante, who is active in charities in his spare time, most recently including holding an auction that raised more than $18,000 for Treasure Island Pre-school in Bay Ridge.
“I try to live my life like that,” Diamante said. “You have to be a good neighbor.”
The Nets have been struggling to be just that as the controversial Barclays Center nears completion. But Diamante thinks that any lingering hard feelings will disappear once the team hits the hard wood.
Posted by eric at 1:07 PM
December 18, 2011
Battle for Brooklyn
John Likes Movies
Some would argue that activist documentaries don't have a place in today's world, what with the 24-hour news cycle souring any notion of a smart but slanted discourse. Battle for Brooklyn, however, is a fine example of how to sell someone on a point of view without hammering them over the head with it. The film's points are cogent, and they're presented in a very compelling manner. Yes, it takes sides, but after seeing the film, you'll understand why. The issues shown involve a great deal of passion, and though it might be too late to stop the Atlantic Yards project, one can only hope people take notice and don't let something like this happen again.
Posted by steve at 5:40 PM
December 6, 2011
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.
 |
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
November 27, 2011
What Oscar Snub of “Page One: Inside the New York Times” Might Tell Us About A Misplaced Losing-the-Battle (and War) NY Times Bet
Noticing New York
Just like much of its Atlantic Yards fight coverage, the New York Times has given short-shrift to the Oscar-nominated film concerning this fight, "Battle for Brooklyn". This blog post concludes by noting what the bad result is when the Times fails to do good reporting on local issues.
In that regard we are only talking the documentary film world reporting on the real world. But the Oscar race is a clue to a bigger real world story. That bigger story is about how the New York Times could become a significantly greater paper by setting aside its misplaced bet that it can get away with sidestepping proper coverage of important local news stories like Atlantic Yards or Columbia University’s the similarly problematic use of eminent domain to take over West Harlem or. . . the list of stories goes on. It is a long one because everything is connected.
Posted by steve at 3:23 PM
Have You Looked in "Our Time Press" and Found the Fine AY Reporting? Not a Witt
Atlantic Yards Report, A response to Stephen Witt, and a letter of support
The latest issue of Our Time Press contains a letter from me in response to a column by the notorious Stephen Witt. It begins:
In his column about Atlantic Yards in the Nov. 17 issue, Stephen Witt writes that that “For doing this”--consistently seeking out the views of project supporters--"opponents of the project and their media mouthpieces, including Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder, continually blasted me.”
The issue isn’t whether Witt seeks out other views, it’s that he’s an irresponsible and unreliable writer.
But there's another letter, from the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, one of those who's views Witt embraces:
I just read your column in the Our Time Press. I appreciate your consistency. I know that is has not always been easy for some individuals to be supporters of the Atlantic Yards Project. Thank God that there are individuals who believe in the benefits for the community that this project will accrue.
Well, there's belief, and then there's proof.
Atlantic Yards Report, Scoop? Forest City considering Navy Yard as modular site
The notorious Stephen Witt has a purported scoop in the latest issue of Our Time Press, as the 11/25/11 article Ratner eyes Brooklyn Navy Yard for Atlantic Yards Construction is labeled "Exclusive."
It begins:
Developer Forest City Ratner is looking at the Brooklyn Navy Yard as one of three possible sites to manufacture modular units of the Atlantic Yards project, according to a source with knowledge of the project.
“The Brooklyn Navy Yard is close to the site and it would be kind of cool given its history of ship building,” said the source, adding that the other site is also in Brooklyn and the third site is in Queens.
When finalized the manufacturing site will construct prefabricated units for the world’s largest modular constructed building at 32 floors on the Atlantic Yards site. It will also be utilized for the other 14 other residential buildings proposed on the $4.5 bill project.
The source said that surprisingly there are still quite a few manufacturing sites around the city, and modular construction will bring manufacturing union and trade-union jobs.
The site will also serve the construction needs around the city, the country and perhaps globally,” the source said.Is this news? A week earlier, Forest City told the Wall Street Journal it was looking at three sites, in Brooklyn and in Queens.
So the only "news" is that the Navy Yard is a potential Brooklyn site. That's hardly a surprise, as the New York Times, in its initial report on Forest City's modular plans last March, mentioned Capsys, a modular builder at the Navy Yard.
And who's the "source with knowledge of the project"? I'd bet that the "source," who provided other self-serving quotes, was Forest City spokesman Joe DePlasco.
Posted by steve at 3:06 PM
November 25, 2011
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
November 20, 2011
From GQ: Jay-Z's path from the streets to high society (and what about fronting?)
Atlantic Yards Report
As one of the 2011 GQ Men of the Year, Jay-Z is designated King. Alex Pappademas observes:
Take Watch the Throne, on which two grandiose motherfuckers explore the theme of grandiose-motherfuckerdom from vastly different perspectives, stacking dubstep on top of opera on top of Otis Redding, triumphalism on top of sorrow on top of more triumphalism, striving for a sound as vast and strange as the world they've come to inhabit. It's glorious and obnoxious and pointedly self-aware, and it was more fun to argue about than any hip-hop record since, I don't know, Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak or Jay-Z's widely jeered Kingdom Come.
The gist of a lot of those arguments: In an economic moment as bleak as this, is it not sort of a dick move to drop an album—even a great one—about what it feels like to be richer than a fifteenth-century pope? On what turned out to be the day of a stock market crash? Even the Watch the Throne T-shirts were limited-edition Givenchy and sold for $300.
...Watch the Throne is an honest record about trying to find your moral compass when insane wealth and success have knocked down every boundary that once gave shape to your world. Write what you know, y'know?
He credits Jay for making it from the 'hood:
Nearly every rapper tells a version of that story. But nobody tells it better or to a wider cross section of the population—children, rap nerds, corporate America—than Jay-Z. No hip-hop artist who owes his credibility to the street has moved farther beyond it and into the rarefied air of twenty-first-century high society than Jay has. But at 42, he remains, precedent-defyingly, a rapper people still care about, because he's managed to frame all his achievements—his front-office stint at Def Jam, his ownership stake in the NBA franchise soon to be known as the Brooklyn Nets, the $150 million deal with LiveNation that's said to rival Madonna's, even the pop star he put a ring on—as we-shouldn't-be-here victories for a kid from public housing, and for hip-hop, too.
Fair enough. It's just that he's running interference for some of the people making false promises (it is alleged) to Brooklynites from the neighborhoods he left.
Posted by steve at 10:37 PM
In Our Time Press, questionable coverage of the latest lawsuit
Atlantic Yards Report
The notorious Stephen Witt, now writing for Bed-Stuy-based Our Time Press, has produced his coverage of the lawsuit filed earlier this week: Another Atlantic Yards lawsuit: Allegations that training program does not bring union jobs as promised.
There's no mention of the issue of unpaid wages, but a "he said, she said" focus on whether jobs and union cards were promised to 36 trainees in a highly selective program. Witt writes:
But both FCR and BUILD officials said union cards were never promised, and charged James, state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery and longtime foes of Atlantic Yards are behind the lawsuit. They also said their opposition is a major contributing force behind the lack of jobs as promised by the CBA.
...[BUILD's James] Caldwell said his organization has placed close to 400 people from the community with jobs, many on other FCR developments, and that the downturn in the economy has caused the build-out of the Atlantic Yards project to be much slower.
...[Forest City spokesman Joe] DePlasco said there are about 800 people currently working on the Atlantic Yards project...
Of these workers, 410 are city residents including 174 from Brooklyn, of which 67 are from Central Brooklyn...
DePlasco said of the 36 people that went through the BUILD pre-apprenticeship training program, 19 were working in property management, retail or construction-related positions as of September this year.
All that is irrelevant to the question of whether the 36 people, who began the program in August 2010, were promised jobs and union cards. After all, some of those 19 people have jobs at McDonald's
Posted by steve at 10:35 PM
How Could The Times Get Yet Another Story (In Addition to Atlantic Yards) So Wrong: OWS Evicting Bloomberg as Defender of Free Speech
Noticing New York
Noticing New York has frequently covered and criticized the grossly inadequate, misleading and biased coverage that the New York Times has provided with respect to the Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards megadevelopment and associated issues such as the abuse of eminent domain that is also occurring elsewhere, like Columbia University’s takeover of West Harlem.
...
Heretofore the Noticing New York thesis about such atrocious coverage by the Times was that it was all the more insidious and dangerous because the paper of record is, in otherwise confidence-inspiring ways, head and shoulders over other newspapers in New York City, even all the rest of country. The Times dereliction with respect to the Atlantic Yards family of issues seemed to be a willful and conscious choice related to a deal the Times knowingly made with the devil when it attempted to buttress itself financially (while garnering some attention-grabbing cultural surface glitz) by partnering with real estate developer and subsidy-collector-specialist Forest City Ratner to use (abuse?) eminent domain to build a New Times Square headquarters building.
The problem is, as pointed out in prior Noticing New York articles, you cannot selectively cast a blind eye to the misconduct associated with the city’s biggest boondoggle because everything is connected. You cannot expect to elide the evils of Atlantic Yards in your pages because it leaves holes in your paper-of-record stories about everything else. Do you want to report about the Brooklyn Borough President's shady capitalization on conflicts of interest involving charities created for that purpose? There’s a gaping hole in this tale you tell unless Atlantic Yards gets featured front and center.
Posted by steve at 9:44 PM
November 19, 2011
15 Documentary Features Advance in 2011 Oscar Race
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The documentary about the Atlantic Yards fight, "Battle for Brooklyn" has deservedly been short-listed in the competition for an Academy Award for Documentary Feature.
Beverly Hills, CA (November 18, 2011) – The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process for the 84th Academy Awards. One hundred twenty-four pictures had originally qualified in the category.
The 15 films are listed below in alphabetical order by title, with their production company:
- "Battle for Brooklyn" (RUMUR Inc.)
- "Bill Cunningham New York" (First Thought Films)
- "Buck" (Cedar Creek Productions)
- "Hell and Back Again" (Roast Beef Productions Limited)
- "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" (Marshall Curry Productions, LLC)
- "Jane's Journey" (NEOS Film GmbH & Co. KG)
- "The Loving Story" (Augusta Films)
- "Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory" (@radical.media)
- "Pina" (Neue Road Movies GmbH)
- "Project Nim" (Red Box Films)
- "Semper Fi: Always Faithful" (Tied to the Tracks Films, Inc.)
- "Sing Your Song" (S2BN Belafonte Productions, LLC)
- "Undefeated" (Spitfire Pictures)
- "Under Fire: Journalists in Combat" (JUF Pictures, Inc.)
- "We Were Here" (Weissman Projects, LLC)
The Documentary Branch Screening Committee viewed all the eligible documentaries for the preliminary round of voting. Documentary Branch members will now select the five nominees from among the 15 titles on the shortlist.
Posted by steve at 10:22 PM
November 18, 2011
Ratner's modular tower release and the mostly compliant press: an FAQ on timing, misdirection, jobs, the lack of larger apartments, and Ratner's astounding admission
Atlantic Yards Report
There are plenty of news outlets simply repeating Bruce Ratner's news releases on plans for housing units for the Atlantic Yards project, but only Norman Oder digs deeper to reveal the continuing story of the project as a series of deceptions and promises not kept.
Well, Forest City Ratner yesterday announced plans for Building 2, a 32-story, 350-unit tower with half subsidized apartments--the world's tallest modular tower--and the press piled on.
They just didn't answer all the questions.
Why were the renderings released yesterday?
No report explained that. There's no financing for the first building. The modular plan isn't final.
I'd bet that the release was strategized to deflect any lingering attention from the lawsuit filed two days earlier by construction workers charging they didn't get promised jobs and union cards after going through a selective training program mandated by the Atlantic Yards Community Benefit Agreement.
And to put pressure on construction unions. Remember, Ratner stopped building the Beekman Tower (aka 8 Spruce Street) midway to renegotiate with the unions.
What kind of pressure?
Well, Gary LaBarbera, president of the Building Building and Construction Trades Council, said, in a statement, "We are in the process of attempting to reach an agreement on modular construction that will work for the building trades and Forest City in an effort to create permanent employment opportunities for our members,"
Is Ratner definitely building modular?
Not at all. "We intend to do it modular," he told the Wall Street Journal, but said the decision isn't final. Indeed, you have to watch his language. In November 2009, after the state eminent domain decision, Ratner said they had the "intent" to move the New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn for the 2011-12 season.
Didn't the permit application describe a non-modular process?
Yup.
Did any press outlet mention that?
Not yet.
...
Does this announcement represent an about-face by Ratner? The Daily News said "project opponents saw another about-face by the developer." The Times quoted Council Member James, "who denounced what she described as the growing distance between the promise and the reality of Atlantic Yards."
It's another example of journalists pitting Ratner against "opponents" and maintaining what Jay Rosen calls the "View from Nowhere," the false middle, the inability to do any analysis. Actually, Bruce Ratner said it himself, that "existing incentives" don't work for high-rise, union-built affordable housing.
He said that?
Yup. Of course, he proposed--and the state approved--high-rise, union-built affordable housing.
Does that mean all the promises about Atlantic Yards residential rental towers, and the approval of those promises, were bogus?
Uh, yeah.
Related converage...
The L Magazine, Yup, It's a Prefab High-Rise for Atlantic Yards
Fort Greene - Clinton Hill Patch, Design Revealed for Atlantic Yards' Pre-Fab Tower
International Business Times, Forest City Ratner, SHoP Unveil Atlantic Yards Tower [PHOTOS]
Gothamist, Sorry, Brooklyn: This Is What Atlantic Yards Is Supposed To Look LIke
WNYC, Atlantic Yards Tower Design Revealed
The Wall Street Journal, Ratner Goes 'Modular' in Brooklyn
Daily News, Apartment tower at Atlantic Yards will be built in a factory
The Brooklyn Paper, Unions, aesthetes dunked as Ratner plans pre-fab building at Yards
New York Post. Atlantic Yards building with ‘Legos’
Curbed, Here's a Glimpse at the World's Tallest Prefab Condo Tower
Smart Planet, NYC SHoP Architects take modular construction to new heights
Crain's New York, Bruce Ratner’s breakthrough
NY1, Plans For Atlantic Yards Modular Tower Unveiled
Media Bistro, Details Released for ShoP’s Atlantic Yards Residential Buildings, Will Include World’s Tallest Modular Tower
Posted by steve at 6:52 PM
November 17, 2011
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
November 15, 2011
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
November 13, 2011
Journalism or advertising? Daily News promotes next Nets promotional event for new mobile marketing tool, claims "luxury suites are already half-gone"
Atlantic Yards Report
There's another piece of journalism-as-advertising in today's New York Daily News, headlined NBA lockout aside, Nets working hard to sell New York on next season's team, Barclays Center & Brooklyn.
What's the mark of success? "About 50% of their 100 suites — average price $250,000 — are already sold," declares the Daily News. The headline deck states "luxury suites are already half-gone."
Except that was the approximate number in July, too.
More puffery
The other piece of news? A preview of a media event:
On Tuesday, the Nets roll out their latest fan-friendly attraction: “The Experience,” a state-of-the-art, interactive, souped-up and hooped-up mobile marketing tool.
The 40-foot-long trailer, with hardwood floors inside and a rooftop deejay booth, offers fans everything from a touch of Nets history to a chance to buy gear to an opportunity to fire jumpers at a regulation-height hoop.
Music pumps from speakers up high, while the trailer’s back end is set up to serve food and drinks to fans — just around the corner from an electronic scoreboard.
...Nets General Manager Billy King and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will unveil “The Experience” on the plaza outside Borough Hall.
How often has the Daily News covered, say, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's dishonest shilling for Forest City Ratner's effort to recruit Chinese immigrant investors seeking green cards? Never.
Posted by steve at 10:49 PM
November 7, 2011
Journalism or advertising? Inaccurate NY1 piece posits that "Barclays Suite Showroom Has Robust Sales"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder follows up on a ridiculously hollow bit of "news."
Let's take a closer look at the 11/3/11 NY 1 item headlined Barclays Suite Showroom Has Robust Sales.
Despite the headlined, there's no evidence in the piece that the sales are robust. We learn that "The Nets sales group says it has sold half of the available suites since they went on the market in March."
That's not true. Actually, suites went on sale three years earlier, in 2008. They had sold some 26 suites--about one quarter of the current total--by May 2008.
By July of this year, they had sold "close to half" of the 100 suites, according to Crain's. So in three years they went from one-quarter to about one-half. That's not so robust.
Journalism or advertising?
The rest of the piece is an advertisement, letting us know the strategy of those promoting the arena....
NoLandGrab: Honestly, Barclays Center suite sales have so far been more bust than robust.
Related content...
NY1, Barclays Suite Showroom Has Robust Sales
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
November 6, 2011
The Civilians turned ULURP into a song. Now ProPublica tunes up redistricting and hyrdrofracking.
Atlantic Yards Report
So, remember when The Civilians, for their musical play In the Footprint: The Battle over Atlantic Yards, produced a song about ULURP (Uniform Land Use Review Procedure) to help explain the difference between city and state oversight?
They were ahead of their time. (So much for the Brooklyn Paper's scorn.)
Turns out that Pro Publica, the nonprofit public interest journalism organization, has begun to produce catchy song videos to help audiences ease into complicated topics like redistricting and hydrofracking. Examples below.
Click through and give a listen.
Posted by steve at 5:14 PM
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
Easton, Postrel Win Bastiat Prize
Future of Capitali$m
by Ira Stoll
Atlantic Yards is winning awards! Sort of.
Tom Easton of the Economist and Virginia Postrel of Bloomberg split the $50,000 award for the Bastiat Prize for Journalism, which was awarded Wednesday night at a dinner in New York.
...Damon Root, an editor at Reason magazine, won the $10,000 Hoiles Prize, in part for a piece on the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn headlined The Great Basketball Swindle.
Posted by eric at 11:17 AM
November 2, 2011
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
October 30, 2011
What's the press for? "To hold those in power accountable." But a lack of attention or sustained coverage diminishes accountability.
Atlantic Yards Report
At the Brooklyn Book Festival Sunday, September 18, I attended a panel featuring three journalists, all Pulitzer Prize winners.
One, Jesse Eisinger of ProPublica ("an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest"), observed, "The primary function of the press is to hold those in power accountable."
That's a justification for First Amendment protections, but that doesn't mean the press consistently recognizes that watchdog role.
That issues arises in the book Bad News: How America's Business Press Missed the Story of the Century, about the failure to anticipate the financial crisis, despite significant evidence that it was looming.
And yes, there are some observations that apply to Atlantic Yards.
The impact of under-coverage
In an essay titled "Missing the Moment," Ryan Chittum, who writes about the business press for Columbia Journalism Review, observed:
It's easy to find perfectly fine stories than demonstrably wrong ones, especially in the top tier of the financial press. But the hardest part of journalism is the picking of priorities. A news organization can only cover so much. What was left out or under-covered is as much a part of the story of how the press performed as what made the papers.
What about Atlantic Yards: Did the New York Times cover the oversight hearing led by state Senator Bill Perkins? The failure to conduct a market study regarding blight? The delays in the release of the Development Agreement? Even Forest City Ratner's role in Marty Markowitz's fundraising?
Posted by steve at 11:16 PM
October 25, 2011
New New York Times architecture critic expresses concerns for urbanism, not just in "buildings as sculptures" (and what will he say about the arena?)
Atlantic Yards Report
After Herbert Muschamp and Nicolai Ouroussoff, known for their admiration of starchitects and especially Frank Gehry, the New York Times named Michael Kimmelman as architecture critic. And, though some questioned his background as an art and culture critic, Kimmelman has delivered, at least in his initial reviews, far more context than his predecessors.
...So, will Kimmelman visit the Barclays Center next year and only assess the sightlines from upper bowl seats, the view of the scoreboard from Flatbush Avenue, the weathered steel panels, the plethora of branding, and the curious oculus?
...Or will he see the impact of a parking lot one long block on a residential neighborhood, the effect on pedestrians of narrowed sidewalks, and the impact of a zoning override allowing an arena to face residential neighbors across narrow Dean Street?
Will he point out that the oculus exists because the much-touted Urban Room does not, and the Urban Room was supposed to be part of a tower that remains unbuilt? And that that tower was vital to the state and city's optimistic-to-the-point-of-irresponsible economic projections?
Posted by eric at 12:11 PM
October 23, 2011
Oddly, New York Times Movies page now has Battle for Brooklyn at 1.5 stars. But all the written reviews are positive.
Atlantic Yards Report
How could it be that the Atlantic Yards documentary Battle for Brooklyn, which got 14 unanimously positive written reader reviews on the New York Times movies page, end up with a 1.5 rating (up to 5) from with 35 votes, as indicated in the document posted at bottom?
It doesn't make sense to me, nor to the filmmakers, who tweeted about it on October 11, generating an acknowledgement of a yet-uncorrected computer glitch.
...
Something's wrong with the Times's system. Of the 14 written reviews, all (including mine) of which originally had four- and five-star ratings, only two now have star ratings associated with them.
In other words, the system stripped out those positive votes. That allows the aggregate weight of votes not associated with written reviews to take precedence. And votes not associated with written reviews don't deserve more weight, as they require less thought.
According to the film's Facebook page, the Times acknowledged an error with the data, but has not yet fixed the problem.
As with news coverage of Atlantic Yards, I'll repeat my formulation: because of the parent company's business relationship with project developer Forest City Ratner, the Times has an obligation to be exacting in its coverage of Atlantic Yards, and it has not met that obligation. Battle for Brooklyn - Reader Reviews - NYTimes
Posted by steve at 11:02 PM
October 22, 2011
Another book imagines that Walter O'Malley sought a spot "in the Atlantic Yards"
Atlantic Yards Report
As shown at right, in A Moment in Time: An American Story of Baseball, Heartbreak, and Grace, baseball great Ralph Branca (with his co-author) imagines that there was a place, in the 1950s, called "Atlantic Yards."
There wasn't. And it wasn't where Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley wanted to build, either.
Nor will the Barclays Center cost $4 billion. That was once the tab for the entire Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by steve at 3:36 PM
October 12, 2011
Atlantic Yards Media Actors
Urban Media Archeology
Before I get into the project proposal, if you know anyone who has participated in the Atlantic Yards dialogue (attended community meetings, made art about it, whatever) please get in touch! The more possible map points the better. coopd033@newschool
TOPIC:
I propose to map the media actors who cover and have covered the development of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. My research will span from 2003, when the Newark Star-Ledger first reported Bruce Ranter’s plan to purchase the New Jersey Nets and move them to a new development in Brooklyn, to present, about one year from the completion of Atlantic Yards’ symbolic focus, Barclays Center. Relevant map points would include, where applicable to individual actors: the actor’s home residence, work site, places of convergence with other actors (meeting sites, sites of press conferences, locations of land being constructed/demolished/affected, etc.) interpreted within the context of media and communication.
As a start, some actors I’d include would be: bloggers like Norman Oder (Atlantic Yards Report), Steve and Lumi (No Land Grab), contributors to Atlantic Yards Watch (which is backed by civic organization BrooklynSpeaks), Aaron Naparstek (The Naparstek Post), Jonathan (Brooklyn Views, now dormant) and The Footprint Gazette (now dormant); the 52 members of the Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn advisory board; photographers Tracy Collins, Adrian Kinloch, Jonathan Barkey and artist Peter Krashes; filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky (Battle for Brooklyn) and Isabel Hill (Brooklyn Matters); the owner/curator of Flickr’s Atlantic Yards Webcam; The Civilians’ theater performance of “In The Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards.” Moving out from individual actors, I’ll map the meeting places of relevant institutions and committees, such as the Empire State Development, Forest City Ratner, the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership and sites of community hearings, protests and other discussion forums. Certainly the Manhattan home of The New York Times tells a story, a property partially owned (42%), managed and developed by Atlantic Yards’ developer Forest City Ratner. The Atlantic Yards project was parodied in an episode of The Simpsons (S20E08)—does that have a ‘place’?
...For the URT project, I’ll map important sites of Atlantic Yards media actors, with supporting materials they’ve put forth into the Atlantic Yards media network. The photographer Tracy Collins lives here, for example, just three blocks from the construction site (hypothetically), and her studio is over here, and here’s a few of her photos, placed in the locations they were shot.
NoLandGrab: Steve and Lumi? Map THIS, blog boy.
Seriously, we'd be happy to help, and we'll start by pointing out that Tracy Collins is a dude.
Posted by eric at 5:09 PM
October 7, 2011
NetsDaily: happy to have anonymous readers sling nastiness at Goldstein, but no opportunity to weigh in on Yormark's controversy (updated with change)
Atlantic Yards Report
NutsDaily is at it again.
The website NetsDaily, popular with team fans, team brass, and some sportswriters, earlier this year was questioned by a reader for including the seemingly tangential news that Nets Board of Directors Chairman Christophe Charlier was sending singer (and prep school classmate) John Forte on a Russian tour, helping him rebuild his life after prison.
"read the banner…most comprehensive," wrote the main contributor to the site, who goes by the name Net Income, pointing the commenter to the banner: "The most comprehensive source for news about the New Jersey Nets."
NetIncome was eager to link earlier this week to an unflattering and thinly-reported article in the Daily News about Atlantic Yards foe Daniel Goldstein, but not, of course, to any of the follow-ups that cast doubt on the original story.
...NetIncome has claimed "I have won Four Edward R. Murrow awards in my professional life so I have some credibility." Thing is, he's done so while using his name. The blog pseudonym lets him avoid responsibility.
NoLandGrab: Only four? He's more deserving of a bunch of these.
Related content...
Bergen Record, Lawsuit against Nets exec thrown out
Looks like Yormarketing Genius has raised his game to a new level.
A judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit brought against Nets CEO Brett Yormark by an ex-girlfriend who alleged that he fraudulently induced her to have an abortion.
Reyna Purcell of Upper Saddle River said in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that she became pregnant shortly after she started dating Yormark in October 2010.
Purcell said that she wanted to have a child, but that Yormark told her he would end the relationship if she gave birth. She also alleged that Yormark promised to stay in a relationship if she got an abortion.
Purcell, 34, got an abortion in February, but “shortly thereafter [Yormark] immediately terminated the relationship with the plaintiff and has never spoken to her again,” the lawsuit alleged.
NoLandGrab: We feel awful for Ms. Purcell, but really, she's probably the only person surprised at the way her relationship with Yormark played out.
Posted by eric at 11:55 AM
Brooklyn Paper Blocks Links Re City Rules NOT Requiring That Hi-Decibel Late Night Construction On The Ratner/Prokhorov Arena Be Done At Night
Noticing New York
In an Atlantic Yards Report story we read that the Brooklyn Paper today published an article headlined "Noises on! Barclays Center construction now 24-7-365" that contains the following language, “City rules require that the work be done at night, when traffic is lightest,” leading the reader to infer that city rules are requiring that ALL of the work now being done at night during the now 24/7 schedule must be done at night. That’s not so.
What was more startling however, was reading in the Atlantic Yards Report story that when Atlantic Yards Report’s Norman Oder twice tried to provide corrective comments to the article via the Brooklyn Paper’s “Reader Feedback” feature, his corrections were blocked. (See: Thursday, October 06, 2011, Brooklyn Paper covers after-hours construction but suggests that all of it is required to be done at night. Not so.)
Into the breach we went with a Noticing New York test of the Brooklyn Paper’s correction- censoring block. Here is our comment and our diagnostic of the situation.
Posted by eric at 11:49 AM
October 2, 2011
Daily News claims Goldstein "disses neighbors" by pursuing as-of-right renovation/addition
Atlantic Yards Report
The Daily News article today hyped as an "exclusive," Daniel Goldstein fought the Atlantic Yards project, but disses neighbors with his own construction, reminds me of the tabloid reporter described in The Submission, Amy Waldman's new 9/11 novel:
A tabby all the way--that's what she was. She had no ideology, believed only in information, which she obtained, traded, peddled, packaged, and published, and she opposed any effort to doctor her product.
So Goldstein, a co-founder of Develop Don't Dstroy Brooklyn, bought a new house in Park Slope and planned a renovation and addition. His neighbors don't like it, according to the Daily News:
Next-door neighbor Kathryn Roake, 59, says Goldstein's 18-foot, three-story addition to the back of his building will block the light to her beloved fruit and vegetable garden.
She and another neighbor also think that construction will damage their houses.
What's missing
Here's what's missing from the article: whether Goldstein's plans violate zoning in some way, or whether he's requested a variance from the Department of Buildings.
No, and no.
Nor was any evidence offered showing that the addition would, in fact, block the sun, despite the Daily News's conclusory caption:
...
So the Daily News elevated a garden-variety dispute into a tabloid story.
Related coverage...
Daily News, Neighbors fuming as anti-Atlantic Yards activist Daniel Goldstein plans large addition to new home
By Erin Durkin
The Brooklyn activist who led the resistance to the Atlantic Yards project has angered his new neighbors with a construction project of his own.
Daniel Goldstein, whose Prospect Heights condo was seized by eminent domain to make way for the new Nets arena and 16-tower project, bought a new home in Park Slope earlier this year - and neighbors are seething over his plans to build an addition.
Posted by steve at 10:42 PM
Auditions for Nets' announce spot generates coverage in four news outlets; ESD chief's performance ignored
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Post assigned two reporters for a 10/1/11 article headlined Nets’ loudmouths: Wacky tryouts for PA gig. Two Daily News reporters were responsible for Talking their way in: Hundreds seek job as new voice of the Brooklyn Nets.
Radio station WNYC offered a slideshow and NY1 produced a report.
It's a lot easier to report a cute feature like this than to try to keep tabs on the government agency responsible for Atlantic Yards. None of the outlets covered the meeting in Brooklyn last Monday in which Kenneth Adams, CEO of Empire State Development, defended the project and deflected questions.
Posted by steve at 10:39 PM
September 30, 2011
"Jay-Z Rocks the House"? Brooklyn Paper stays sunny side up
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper, ever eager to boost Atlantic Yards, this week informs us that "JAY-Z ROCKS THE HOUSE."
Well, maybe he will when he plays the Barlcays Center next year, but his promotional presentation on 9/26/11 lasted less than two minutes, and was, in the words of a Times hoops writer, "brief and anticlimactic."
I called it "an anticlimax for news," too.
Of course the Brooklyn Paper didn't bother to report on the curious statements made by developer Bruce Ratner or Borough President Marty Markowitz.
...Or the meeting Empire State Development CEO Kenneth Adams had that same night with Brooklyn elected officials.
Or the glaring discrepancy between the rules that trucks at the Atlantic Yards site are supposed to follow and their actual performance.
Posted by eric at 11:48 AM
September 26, 2011
Bread and Circuses
Battle for Brooklyn
Filmmaker Michael Galinsky has a must-read post on the Battle for Brooklyn web site that juxtaposes the manufactured media nonsense of today's "Brooklyn Nets" announcement with the relative lack of coverage of the provocative, aggressive and violent tactics being used by the NYPD against protesters on Wall Street. It's powerful stuff, and we can't really do justice to it with an excerpt, so we'll just bring you the comic-diversion portion.
Click thru to read it all.
Today I went down to a tent on the plaza of the Atlantic Center mall to see Jay Z make a “surprise” announcement that he will do 8 shows at the arena and that the team will be called the Brooklyn Nets. It was a total bread and circus moment. While there are hundreds of people protesting on Wall Street there were hundreds of press people at this press event dutifully reporting the dominant narrative that they were led to. When I pointed this out to press people they didn’t see the irony.
When I first arrived (at the wrong location) I saw Marty Markowitz talking to an ABC news reporter.
 |
I offered Marty a copy of the film. He refused to take it and told me that it was propaganda. I explained that I made the film and asked if he had seen it. “No, but I have had plenty of people tell me that it’s propaganda.” I told him that I took offense at that notion as I had taken great pains to make it even handed. I asked him again if he was sure that he didn’t want a copy. He did not. I didn’t film this exchange because I had no ill intent. I sincerely wanted him to have a chance to view the film. I offered one to the reporter as I had filmed him at the ground breaking. He didn’t want one either. Then Marty yelled at me that they didn’t have to take one.
Posted by eric at 3:11 PM
September 22, 2011
Adding context to coverage of the MSG renovation; will that come with Barclays coverage too?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times Dining section article yesterday on the upgrade in food offerings at Madison Square Garden, headlined At Madison Square Garden, it’s Hey, Getcher Lobster Roll, contained this piece of welcome context:
The Garden is being renovated without state or city subsidies, although it will continue to benefit from its longtime property tax exemption. To pay for the work, the Garden has said that the cost of Knicks season tickets will jump an average 49 percent, and Rangers seats will go up by 23 percent. Twenty new courtside-access suites (fitted with bathrooms and fireplaces) have a yearly rental fee of about $1 million each; all are spoken for. Their food spectrum will be drawn from Mr. Vongerichten’s suite menu and the other upscale concessionaires.
Will the future coverage of the Barclays Center, describing all the ways the Nets are trying to play to the public, mention the subsidies, tax breaks, naming rights and luxury suites behind the new building?
NoLandGrab: Yes! All Dining Section coverage of the Barclays Center is sure to add that context.
Posted by eric at 11:15 AM
In China, the Times points out, a state agency has a built-in conflict; in Brooklyn, a not dissimilar conflict gets a pass
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times article yesterday headlined Anger and Suspicion as Survivors Await Chinese Crash Report, about a rail crash involving a high-speed train that killed 40 people and injured 191, described the delay in releasing an official investigation.
The China Railways Ministry, the Times pointed out, has two million workers and has significant power:
It owns the railways it regulates, a built-in conflict that critics say encourages corruption, endangers safety in the name of profit and hinders accountability. Its safety data are not publicly released. It runs its own court system and, until recently, its own police force.
A built-in conflict? What about the conflict involving a state agency that partners with developer Forest City Ratner on the Atlantic Yards project and also oversees that project?
NoLandGrab: Easy answer — the China Railways Ministry is not the development partner of The New York Times.
Posted by eric at 11:03 AM
September 20, 2011
"Nets bring new playground to Canarsie school"? Actually, they paid 1/8 of the cost, but neither NY Post nor NY1 notice
Atlantic Yards Report
It's not enough that Bruce Ratner is "quietly" helping a blind teenage Sudanese ex-slave. Now he's leveraging taxpayer funds 7-to-1 to "bring" us playgrounds, too!
What if more reporters receiving press releases had taken "antimanipulation" in school?
We wouldn't get headlines like this, from the New York Post's Brooklyn blog yesterday.
Or like this, from NY1:
What did the Nets bring?
Though the Nets played a part, they didn't "bring" the playground. They paid only 1/8 of the cost.
Of course, those reading the vague Nets press release would have had to ask about the role of the Barclays Nets Community Alliance in the "refurbished playground it has funded at P.S. 276 in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn."
(Emphasis added)
Click through to read the God's honest truth press release.
Related nonsense...
The Brooklyn Blog [NYPost.com], Nets bring new playground to Canarsie school
NY1, Nets Score Big With New School Playgrounds
Posted by eric at 11:55 AM
September 17, 2011
A Ratner obituary (reprinted from 50 years ago) in the Times
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday's New York Times featured the advertisement below. It appeared on the page opposite the page containing obituaries. That also meant it was on the page of the Sports section that included the section's sole article about pro basketball.
"Well-Known Cleveland Philanthropist" Harry Ratner, of course, was the father of Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner.
Posted by steve at 7:02 PM
What Would Jane Jacobs Say?
WNET
This week, Modern Library is publishing a silver anniversary re-issue of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” complete with a new introduction of Jason Epstein, the book’s original editor. To honor the occasion, MetroFocus looked at some of the contemporary local players in the world of urban planning through the lens of the late Jane Jacobs:
...
Daniel Goldstein, resident and activist in Brooklyn
Goldstein fought to stop the construction of the Atlantic Yards project, the largest redevelopment plan in recent New York history. The project was a perfect storm of private sector might and political will. In 2003, developer Forest City Ratner announced his plan to buy the Nets, move the team to Brooklyn and build a $2.5 billion development in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn.
On the Jane Jacobs’ scale: The similarities between Jacobs and Goldstein are easy to spot, though he does not share her taste in large black spectacles and bangs. Goldstein rallied his neighbors against a powerful developer that used eminent domain to seize private property, staged protests and kept a detailed blog about the Atlantic Yards Project. Similarly, Jacobs led a grassroots campaign in the early ’60s to nix Robert Moses’ plan to build a highway that cut through Lower Manhattan. However, in her case, the battle was won. Goldstein’s story is chronicled in “The Battle for Brooklyn,” a new documentary by Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky.
Posted by steve at 6:50 PM
September 11, 2011
Do sports heal? Fans split on "a lot" vs. "a little" (so what do civilians say?)
Atlantic Yards Report
As part of a package of 9/11 coverage, in Do sports heal?, ESPN the Magazine polled readers--by definition, fairly intense sports fans--and found, as the graphic below indicates, a plurality said sports helped a lot, another significant chunk said sports helped a bit, and nearly one-fifth said it made no difference.
I suspect that civilians less interested in sports expect lesser healing. I'd also bet that respondents to ESPN skew male and younger rather than female and older.
This blog entry goes on to quote several comments made for the online version of ESPN the Magazine Online and then points out a summary of the different opinions.
On reading the above, it strikes me that the two camps aren't that far apart. There are those who believe that sports serve as distraction to help with healing. And there are those who believe that sports serve as distraction to simply provide a time out in the healing process.
Daily News columnist Mike Lupica, in today's The sports world offered a needed break in the days after 9/11 tragedy, encapsulated those two camps:
We talked a lot in those first days 10 years ago about what sports could do and what it couldn't and how it might help us feel just a little bit better about things. We would see during the World Series how true that was, when we would try to escape the horror of downtown Manhattan with uptown baseball in the Bronx that will never be forgotten.
Tino's home run. Brosius' home run. Derek Jeter becoming Mr. November one night after midnight. It is impossible to believe that the old place was ever louder than it was on those nights and in those moments, when sports wasn't an escape so much as it was a way for us to trick ourselves into believing that the world was the way it had been on Sept. 10. And Sept. 9. And Sept. 8.
...Sports mattered as much as it ever had in those days and not one bit more than it should have.
Posted by steve at 9:46 PM
The New York Times Takes an Editorial Position on the Subject of Encouraging Competition and It’s Inconsistent With Its Position on Atlantic Yards
Noticing New York
Here's an item from the past week.
Last week the New York Times ran an editorial premised on the widely held assumption that a competitive market is good and should therefore be fostered by government. The editorial endorsed the Justice Department’s opposition, with a antitrust lawsuit it just filed to block “AT&T’s $39 billion attempt to buy the nation’s fourth-largest carrier, T-Mobile.” See: Protecting Innovation and Competition, September 1, 2011.
The Times provided a bromidic analysis of why the government action supporting competition is desirable:
The merger poses a clear anticompetitive threat. Not only would it give AT&T more than 40 percent of the market, it would take out a scrappy and innovative rival that competed profitably by offering cheaper service plans and took risks others would not.
But providing lip service to bromides is not the same as intellectual analysis or the deeper thinking necessary to achieve a consistent or intellectually honest world view. At the same time that the Times is spouting off about the presumed benefit of economic competition it has supported the quashing of competition for Forest City Ratner, the real estate developer and governmental subsidy collector with which it partnered to create its new Times headquarters.
Posted by steve at 9:42 PM
September 10, 2011
Before deciding to move (with subsidies) to One World Trade Center, Condé Nast apparently considered Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
In One World Trade Center: Making the Freedom Tower safe for Condé Nast., part of New York Magazine's special 9/11 Encyclopedia issue, there's a curious mention of... Atlantic Yards:
Around the time the Port Authority gained control of the building in 2006, Condé Nast executives began to discuss the future of their magazine empire. Condé’s lease at 4 Times Square was set to expire in 2019, and its broker, Mary Ann Tighe of CB Richard Ellis, worked with [Chairman Si] Newhouse to develop options...
For its role in remaking Times Square, Condé Nast had been rewarded with tax breaks, giving it an annual rent of about $40 per square foot. In looking for a similar deal, Newhouse’s team even pushed into outer boroughs, touring Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, addresses in Long Island City, and locations along the Jersey City waterfront. One morning in the fall of 2009, [Port Authority Executive Director Christopher] Ward got the call he’d been waiting for: Si Newhouse told him he wanted to tour ground zero. Months later, outlines of a deal emerged.
It's hard to imagine that Condé Nast would have left Manhattan--after all, don't some of their biggest magazines rely on close relationships with the fashion industry?
Note that broker Tighe has a longtime relationship with Forest City Ratner and bought a piece of the Nets (though I'm not sure she still has it). So either she was just doing Bruce Ratner a courtesy or someone thought the AY office space--with extra subsidies?--could have been spectacularly affordable.
Posted by steve at 7:41 PM
August 25, 2011
A tale of two Brooklyn Paper front pages
Atlantic Yards Report
What was once known as TimesRatnerReport might now be better known as BrooklynPaperReport. Norman Oder highlights some of the latter's recent fumbles in its Atlantic Yards coverage.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
August 22, 2011
Heritage of "Journalistic Enterprise and Courage" Duly Noted: The Modern Day New York Times Meets and Likes Its Boss Tweeds
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White with a spot-on essay about The Times — boy, have they a-changed.
(Above, an 1872 Harper’s Weekly drawing by Thomas Nast of Tammany Hall Boss Tweed and Horace Greeley influential publisher of the New York Tribune, modified somewhat with the modern faces of Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. and real estate partner and developer Bruce Ratner.)
A few days ago the New York Times complimented itself on its editorial page for the paper’s historic “journalistic enterprise and courage” in covering and eventually bringing to an end the corruption of Tammany Boss William M. Tweed. (Editorial: The Man Who Helped Stop Boss Tweed, August 17, 2011.)
...The Times concludes in good parable style by teasing out the following moral:
Today’s media landscape is obviously very different. But some things are unchanged. Scoops are still exciting; even more rewarding is helping to ensure civic honesty.
One might infer from all of this that the Times is promoting itself as still interested in scoops and the rewards of ensuring “civic honesty.”
Only one problem: Yes, no doubts some things are “obviously very different” (while human nature being what it is “some things are unchanged”) but the closest analogue to the Tweed Court House scandal of the 1870s in present day New York City is clearly the Atlantic Yards scandal, and when it comes to Atlantic Yards the Times is interested in neither scoops nor the rewards of ensuring “civic honesty.”
In fact, it is far worse. The Times editorial about its exemplary handling of the Tweed scandal makes the point that “Tweed forces” tried to buy off the paper, offering “$5 million — equivalent to $100 million today” to “George Jones, this newspaper’s founding publisher” to back off and refrain from publishing its scoop. In 1871 the Times didn’t accept the offer, but in this century the Times was offered an integrity-compromising deal it did accept: The Times got to benefit financially from the questionable use of eminent domain (many would shout "abuse") and from partnering with Forest City Ratner, the developer of Atlantic Yards, when the Times built its new headquarters building. Since that time the Times has not been critical of, or informative about, the abuse of eminent domain or about Forest City Ratner misconduct. They have also not been informative or critical about the bad urban planning that the Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards mega-project and the Ratner/Prokhorov "Barclays" basketball arena represent.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
August 21, 2011
Battle For Brooklyn Movie Review
Shockya
By Brent Simon
This reviewer recommends that his readers see the documentary "Battle For Brooklyn" because, even though the film exposes some unpleasantness, "it can sometimes be bracing, in a good way, to be confronted by the ugliness of reality on its own terms, in broad daylight."
A powerful movie about an important and little-reflected-upon topic, “Battle For Brooklyn” is a telling snapshot of (offscreen) political maneuvering, and the tossed-around wrecking-ball weight of corporate might as it relates to individual rights. Americans would be wise to heed movies like this one, because when politicians talk about corporations being people or citizens, they’re certainly not referring to equal-footing status. More money, after all, just equals more “free speech,” and more “rights.”
Posted by steve at 3:20 PM
August 20, 2011
Interviews with "Battle for Brooklyn" Documentarians
Here are further insights in the documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" from the team that made it.
LA Weekly, Film
Battle For Brooklyn: Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's Documentary Has Echoes in L.A.'s Football Stadium Controversy
By Sarah LaBrie
Galinsky says his focus on the human aspects of the project was a calculated attempt to "retake the narrative for the community." He hopes to present information to the public in a way that newspapers, hampered by the economy, no longer can. "No publications have the resources to deal with complex issues. The developer sends out a press release. The opposition -- when it finally forms sends out a press release -- and they treat them as equals."
Ultimately, he says, he wants to force people to think more deeply about what they read. He hopes Battle for Brooklyn will raise awareness of the downsides of development and the danger of eminent domain abuse, which allowed Ratner to build in Prospect Heights without community input. Although the L.A. stadium project doesn't involve eminent domain, he says, it does stand to pose environmental and economic risks to residents of downtown Los Angeles. By publicizing the project as a source of revenue for the city and for tax payers, Phil Anschutz and his company are being purposely disingenuous.
indieWIRE, INTERVIEW | Michael Galinsky Takes the “Battle for Brooklyn” Across the Country"
by Bryce J. Renninger
When crafting this film, how did you know what story you wanted to tell?
We were concerned with not making a film that felt like an activist film, but we were following activist in a verite way. We decided this film was about [Dan Goldstein] when we realized he was the one guy who was not gonna sell out. Dan was gonna lose his home and his whole way of living in the world. This is a large community fight, but we decided to tell it through one character. Earlier, we loaded the film up with other subjects and it got really boring.
How has the response been with all those involved?
We took pains not to involve ourselves in the fight. In a way, the film is about eminent domain, about kleptocracy in government and special interests working together to do things that benefit themselves. Errol Louis, who wrote about the Atlantic Yards project glowingly in the Daily News, thought the film was fair, which we were worried about. The people who know the situation well think we went easy on the government and the developers. We had a lot more about the corruption, but it became so overwhelming to people. It depressed them too much. The film, as it stands, really paints the government and the developer in a negative light. They colluded together. We were a little nervous. It didn’t represent everyone in the fight against Atlantic Yards, and it wasn’t a pedantic strident story of their fight, but they’ve really gotten behind it.
Posted by steve at 3:43 PM
More Los Angeles Notices for "Battle for Brooklyn"
In L.A., they're learning from the totally tubular documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" that eminent domain abuse and Bruce Ratner are grody to the max.
LA Weekly, Battle for Brooklyn
By Ben Mercer
The documentary opens with a title-card definition of eminent domain," and a scene of last holdout Goldstein standing up to the goons patrolling his condo building's rooftop. Instances of project-proponent doublespeak follow: Podium-banging Nets owner/AY developer Bruce Ratner invokes "the royal 'I'"; Sen. Chuck Schumer says job creation "enervates." [sic] him; a Forest City Ratner VIP appears to spin displacement as a grand American tradition. Goldstein and friends propose less invasive alternative footprints, and then contest the legality of the state seizing their "blighted" property, at seven years' worth of rallies and hearings.
Thompson On Hollywood, Indie Doc Double-Header: Battle for Brooklyn, Darwin Show Two Sides of America
They say you can’t fight City Hall, but you wouldn’t know it watching Battle for Brooklyn... There’s so much sparring in Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky’s new documentary about New York’s Atlantic Yards project that you’ll think you’ve stumbled into a screening of The Fighter . The opposing sides — the project developer, Forest City Ratner, and a grassroots organization that wants to sink said project, Develop Don’t Destroy — canvas, rally, plot, meet, speak, and, yes, battle over what city councilwoman Letitia James calls “the soul of Brooklyn.” It’s a credit to the filmmakers that Battle for Brooklyn convinces you they’re fighting for even more than that.
Eminent Domain Report, Eminent Domain Documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" Makes its Way to Los Angel
By Brad Kuhn
Do public agencies make low-ball offers? Are areas that are designated as "blighted" really so? Is eminent domain for redevelopment "Un-American"? Is there any point to fighting City Hall? No matter how you feel, this movie may evoke some strong emotions. If you can't make it to see the documentary, but want to know more, I'd suggest checking out Robert Thomas' inversecondemnation.com blog post covering the case in detail.
Posted by steve at 2:41 PM
August 16, 2011
New Jersey county reverses stance on lone-bidder jail deal on which the Times (and then a Senator) focused
Atlantic Yards Report
From today's New York Times, Reversing Course, Officials in New Jersey Cancel One-Bid Immigrant Jail Deal:
NEWARK — In a sharp turnaround, officials in Essex County, N.J., announced Monday that they would not accept the sole bid on a contract to run a 450-bed immigrant detention center after questions were raised about the transparency and fairness of the bidding process.
The lone bidder was an affiliate of Community Education Centers, a private detention company whose executives have close political ties to Gov. Chris Christie and the top elected official in Essex County, Joseph N. DiVincenzo Jr.
The county appeared to give special treatment to Community Education, though its record in housing immigrant detainees is checkered. After The New York Times reported on the contracting process last month, Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey wrote to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ask senior officials to review the deal.
In a telephone call Monday afternoon, James R. Paganelli, Essex County’s counsel, said the county would put out another request for bids in the fall to attract more bidders and better terms. He called it “a business decision” and said the allegations of improprieties played no role. “We want to foster competition, because that makes everybody sharpen their pencils and we hope to get better rates from people,” he said.
...Reporters pressed Mr. DiVincenzo and his staff on possible shortcomings of the bidding process: The county did not actively seek out other bidders, a common practice in government contracts, and its 23-day deadline on the multimillion-dollar bid was unusually short.
On 7/28/11, I pointed to the similarities between this situation and that of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard, which was seemingly assigned to Forest City Ratner early on, 18 months before an RFP.
One difference? This time, the Times paid attention.
Posted by eric at 9:59 AM
August 14, 2011
Today's correction: Times identifies Civilians' play about AY as concerning "the Navy Yards development in Downtown Brooklyn"
Atlantic Yards Report
From the Arts section of today's New York Times, in the column headlined The Week Ahead: Aug. 14 — 20:
Theater
Charles Isherwood
The New York theater troupe THE CIVILIANS is summering in the Berkshires. The company, which specializes in documentary theater pieces drawn from extensive interviews, is creating its new show on the Nikos Stage at the Williamstown Theater Festival. Although it is also based on real experience, “YOU BETTER SIT DOWN: TALES FROM MY PARENTS’ DIVORCE” nevertheless represents a departure for the company.
Instead of foraging for material in the public sphere, as it has in previous shows like “Gone Missing,” a cabaret musical about all the things that people can manage to lose, and “In the Footprint,” which chronicled the conflict over the Navy Yards development in Downtown Brooklyn, the company is using the life stories of its own members as the raw material.Actually, "In the Footprint" is about Atlantic Yards, which is in Prospect Heights--and, at the western tip, arguably would extend Downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at 10:28 PM
August 13, 2011
Whither the Times's architecture chair? New occupant, art critic Kimmelman, coming, as "conventional wisdom" about Ouroussoff concerns detachment from NYC, notably disembodied AY critiques
Atlantic Yards Report
In the New York Observer, Jonathan Liu's essay, Times Art Critic Michael Kimmelman to Take Over as Paper’s Architecture Critic, does a good job of sketching the importance of the post, occupied by just four critics since 1963:
The late Herbert Muschamp (he passed away in 2007) took over in the early 1990s... Muschamp celebrated favorites like the Bilbao Guggenheim with the florid prose and omnivorous interests that might best be called fin de siècle.
Nicolai Ouroussoff, a Muschamp protégé, has held the post since 2004. He announced his resignation June 6. A month later, The Times named his replacement, Michael Kimmelman, the paper’s chief art critic, who will be returning to New York from four years in Europe. Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Kimmelman, who takes the reins at the end of this month, doesn’t have formal training in architecture, or much of a track record as an architectural critic. He will continue to cover art...
“[Kimmelman’s] profiles of architects have been very good, but they aren’t criticism." [said the critic and historian Alexandra Lange] "But his hiring is insulting for the sense one has that The Times doesn’t think it is worth spending a whole salary on an architecture critic...”
Why it matters, and why AY matters
Liu writes:
For Ms. Lange, “the power of the Times critic job is in the fact that their reviews may be the only architecture criticism many people read. This is still true.” Yet when future generations consider the Ouroussoff Era, the defining text—assuming they still use Google—may be Alexandra Lange’s.
He refers to her "devastating takedown," headlined “Why Nicolai Ouroussoff Is Not Good Enough,” in the February 2010 Design Observer, a dissent that "has become more like conventional wisdom."
And what was the centerpiece of Lange's critique? As she wrote (and I excerpted):
Exhibits A and B in this critique are Ouroussoff’s reviews of the massive Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. It was unclear from his first review whether Ouroussoff had ever been to Brooklyn, so grateful did he think we should be for the services of (Los Angeles) architect Frank Gehry.
Posted by steve at 11:14 PM
Update #83: LA- Brooklyn- DVDs
Kickstarter
Here's an update from the producers of the documentary "Battle of Brooklyn."
Hello All
Lots of exciting news to report:
DVD's went out this week to those of you who responded to our request for addresses.
Battle will have it's last screening at BK Heights this MONDAY (not Wed. this week ) as we need the print for Los Angeles- though it should run again soon- we will update you about that- it's been doing well enough to keep running for a long time. We will be there for q and a and we will have posters for sale!!! Those just came in.
We are geaing up for our visit to LA to launch Battle. The film runs at the Laemmle Music Hall in Beverly Hills.
Daniel, Shabnam, Suki and I will be at the Friday and Saturday 720 screenings- we will also likely be at the 5:00 ones as well.
Fri: 5:00, 7:20 & 9:45
Sat: 12:20, 2:40, 5:00, 7:20 & 9:45
Sun: 12:20, 2:40, 5:00 & 7:20
...Mon-Thu: 5:00 & 7:20Please help us spread the word. LA is a tough town we know- but this film is more relevant than ever with the City Council's recent approval of a Stadium Deal based on ridiculous financial and job projections.
Out of 750 articles about the deal- only 1 I found was anything but a press release restatement.
Posted by steve at 11:05 PM
August 12, 2011
Atlantic Yards "flying up"? On Brian Lehrer, a weak update
Atlantic Yards Report
The arena's rising, sure, but the development is not flying up in the slightest.
Guest host Jami Floyd, who displayed the unfortunate tendency to laugh at things not so funny, like the rat problem around the Atlantic Yards site. Guest Brown suggested, erroneously, that Chinese investors seeking green cards for purportedly job-creating investments were investing "in the arena."
As I commented, they're investing in something called the "Brooklyn Arena and Infrastructure Project," which is replacing a land loan and will go to infrastructure (and possibly other things).
Of course potential investors were told they were investing in the arena, but that was deceptive.
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
Taking the Times to task for its EB-5 coverage, again
Atlantic Yards Report.
The Times opened up comments on its curious article today on Chinese investment in New York. Almost nobody commented on the EB-5 angle, which seemed shoehorned into the story. My comment again took the Times to task...
Posted by eric at 7:11 AM
August 11, 2011
Times article on Chinese investment in New York whiffs on Forest City Ratner's EB-5 venture
Atlantic Yards Report
A front-page article in today's New York Times, headlined As Investors, Chinese Turn to New York, stunningly maintains the newspaper's see-no-evil posture toward Forest City Ratner's questionable recruitment of investors seeking green cards.
...The Chinese putting money into Atlantic Yards--'scuse me, the "Brooklyn Arena and Infrastructure Project"--aren't making real investments. They're buying green cards for themselves and their families, allowing their children to be educated in America.
...They're supposed to create jobs. No jobs would be created.
Would the Chinese money support residential and office towers? Forest City's partner in China told the investors they were putting money into a basketball arena. That's why Forest City sent Darryl (Chocolate Thunder) Dawkins to China.
More recently, Forest City executives have said the money would be used to refinance a land loan, as well as pay for infrastructure. Or that they haven't decided.
Posted by eric at 9:32 AM
August 10, 2011
Coming from City Limits: Brooklyn News Bureau
Atlantic Yards Report
An announcement of a new Brooklyn news source, as noted below, that "will spotlight media-deprived communities like Central Brooklyn, as well as immigrant groups and areas undergoing change."
It's a welcome addition to the media ecosystem, but $50,000 a year over two years can only go so far. Perhaps the initial funding will generate additional support.
Click thru for the full announcement.
Posted by eric at 6:45 PM
August 8, 2011
From The L Magazine's Best of Brooklyn: "Best Local Blog" is... this one
Atlantic Yards Report
From The L Magazine's The Best of Brooklyn, the cover package in the issue dated August 3:
Best Local Blog
Atlantic Yards Report
Many might have given up on fighting the Atlantic Yards development, seeing it as a lost cause, an inevitability. But Norman Oder's watchdog blog, now in its sixth year, is still attacking the project—its false promises and environmental costs, as well as its credulous media coverage—several times a day.By the way, no one told me about this, beforehand or after publication. I learned of it when I picked up a copy of the print magazine two days ago.
NoLandGrab: Let us be the first to congratulate Atlantic Yards Report for unseating NoLandGrab as best local blog, a title we held for six years running.
OK, actually, we've never been named Best Local Blog. Maybe we oughta launch "The Grabbies."
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
August 6, 2011
Sycophantic Daily News real estate correspondent, calling Ratner "charming" and "admirable," deems Beekman Tower something the developer has "given" to New York
Atlantic Yards Report
The percentage of New York Daily News readers who can afford an apartment in Forest City Ratner's Beekman Tower (aka 8 Spruce Street aka New York by Gehry) is rather low--only 13.7% have six-figure incomes, and you need more than $100,000 to afford monthly rents of $3040 for a studio--and a lot more for bigger apartments.
But that didn't stop real estate correspondent Jason Sheftell, in yesterday's Inside Gotham's newest skyscraper, New York by Gehry, from planting Herbert Daughtry-like encomia on developer Bruce Ratner:
Ratner, the building’s developer, dressed in a simple, short-sleeved, pinstriped button down and black pants, is not like other developers who give cities $800 million projects like this one. He’s charming because he’s smart. He’s admirable because he gets things done. He’s controversial because he thinks big. Best of all, he’s human.
“I was riding the elevator the other day, and the person riding up with me kept thanking me,” says Ratner, who developed MetroTech pushing Brooklyn as America’s top downtown destination 25 years ago. “He wasn’t thanking me because he loved living there or loved the building; he was thanking me for the job. A job is the beginning and end of how a person feels about themself. I am thankful we can give jobs, and I’m thankful what this building means to lower Manhattan.”
(Emphases added)
Um, Ratner didn't "give" the project to New York. Rather, Ratner took advantage of Liberty Bonds, allowing tax-free financing without the attendant requirement of affordable housing.
As for the jobs Ratner "gives," well, some Brooklynites are not convinced.
By the way, the article contains no mention of architect Frank Gehry's role in--and removal from--Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at 11:01 PM
August 4, 2011
The inconsistency of the New York Times editorial page: Islanders owner should build new arena on his own, but request that Ratner "pay his own way" forgotten
Atlantic Yards Report
Is the New York Times editorial page consistent when it comes to public subsidies for sports facilities? Of course not.
An editorial in yesterday's New York Times was headlined Voters Nix $400 Million Hockey Tix:
Voters in Nassau County, showing far better sense and grasp of arithmetic than their elected leaders, have rejected a scheme to raise their taxes so their county could borrow $400 million to build a new hockey arena.
The Times, sounding like it's channeled the collected works Neil deMause, observes:
1. The deal stunk. That’s usually so when governments throw money at sports teams. Mr. Mangano was asking for a 4 percent tax increase, an estimated $14 to $58 more a year per household, in return for gauzy promises of new jobs and tax revenue...
...3. If [Islanders owner] Mr. [Charles] Wang needs a new arena, let him build it. Last we checked, professional sports was still a private (and highly lucrative) business, not a public utility.
What happened to "Mr. Ratner should pay his own way"?
All well and good, but the Times is not exactly consistent. Remember the newspaper's stance in a 3/27/05 editorial headlined A Triple Play for New York Teams:
But the city and state are each supposed to contribute $100 million to build streets and sidewalks and prepare the site for development. That's unnecessary: Mr. Ratner should pay his own way.
(Emphasis added)
That position was forgotten in all subsequent editorials.
Related content...
The New York Times, Voters Nix $400 Million Hockey Tix
Posted by eric at 10:30 PM
August 3, 2011
Journalism of verification? Times Public Editor concurs that confirmation by Nets/Ratner (without document or Barclays) sufficient to report naming rights deal still worth "nearly $400 million"
Atlantic Yards Report
The Times, they're not a-changin'.
Is the Barclays Center naming rights deal really worth "nearly $400 million," as the New York Times reported 7/19/11? There are many reasons for doubt.
However, as in the past, the office of the New York Times Public Editor, the independent, newspaper-paid readers' representative, has given its blessing to the Times's inadequate reporting.
In this case, the Public Editor accepted as sufficient evidence assertions by the New Jersey Nets and Forest City Ratner, despite much circumstantial and documentary evidence that the deal was worth less, including a report by an FCR-commissioned consultant valuing the deal at $200 million, the loss of architect Frank Gehry, and two renegotiations.
Worse, the Public Editor's office, failing to understand the basic nature of deal, told me that the Times had "checked with both parties involved in the transaction," the Nets and Ratner.
Actually, I responded, those two are one side of the deal; the counter-party is Barclays Capital.
Was that taken seriously? No. I was blown off.
So much for the "journalism of verification," the distinguishing factor, according to Times Executive Editor Bill Keller, between his newspaper's work and bloggers' journalism of "assertion."
NoLandGrab: In which case, we can surely expect a Times front-page story any day now about the 15,000 construction workers building the Barclays Center — as verified by Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark.
Posted by eric at 9:07 AM
August 1, 2011
When it comes to Nassau Coliseum coverage, Times reporters express skepticism for sports facility projections, give prominence to critic saying emphasis on sports distracts from real estate deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Today's Times article, $400 Million Plan on Nassau Coliseum Goes to Vote, contained a couple of astonishing paragraphs.
First, a declaration, sans caveat, that projections are generally overblown:
As cities like Cincinnati, Houston and Seattle have learned, the construction of stadiums and arenas almost always costs more than expected, rarely produces the economic benefits initially promised and can saddle local governments with tens of millions of dollars in debts, driving holes through budgets.
Ok, so why did that Times, at the arena groundbreaking last year, uncritically quote outlandish statements about Atlantic Yards benefits?
The article closes with a gimlet-eyed view of what's at stake:
“[Islanders owner Charles] Wang wants to make money and [County Executive Ed] Mangano wants to save the Islanders,” said Clifford B. Sondock, the president of the Land Use Institute, which opposes the project. “Ed and Charles have made this an issue of the Islanders when it is really a real estate deal.”.
And what about "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops"?
Posted by eric at 10:09 PM
July 30, 2011
Cliche alert: AP hoops writer suggests Bruce Ratner "remembers" the days of the Dodgers in Brooklyn. Nah.
Atlantic Yards Report
Brian Mahoney, NBA writer for The Associated Press, reports, in Nets hard at work building toward Brooklyn move:
"Brooklyn certainly deserves the best of entertainment there is to offer,'' [Bruce Ratner] said.
Ratner remembers when Brooklyn had it, when the beloved Dodgers played at Ebbets Field and top musicians performed at the Paramount. He believes the Barclays Center will bring back what's been missing.
"Sports and entertainment are such a part of our lives in this country. People who say, 'Well, it's just an arena,' they're really not right,'' Ratner said. "It's a physical structure. More than that, it's a part of ourselves, it's part of what entertainment is and everyone loves entertainment.''
(Emphasis added)
Which is, why, of course, that the project was sold as "Jobs, Housing, and Hoops," with the added layer of starchitect Frank Gehry.
Does Ratner really remember the "beloved Dodgers" in Brooklyn? He was a 12-year-old Clevelander in 1957, when the team left for Los Angeles.
Posted by steve at 3:59 PM
In an alternate universe, Nets GM Billy King, suburban Philly resident, compares AY arena setting to Chicago's United Center; sports stenography ensues
Atlantic Yards Report
Nets General Manager Billy King, along with paid pitchman Albert King, a Brooklyn native and former Net, hosted basketball writers Wednesday at the under-construction Barclays Center.
King, who lives in suburban Philadelphia and spent a good chunk of his professional career in that city, made a stunningly uninformed comment, equating the Atlantic Yards setting to the setting for the United Center in Chicago, suggesting that the impact of the arena would be similar.
Chicago vs. Brooklyn
The United Center is located on a 46-acre parcel. The Atlantic Yards arena is located on a, what, six-acre parcel?
The United Center is located in a non-residential area west of the Chicago Loop. The Barclays Center will abut neighborhoods that have predominantly low-rise and mid-rise residential buildings.
The arena, yes, will bring changes to Brooklyn, notably event-related retail and entertainment. But there's no comparison to Chicago. (Nor, really, to L.A., but that's a different story.)
Still, the press lapped it up, as dutifully chronicled by NetsDaily, whose chief blogger, NetIncome, perhaps aiming to avoid the "Leni Riefenstahl of the New Jersey Nets" tag, did cite one of the numerous press reports of a protest by disaffected former project supporters.
Posted by steve at 3:57 PM
July 29, 2011
A paean to the New York Times in a New York Magazine cover story; missing is any recognition how the Times fails to cover Brooklyn (and AY)
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Magazine cover story praising The New York Times provokes a little cold water from Norman Oder.
The article could have gone further to analyze how coverage of New York has been diminished.
Now the Times gives tougher scrutiny to Baghdad than to Brooklyn.
I'm not saying the Times doesn't publish Brooklyn feature, trend, and real estate stories. I'm saying their Brooklyn bureau is far smaller than their Baghdad bureau. And there's no priority on continuity and institutional memory.
And that leads to Atlantic Yards coverage (by a newbie to AY coverage) like the article I dissected 7/19/11, featuring lousy reasoning (why is it Atlantic Yards "opponents" are the only ones asked about the public interest?), basic factual errors (no, Sen. Chuck Schumer's promised 10,000 jobs had nothing to do with construction), and perfunctory wave at a complex controversy (Forest City Ratner's questionable use of the EB-5 program for immigrant investors).
Shouldn't the Times do a better job?
And isn't there another reason: Shouldn't the Times, given the parent company's business relationship with Forest City Ratner, in building the Times Tower, be exacting in its scrutiny of the developer?
Posted by eric at 12:50 PM
What if Rupert cared? A few Atlantic Yards story ideas (!) for the New York Post (or other tabloid)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder must have eaten some crazy mushrooms last night.
What if... in some kind of alternate universe, media mogul Rupert Murdoch made Atlantic Yards a special priority?
After all, as Azi Paybarah reports in this week's New York Observer, Rupert’s Post Game: His Royal Pie-ness Story on Page SShhh, the New York Post responds to its owners whims and directives. And the Post, not surprisingly, played down a great tabloid moment: the pie in the face Murdoch received when testifying before the U.K. Parliament.
...Herewith, a few Atlantic Yards story ideas that could fit in the limited space and short attention span of the Post (or other tabloid):
- Baldfaced lying! Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, on tape, claims that "Brooklyn is 1000 percent behind Atlantic Yards."
- Scandal shift! Darryl Greene, whose role in the Aqueduct "racino" was so toxic it helped scotch the bid he was part of, continues as minority contracting consultant for Atlantic Yards.
- Convenient amnesia! Despite obligations to fund an Independent Compliance Monitor to evaluate the Community Benefits Agreement, Forest City Ratner has not done so.
- Delusionary behavior! Forest City Ratner, as if in some time warp, continues to maintain that tax revenues, as well as jobs, will be delivered as promised.
- Stunt! What might it be like for a few thousand arena-goers to walk down residential Dean Street, with its narrow sidewalks, from the surface parking lot to the arena? (Send a few hundred flash mobbers down the block!)
Posted by eric at 12:20 PM
July 28, 2011
Where were you in 2005? Times's skeptical coverage of jail bid in New Jersey contrasts markedly with willingness to downplay parallel issues in Vanderbilt Yard bid
Atlantic Yards Report
A front-page (in the New York edition) article in today's New York Times Metro section is headlined Political Links and a Jail Bid in North Jersey.
That skeptical piece contrasts notably with the Times's coverage of the process by which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority sold rights to develop its Vanderbilt Yard.
Consider, for example, the Times's perfunctory news brief, headlined Metro Briefing | New York: Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards Proposals Sought and published 5/26/05, in its entirety:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is seeking competitors for the development of its Atlantic Yards site, and has set a deadline of July 6 for proposals. A proposal by Bruce C. Ratner to build 6,000 housing units and a stadium for the Nets basketball team on the site has already won endorsements by the city and the state, which have each offered to pay $100 million for site improvements. But Tom Kelly, a spokesman for the authority, said yesterday that the agency had decided to consider other proposals in part because of its experience with its West Side railyards, which became the focus of a bidding war before an agreement was reached to sell the property to the New York Jets. Mr. Kelly said he knew of no other bids that were being prepared for the Atlantic Yards site. Thomas J. Lueck (NYT)
(Emphases added)
The MTA never had an Atlantic Yards site, nor could other bids have been prepared for "the Atlantic Yards site," which is 22 acres, while the Vanderbilt Yard is about 8.5 acres.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
July 25, 2011
An open letter to the New York Times's Public Editor: a false equivalence between Atlantic Yards promoters and "opponents," and the dubious claim of a $400 million arena naming rights deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Dear Mr. Arthur Brisbane,
I'm sure you're aware that some of us who read the Times closely take issue with the newspaper's coverage of the controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Indeed, last August, I posted a comment regarding Atlantic Yards in response to your debut column.
I don't say that the Times, by virtue of the parent company's partnership with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner on the Times Tower, is in the developer's pocket. But I do think that business relationship obligates the Times to be exacting in its coverage, and the newspaper regularly falls short.
I write regarding the July 19 article headlined online as Atlantic Yards Arena Takes Shape, but Protests Carry On and in print as "An Arena Rises at Last, But Protests Carry On."
My critiques are collected here, but I want to make one general point, about a false equivalence between Atlantic Yards promoters and "opponents," and one specific one, regarding the Times's credulous acceptance of the claim that Barclays paid a record $400 million for naming rights, despite significant evidence to the contrary.
Posted by eric at 12:47 PM
July 21, 2011
Maybe Murdoch has a light touch with the Brooklyn weeklies he bought, but the change in Atlantic Yards coverage has been profound
Atlantic Yards Report
Reports WNYC, Fearing a Heavy Hand, Outer-Borough Papers Find Murdoch Has Light Touch:
When News Corp – which owns the New York Post and Wall Street Journal - bought community newspapers in Queens, the Bronx and Brooklyn in 2006, 2007 and 2009, respectively, media watchers were worried they'd be reshaped as conservative Murdoch mouthpieces.
But several former staffers at The Brooklyn Paper and TimesLedger newspapers say the marching orders never came — and the neighborhood papers that now make up the Community Newspapers Group at News Corp continued to make their own decisions about editorials, endorsements and reporting, according to former employees.
About Atlantic Yards
The piece concludes:
The Brooklyn Paper, formerly a fierce watchdog on the Atlantic Yards project has become less aggressive since the 2009 sale, [Norman] Oder alleges, but he isn't sure whether or not that is attributable to News Corp.
"“I do see less of a focus on hard news," he said. "There is a lot of softer news. It's hard to say if that is Murdoch or just a sign or our times. When weekly newspapers like Brooklyn Paper were stronger they did more aggressive reporting."
I don't think my comment is so much an allegation as a (well-founded) argument.
Posted by eric at 12:09 PM
July 19, 2011
Times article on arena rising finally mentions Friedman decision, acknowledges reasons for opponents to "complain" (but doesn't analyze the public interest); essential narrative is Ratner's triumph
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder conducts an excellent step-by-step vivisection of yesterday's New York Times story on Atlantic Yards.
The New York Times today finally does mention the important judicial ruling last week, only to give it short shrift in a wide-ranging article focusing on the under-construction arena.
It was initially headlined online as After Years of Delays, Atlantic Yards Arena Begins Taking Shape, later amended to Atlantic Yards Arena Takes Shape, but Protests Carry On, and in print as "An Arena Rises at Last, But Protests Carry On."
The article, despite rounding-up criticisms and mention of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, maintains an overall narrative of triumph: the fact that an arena's coming. After all, the photos all illustrate construction, not community impact.
My criticisms include:
- the suggestion that only "opponents" should care about the public interest
- the downplaying of the significance of last week's court decision
- the Times's acceptance of undocumented claims regarding naming rights
- the Times's portrayal of Forest City Ratner's response to the rat problem
- the Times's unquestioning description of the developer's use of the EB-5 program
- the calculation of construction jobs
- the downplaying of the value of the documentary Battle for Brooklyn
- the shorthand description of Daniel Goldstein's settlement
Posted by eric at 9:21 AM
July 18, 2011
Another reason why the Daily News and Times should have covered the lawsuit: it (again) demolishes Ratner's claims of continuous legal victories
Atlantic Yards Report
Perhaps the simplest reason, among many, for the New York Daily News and New York Times to cover the latest Atlantic Yards legal decision, is that the reportage serves to rebut Forest City Ratner's recurring, but long incorrect, claim that the project has continuously prevailed in court.
(A more complex reason would be that, however the decision fails to slow ongoing construction, it represents a rare case in which a New York State judge overrules a decision by a government agency, declaring that it does not pass the minimal "rational" basis test.)
A spoon-fed reporter
As more reporters new to the Atlantic Yards controversy write about it, they are vulnerable--especially if lazy and/or pressed for time--to simply regurgitating the developer's spin.
"[Bruce] Ratner was a perfect 35-for-35 in judicial decisions throughout the eight-year process," wrote New York Daily News Sports Writer Stefan Bondy in his 6/11/11 article headlined Bruce Ratner finds vindication as Nets' new digs take shape in Brooklyn, but residents still angry.
Except he wasn't a "perfect 35-for-35." It's doubtful there were 35 decisions and Ratner had already lost a few, including a decision last November in which state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman slammed the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) for "yet another failure of transparency."
A record of reliance on Ratner
Press outlets and even government officials have regularly reported the Ratner claims and on 5/21/08, Lumi Rolley of No Land Grab complied a scorecard that came out 11-3 in favor of Ratner, not 18-0, as was claimed by Bruce Ratner, repeated by the ESDC's Avi Schick, and cited by the New York Times (18 rulings "in Mr. Ratner's favor").
On 2/26/09, the Times quoted an "elated" Ratner as saying, “Once again the courts have decided in favor of Atlantic Yards." On 11/25/09, the New York Post reported that Forest City Ratner bragged that the court record was 24-0.
The Times's DealBook blog on 12/17/09 reported that "Atlantic Yards has won a string of court victories." On 3/1/10, the Times cited "a long line of legal victories."
The truth is a little more complex.
Posted by eric at 10:42 AM
An unsigned defense of Yormark (and criticism of me) in Arena Digest
Atlantic Yards Report
An unsigned 7/17/11 article in Arena Digest, Debate continues over new Nets arena, is surely written (or influenced) by the pseudonymous NetIncome (aka Bobbo), the dyspeptic and prolific main contributor to NetsDaily.
The article purports to be a summary but bears a project-affectionate slant, with a few digs at me.
A "matter of process"
It begins:
The new Brooklyn arena for the relocating New Jersey Nets (NBA) continues to generate controversy; community activists opposing Atlantic Yards won a court decision but failed to persuade a judge to stop construction on Barclays Center.
...However, she did not halt construction on the first phase of the project, nor did she halt progress on the second phase, which will include surface parking and more.
...really the win in court last week was more a matter of process being reviewed than any decision on the merits of the project.
Winning the court decision is pretty significant without having to stop arena construction, which was unlikely. Surface parking is part of Phase 1.
And the case was never about the merits of the project, it was about whether the environmental review was sufficient. The judge said it wasn't--a highly unusual intervention.
Related coverage...
Arena Digest, Debate continues over new Nets arena
NoLandGrab: "Net Bobbo's" lack of transparency is a perfect metaphor for the lack of transparency in the Atlantic Yards backroom boondoggle.
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
Looking at the Crain's coverage of Atlantic Yards economic benefits: another bad example of "he said, she said" journalism
Atlantic Yards Report
As with The Real Deal's remarkable puff piece on Bruce Ratner, published last May, yesterday's article in Crain New York Business, Barclays Center takes shape at Atlantic Yards: Eight years after it was proposed, the arena is selling tickets. presents a dismaying example of what press scholar Jay Rosen criticizes as
“He said, she said” journalism, in which "No real attempt is made to assess clashing truth claims in the story" and "The means for assessment do exist, so it’s possible to exert a factual check on some of the claims, but for whatever reason the report declines to make use of them."'
The Crain's article, which I addressed in full yesterday, is a particularly bad example of that, since it positions the "he said, she said" claims about economic benefits in a rather illogical manner.
Posted by eric at 10:11 AM
Another reason to distrust the New York Daily News's editorial today: a dishonest photo
Atlantic Yards Report
Today's Daily News editorial, which I dissected here, was accompanied by a photo of two thirds of the railyard--in other words, perhaps a quarter of the overall Atlantic Yards site.
The other part of the arena--not stadium, as Borough President Marty Markowitz would remind people, is being built on pieces of residential/commercial Pacific and Dean Streets.
In other words, the photo is as dishonest as the editorial.
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
News Flash: Daily News Editorialists are Willfully Ignorant and Create Own Atlantic Yards Reality
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
What a surprise: after the news side of the paper ignored last week's big legal victory for the community against Atlantic Yards the Daily "News" editorialists continue to ignore reality and facts in their effort to carry water for Mort Zuckerman's cohorts in the real estate lobby—Forest City Ratner.
Norman Oder takes a look at their self-delusional drivel...
Posted by eric at 9:30 AM
July 17, 2011
Crain's article on arena calls documentary "latest insult," relies on ever-spinning Yormark as main source
Atlantic Yards Report
In Crain's New York Business today, Barclays Center takes shape at Atlantic Yards: Eight years after it was proposed, the arena is selling tickets. is full of holes, but at least makes a token effort to admit a contrary view.
"Latest insult"
The article begins:
Rising at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, the new home of the New Jersey Nets has survived lawsuits, neighborhood protests and a severe recession. The latest insult is called The Battle for Brooklyn, a documentary critical of the project that opened recently to favorable reviews.
Why exactly is the film, called Battle for Brooklyn (no "The") an "insult"? Couldn't it be a complicating factor in the heroic narrative preferred by Crain's and the New York Daily News?
Meeting preliminary goals
The article continues:
But eight years after developer Bruce Ratner proposed bringing the Nets to the borough as the anchor of the vast Atlantic Yards redevelopment, executives at the $1 billion Barclays Center have turned their attention to the next stage: making sure it turns a profit.
Despite competition from Madison Square Garden, which is being overhauled, and other arenas like the new Prudential Center in Newark, the Barclays Center is having no trouble meeting its preliminary goals, according to Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark.
Images of the recently completed designs for corporate suites and public areas have just gone on display in the center's midtown showroom as sales efforts ramp up in advance of a September 2012 opening. The 18,000-seat arena has sold close to half of its 100 corporate suites.
If they've sold close to half of the suites, let's say the number is 47.
That's 12 more than one year ago, when the total was 35--not bad, but hardly out of the woods.
But we don't know what those goals were, and how they've changed. After all, as of three years ago, there were supposed to be 130 suites, not 100.
Some people get tired of the Yormark half-truths, but if you click on the link below, you'll see that Norman Oder is is on the case to dissect each and every distortion.
Posted by steve at 4:53 PM
Flagrantly ignorant, Daily News calls arena rising "huge plus for an underused neighborhood," ignores latest legal decision
Atlantic Yards
It's no surprise that the New York Daily News, which has cheerleaded at every step for the Atlantic Yards project, would run yet another supportive editorial, today headlined The new Nets' arena rising in Brooklyn is shaping up as a huge plus for an underused neighborhood.
And it's no surprise that that the editorial would be flagrantly ignorant. Indeed, while it would be more defensible to argue that the arena might be, overall, good for Brooklyn--though that would require analysis of costs and benefits--it's "brutally weird" to call it a plus for a neighborhood that, according to the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), will experience "significant adverse impacts."
Click on the link to get the complete picture of how truly stupid today's Daily News edtiorial is.
Posted by steve at 4:35 PM
July 16, 2011
No coverage of Atlantic Yards ruling in the Times; on AY, have they done "just enough to avoid being accused of looking the other way"?
Atlantic Yards Report
I'm still surprised that the New York Times, which last November belatedly covered (Judge Rebukes State Agency Over Atlantic Yards Timetable, online only) the precursor decision in the ongoing lawsuit, hasn't covered the more dramatic next step, in which Justice Marcy Friedman further rebuked the agency and ordered a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.
Meanwhile, the Metro pages of today's print Times contain an article about performing the cancan on Bastille Day, another about a missing historic street sign in Jackson Heights, and a four-reporter investigation into Dominique Strauss-Kahn's weekend concert-going in the Berkshires.
Commenting on the Wall Street Journal's coverage of its parent company's scandal in the U.K., Times columnist Joe Nocera today observes that "The Journal did just enough to avoid being accused of looking the other way."
Couldn't that observation be applied to the Times's coverage of Atlantic Yards, being developed by Forest City Ratner, which partnered with the New York Times Company on the Times Tower?
Posted by steve at 5:13 PM
Ratner gets sports magazine to agree that latest version of arena may be country's best
Atlantic Yards Report
The arena promotion continues. SportsPro Magazine, in its July 2011 The Next special report on stadiums & venues, declares the Barclays Center one of the top ten over the next decade.
“I honestly believe,” says New Jersey Nets minority owner Bruce Ratner, “that in America we do sometimes build an arena with some semblance of architectural taste, and architecturally it’s great.”
Few would disagree with such an appraisal of the forthcoming Barclays Center, future home of the Brooklyn Nets. Its designers at the award-winning SHoP architecture firm have presented what might be the most ambitious and aesthetically pleasing indoor arena ever constructed in the United States. Their assured touch, says Ratner, is apparent “in and out” of the venue.
Except that's what Ratner would have said about the original design by Frank Gehry, whom he once said "is for me an idol."
As noted, the arena itself is by Ellerbe Becket, and thus a cousin to that firm's many NBA arenas, such as the Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The "facade" is by SHoP.
Posted by steve at 4:57 PM
AY down the memory hole: two reports that SHoP is the designer of the Barclays Center
Atlantic Yards Report
From the New York Daily News, 7/15/11, East River Waterfront Esplanade opens in style:
[City Planning Commission Chairperson Amanda] Burden selected a plan from SHoP Architects, the New York-based studio known as the architects of the Barclays arena in Brooklyn.
From SportsPro Magazine, The Next Generation, July 2011:
Few would disagree with such an appraisal of the forthcoming Barclays Center, future home of the Brooklyn Nets. Its designers at the award-winning SHoP architecture firm have presented what might be the most ambitious and aesthetically pleasing indoor arena ever constructed in the United States.
As No Land Grab's Eric McClure pointed out, "Uh, didn't Ellerbe Becket design the inside of the arena?"
Posted by steve at 4:55 PM
July 14, 2011
Looking at Friedman's ruling: no coverage in the Times or Daily News, no press mentions of delay in consideration of the Development Agreement
Atlantic Yards Report
So how big news was a judge's decision yesterday ordering a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for Phase II of the Atlantic Yards project and criticizing the state agency for "arbitrary and capricious" reliance on a not-believable ten-year buildout?
Judging by the coverage, only moderate. The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, among others, covered the story.
The New York Times and New York Daily News, pouring resources into the horrible killing of an eight-year-old Brooklyn boy, passed on the story.
Will they get to it today? The Times's commercial real estate reporter, Charles Bagli, is on leave, and the Brooklyn bureau is tiny. The Daily News's main reporter on Atlantic Yards, Erin Durkin, had three bylines in today's paper, all worthy stories: on Broadway Triangle in Williamsburg, Marty Markowitz's concert series, and St. Ann's Warehouse's bid for the Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park.
The New York Observer, its main Atlantic Yards reporter on vacation, missed the story. The Brooklyn Paper hasn't covered the story yet, either.
The missing history
And almost nobody, it seems, remembers the withheld Development Agreement--crucial, as I wrote yesterday, to the case.
Posted by eric at 10:59 AM
July 12, 2011
The Serious and Not So
Toronto Standard
by Bert Archer
An appraisal of the New York Times documentary Page One includes this bit of understatement.
[Norman] Oder’s reporting on the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn, and on the Times’ coverage of it, seems also quite serious, though you’d be forgiven for thinking the guy’s an utter wonk (which he almost certainly is).
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
July 10, 2011
The BAM-arena alliance, illegal parking, and construction progress: the role of p.r. in controlling the narrative
Atlantic Yards Report
Much of the coverage of Atlantic Yards by New York media could be charitably characterized as "lackluster." This post ponders the lack of media coverage and the influence of the Ratner publicity machine.
The establishment of the web site/project Atlantic Yards Watch, the presence of web sites chronicling Atlantic Yards like No Land Grab and AYR, and the opportunity to present photos and web videos means that the mainstream press should notice what's going on.
They don't always do that, but, after the Daily News published an article yesterday, two television reporters were quick to follow up. It was a fairly digestible story, with lots of visuals.
What's missing?
There's lots more not yet covered regarding Atlantic Yards.
For example, what about Forest City Ratner's failure to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor?
Or Borough President Marty Markowitz's lies in the effort to help Forest City Ratner raise cheap capital from immigrant investors interested in green cards?
Reporters overmatched?
Sure, it's hard out there for a reporter. “We’re all wire service reporters now," Theresa Agovino of Crain’s New York Business said in December 2009, according to the September/October 2010 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, a reference to the push for quantity over quality.
They too often don't have time to think, and that makes them vulnerable not just to p.r. pitches--that's part of the journalistic menu--but also the full packaging of the pitch. (Quick, did anyone actually analyze Forest City Enterprises' self-serving press release about saving on its debts? No.)
Shaping the debate
John Sullivan, in his ProPublica investigation and co-published in the May/June 2011 issue of Columbia Journalism Review, PR Industry Fills Vacuum Left by Shrinking Newsrooms, pointed toi the growing number of p.r. people and shrinking number of reporters, writing:
The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the public debate, and to do so without the public knowing it. "What we are seeing now is the demise of journalism at the same time we have an increasing level of public relations and propaganda," [Robert] McChesney said. "We are entering a zone that has never been seen before in this country."
That said, with Atlantic Yards, there are numerous leads to follow that are not hatched with the cooperation of "dark genius" Joe DePlasco. It's time for journalists to do their job. Or no
Posted by steve at 5:31 PM
Fox News, WPIX follow up, find illegal parking at site; Atlantic Yards Watch shows Atlantic Avenue "lot" and "funeral director"; will AY District Service Cabinet address parking issue?
Atlantic Yards Report
Following up on the Daily News's coverage of illegal parking around the Atlantic Yards construction site, MyFox New York took a look, and their report, below, is pretty damning.
Beyond that report, Atlantic Yards Watch followed up, pointing out that construction workers have "expanded the locations they park illegally onto Atlantic Avenue, apparently closing off part of a travel lane to create their own free parking lot," as shown in the photo taken yesterday.
Another set of photos shows the wide array of strategies used by illegal parkers, including the daily deployment of a funeral director's card. That was captured in video shot by WPIX, at bottom.
Enforcement issues
There are a couple of problems here. First, as I wrote this morning, someone has to enforce parking regulations when the police flout them.
Off-street parking?
Second, as Atlantic Yards Watch points out, Forest City Ratner and Empire State Development Corporation said at a 6/28/11 meeting that the number of construction workers had not risen to the point where the developer was supposed to create off-street parking.
But construction workers seem to be creating their own illegal on-street parking spaces--and, as the video below shows, they're glad that parking rules aren't being enforced.
District Service Cabinet meeting July 14
Perhaps these issues will be discussed--and resolved--at the fourth meeting of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, to be held July 14 at Borough Hall at 9:30 a.m. (I'm aiming to reconfirm this.)
The District Service Cabinet brings together affected agencies, community board representatives, the Borough President's Office and the developer. Questions from the public cannot be posed at the meeting but can be funneled through the community boards, City Council Member Letitia James's office, and the Borough President's Office.
Posted by steve at 5:24 PM
July 4, 2011
Times assigns eight staffers to story about Brearley School head's departure; what about covering EB-5?
Atlantic Yards Report
I read with incredulity a 7/2/01 New York Times article headlined Quick Exit of Private School’s Leader Puzzles Parents.
Sure, Times readers are interested in the fate of the city's most prestigious private school for girls. But the Times article, attributed to two authors, also cited five other reporters and a researcher as contributors.
Eight staffers, one story.
It makes me wonder: what if the Times had assigned eight reporters to the EB-5 story--Forest City Ratner's dubious effort to raise $249 million from immigrants interested in green cards--rather than dismiss it in two paragraphs, as was done in March?
NoLandGrab: The New York Times — fair and balanced?
Posted by eric at 10:35 AM
July 3, 2011
Another correction request sent to the New York Times: is the arena in "downtown Brooklyn" or near it?
Atlantic Yards Report
As far as The Times is concerned, Bruce Ratner appears to be building the world's first fully portable arena.
In the 6/30/11 article headlined (online) In Alliance, Nets Arena to Offer Arts, the Times reported: Now Atlantic Yards, the development that will bring the New Jersey Nets to downtown Brooklyn, will also be a cultural center.
However, the Times has previously identified the location of Atlantic Yards as being in Prospect Heights. As noted in a 4/27/06 correction:
Because of an editing error, an article in The Arts on Tuesday about Frank Gehry's design for the first phase of the Grand Avenue development project in Los Angeles misstated the location of the proposed Atlantic Yards project that Mr. Gehry is designing in Brooklyn. (The error also appeared in sports articles on Feb. 9 and April 11, in the City section on Jan. 15 and in several articles in 2003, 2004 and 2005.) It is on rail yards and other land in Prospect Heights and on a block in Park Slope; it is not in Downtown Brooklyn, although it is near that neighborhood.This "downtown Brooklyn" error has occurred several times since then, though most references in the Times have been accurate.
Here is my quick survey of articles requiring corrections.
Posted by eric at 10:04 AM
July 2, 2011
More on the BAM-arena plans: "you have to be suspicious of anything Ratner might be telling you"
Atlantic Yards Report
We're still waiting for some more coverage on the BAM-arena plans revealed in a spoon-fed New York Times exclusive--the New York Daily News and Brooklyn Paper have yet to weigh in, though the New York Post and many others ran an anodyne AP story.
But "[t]he bottom line is that you have to be suspicious of anything Ratner might be telling you," writes Noticing New York's Michael D. D. White in Cultural Circus? Mr. Ratner’s Attempt to Rechristen His Arena A “Cultural Center.”
He takes off from some previous reporting, including how I pointed out that incredible claim that the Barclays Center and the Brooklyn Academy of Music would together create a new cultural district.
He points out that, while "Ratner describes circuses as part of the commonplace perception people generally have of arenas from which he wants to move away," BAM's Karen Brooks Hopkins contradicts Ratner by suggesting performances can be "large nouvelle cirque kind of work."
The role of the Times
White writes:
Is it a problem that the New York Times fills its pages as the passive conduit for Ratner hype? In reviewing the documentary “Page One: Inside the New York Times” Noticing New York noted the film’s reporting of “The New York Times Effect,” which is to say that which the New York Times deigns to include in its pages “sets the agenda” virtually defining reality to a large extent for the rest of the press and that what gets reported in the Times thereafter almost invariably passes down the media food chain.
...By the time the story was boiled down to the short squibs broadcast by WNYC virtually any detectable warning of the PR bogusness of the whole affair had been eliminated.
Rather, he suggests, the Times should have analyzed the "press manipulation," including possible “good news” timed to counter a potential construction workers' strike, or the arena operators' efforts to fill seats at the arena that hasn't come close to the 225 annual events once promised or the 200-plus currently promised.
One correction, one missing one
The online article states:
Correction: July 1, 2011
An article on Thursday about an alliance between the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Barclays Center, the arena being built in downtown Brooklyn, misstated the title for Joseph V. Melillo of the academy. He is its executive producer, not executive director.
Of course, the entire article needs a conceptual correction, but do note that the Times has agreed that the arena is being built in "downtown Brooklyn," not, as the Times once agreed in a mega-correction, as part of a project being built in Prospect Heights.
Posted by steve at 5:09 PM
July 1, 2011
Opinion: Don’t Let Atlantic Yards Developers Control the Narrative
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Michael Galinsky
Speaking of circuses — Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker and regular contributor to The Local Michael Galinsky weighs in on the Atlantic Yards media circus.
Yesterday I was quoted in a The New York Times article about a new benefit that the Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner is touting. Bruce Ratner and the Brooklyn Academy of Music plan to partner on big-spectacle art events at the Barclays Center. I was asked how I thought the community would react.
What struck me, however, was the fact that once again the developer was putting out a story that would show them in a good light, and that any questions about their position were relegated to the end of the article. I was pleased that I was given the chance to discuss the issue, but saddened to imagine that the concerns of the community would be buried below the fold, and that the pattern of the developer controlling the narrative would go on.
...When something was happening that the developers couldn’t control, such as the 2006 environmental impact hearing, they trotted out some Nets basketball players and held a press conference in a government building (that they built) across the street from the impact hearing. I was prevented from shooting that conference, as you can see in the clip above.
This press conference seemed to be more about distracting the media from the real discussion that was taking place across the street. By trotting out several basketball stars, the publicity company was able to get the “credentialed media” to pay less attention to the discussion about the environmental impacts of the project. Because they didn’t feel that they could trust what I would do with the footage — I was not credentialed or working for a mainstream news organization — I was shut out. I think their concern was that I might not stay on message.
Posted by eric at 10:12 PM
June 30, 2011
NY Times Tries to Buff Ratner Image With "News" of Arena Alliance With Tone Deaf BAM
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
So this, apparently, is what The Times deems to be front page arts newsworthy: Bruce Ratner, Brooklyn Academy of Music board member, former BAM board director, minority owner of the Nets, majority owner of a basketball arena and roughly 18 acres of a demolition zone/interim surface patking lot is, maybe, going to allow the Brooklyn Academy of Music to hold "three or four shows a year" in the taxpayer subsidized billion dollar arena named after Barclays.
Newsflash for The Times: just because your business partner comes to you with an exclusive story doesn't mean it is anything more than a press release. And pretty much the only time Bruce Ratner himself will talk with The Times or any reporters is when his company feeds you the news.
Speaking of irony, as Bruce Ratner does below, isn't it just a wee bit ironic that the Brooklyn Academy of Music is so tone deaf about the Atlantic Yards project?
Posted by eric at 8:08 AM
June 28, 2011
Atlantic Yards ‘Rat Tsunami’ Plagues BroBos
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
What the hell is a Brobo?
As if the traffic and sports bars weren’t bad enough, the construction of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project has triggered an all-too-apt infestation of Rattus norvegicus in neighboring Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Observer makes fun of rat complaints, claims "hysteria has reached such epic proportions"
So, Matt Chaban of the New York Observer, who can be a decent reporter, didn't attend the meeting last Thursday about rat problems in the area around Atlantic Yards.
But he had to write about it, so today he applied a little 'tude, headlined Atlantic Yards ‘Rat Tsunami’ Plagues BroBos [Brooklyn Bourgeois Bohemians or Brownstone Brooklyn], providing a list of the complaints, ending with:
- Two stolen Bugaboos, with babies attached.
O.K., so we made that last one up, but the hysteria has reached such epic proportions, it seems possible. After all, The Brooklyn Paper is worried about the hantavirus infecting BroBos this summer if things don’t get better. Given their weak constitutions, it is bound to be a deadly epidemic.
My comment
As I commented:
Matt, this is really beneath you.
If you'd attended the meeting, or read the coverage (including mine) more carefully, you'd know that many of the people affected have been there more than 40 years, and that they represent a spectrum of ethnicity and class.
So the Bugaboo reference is not just a cheap laugh, it's way, way off.
As is making fun of people who are plagued by rats.
Posted by eric at 10:17 PM
"Battle for Brooklyn" and "Page One: Inside the New York Times" Make Powerful Companion Pieces
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
If you've seen the new documentary film "Page One: Inside the New York Times" and have yet to see "Battle For Brooklyn" (or vice versa) there is a compelling argument that you should see both as the movies make powerful companion pieces.
Both films address the question of what can happen when the New York Times is not around to do its job.
"Battle for Brooklyn" is screening at Cinema Village in Manhattan (showtimes and tickets are available here.)
Michael D.D. White has published an extensive discussion of the two films on his Noticing New York blog, and though it is a long read, we deem it a must-read—especially as it hones in on some very questionable reporting and editorializing during the weeks when the Vanderbilt railyards were put out for bid in a phoney request for proposal by the MTA.
Posted by eric at 10:53 AM
Another press valentine for Amanda Burden: Wall Street Journal profile of City Planning Commission Chair ignores Atlantic Yards example
Atlantic Yards Report
In a 6/23/11 article headlined Champion of Cities: With New York's High Line park expansion, Amanda Burden's urban revitalization efforts set a model for the world, the Wall Street Journal reports:
This elegant blonde with a mellifluous voice is steelier than one might expect, a useful trait for someone who is spearheading Mayor Michael Bloomberg's far-reaching effort to rezone nearly a quarter of New York City and reclaim the city's waterfront. Her populist achievements span all five boroughs and include zoning for new affordable housing in East Harlem, Brookyln and the South Bronx, as well as the massively popular High Line, an abandoned railroad track that has been transformed into a popular tourist destination in the once-gritty meatpacking neighborhood, which has seen commerce move in and property values soar in the past decade.
Chairing the City Planning Commission since 2002, Burden, age 67, has revolutionized its role in the city, transforming a once-sleepy bureaucratic agency into an activist department championing good design by using zoning as a weapon to enforce her vision.
...My comment:
This valentine to Amanda Burden neglects some of more complicated aspects of her legacy, such as the city's willingness--presumably not embraced by the City Planning Commission, but with no opportunity to publicly protest--to let the Empire State Development Corporation oversee the Atlantic Yards project, with no role for the Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP).
Meanwhile, Burden has been a loyal foot soldier for Atlantic Yards, even though it does not represent the Jacobsian mantle she embraces.
See:
10/12/06: Planning Chair Burden claims Jacobsian mantle, discards it for AY
1/15/07: Times profile of planning chair Burden maintains AY myth, suffers curious cut
10/19/09: Two profiles of Amanda Burden make and miss the same points about City Planning (and Atlantic Yards)
Posted by eric at 10:46 AM
June 27, 2011
“Page One: Inside the New York Times” Reviewed; Plus The “New York Times Effect” on New York’s Biggest Real Estate Development Swindle
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White takes an epic look at Page One, the new documentary about The New York Times, framed by the paper's failings in covering its development partner's massive Brooklyn boondoggle and viewed in parallel with Atlantic Yards documentary Battle for Brooklyn. It's none to easy to summarize, so click through and have a read.
Especially fascinating: White's recounting of The Times's Atlantic Yards coverage during two crucial months in 2005.
When it comes to “The Times Effect” on local reporting and Atlantic Yards, the biggest real estate project proposed in New York City, some of the most important events occurred in a 60 day window of time May 24, 2005 to July 27, 2005 shown about a third of the way through the film “Battle For Brooklyn.”
On May 24, 2005 New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (the “MTA”) put out a perfunctory RFP soliciting bids for the railyards it was planning to transfer to developer Forest City Ratner. The 42 page RFP was a palpably insincere gesture. It allowed only an absurdly short 42 days for response. It was 42 pages whereas the MTA’s comparable later RFP for its Hudson Yards railyards site ran 1,369 pages. Doubtless, all the city’s big developers correctly perceived that, as a political matter, they were NOT supposed to bid against Forest City Ratner because even though the public property of the railyards had never been bid, this was viewed as a done deal.
...The Times briefly reported (May 26, 2005) the issuance of the MTA’s RFP but printed nothing picking up on its bogus character. The bogus character of that bid deserved to be major story. The brief report of the RFP came several days after the Times ran a story under a press release-style headline touting that the Ratner project would theoretically provide lots of affordable housing: Brooklyn Arena Plan Calls for Many Subsidized Units, by Michael Brick, May 20, 2005.
Goldstein’s concern about how the Times was promoting the Ratner project virtually as if its was an extension of the Times existing real estate partnership with Ratner was well founded and prescient. On July 5, 2005, the day before the MTA board planned to approve the project, not expecting the pending Extell proposal in response to its solicitation, the Times published a front-page article about the Atlantic Yards project (Instant Skyline Added to Brooklyn Arena Plan, By Diane Cardwell), when Frank Gehry's new design sketches were released exclusively to the Times. In an accompanying "appraisal" the Times architectural critic effused over the fantasy design (An Appraisal: Seeking First to Reinvent the Sports Arena, and Then Brooklyn, by Nicolai Ourousoff).
The very next day, July 6, the day of the intended MTA approval, the Times followed with another largely complimentary story about Ratner’s plans: Brooklynites Take In a Big Development Plan, and Speak Up, by Robert F. Worth, July 6, 2005. The day after that the Times had to run a story about Extell’s competing bid, “tailored to address some of the major criticisms of the Ratner proposal.” Its headline?: Brooklyn Plan Draws a Rival, and It's Smaller (by Diane Cardwell, July 7, 2005.)
Does it look like the Times stories were being selectively tailored by the Times to help the Ratner project? Certainly, Ratner knew the schedule for various events related to the bid during this window, not that it would have been appropriate for public officials to have been feeding him all these details. Ratner was therefore in a position to, in turn, feed appropriate stories to the Times.
Posted by eric at 11:59 AM
The demise of the New York Times's once-routine Forest City Ratner disclosure (as mandated by the Public Editor), and another reason why it's meaningful
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times has much less frequently been appending a once routine disclosure to its articles about Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. And that's meaningful for a reason I haven't previously stressed.
Consider, for example, the 6/24/11 blog post headlined In Brooklyn, the Rats Move Out Before the Nets Move In. No disclosure appeared, though an 11/25/09 article, Ruling Lets Atlantic Yards Seize Land, contains such a disclosure:
The company, which was the development partner for the Midtown headquarters for The New York Times Company...
Disclosure dropped
No did such disclosure appear in the 6/16/11 review of the new documentary Battle for Brooklyn, the 3/17/11 article headlined Prefabricated Tower May Rise at Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, and, more crucially, a 3/18/11 article headlined With Federal Case and Modular Building Plan, New Attention for Atlantic Yards Project.
Why was that more crucial? Because, as the headline suggests, the Times itself is responsible for part of the new attention and, as I wrote, the Times soft-pedaled a key issue: Forest City Ratner's apparent exploitation of the federal government's EB-5 investment immigration program.
Importance of disclosure
There are at least two significant reasons why disclosure is important, and one of them I haven't previously stressed.
The more obvious reason is that disclosure puts readers on alert, as well as reporters and editors, that Times coverage should be exacting--and sometimes it isn't.
The other is simply that it should put readers, reporters, and editors on notice that Times coverage should appear in the print paper, not, as with the article on rats, relegated to the City Room blog.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Atlantic Yards down the memory hole: Times web site erases attribution to Public Editor Byron Calame's call for the paper's full disclosure of ties to Ratner
Posted by eric at 11:34 AM
June 26, 2011
CNG issues "Brooklyn 200," including Forest City Ratner, Nets Basketball, and the Barclays Center
Atlantic Yards Report
The Community Newspaper Group, publisher of the Brooklyn Paper and Courier-Life, has issued a new promotional supplement, Brooklyn 200, "celebrating the places and things that make Brooklyn special," with capsule descriptions.
It's not surprise, given that newspapers are in tough shape, that they produce such questionable products. (Quick, is there any correlation between full-page feature articles on a selected few of the 200 and advertisements bought by those subjects of feature articles?)
Among the 200, as detailed below, are Forest City Ratner, Freddy's Bar, Nets Basketball, and the Barclays Center.
And Marty Markowitz is the only person on the list, getting special mention in the category of "force of nature.
Questionable choices
There are other opportunities for raised eyebrows.
Why a mini-profile of the Brooklyner building but not the Brooklyn Flea (or Brownstoner)? Brooklyn Kickball but not the Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory? Downtown law firms like Cullen and Dykman and Goldberg and Cohn, but not South Brooklyn Legal Services or Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation? Nine auto dealers but no one retailer selling bicycles or organization working on transportation policy?
Forest City and Freddy's
The treatment of Forest City Ratner is fairly straightforward, and refers to Atlantic yards as "controversial," locating the arena--unlike in the official promotional material--in Prospect Heights.
The Freddy's listing cites "its impassioned fight against the Atlantic Yards project."
(Click on all graphics to expand.)
The Barclays Center
The under-construction arena gets described as "already changing the face of the borough."
Nets Basketball
Would you believe that "there's no doubt that wen the Brooklyn Nets first hit the hardwood at the Barclays Center, they'll take the floor with the support of an entire borough"?'
You might start subtracting people afflicted by rats.
Marty Markowitz
Would you believe that even Marty Markowitz's "biggest opponents will admit that [he] is"unceasingly dedicated to trying to make Brooklyn a better place to live"?
Maybe except when he's lying about support for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by steve at 7:23 PM
CounterSpin radio show: Battle for Brooklyn filmmakers talk about the media (including me)
Atlantic Yards Report
Susan Saladoff on Hot Coffee, Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky on Battle for Brooklyn
CounterSpin (6/24/11-6/30/11)
This week on CounterSpin we're talking about two new films which, while journalism is not their central subject, directly engage news media's influence and real world impact as a critical part of the stories they tell....
Also on the show: Battle for Brooklyn tracks the takeover of a New York neighborhood by a real estate developer and the efforts to resist it by community members, one man in particular who becomes the last person in his building not to take a buyout. The same events and players appeared in the corporate press too, and viewers can see the difference when voices that usually appear in the last paragraph are given central place. We spoke with Battle for Brooklyn filmmakers Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky.
I'll note that the radio show (the interview starts at 12:48; also see links to audio at DDDB and NLG) begins with the host noting that "a man" at the end of the film comments that, had the media done their job, this would have been a fair fight.
That "man" is me. Later in the interview, Galinsky names me and points to my role, and the lingering, under-covered EB-5 story.
The entire interview is worth a listen. And the film is still playing.
Posted by steve at 7:08 PM
June 25, 2011
Behind the Brooklyn Paper's "world's best Cyclones coverage"
Atlantic Yards Report
How does the Brooklyn Paper manage "the world's best Cyclones coverage"?
Well, the page in print (which contains an article that starts on the front page) is "brought to you by Municipal Credit Union," which bought what looks to be a one-sixth page advertisement on the page, and perhaps also pays for the banner at top. MCU bought naming rights to the baseball park, so there's some syntergy there.
And the half-page advertisement on the bottom of the page, while hawking air conditioners, does contain a promotion for Cyclones tickets.
You can't blame a local newspaper, in a struggling environment, for seeking creative ways to bring in revenue.
But you can't help thinking that, without the advertising, the level of coverage might be lower. And maybe there'd be space for more Atlantic Yards coverage.
All of which leads to the question: what happens when the Barclays Center opens?
Posted by steve at 8:59 PM
June 19, 2011
Help Battle for Brooklyn Go National -- See the Movie Today, Sunday the 19th at Cinema Village
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
We know there is a lot of competition for your time, but WE URGE you to see Battle for Brooklyn today, Sunday the 19th, at Cinema Village in Manhattan. (Purchase Tickets Now)
While the Friday turnout was amazing, Saturday's was not as good as expected. It is crucial that there are large audiences on Sunday.
So, it is urgently important that you see this riveting film today, and that you call your friends and urge them to see it today as well.
If the screenings are packed today then the film will continue to play in New York and expand throughout the country. If the film does not do well today, it won't get far outside of New York.
It is vitally important that this remarkable film about our community's fight is seen by a wide national audience. By telling the story of our fight against Atlantic Yards, it tells a dramatic and universal tale of resistance to corrupt, top-down development and collusion between government and corporations against the interests of the community. It takes direct aim at kleptocracy and it shows that the most important things in life are worth fighting for. It is a film that deserves a wide audience.
Posted by steve at 3:31 PM
"Battle for Brooklyn": In breaking news, Goliath beats David
Salon
By Andrew O'Hehir
In the movies, when David fights Goliath, we generally know who's going to win. In real life, of course, it tends to be the other way around, as the compact and fascinating documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" demonstrates. Compressing a seven-year civic struggle over a massive redevelopment project in the center of Brooklyn, N.Y., into 93 minutes, Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's film spins a compelling tale about the value of individual and collective resistance, even as it makes clear where power in our society really resides. Along the way, "Battle for Brooklyn" tells the story of a love affair and a new family, and reminds us that even billionaires are not omnipotent.
Posted by steve at 3:30 PM
June 18, 2011
"Battle For Brooklyn" -- Go See It
The documentary "Battle For Brooklyn" is now playing at Cinema Village in Manhattan. All of these people liked the film and you probably will, too.
New York Magazine, Chris Smith on the Atlantic Yards Documentary Battle for Brooklyn
The film isn’t objective, which is fine, and appropriate: Atlantic Yards was never a fair fight. Launched during the boom years, with aggressively pro-business politicians running the city and the state, Atlantic Yards has used strategic heaps of money and a crafty marketing strategy (Brooklyn pride! Frank Gehry! Affordable housing! Jobs, jobs, jobs!) to churn relentlessly forward, even surviving the one serious threat to its existence, the great recession. What Battle for Brooklyn can only hint at, however, are the crucial political alliances that have kept Atlantic Yards alive; Mayor Bloomberg, Ratner, and the other key establishment players apparently didn’t deign to sit for interviews. That’s fitting, too, given the façade of a “public” process used to approve the massive project.
Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist, Battle for Brooklyn
Daniel Goldstein lives in a remodeled building on Pacific Street that is similar to many in New York City’s five boroughs. Priced out of the Manhattan market (I am only making a guess that this was the case for Goldstein, a graphic artist), they settle in working-class neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Long Island City and elsewhere to enjoy a roomy apartment or loft with the latest amenities. When Ratner offers the occupants of Goldstein’s building a million dollars each to move out, they take the money and run. Goldstein, a 30ish young man with a rebellious streak as pronounced as I have ever seen, decides to remain and fight. After joining Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), he begins to spend more time organizing people than on his career. His passion for the cause (and perhaps other incompatibilities) leads to the break-up his engagement. But all is not lost. He finally hooks up with and marries Shabnam Merchant, an Indo-American woman who is as dedicated to the cause as he is.
Arrayed against them and their neighbors are an enormously powerful and ruthless bloc consisting of Ratner, his top executives, and a rogue’s gallery of politicians, including the buffoonish Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz. They portray the project’s benefit in such glowing terms that you would think that they were on some kind of social uplift mission rather than a typical real estate boondoggle. Ratner is a truly despicable figure, who naturally enough became a member of Bard College’s Board of Trustees. Leon Botstein has a particular flair for recruiting limousine liberals such as Ratner, who will be sitting alongside Stuart Resnick at board meetings. Resnick is the owner of a number of “enlightened” New Agey type products like POM juice and Fiji water that put profits over sustainable development.
orgtheory.net, battle for brooklyn: social movements, countermovements, and the urban growth machine
A couple of weeks ago I saw Battle for Brooklyn, a new documentary by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley,* at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. The documentary tells the story of Brooklyn activists who fought against a real estate development planned in the the old Atlantic Yards site that ceased hundreds of homes through eminent domain in order to build a business complex and a new arena for the New Jersey Nets. Told from the perspective Daniel Goldstein, one of the community organizers leading the protests, the film provides a rare and in-depth look at the internal workings of a social movement, chronicling the emotional highs and lows as well as the process of tactical decision-making. It’s a fascinating film for a number of reasons, and I can’t recommend it enough.
mybrooklyn, Battle for Brooklyn
Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley’s new documentary Battle for Brooklyn unfolds right down the street from where we’ve been shooting My Brooklyn for the past four years. I had a chance to see the film last night at Cinema Village and highly recommend it to anybody interested in urban planning, land use, and the increasing use of eminent domain for private profit. By following Daniel Goldstein’s fight to stay in his apartment, and Develop Don’t Destroy‘s efforts to bring some sanity to the planning process, Battle for Brooklyn exposes the corrupt decision-making process behind the Atlantic Yards Project as well as some great public relations strategies (my favorite being a theater piece that takes place in front of Freddy’s bar before it is demolished). City Council member Tish James comes off really well against a cast of city politicians and developers the film skewers pretty squarely. Go see it while you can!
Posted by steve at 1:59 PM
June 17, 2011
What happened to the Brooklyn Paper on Atlantic Yards? Three meetings this week result in no coverage (so far)
Atlantic Yards Report
There were three important Atlantic Yards-related public events in the past week, with my coverage linked:
--a meeting June 11 on governance reform sponsored by BrooklynSpeaks, local elected officials, and others
--a forum June 14 on traffic changes sponsored by Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation
--a session June 15 on reviving the alternative UNITY development plan, sponsored by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, local elected officials, and others.The events drew healthy crowds, more than 100 people for the latter two.
The hyperlocal web site Patch (owned by AOL, operating in several Brooklyn neighborhoods) covered all three events (governance, traffic, UNITY), while reporters for the Brooklyn Downtown Star, the New York Times's The Local, and others also attended some events.
Where was the Brooklyn Paper?
Maybe this explains it:
Why is Atlantic Yards no longer an important story for the Brooklyn Paper?
It's impossible to say for sure, but perhaps the newspaper's marketing alliance with the Nets (click on graphic below, from the paper's daily update last month, to enlarge) has an impact.
 |
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
June 13, 2011
Some back story on the Daily News's friendly Ratner interview today: no questions about Goldstein
Atlantic Yards Report
Daily News sports reporter Stefan Bondy produced a suck-up interview with Bruce Ratner today, and while he did quote Ratner opponent Patti Hagan, he nonetheless declared the arena "Bruce Ratner's triumph" and otherwise skated over any countervailing evidence.
And Hagan, at the Brooklyn Film Festival June 3, offered a little back story about Bondy's interview, as shown in the video below.
"You might be interested to know I got called by a Daily News sports reporter a couple of days ago," she recounted, "who said that he had been able to have an interview with Bruce Ratner, and the one thing that Bruce Ratner said, on agreeing to be interviewed, was that no questions could be asked--the name Daniel Goldstein could not be mentioned."
Actually, Goldstein is mentioned in the story, but it doesn't look like Bondy asked Ratner about Goldstein.
Video: brokeland11217 via YouTube
Posted by eric at 10:13 AM
June 11, 2011
Brooklyn Paper suggests Battle for Brooklyn is "exhaustive new docu-ganda"
Atlantic Yards Report
Is Battle for Brooklyn an "exhaustive new docu-ganda," as per the Brooklyn Paper's summary (which is more positive than not)?
Nah.
It's not exhaustive--that's impossible--and, while there are legitimate bones to pick with some of the directors' choices, that doesn't make it propaganda.
And shouldn't a newspaper that can produce headlines and stories like "Bruce breaks ground at Atlantic Yards site" (right) be a wee bit careful throwing around "ganda" terms?
Posted by steve at 9:50 PM
Watch List Highlights, Friday, June 10, 2011
The Municipal Art Society of New York
A new film opens June 17 chronicling another large redevelopment of importance to New Yorkers: the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn. The eight-year-in-the-making film Battle for Brooklyn is an intimate and behind the scenes look at the seven year struggle over the Atlantic Yards project. It makes its theatrical debut starting June 17th at Cinema Village in Manhattan. Get your ticket.
Posted by steve at 9:47 PM
New videos from Tracy Collins; One Minute Voices from Dean Street
Atlantic Yards Report
Photographer and videographer Tracy Collins, a Dean Street resident, has begun "One Minute Voices,"a series of one-minute, casual, interviews with people who live and work in the neighborhood of the Dean Street Block Association (DSBA), 6th to Vanderbilt Avenues, in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, New York. (He invites further interviews; contact him at tc[at]3c[dot]com.)
A retailer
Abdul operates the Dubai Mini Mart at 6th Avenue and Dean Street, directly catercorner from the Dean Street entrance to the arena.
"The neighborhood is changing for the good," he says, "but sometimes you see these rats running around here." Construction slows his business 20-30%, he says, so he's thankful to neighborhood residents who still patronize his store.
The store was recently renovated, and a new sign is coming. They've had the store for five years, and the neighborhood has improved, Abdul says, citing new arrivals. (In other words, I'd bet, gentrification.)
Unexplored: how long the store's lease is and whether and how it would be converted to an establishment more directly keyed to arena crowds.
A resident
Doug Stone, a 17-year resident of Dean Street near Carlton Avenue, says people are happy in the general, the Dean Street playground has improved, Vanderbilt Ave "is rocking... and it feels really good."
However, he says there's "a lot of uncertainty and anxiety" re the arena. "I think that plopping down a big arena like a giant flying saucer... is definitely going to change things. I am persuaded that the arena was a bad process and a bad decision... It might contribute to the coffers of various entrepreneurs... but as far as this neighborhood, I'm pessimistic that it's going to be a net positive."
Stone says he hopes that, in five years, "we can all say that he was wrong," but he's not optimistic. "The arena will have impacts that we literally cannot predict."
I'd add that the path from the 1100-space parking lot on the block bounded by Dean and Pacific streets and Carlton and Vanderbilt avenues will go along residential Dean Street, where the sidewalk narrows to less than six feet in places.
Click on the link to take a look at the video interviews.
Posted by steve at 9:42 PM
June 10, 2011
New FCC report: "independent watchdog function" of press "at risk at the local level;" Brooklyn hyperlocal journalism gets barely a mention
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports on a new FCC study on the withering of local media outlets.
There's barely a mention of what was once called the country's bloggiest place:
The most frequent criticism of the teaching hospital model is that student journalists are a source of cheap labor and actually end up displacing their professional counterparts. The students are willing to work for “free,” earning course credit at a time when professional newsrooms are eliminating staff to cut costs. One former editor, Peter Scheer, wrote, “Does it make sense for [J-schools] to be subsidizing the accelerated dislocation of one generation of their graduates to make room for a younger generation of their graduates? In the investment world this is called a Ponzi scheme.” But Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, responded that students are doing journalism that newspapers no longer can. “With the typical metro news editor looking at a half-empty newsroom, the question isn’t whether to cover local issues with journalism students or veteran reporters, it’s whether to cover local issues with journalism students or not at all,” Lemann says. CUNY’s dean, Steve Shepard, admits that his students are “very cost effective,” but adds that without them the hyperlocal journalism in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene and Cobble Hill neighborhoods “wouldn’t get done.”
Um, that's Clinton Hill, not Cobble Hill.
And I wouldn't say that The Local, while doing some useful work, is exactly leading the pack. Nor is its hyperlocal work particularly oriented to accountability journalism, though that does crop up.
Posted by eric at 9:54 AM
June 9, 2011
Old Yankee Stadium and 4 Ballparks That Should Never Have Been Torn Down
Bleacher Report
by Rick Weiner
A column about lost ballparks makes the old Atlantic Yards/Vanderbilt Yard/Ebbets Field replacement error.
As the team's success increased so did the demand for tickets. With a small seating capacity and little-to-no available parking, then-Dodgers' owner Walter O'Malley was prepared to build a new ballpark at the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, one that would be able to accommodate the growing fanbase.
Noted developer and then-Commissioner of Buildings in New York City Robert Moses was opposed to O'Malley's plan and instead wanted the new stadium to be built on land in Flushing, Queens.
We all know how this story ends.
NoLandGrab: Yeah, it ends with us pointing out that "Atlantic Yards" is an arena and some 18 acres of vaportecture brought to us by Bruce Ratner, while the "Vanderbilt Yard" is an MTA rail-storage facility. O'Malley actually wanted to build his new ballpark on the site occupied by Bruce Ratner's infamous malls.
Posted by eric at 9:30 AM
June 7, 2011
NO MORE NICOLAI: CRITIC LEAVING NY TIMES
A|N Blog
by Julie V. Iovine
According to an in-house memo, New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff is “moving on” at the end of this month.
The sweet but short memo about the critic—who this year submitted his own Pulitzer nomination package—was sent around this morning from culture editor Jonathan Landman. Ouroussoff’s plan, the memo said, is:
to write a book about the architectural and cultural history of the last 100 years, “from Adolf Loos’s Vienna and the utopian social experiments of post-revolutionary Russia to postwar Los Angeles and the closing years of the 20th century,” as Nicolai describes it.
...The question is will the readers [miss him], too? The sporadic critic was known more for chasing down exotic locations and predictably championing all things Californian than analyzing local conditions and his even-handed voice sometimes had us all missing the impassioned harangues of his predecessor, Herbert Muschamp.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Architecture critic Ouroussoff leaving New York Times to write book about architecture, aiming for "social and political context"
According to the Architect's Newspaper, citing an in-house New York Times memo, Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff will leave at the end of this month to write a book that, in the words of his boss, "aspires to put a century of architecture into the kind of social and political context he always aimed for within the more limited constraints of newspaper writing."
...I posted a comment, noting that both Ouroussoff and Muschamp, alas, did a terrible job writing about Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. (In other words, he missed a lot of social and political context.)
Given that the project is being developed by a firm that partnered with the New York Times Company on the Times Tower, you’d think Times critics might be careful in covering the Brooklyn project exactingly. That was not to be.
Posted by eric at 1:15 PM
June 5, 2011
Up Close With Diana Williams
ABC 7
|
Daniel Goldstein and Michael Galinsky are interviewed about the Atlantic Yards Fight on the release of the documentary "The Battle For Brooklyn."
Posted by steve at 11:47 PM
ArtBridge holds competition for art to be displayed on Atlantic Yards site sidewalk shed; here are some examples they won't pick
Atlantic Yards Report
As noted in the Brooklyn Eagle and NoLandGrab, ArtBridge is holding a contest for artists to have their work displayed on a 400-foot long sidewalk shed along one side of the Atlantic Yards site.
(As NLG points out, the location is not "the heart of Downtown Brooklyn.")
Here are a couple of AY-related art exhibits that I'm sure won't get picked:
Posted by steve at 11:18 PM
News and Reviews of "Battle for Brooklyn" Continue
|
The Brooklyn Rail, Brooklyn's Ongoing Battle
By Williams Cole
This is an interview with Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky on the release of their documentary "Battle For Brooklyn."
Rail: So how is the Atlantic Yards Project pivotal—realistically and symbolically—to the changes in Brooklyn over the last decade or so?
Galinsky: Incredibly pivotal. As George Will points out in the movie, all the city officials were saying this area is blighted and we have to redevelop it. But, really, they wanted the land because it wasn’t blighted. It was probably the most valuable piece of property in Brooklyn! And yet they’re getting to lease it for a dollar for one hundred years. A dollar for one hundred years! I mean, it’s absurd, and then they’re not paying any taxes.
Countdown to Main Street, Main Street Fete
Friday night. Main Street, Brooklyn. DUMBO seems too cool to have a Main Street, but there it is. I'm going to 37, Powerhouse Arena, a bookstore/event space, for a party celebrating the New York premier of "Battle for Brooklyn," at the Brooklyn Film Festival. I had seen cuts of the film, but the final version, with diagrams and music and storyline, starts off very hard and never lets up. It tells the story of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and its 7 year fight to stop Bruce Ratner's ill-conceived Atlantic yards project. "It's like David and Goliath," says attorney Norman Siegel, "but you know, sometimes David wins." At the end of the film, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is chortling, "No one will remember how long it took." But we are watching the film, and we remember. I finger the leaflet in my pocket inviting me to a meeting June 15th to see the Unity Plan for the area. I plan to go. I want to see what Marshall Brown, Ron Shiffman and the other collaborating urban planners are proposing. The film's wonderful hero, Dan Goldstein, and brilliant heroine, Shabnam Merchant, are tenacious, ethical and beautiful. I learned a lot and look forward to seeing it over and over. In the meantime, at 37 Main Street, the activists and the film crowd rub shoulders in one of the moments of festivity in which we catch our breath and refuel for the next round in the fight.
inversecondemnation.com, Movie Review: Battle For Brooklyn
There have been other films about eminent domain. For a fictional comedic take on the subject you can't do better than Australia's The Castle, which tells the story of a Melbourne family's challenge to a Kelo-like taking of their home. Welcome to Asbury Park is a documentary about New Jersey property owners resisting the taking of their homes. It also looks like the Kelo story will be coming to the small screen in a Little Pink House movie.
But until Battle For Brooklyn, there's never been an attempt to chronicle the massive scope of an eminent domain story -- the film takes place over seven years, itself an accomplishment -- and with such intimacy. For although the film is framed by the opposition to the Atlantic Yards project, its heart is a character study of Daniel Goldstein, the property owner who became the opposition leader, and who by the film's end remains the sole "holdout" among his 130 neighbors.
And that's where Battle For Brooklyn excels. It allows us to witness Mr. Goldstein's evolution from a bewildered property owner to sophisticated spokesman and property rights activist. In the era of reality television we have become accustomed to often-too-revealing and all-too-polished looks into the personal lives of others. Yet, Battle For Brooklyn feels different.
Posted by steve at 10:47 PM
June 4, 2011
More Coverage for the opening of "Battle for Brooklyn"
|
|
Dissent, The Epic Battle Over Atlantic Yards
By Norman Oder
The sprawling saga could merit a miniseries; Battle for Brooklyn, the propulsive ninety-three-minute documentary from Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley—Brooklynites known for the 2002 doc Horns and Halos, about an ill-fated George W. Bush biographer—chooses a narrower lens. With reality show-like intimacy, the film focuses on Daniel Goldstein, a graphic designer turned DDDB spokesman, the sole owner in his condo building to refuse a buyout. We see Goldstein find himself over six years as an activist, alternately invigorated and unnerved. The David-and-Goliath portrait can be compelling, but it avoids some gray areas, and sometimes Goldstein’s personal story displaces needed context. The directors explain that they’ve crafted a film that’s more character driven than information driven. Still, the title suggests some sweep, and the film scants Brooklyn’s gentrification, the reason FCR’s repeated, if questionable, promises of affordable housing have had such heft.
“If I had to do it all over again, I would do the same exact thing,” Goldstein declares in the film’s opening lines, as a camera-from-the-sky captures the denuded project footprint, with ominous music in the background. “If I wasn’t going to fight this project, which was hitting my home and my neighborhood, what would I ever fight for?”
j.b. spins, BFF ’11: The Battle for Brooklyn
At each juncture, the fix is obviously in for the so-called “Atlantic Yards” project. State commissioners vote on the proposal despite having no familiarity with the actual details, while members of the city council cannot be bothered to hear out its critics during committee hearings. Indeed, besides Brooklyn city council member Letitia James, New York City’s politicians do not come out looking well in Battle. The arrogant standoffishness of Mayor Bloomberg is hardly surprising, but those who see Battle at national festivals will be dismayed by the clownishness of Brooklyn Borough President Marty “Party” Markowitz. (Unfortunately, New Yorkers can attest, what you see is typical of the three term incumbent.)
Over the course of Battle, viewers will pick up a heck of an education in New York state land use law, but not at the expense of the film’s central drama. At its core, this is a film about a man fighting for his home and a community struggling to stay intact. However, the policy implications of the Atlantic Yards boondoggle are obvious. Forget about property rights. Evidently, if New York’s state and local governments decide your home or business could be better utilized by someone else, they can flat-out take it. If they have to game the system with bogus declarations of “blight,” then so much the better. After all, it depresses the property values, which in turn means they can offer drastically less compensation.
Posted by steve at 10:56 PM
ArtBridge: Works in Progress
Artbridge
Artbridge, which describes itself as "the Chelsea-based nonprofit that transforms underutilized city spaces into canvas for the work of emerging artists ," is trying to find something to fill its third installation by holding a contest for artists. The winner will have her artwork displayed on a 400-foot long sidewalk shed along one side of the Atlantic Yards site.
Art-making is a transformative act. Pigment mixed with medium becomes paint, that paint, when applied to canvas becomes “art,” that art, when we see it on gallery walls or in the public realm, alters the world around us.
The construction process can in many ways be seen as a mirror of the artistic one; breaking ground, reconfiguring it, reinterpreting space to make it new.
With this in mind we invite Brooklyn-based artists to submit visual works that riff on, reference, or reveal something about the artistic process for consideration for our latest public installation, ArtBridge: Works in Progress,” to be installed in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn in early Fall of 2011.
NoLandGrab: Although Prospect Heights is not "in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn," ArtBridge seems to unconsciously understand the Atlantic Yards Project. With a 20 year build out period, "work in progress' describes AY all too well. Also, mirroring the way project supporters hoped that nobody would oppose Atlantic Yards, the page announcing the contest proudly proclaims: "All Brooklyn Artists -- Submit Today!"
Related coverage...
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Artbridge Announces Call for Entries For Atlantic Yards Installation
Posted by steve at 10:28 PM
May 29, 2011
Court fight: Story of the battle over a basketball arena opens Brooklyn Film Festival
Daily News
By Joe Neumaier
It would be hard to find a better movie to open this year's Brooklyn Film Festival than "Battle for Brooklyn."
The rousing, engrossing documentary will screen at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema on Friday. It chronicles the conflict that began in December 2003 when real estate developer Bruce Ratner announced plans to build Atlantic Yards, a shopping and arena complex where the relocated New Jersey Nets will play, smack in the middle of Prospect Heights.
The troubled project — scheduled to open in 2012 — split city residents. Presented as simply a renovation of unused rail yards, it would eventually displace almost 1,000 residents and businesses, some of whom had been there a half century or longer.
Related coverage... Nets Daily, Battle Over, But Not Divided Opinion
Posted by steve at 9:48 PM
May 28, 2011
New documentary 'Battle for Brooklyn' details the fight over the Atlantic Yards project
Daily News
By Michael O'Keeffe
The Atlantic Yards documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" makes its U.S. debut this Friday at the Brooklyn Film Festival. This rundown of the film mentions unseemly behavior by some of the project supporters.
Forest City Ratner vice president Bruce Bender, pointing to a map as he tells the filmmakers which blocks will be seized for the project and which blocks will remain intact, comes across as dishonest and arrogant as the Bush administration officials who brought us the Iraq War. He's a man without empathy, completely unable to comprehend why residents and businessmen would be reluctant to step out of the way so his company could reap big profits.
Marie Louis of BUILD, a purportedly independent Brooklyn group that supported the project, continues to insist on camera that BUILD is a volunteer, grass-roots organization even after being confronted with tax records that show it received millions of dollars from Ratner.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz reduces himself to a cartoon character as he invokes Junior's cheesecake and the long-gone Brooklyn Dodgers to explain why Ratner needs to take homes and businesses to build an NBA team. "He shed so many tears for the Dodgers going to La-La Land," AY foe Patti Hagan says in the film. "He's shed no tears for the one thousand people he wants put out of their homes."
Posted by steve at 10:39 PM
May 23, 2011
Forget traffic changes and rats at AY District Service Cabinet, free fare incentive generated news for Post and Brooklyn Paper
Atlantic Yards Report
It's kind of bizarre that, to two newspapers, the main news emanating from last week's Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting concerned not the meat of the discussion--such as traffic changes and rats--but an issue mentioned as an aside and expected to be discussed at a future meeting.
The Post on May 20 published 'Net'roCard on track for Brooklyn hoops fans and today the Brooklyn Paper published Take the train to the game — and then inside.
It's hardly news that arena sponsors aimed to connect game tickets to MetroCards--after all, Chapter 19, Mitigation, of the November 2006 Final Environmental Impact Statement describes a free fare incentive.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
Show me the monkey! Upcoming film treats include Brooklyn doc, return of Woody Allen, and apes
Daily News
Joe Neumaier
Atlantic Yards is nothing to look forward to, but it looks like the documentary of the fight against it is.
Early next month will see the perfect combination of movie and event, and not just because of a title. The opening-night selection of "Battle for Brooklyn" at the Brooklyn Film Festival — screening June 3 at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema (and opening at Cinema Village on June 17) — will be a form-and-function moment in which directors Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's absorbing, important documentary will unspool in the borough it captures in transition.
The movie, about the fight by Prospect Heights resident Daniel Goldstein and community advocates to halt the Forest City Ratner firm from using Eminent Domain to relocate residents in order to build the Atlantic Yards development has heart, soul and chutzpah. (Insert your own punchline there about the Yards' future tenant, the New Jersey Nets.)
Feisty but fairly reported, "Battle" chronicles not only the resistance to the change but also the origins of an advocacy group − Brooklynite Goldstein's evolution from apartment owner to activist, and the life changes that arrived along with it − and the way New Yorkers rally when it's time to fight.
Like last year's doc "The Vanishing City," about the de facto purchasing of Manhattan blocks by corporate landlords, the movie will resonate with those who worry for the city's soul.
The time line that drives "Battle for Brooklyn" makes it as urgent as any Hollywood thriller. The fact that its real-life ending sits not far from the Brooklyn Film Festival's backyard makes it even more gripping, and gut-wrenching.
Posted by steve at 5:00 AM
May 15, 2011
Brooklyn Paper offers packaged-by-Nets story: Brook Lopez excited by arena! (plus: an intern discloses snark effect at paper)
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, the Brooklyn Paper still hasn't written about Forest City Ratner's dubious efforts to raise money from immigrant investors via the EB-5 program, but the paper did muster the energy to cover a handed-to-them, pictures'n'all, media event: the visit of Nets center Brook Lopez to the arena site and a couple of Bergen Street businesses.
The article, headlined Nets Lopez was the ‘center’ of attention on Bergen Street began:
The New Jersey Nets don’t move to Brooklyn until next October, but one of the team’s stars couldn’t wait that long to take a look at his future home.
Um, that's what Jason Kidd, Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson, and Devin Harris were also prompted to say by their bosses, who later disappeared them.
Note that the article, at least in the initial version posted this morning, quotes a "Baum" with no first name; that would be Nets spokesman Barry Baum. The photos come courtesy of the Nets. While the article doesn't mention when the visit happened, it was Wednesday, three days ago.
A happy businessman
The final quote comes from the owner of hot dog emporium Bark, Josh Sharkey:
“The arena is definitely positive for us,” Sharkey said. “It’s going to be a big improvement for the area.”
Shouldn't food and beverage purveyors commenting on the arena get an asterisk? Of course they--at least most of them--will think the influx of thousands of people would help their business.
Whether Sharkey has the wisdom to comment on the arena's impact on "the area" is a whole 'nother story.
Excited locals?
Note that, according to the Nets' web site, "Brook couldn't go five steps between Bark and the arena site without someone shouting encouragement or asking him to sign."
The photo accompanying that caption shows the featured "someone" to be a construction worker.
Click on the link to get some background on the author of this Brooklyn Paper story.
Posted by steve at 2:17 AM
In the video of Brooklyn photobloggers, still some Atlantic Yards echoes
Atlantic Yards Report
I missed the sixth annual Brooklyn Blogfest Thursday night, but the few reports I've seen suggest it was a congenial and less fraught scene than last year's Absolut kerfuffle. The keynote speaker was blog maven Jeff Jarvis. (Here's a report from the Brooklyn Eagle.)
Brit in Brooklyn photoblogger Adrian Kinloch has posted his video tribute to Brooklyn photobloggers, shown at the event.
A few AY mentions
Though Atlantic Yards, a focus of the relatively limited Brooklyn blogging in the early years of the Blogfest, has receded in relative prominence, I feel compelled to point to two Atlantic Yards photos that made the montage, from which I took screenshots.
At :08, the very first photo in the video, Jonathan Barkey shot State Sen. Marty Golden, developer Bruce Ratner, Borough President Marty Markowitz, at the MetroTech tree lighting last December:
At :54, Tracy Collins captured Markowitz last October looking skeptically at some information proffered by yours truly regarding his putative trip to China to pitch Atlantic Yards to green card-seeking investors:
Posted by steve at 2:04 AM
May 11, 2011
Truth in the Age of Snark
Rumur.com
by Michael Galinsky
Battle for Brooklyn filmmaker Michael Galinsky posts an interesting and well-worth-reading essay on separating fact from fiction.
In the age of the internet snark is much more important than fact to a disturbing degree. “Reputable” news gathering organizations seem to be devoid of fact checkers and editors are loathe to issue corrections even when the stated facts are clearly wrong. Snark is employed to tell the story the “reporter” sets out to tell, rather than having to do the work of finding out the story. While it is obviously more fun to be snarky than it is to be right, the end result is an extremely fluid relationship to the truth.
When powerful PR people push forth inaccuracies, like projected job numbers and fiscal benefits, it’s nearly impossible to get corrections. With very straightforward facts it should be simple to get a correction, but it never is. With our recent documentary about the Atlantic Yards situation, “Battle for Brooklyn” we have chosen not to focus on the nitty-gritty details of the story, but we have taken great pains to make sure that our facts, when put forth, are correct. We consulted with Atlantic Yards Report blogger, Norman Oder, as we finalized the cut. Norman has been the Don Quixote of fact checking over the past six years. He drives the editors (and us) a little crazy, but if all media (and particularly news media which presents itself as dealing in facts) takes a pass on paying attention to the literal truth, we start to get into very murky water.
...Recently we showed a rough cut of the film at a legal conference focusing on condemnation issues. We were surprised to find that the condemning judge and the Empire State Development Corporation’s (ESDC) attorney that led the condemnation legalities were in the front row (this is a fact). After the movie the judge had kind words for the film. The condemning attorney did not. In fact he demanded a special session the next day to clear up issues with the film. The following day at his special session it seemed that he only wanted to attack Daniel’s character. He discussed confidential negotiations that he had held with Daniel’s lawyer in order to paint Daniel as a greedy holdout. The following day Daniel’s lawyer emailed me the non-disclosure form that this lawyer had signed previous to his discussion.
Posted by eric at 11:23 AM
May 10, 2011
Xanadu- Governor Christie’s Ode-ious “Yes We Khan” Moment
Noticing New York
(Above: “Xanadu” from “Citizen Kane” - “cost: no man can say”- and “Xanadu” the mega-project in New Jersey, - more costs now being assumed by the New Jersey taxpayers- both from wikipedia.)
Suppose the New York Times proposed a contest for readers to write a poetic ode about a huge, over scale, garishly designed and questionably subsidized mixed-use project critically integrated with a sports complex: Do you think the readers might respond with lacerating lyricism questioning the judgement, priorities and profligacy of public officials?
Well, the New York Times did, and its readers did, only the contest was not held with respect to the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly handed out to Bruce Ratner (the Times business partner in building the new Times building). The contest was held with respect to New Jersey’s stalled Xanadu project recently rescued from financial insolvency by Governor Chris Christie.
...May 3, 2011, the Times declared a winner: Prevailing Poet Is Decreed in Meadowlands Ode Contest.
Here for reference is the opening stanza of the original Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem:
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.The declared winner was Steve Schoenwiesner of Montclair, N.J., for his two-stanza entry, one stanza of which is reproduced below:
For Xanadu did Christie-Khan
A stately subsidy decree.
While tracks below a river, planned,
Were scuttled, fundless, by this man
A blight revives tax-free.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
May 8, 2011
hotdocs 2011 part i
Steve Munro
Battle for Brooklyn ****
Directed by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, USA
Living in a city whose government was recently taken over by politicians whose recipe for success is to sell everything in sight, I just had to see Battle for Brooklyn. This film follows a 7-year battle by residents and businesses against redevelopment to make way for a new basketball stadium and many, many condos.
...
The pattern here is distressingly familiar: a sports complex, a team of dubious value, a developer who needs government help to achieve his goals, governments that are more interested in money and good news than in preserving neighbourhoods. The legal and political issue at the heart of the story is the abuse of powers of “eminent domain”, or as they are known in Canada, “expropriation”. If the state uses its power to force the sale of land for any purpose, then no neighbourhood is safe from intervention on behalf of a developer whose project is deemed “a public good”, and the opportunities for corruption are obvious.
...
Battle for Brooklyn is a cautionary tale about the results of government and private interests conspiring together against the public. This film, at a neighbourhood scale, is a fitting complement to Hot Coffee (on the systematic limitation of corporate liability) which I saw later in the festival.
Posted by steve at 1:21 AM
Brooklyn Film Festival, Rooftop Films Announce Premiere of Battle for Brooklyn
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
by Phoebe Neidl
Brooklyn Film Festival (BFF) and Rooftop Films are proud to announce the US Premiere of Battle for Brooklyn, a controversial look at the Atlantic Yards project.
The film will open the 2011 Brooklyn Film Festival on June 3 at Brooklyn Heights Cinemas at 8 p.m. The film will be also shown as a part of the Rooftop Films Summer Series on June 9 in Fort Greene Park. Prior to both Brooklyn screenings, the documentary had its world premiere at the Toronto HotDocs festival on April 30.
“We are extremely excited to be working with such strong Brooklyn institutions that have supported us for over a decade,” said Directors Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky.
“Directors Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky, BFF alumni, have been working on this project since 2003 and we are proud to give voice to a Brooklyn community that has been fighting with limited resources and without much external support an enormous battle to save their own homes,” said festival director Marco Ursino. “We are also excited about the collaboration with Rooftop Films. Battle for Brooklyn is an important documentary that belongs to the community and we feel that this partnership will ensure a truly broad outreach.”
Posted by steve at 1:18 AM
May 2, 2011
A List of Reasons Lovers of New York Should See “Bill Cunningham New York,” A Documentary About Photographing New York Fashion
Noticing New York
Never mind six degrees — The New York Times is never separated from Forest City Ratner by more than a couple degrees.
You can still catch the documentary “Bill Cunningham New York” in New York area theaters. The sweetly charming Cunningham, a man of extraordinary magnanimity of spirit, is a beautiful nerd, a man who, by giving himself over entirely to his obsession with fashion, achieves a singular greatness few of us can ever hope to achieve. With his two contrasting photographic features appearing weekly in the New York Times, Cunningham meticulously and with relentless energy chronicles the upper echelon fashion at New York’s exclusive charitable soirees and, also, more important, street fashion.
Among the several reasons Michael D.D. White urges us to see the film are these:
• The way that charity event life meshes with money and power (and therefore, the astute will extrapolate, politics and political agenda.)
• Whither the New York Times? The future of the city, at least for the time being, is probably inextricably linked with the New York Times. As Cunningham’s work now and over the years has mostly been for the Times the film provides a valuable window into the culture of the paper, including a scene with Times publisher Pinch Sulzberger (called "Pinch" because his father was nicknamed "Punch"). A lot of the film is shot inside or just outside of the New Times building that the Times, employing eminent domain, built in a business partnership with Bruce Ratner, the notorious politically-connected subsidy collector reviled for Atlantic Yards, (a mega-project the Times refrains from criticizing or scrutinizing).
Posted by eric at 9:12 PM
May 1, 2011
On NetsDaily, time travel regarding AY documentaries
Atlantic Yards Report
From yesterday's NetsDaily:
Meanwhile Back in Brooklyn...
Amidst news that yet a third sports bar is planned opposite Barclays Center, a long-awaited documentary about the struggle of local landowners and tenants to stop the arena and Atlantic Yards has debuted at the Brooklyn Film Festival. "Brooklyn Matters", which at times had trouble getting funding, describes itself as "an insightful documentary that reveals the fuller truth about the Atlantic Yards proposal and highlights how a few powerful men are circumventing community participation and planning principles to try to push their own interests forward."
The Brooklyn Paper which was first an opponent and then a proponent of the project, gave it a mixed review saying on one hand ""Brooklyn Matters" is a clever invective that will preach to the converted — the Atlantic Yards opponents who are its likely audience — a sermon they already believe: Atlantic Yards is bad" but on the other casting it as "an engaging head-butt to developer Bruce Ratner, the Empire State Development Corporation, Mayor Bloomberg and former Gov. Pataki." So there.
That mixed review was published 1/27/07.
The new film is Battle for Brooklyn, which debuted in Toronto last night and will debut in Brooklyn in June.
Updated
NetsDaily posts an update, apparently in response to my earlier post:
Meanwhile Back in Brooklyn...
Amidst news that yet a third sports bar is planned opposite Barclays Center, a long-awaited documentary about the struggle of local landowners and tenants to stop the arena and Atlantic Yards has debuted at the Brooklyn Film Festival. "The Battle for Brooklyn", which as the New York Observer notes had as much trouble getting funding as the project itself. An earlier version of this item confused "The Battle for Brooklyn" with an earlier documentary, "Brooklyn Matters".
What's the difference between the two? The Observer: "unlike Brooklyn Matters, this doc appears to be less of a polemic meant to sway the public against Ratner and the Nets than a swan song for a battle lost. Maybe they could screen it on the Barclays Centre Plaza when it opens next year."
The Observer reported:
It took almost as long for Bruce Ratner to get his Atlantic Yards project through the huge community fight as a movie about that fight to get made.
That's a reference to time, not funding. And it's Battle for Brooklyn, not The Battle for Brooklyn.
Posted by steve at 10:16 PM
Hot Docs: Battle for Brooklyn
Spacing Toronto
Here's a review of "Battle for Brooklyn" as the film is shown in Toronto's Hot Docs international documentary film festival.
Battle for Brooklyn follows the seven-year fight of Brooklyn resident Daniel Goldstein and a group of community activists coalesced under the banner “Develop, Don’t Destroy Brooklyn” against the massive Atlantic Yards mega-project. In 2003 billionaire developer Bruce Ratner and his firm, Forest City Ratner, announced a plan to buy the New Jersey Nets basketball team and relocate it to Brooklyn. With starchitect Frank Gehry on board and millions in public subsidies, Ratner unveiled the goliath Atlantic Yards development - comprising not only a basketball arena but also sixteen high-rise buildings, housing luxury condominiums, office and retail space – to be built over the disused Brooklyn rail yards as well as parts of a long-existing and densely-populated local neighborhood. So began seven years of community protests, legal actions, and political bargaining, culminating with the State Supreme Court’s enactment of eminent domain, the subject of this compelling and important documentary about corporate power and the production of urban space.
Posted by steve at 10:04 PM
April 5, 2011
As media pile on to Post's questionable scoop, Bloomberg defends Ratner; get ready for request for additional subsidies
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Post's questionable, conclusory article yesterday, based on SEC worst-case warnings, drew unskeptical follow-up in Gothamist, New York, Business Insider, Huffington Post, and others.
Even the Star-Ledger, in Nets' Brooklyn project reportedly could be scaled back, chose to trust the Post's framing of the story rather than the facts its reporters noted.
...Bloomberg professes optimism
In Mike believes Atl. Yards hoopla, the Post followed up:
A confident Mayor Bloomberg insisted yesterday that the housing and commercial component of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards complex won't be scrapped, saying he was certain that developer Bruce Ratner is proceeding as planned.
"I talked to Bruce Ratner as late as 30 minutes ago, and let me tell you, he thinks his business is going very well out there and he's very optimistic about Atlantic Yards," Bloomberg said.
Except Ratner's business isn't going very well; that's why he sold 49% of 15 retail properties.
Nor is the project proceeding as planned; after all, Bloomberg's own administration--at least under the recently-departed HPD head--denied additional subsidies for the first tower.
Posted by eric at 4:32 PM
March 26, 2011
In Our Time Press, the notorious Stephen Witt hails Ratner's modular plan, cites support from Caldwell of BUILD
Atlantic Yards Report
The notorious Stephen Witt is now writing for the Bedford-Stuyvesant-based Our Time Press, but his m.o. remains the same.
In Build Atlantic Yards in Bedford-Stuyvesant (from this issue), Witt writes:
If developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) wants to prefabricate all planned 16 high-rise buildings in his $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project that’s fine with me as long as most of the factory work stays in Brooklyn.
And a good place to start looking for a site to build modules components of the skyscrapers that will be trucked and bolted together on the 22-acre site starting at the Flatbush/Atlantic avenues intersection is in Bedford- Stuyvesant.
This is a version of an argument made by Crown Heights residents (and then-Daily News columnist) Errol Louis, as expressed at a forum in September 21006: "If they’re going to get a billion-dollar TIF [tax-increment financing] deal in Rensselaer County, I think where I live, in Kings County, if somebody wants to bring a billion-dollar deal there, with way too much paid per job, in my neighborhood, where there’s a lot of unemployment, personally, I would say, ‘You know what? I’ll take that.’”
...
The article closes:
The announcement came as the mostly wealthier and white opponents of the project continue to decry it. Interestingly, some of these people have made opposing the plan a cottage industry and have already benefited from the project.
Caldwell said he finds it interesting that opponent bloggers never even try to tell both sides of the story, and continue to demonize anyone that tries to see both sides of the coin.
“I was just at Cataldo’s Restaurant and Pizzeria on Dean Street and Vanderbilt Avenue and the owner told me how he is doing a great business from arena construction workers,” said Caldwell.
“The bloggers and people against the project don’t talk or write about the positive economic impact the arena has already had in the area,” he added.
As McClure comments:
Ouch. But we thought it was the wealthier and white proponents of the project who were benefiting from the project — that is, until the Feds swooped in.
The other night, as it happens, I was talking to someone who lives on the Prospect Heights/Crown Heights boundary. Nobody in her building--mostly poorer and black (to use the converse of Witt's term)--supports Atlantic Yards.
Maybe that's a limited sample, but Witt's sample is just as limited. And everyone he cites is making money from Atlantic Yards. Maybe he should consider the other side of that coin.
Posted by steve at 10:02 PM
March 24, 2011
Whither the New York Times? Noticing New York Comment Respecting a Manhattan Institute Sponsored Debate
Noticing New York
The Times is having a harder and harder time not covering Atlantic Yards. That’s partly because Atlantic Yards is a bigger story than the paper has heretofore rightfully acknowledged. Basically, I think there was a decision at the Times made, albeit in the necessarily amorphous and unstated way that decisions would have to be made in such a news organization, to relegate Atlantic Yards, and more specifically the governmental misconduct and impermissible cronyism associated with Atlantic Yards, to the status of an official non-story within its pages. But the story won’t go away.
With new revelations like the Forest City Ratner pattern of being involved in the bribery of government officials, the recently unveiled ambition to make Atlantic Yards the densest forest of modular units in North America and EB5 program abuses in selling green cards to the Chinese solely for developer benefit the Atlantic Yards saga is a constant poster child for malefaction. But what the Times most misestimates is the extent to which the Times story interrelates with the coverage of the national and local stories it editorially believes it should be covering vigilantly.
I believe that the Times made a miscalculation that Ratner, as a financial buddy, could be off-limits for critical pieces- but not puff pieces- (Its own little behind-the-scenes deal with the devil), but that indulgences would come (in the good old religious sense of buying indulgences to recover from sin) via its moralistic vigor on national issues. But there is no such line to be drawn. Everything is connected. (This is one of the points of an epically idiosyncratic Noticing New York piece currently in the works: Adding A few More Off Topic Notes (Or Are They Really?).)
(* You encounter a similar Jekyll and Hyde split with Michael Ratner: On the one hand he is a defender of intentional human rights coordinating with the likes of Naomi Wolf and on the other he is feathering his nest with political contributions to now-indicted state senator Carl Kruger, no doubt with the intention of keeping the money flow from his brother Bruce Ratner off the radar screens)
The Times can’t write about race relations without observing the context in which white men like Ratner have attempted manipulate those concerns for their own financial advantage. The Times can’t cover Bloomberg and his potential run for president without observing how he favors awarding the development of big swaths of the city to a small in-crowd of connected developers. The Wall Street shenanigans covered by the Times very popular op-ed columnist Paul Krugman echo in the goings on with respect to Atlantic Yards as do all the Times stories about the accelerating redistributions of wealth from the middle class to the upper echelons.
The list of what the Times is missing by failing to make connections goes on ad infinitum. It also all relates to the question asked by the title given to the St. Francis evening debate: “Is the New York Times Good for Democracy?” The Times seriously hamstrings itself with respect to covering the big story on American Democracy by failing to adequately cover Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:29 AM
March 21, 2011
"Gray Lady Down," a debate on the Times, and an AY mention
Atlantic Yards Report
Having read William McGowan's book Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of The New York Times Means for America, I knew it does not address such relatively local issues at Atlantic Yards (built by the Times Company's business partner on the Times Tower, Forest City Ratner), but instead more ideological issues such as gay marriage, immigration, the Duke "rape" case, and the war on terror.
So McGowan didn't bring up Atlantic Yards during a debate last month with Michael Tomasky, American editor-at-large for the Guardian, at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights. (Tomasky's main point was that the allegedly halcyon days of the past featured flawed coverage, especially in scope, of a different stripe.)
...I think the issue is somewhat murky. I have no doubt that the editorial page is committed, by virtue of the "spirit of the Times" (aka Sulzberger), to supporting Atlantic Yards, or, at least, keeping its mouth shut about dismaying details.
Is the Metro desk in the tank? I don't think so--and I can't let myself think so. But the Times has done, on the whole, a lousy job covering Atlantic Yards.
Editors make choices, and the Times has chosen to put far less energy into looking carefully at Atlantic Yards than at a number of other issues. Meanwhile, the Sports section laps up Nets publicity.
Posted by eric at 11:19 AM
March 20, 2011
Times devotes seven reporters to Kruger-Turano investigation; what if they applied same resources to Forest City Ratner's EB-5 venture?
Atlantic Yards Report
In A Senator’s Shadow Family, the New York Times today assigns seven reports to look at the complicated relationship between accused (of corruption) state Senator Carl Kruger and the Turano family, who live in an over-the-top house in Mill Basin:
In the days since the criminal complaint was filed on March 10, the four central characters in this drama have declined to talk extensively to reporters. But interviews with two dozen people who know them, along with previously undisclosed court and city records, reveal a strange symbiosis. Mr. Kruger vaulted the Turanos into his spheres of power and influence, prosecutors say, landing Dorothy a plum job and, later, funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars into her sons’ bank accounts to finance a $200,000 Bentley and pay down a $1.2 million mortgage.
The Turanos, in turn, provided the senator companionship, and prosecutors say the brothers helped conceal his growing payoffs from lobbyists and corporations.
Imagine what seven reporters could find if they looked into Forest City Ratner's EB-5 venture, to which the newspaper finally devoted space--all of two paragraphs--this week.
Posted by steve at 10:13 PM
Seven years ago, Brooklyn Paper house ad touted "the most complete and honest coverage" of Atlantic Yards and "changing face of Brooklyn"
Atlantic Yards Report
From a house ad in the 3/20/04 Brooklyn Papers (now the Brooklyn Paper):
2 massive Urban Renewal projects would change the face of Downtown Brooklyn forever — turning both quaint and gritty neighborhoods into high-trafficked walled communities, and massively impacting life in the surrounding residential neighborhoods.
The proposed Nets arena is just a small part of the master plan, the most expensive Urban Renewal and property condemnation in Brooklyn’s history.
Only The Brooklyn Papers has asked: Is this the Manhattanization of Brooklyn ... or the “depeopling” suburbanization of our streets?
Are these projects good for Brooklyn?
YOU'LL FIND THE MOST COMPLETE AND HONEST COVERAGE OF THE CHANGING FACE OF BROOKLYN ONLY IN THE BrooklynPapers.
Looking back
In retrospect, I'm not sure the question was Manhattanization vs. suburbanization, though it's more the former.
Rather, it's whether the public sector would prove to be a tenacious defender of the public interest, or whether the project would be steered by the developer, with cheerleaders like Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz bending over backwards to help.
The Brooklyn Paper did an aggressive job covering Atlantic Yards, though that's diminished since the newspaper was bought by Rupert Murdoch in 2009.
Posted by steve at 9:45 PM
March 19, 2011
Look at the graphics: Times devotes less space to EB-5 controversy than to puff pieces about Nets promotions
Atlantic Yards Report
Size does matter.
Yesterday, the New York Times briefly mentioned Forest City Ratner's effort to raise $249 million from immigrant investors, as if no questions or controversy were connected.
I've scanned the print article, to contrast the amount of coverage with the significant space the Sports section has devoted to covering Nets promotions of dubious value...
Yes, Metro is different from Sports, but people read the Times as a whole.
(And, I should add, today's Times has a Metro section feature on the move of Freddy's from Prospect Heights, displaced from the arena block, to an address that's either the South South Slope, Greenwood Heights, or northern Sunset Park: The Transmigration of a Brooklyn Saloon. It's not uninteresting, but it's also soft news, not hard news that requires some analysis.)
The two paragraphs the Times devoted to EB-5 are also dwarfed by a Sports section photo of Nets dancers and a puff piece about a promotion for tax time.
Posted by steve at 11:44 PM
Two Times headline tweaks, softening the political impact of the modular tower plan
Atlantic Yards Report
It's not uncommon that newspapers publish articles with web headlines that differ from headlines that appear in print, given the constraints of the latter.
And it's not uncommon, given the fluid world of web-first publishing, the web headlines change as well.
Still, it's worth pointing out the apparent softening of provisional New York Times headlines over the past two days.
Union concerns not played up
As I wrote March 17, the article headlined in print as "Atlantic Yards Plans to Build Tallest Prefab," and online as Prefabricated Tower May Rise at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, at point had a different web headline, with a tougher slant: "In Brooklyn, a Prefabricated Tower May Anger Unions."
In other words, the story tilted from an emphasis on the political context of the decision to a more gee-whiz approach to technology.
The article yesterday, headlined online as With Federal Case and Modular Building Plan, New Attention for Atlantic Yards Project, and with a similar headline in print, at one point was headlined online as "Atlantic Yards Developer Draws Criticism from Unions," as the screenshot indicates.
As it happens, the union angle wasn't the main thrust of the piece, which was a (somewhat wimpy) round-up. But was there more criticism from unions that ultimately didn't appear?
Posted by steve at 11:41 PM
Ratner Gets Press, More To Come?
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
In the aftermath of the major New York Times piece revealing Forest City Ratner's plans to minimize union labor by using modular construction for the first residential tower, the media have started to take a second look at the deception and corruption that are the hallmarks of Atlantic Yards.
Patch takes a look at the outraged union reaction in Brooklyn who sound all but ready to break out the inflatable rat for the corner of Dean and Flatbush. And then the Times itself followed up with a broader look at the Atlantic Yards bait-and-switch.
But as Norman Oder points out, there's still another really big story here that the major media has yet to nail: FCR's borderline-fraudulent sales of green cards to Asian investors in return for investment dollars. The EB-5 program is meant to create new jobs in the U.S., but as the Times reports:
MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, said that when it received final approval from the federal government, the $249 million would be used to pay down a land loan for the project and additional work on the railyard.
How many new jobs does paying off a loan create? And wasn't the railyard work already required under the master plan? Oder, ever generous to his colleagues, actually sets out a complete roadmap for coverage of this scandal-in-the-making, in the comments section of the Times' follow-up article. It's a story about a well-intentioned Federal program that Ratner has turned into yet another form of corporate welfare, based on hawking U.S. green cards like memberships in a time-share resort. Journalists, please start your engines.
Posted by steve at 10:25 PM
From Columbia Journalism Review: A Sports Myth Grows in Brooklyn: New basketball arena won’t occupy the site the Dodgers sought
Atlantic Yards Report
I've been writing about the "same site" myth for years and, in a 2/17/08 post suggested that the New York Times's failure to correct a persistent error would have consequences. Indeed, it has.
Columbia Journalism Review today publishes my online article, A Sports Myth Grows in Brooklyn: New basketball arena won’t occupy the site the Dodgers sought:
Journalists who write about the new basketball arena rising in Brooklyn, scheduled to house the basketball Nets in 2012, frequently invoke the borough’s last major league team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, who left in 1957 for Los Angeles. They sometimes cite a seeming spiritual link: the Barclays Center arena is said to be located exactly where a successor to Ebbets Field could have emerged.”
A half-century earlier, Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley had hoped to build a new home for his team on the same site,” writes Zack O’Malley Greenburg in Empire State of Mind: How Jay-Z Went From Street Corner to Corner Office, officially published March 17. (Jay-Z’s an investor in the Nets, hence a chapter on the Atlantic Yards project.) The Ebbets Field connection has been brought up by Mayor Mike Bloomberg, cited by a journalism professor and author on a book on the Dodgers, and even entered an ongoing exhibit at the Brooklyn Historical Society.
The problem? It’s a myth. The stadium would have been located across a wide avenue. While the myth has appeared in multiple media outlets, I believe that The New York Times, which many researchers treat as a reliable source, bears significant responsibility.
The error has appeared at least five times in the Times
Posted by steve at 10:00 PM
March 13, 2011
The cognitive dissonance of the Daily News: cheering Atlantic Yards, slamming Albany corruption, giving slack to Kruger's partner Forest City Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
It wasn't so long ago that the New York Daily News, on 12/17/09, was cheering the Atlantic Yards arena:
Even more important, the Atlantic Yards plan calls for building 6,400 housing units, a third of them affordable, on a tract that has been fallow for half a century. Those will take time. Right now, it's enough that we end the dark half-century that began with the defection of the borough's Dodgers and enjoy all the jobs that building the arena will create.
That contained a big lie ("fallow" tract), a medium lie ("all the jobs"), and a ridiculous claim (that the half-century had been "dark").
A corrupt capital
Today, the Daily News is shocked, shocked at the political shenanigans behind the project, in an editorial headlined Crooked Carl Kruger wallowed in Albany's corrupt pork-barrel slush-fund ways:
The million-dollar corruption case lodged against Brooklyn state Sen. Carl Kruger did more than depict him as the personification of sleaze. It also shed invaluable light on the Legislature's cavalier slush-fund culture.
An FBI listening device showed just how much money an individual lawmaker can control - and just how routinely a legislator can dole it out, without accountability or sound judgment, to special friends.
This particular transaction unfolded in December, when Kruger fielded a call from Forest City Ratner honcho Bruce Bender - a client of lobbyist Richard Lipsky, who had allegedly bribed Kruger for help on other matters.
Bender was seeking an amazing $15 million: $9 million for a bridge related to his company's Atlantic Yards project, $2 million for a retail center in Mill Basin and $4 million to renovate a skating rink in Prospect Park.
As it happens, Bender's wife sits on the board of the Prospect Park Alliance.
Kruger laments that he has but $4 million to offer and asks, "What do you want done?" adding, "I guess the park. F--- the bridge."
...
But it takes two (or three) to tango--aren't Kruger's partners deserving of criticism? Wasn't it Bender who said "I don't mind fucking the bridge"?
Blame the legislature?
The editorial concludes:
But this is slimy business as usual in Albany, where pork accounts are so numerous that Senate officials couldn't be quite sure on Friday which account the $4 million came from or where it ended up.
Prosecutors have warned for years that this secretive, unaccountable spending is guaranteed to breed corruption. They were right. Individual lawmakers have no business grabbing and doling out slices of pork. So, from now on, for as long as the Legislature insists on gorging, these grants will be known as Kruger Money.
Shouldn't the Daily News stress that part of the "slimy business" is Forest City Ratner's effort to evade a $14 million obligation it assumed to rebuild the Carlton Avenue Bridge?
Posted by steve at 10:47 PM
March 4, 2011
Media meme #2: about that "indie rock" petition for Prime 6; the author can't be found and the whole thing may be fake
Atlantic Yards Report
We've been played, folks.
Neighbors' concerns about Prime 6, the "sports bar," club, or simply nightlife spot with an entrance on Flatbush Avenue and a backyard extending into a residential block, has turned into a huge donnybrook about 1) bars capitalizing on the arena and 2) places attracting a "hip-hop" crowd.
The first seems at least partly true. Evidence for the second relies mostly on an online petition urging that the bar switch to "indie" rock, a petition so precious that it generated numerous parody signatures, and a petition in response urging "Jennifer McMillen" to move to the Hamptons. And lots of pile-on coverage.
Except no one, save the Wall Street Journal, tried to find McMillen, who's not listed in the phone book or in any database. And the Journal couldn't find her, and suggests the kerfuffle is based on a falsehood:
It was provocative stuff, especially for a famously liberal and oft-mocked Brooklyn enclave. Except it might not be true.
At a recent meeting, most locals who turned out in force to air gripes about the establishment—tentatively called Prime 6 and tentatively set to open in May—didn't know a Ms. McMillen. Efforts by The Wall Street Journal to find a person with that name in New York City were unsuccessful.
Related coverage...
The Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn Venue Sparks Debate
Residents insisted none of their concerns had to do with any playlist at the spot, planned for Flatbush and Sixth avenues, just a few blocks from the Atlantic Yards development, which includes a new basketball arena for the Nets.
"I care about the 4 a.m. closing hour," said Michael Rooney, an attorney.
"No one—even among the most concerned neighbors—said anything about hip-hop music. That's a complete invention with racist overtones," said Steve Ettlinger, a writer and Park Slope resident of 26 years. He thinks the petition must be a hoax.
NoLandGrab: So the question is this — is "Jennifer McMillen" just a prankster having some fun, or is there something more sinister and calculated going on here? Like an effort to tarnish people opposed to the overriding of zoning rules that typically prevent an enormous sports arena from being built immediately adjacent to residential neighborhoods?
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
Media meme #1: why is the Barclays Center naming rights deal reported as "nearly $400 million"?
Atlantic Yards Report
How exactly are sports reporters still reporting that the Barclays Center naming rights deal resembles the $400 million deal announced in January 2007?
Consider the cliche-ridden USA Today article headlined New Jersey Nets go global to help domestic image. (No, it's not about EB-5.)
The article begins:
New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark looked at Brooklyn and saw the world, a melting pot of humanity.
He also saw a world of opportunity for the Nets as the franchise planned its move to Brooklyn starting with the 2012-13 season.
Yormark began an aggressive pursuit of international brands the Nets could partner with, scoring a lucrative 20-year naming-rights deal worth nearly $400 million for the Brooklyn arena with Barclays, the London-based banking and financial services giant.
How does the reporter know the value of the naming rights deal?
Because the $400 million figure was promoted relentlessly by the Nets and Forest City Ratner, and repeated dutifully by journalistic outlets like the New York Times.
What about the cut?
The cut in the agreement, to $200 million and unspecified "certain fees," got covered in a few media outlets. The Times barely covered the story; it referred to "an additional sum" and later reported the Nets claimed "that the bank’s total annual payments, including fees for other rights, remain unchanged."
No evidence was cited. The available evidence, as noted at bottom, suggests otherwise.
Posted by eric at 10:32 AM
February 27, 2011
A profile of the guy whose firm produced Ratner's brochures: "Josh is highly motivated by making profit"
Atlantic Yards Report
The 2/22/11 profile in Capital NY, How former liberal operative Josh Isay became the default paid-media guy to the New York establishment, concerns SKDKnickerbocker, once known as Knickerbocker SKD.
It's an interesting piece of inside baseball, but without an attempt to evaluate the content of the firm's work. The press does such evaluation with certain political ads, but not (despite my argument) with the firm's misleading brochures for Forest City Ratner.
The article notes:
Both the corporate and the political clients ostensibly benefit from the same essential asset: Isay’s knowledge of how reporters, politicians and regulators process information.
And that's why the press should take the message seriously.
Clients
The article lists several clients, but not FCR:
In addition to NYSE, the firm has been hired by a host of corporate and union clients, including Thor Equities, the firm that sparred with the city over the redevelopment of Coney Island; the Rudin family, which controls some 14 million square feet of real estate in New York City; Genting New York, a subsidiary of the Malaysian gambling giant that won state approval to install slot machines at the Queens Aqueduct; and Education Reform Now, the Joel Klein creation that’s battling teacher unions in New York. (Anita Dunn, Isay’s partner in D.C., is advising a group with a similar agenda: Michelle Rhee’s StudentsFirst.)
Meanwhile, Isay seems to have worked at one time or another with all of the best-known politicians in New York City...
The bottom line
Here's the bottom line regarding Isay's choice of political clients, which likely applies to corporate clients, as well:
Certainly, he will not feel constrained by any sense of partisan duty.
(As one of Isay's consultant friends put it, "Josh is highly motivated by making profit, which is fine.")
Posted by steve at 7:03 PM
February 19, 2011
New York Times devotes investigative resources to Park Slope Food Co-op "scandal," ignores EB-5 story
Atlantic Yards Report
This is pretty rich or, rather, brutally weird. Yesterday, the New York Times devoted two reporters and some 1100 words to an article headlined At a Food Co-op, a Discordant Thought: Nannies Covering Shifts:
So the allegation by a Park Slope blog last week that some members were sending their nannies to fulfill their work shifts has raised eyebrows and debate among the granola-and-strollers set of greater Park Slope, and smug satisfaction among those who would rather go to Key Food.
The allegation, by a blog "which goes by a name that cannot be printed in this newspaper" (Fucked in Park Slope), was worth a follow-up, a perfect story for, say, the old and departed City section.
But the coverage seems disproportionate to the Times's willingness to ignore Atlantic Yards. Meanwhile, there's a blog that kinda did some reporting about Forest City Ratner's attempt to raise $249 million from immigrant investors under the federal government's EB-5 program.
Posted by steve at 4:18 PM
February 17, 2011
Credulous Daily News columnist Denis Hamill asserts "Atlantic Yards" dream real for Ratner, buys into Ratner spin, fails to check facts
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes apart Denis Hamill's love letter to Bruce Ratner.
Denis Hamill, the Daily News's most prominent Atlantic Yards apologist, today pens a fabulist valentine to Bruce Ratner, headlined Atlantic Yards and the Nets Barclays Arena dream real for Bruce Ratner - after 7-yr. nightmare.
First, let's check the headline. The arena might be happening, but Atlantic Yards isn't very real at all. Hamill couldn't be bothered to check, but the much-ballyhooed affordable housing is yet again delayed.
And instead of taking ten years, as Ratner repeatedly promised, the project more likely would take 25.
But that's not why--I suspect--Forest City Ratner reached out to the convenient Hamill. They need to sell some suites, and some sponsorships.
Read on for Oder's line-by-line takedown.
Posted by eric at 11:11 AM
February 14, 2011
Good Bye!
Found in Brooklyn
Lisanne McTernan is hanging up her blog, Found in Brooklyn. Godspeed, Lisanne!
I do believe that this will be F.I.B's last post. I would like to thank you all for stopping by because you people out there are the only reason I have kept it up for the past year or so. There were times when I was really into the blog but now unfortunately it has become more of an obligation and that's no fun at all. I think I prefer to be a blog reader rather than a blog writer. I started F.I.B in retaliation to a blog (which shall remain nameless) that I thought was godawful and these days I think F.I.B has been going in that direction as well. This blog started as a photography blog and I also wrote more about music and personal stuff. It took a different turn when I learned that they wanted to build condos in my neighborhood of Gowanus and it became more politically active in a local sense. While I am still interested in local political action, I just can't keep it up via the blog anymore. Between the Gowanus and the Atlantic Yards, I think I'm tired. The Gowanus has gotten it's Superfunding (yay!), Bruce Ratner has gotten his stadium (boo!) and life goes on. Now the big issue is Coney Island and I don't think I have the heart to cover that anymore although I will continue to be active in that fight. Besides there are people who do a way better job than I ever could, just check out the list to the right. I have met many cool people through the blog and have connected with my community in a way that probably wouldn't have happened without it. Thanks to all the other blogs for giving me mucho blog love through the years via linkage and all that, I have always appreciated it. Anyway I am babbling..I'm not accepting an Oscar here! When I started this blog I would of never thought it would go for four years, it's been pretty much the only consistent thing in my life-thanks for reading!
*This photo is the first photo I ever posted and variations of the same area of the block have been on F.I.B countless times. (Four years later those metal things next the fire hydrant are still bent)
NoLandGrab: Click here for links to some of the Found in Brooklyn stories we've posted over the years.
Posted by eric at 10:48 AM
February 12, 2011
Battle of Brooklyn eminent domain documentary preview at ALI-ABA 2011
We have just heard that a documentary concerning the Atlantic Yards Project (we have discussed AY numerous times on this blog, including here and here) will be previewing at the ALI-ABA Eminent Domain and Land Valuation Litigation course next week in Coral Gables, FL. If you have not registered, there is still time and here's another reason why this course is so unique.
...
Battle of Brooklyn chronicles the seven year fight to stop the use of eminent domain in the single densest development proposed in U.S. history, the infamous Atlantic Yards Project.
Screening times:
Wednesday Feb 16th: 5:30pm - Hyatt Regency, Coral Gables
Friday Feb 18th: 5:30pm - Hyatt Regency, Coral Gables
Running time is 90 minutes.
*The filmmakers will be present to discuss the film Thursday during the 5:30 Participant Reception and Friday following the screening. Note: the film also features ALI-ABA faculty presenter and NYC attorney Norman Siegel.
Attorney for the property owners, Michael Rikon says: "The Battle of Brooklyn is a very important film because it graphically shows how disenfranchised property owners are when confronted with condemnation...This is the best narrative of eminent domain abuse ever made. It is a must for any one seriously interest in Urban Planning."
Posted by steve at 4:52 PM
Jay-Z's Atlantic Yards Cash-In
The L Magazine
Jay-Z is already an investor in the Atlantic Yards boondoggle, a co-owner of the basketball team coming to play there, but he just figured out a way to make a little more money by exploiting the residents of his home borough. The Nets recently retained the services of Transition, a "branding firm," to burnish its image. According to an Ad-Age article published Wednesday:
Translation is charged with speaking to a variety of constituencies surrounding the Nets' move from New Jersey, including potential new season-ticket holders, current season-ticket holders, longtime fans of the team, local businesses and, perhaps most important, to a vocal though now dwindling group of citizens who have long opposed a new arena in Brooklyn...
The article continues, "Expect Translation to...utiliz[e] rap star Jay-Z." What it doesn't mention is that Jay-Z owns a stake in Translation.
A commenter at the tireless Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report pointed out the connection, linking to a Times article from two years ago about Jay-Z's investment in Translation Advertising, a part of Translation Consultation and Brand Advertising.
Oh, it's like when the Bush administration gave all those contracts to Halliburton.
Posted by steve at 4:50 PM
February 9, 2011
Looking for local coverage of Markowitz's fine
Atlantic Yards Report
On Monday, the dailies reported that Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was fined by the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board for using Chief of Staff Carlo Scissura as his lawyer for a home-buying transaction in 2009.
The Brooklyn Paper hasn't reported that news yet, though yesterday it offered a tough story about Markowitz's objectification of women in public comments--a point I raised in my coverage last week of the State of the Borough address--and today covers the news/photo op involving the visit of Istanbul Mayor Kadir Topbas to Borough Hall.
Posted by eric at 10:57 AM
February 6, 2011
A random, off-kilter Atlantic Yards reference in fiction
Atlantic Yards Report
If Amy Sohn's dishy novel Prospect Park West offers some amusing references to Atlantic Yards, Adam Dunn's recently published Rivers of Gold, a dystopian, near-future (2013) fictional vision of New York, pushes AY off kilter:
Within forty minutes, Dr. Zuckerman's Z was on its way to the police impound on Eleventh Avenue (a half-cleared yard left fallow since the city's Atlantic Yards renovation project collapsed in '08) where it would stay lost for a month.
Well, Atlantic Yards isn't a city project, nor a renovation project, nor located on Eleventh Avenue in Manhattan, nor collapsed.
But it must have a dystopian ring of some sorts.
Here's an enthusiastic review of the book from the Washington Post.
Posted by steve at 8:32 PM
February 5, 2011
The Brooklyn brand proceeds, to gin
Atlantic Yards Report
Marty Markowitz, in his State of the Borough address Thursday, had a section about the Brooklyn Brand:
It has been clear for several years that Brooklyn is now a brand unto itself. But what does that brand represent? NBC news anchor Brian Williams had a humorous take on the concept during a recent appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show with Joe Scarborough. Let’s take a look.
[Video of Brian Williams joking about New York Times discovering Brooklyn]
He’s right. If you’re looking for anything artisanal, sustainable, locally grown or made by hand, Brooklyn’s got it. And now, so does the world. The Brooklyn brand is available from the shores of Manhattan, home of the Brooklyneer bar, which carries Brooklyn-made foods, to Tokyo, where you’ll find the new Brooklyn Parlor, serving up beers from Brooklyn Brewery and a genuine Brooklyn Burger.
And they “absolutely” value the Brooklyn brand in Sweden, home of Absolut vodka. When the company decided to market a New York-themed vodka, they didn’t choose Absolut Bronx (sorry, Ruben!) or Absolut Queens. Nope, they went with Absolut Brooklyn, using a bottle designed by Brooklyn’s own Spike Lee.
And yesterday the New York Times told us about the battle between two Brooklyn gins, Breuckelen and Brooklyn:
Manhattan may have a namesake cocktail, but Brooklyn is playing muse to two rival gins. And the existence of both Mr. Santos’s Brooklyn gin and Mr. Estabrooke’s Breuckelen gin provides an unusually clear — you could even say distilled — example of just how much the symbolism of that borough has changed and just how potent its branding potential is perceived to be.
Tellingly, neither man has deep roots in Brooklyn, or called it home until the last few years. Brooklyn these days is an identity divorced from ancestry or actual time served.
So maybe it won't be quite as hard to sell the Brooklyn Nets. But those "brownstone" and "loft" suites will remain a stretch.
Posted by steve at 2:55 PM
February 3, 2011
Please give us all the facts next time, Lizzie
The Sports ITeam Blog [NYDailyNews.com]
by Michael O'Keeffe
There's a good story - "Boom Town and Bust City: A Tale of Two New Yorks" - in The Nation's Feb. 14 edition that examines how the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer thanks to the Great Recession.
But author Lizzie Ratner fails to note that her family has been one of the winners in the economically anxious times.
Ratner's father is Bruce Ratner, the Nets minority owner and Atlantic Yards developer who has received hundreds of millions of dollars in state and city subsidies and tax breaks. And let's not forget that the MTA sold Bruce Ratner prime real estate in central Brooklyn for the Barclays Center for a bargain-basement price - $150 million for land that was appraised at almost $215 million.
Lizzie Ratner, by the way, has been listed as an officer in Forest City Ratner-related companies involved with Atlantic Yards. So has her uncle, Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ratner has been a hero to many people who care about civil and human rights, but you have to wonder why he's opposed to throwing Palestinians out of the West Bank but does’t seem to care when Brooklyn residents are thrown out of their homes for a basketball arena.
So when you're standing on a dirty, overcrowded subway car, when you have to pay yet even more money for your Metrocard, when you read that Gov. Cuomo is hacking education and Medicaid funding, it may be some consolation that Lizzie Ratner of The Nation knows the score.
NoLandGrab: Michael O'Keeffe is being too generous — Papa Bruce is paying only $100 million for the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard. And when paying in one lump sum became a little onerous for Ratner, the MTA sweetened his already syrupy deal by allowing him 22 years (at a below-market interest rate) in which to pay it off.
Posted by eric at 10:51 PM
January 26, 2011
For Times, arena returns as a sports story, sourced to Ratner, who claims, “Brooklyn has been waiting for this, really, since the Dodgers left"
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards is once again a sports story, and the only sources for the New York Times's New Arena for the Nets Is Sprouting in Brooklyn are developer Bruce Ratner and uber-marketer Brett Yormark.
In response to some not-so-informed comments by former point guard Jason Kidd, who didn't think the arena was happening, and perhaps (as per NLG) a not-so-flattering article telling us Nets tickets are going for pennies, the Times tells us:
After several years of legal wrangling and the economic downturn, the Barclays Center is finally and firmly on the way after ground was broken last year.
“It got delayed so much and there were so many false starts, ‘I think we’re there, I think we’re there,’ and then the economy got bad and this thing happened and that thing happened, so unless you read carefully, you don’t realize how far along it is and that it’s really on its way,” Ratner said.
Well, it's on its way, but exactly how far is not completely clear. A more independent source, a consultant to the bond trustee, has indicated that a meeting on schedule disputes was to happen last month, and that substantial completion had been nudged back from July to August 2012.
...Remember, back in November, 2005, Scott Turner of Fans for Fair Play savaged the relevance of Dodgers nostalgia in the context of the Atlantic Yards saga, contrasting owners, their devotion to sports, their commitment to local fans, the players, ticket costs, and commitment to local businesses, among other things.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
Required Reading for Brooklynites of a Political Persuasion: What’s Happening to Our Borough?
About.com Brooklyn, NY Blog
by Ellen Freudenheim
In case you missed them, two important pieces were published in the past few days about Brooklyn. Not about restaurants and places to spend money, but about Brooklyn's fundamental direction--and the power of big developers to literally shape the landscape of a borough that so many call home.
"We're Essentially Powerless"
Sunday's New York Times published a powerful piece calling out Brooklyn's lack of political muscle. Brooklyn civic activist Norman Oder (who, as author of the Atlantic Yards Report blog, certainly has had a birdseye view of power politics in Brooklyn) says, "We lack meaningful local government, as well as broad-based media and civic organizations." His conclusion? Putting it mildly, "Brooklyn's powerful developers, institutions and politicians often evade scrutiny."
Posted by eric at 11:13 AM
January 21, 2011
Complaint Box | Powerless in Brooklyn
City Room
by Norman Oder
The man who launched Atlantic Yards Report as TimesRatnerReport is becoming a semi-regular fixture in the paper. This essay will also appear in Sunday's Times.
Of the boroughs outside Manhattan, Brooklyn gets the most buzz — as a tourist attraction, a “hipster brand” and an incubator of art and artisanal products. That has provoked a backlash from longtime Brooklynites and others wary of smugness from the borough’s Brownstone Belt.
However entertaining these debates, Brooklynites — and, I dare say, all of us in the non-Manhattan boroughs — share one common problem: we’re essentially powerless. We lack meaningful local government, as well as broad-based media and civic organizations.
Marty Markowitz, the borough’s president and its relentless cheerleader, says that Brooklyn has nearly everything a city needs and that fulfillment will arrive when a professional sports team, the Nets, finally moves to an arena here in 2012 or 2013.
If only that were true.
...Thus, Brooklyn’s powerful developers, institutions and politicians often evade scrutiny. While local blogs and community weeklies do their part, the latter have been diminished. After Rupert Murdoch bought the independent weekly Courier-Life chain in 2006, its rival, The Brooklyn Paper, trumpeted its independence, only to suffer the same fate — a Murdoch takeover — three years later. The papers have since moved into the same building, cut the staff and published many of the same articles. In my blog, AtlanticYardsReport.com, I’ve observed how The Brooklyn Paper has muted once-tough coverage and editorial criticism of Mr. Markowitz’s beloved arena project, Atlantic Yards, which is being developed by the newspapers’ landlord, Forest City Ratner.
...The upshot? While Brooklyn may make a neat T-shirt slogan and be shorthand for culinary innovation, such a focus on consumption and authenticity gives a pass to the powers that be.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, New York Times Complaint Box essay: Powerless in Brooklyn (without meaningful local government and broad-based media, civic organizations)
I have a Complaint Box essay in the Metropolitan section of Sunday's New York Times, now online at CityRoom, headlined Powerless in Brooklyn.
...It's a bit of a departure for Complaint Box, which tends toward examinations of the nuances of such things as subway etiquette or tipping, but, given the limited space for op-eds in the paper--after all, the former City section is gone--any space is welcome. (Fun fact: they don't pay for this type of reader contribution.)
And yes, in only about 500 words, my essay is less nuanced than a longer version, so let's see how the comments play out.
Comments and responses
I will update this post with some comments and responses to them.
Posted by eric at 11:01 AM
January 20, 2011
In Brooklyn, hyperlocal news gets a boost with Patch (but we need much more)
Atlantic Yards Report
The nature of the local new media is changing and, for Brooklyn, there may be some promise in Patch, the AOL-funded enterprise that's hiring do-it-all editors (without offices) in communities around the country--800 so far, with a goal of 1000.
The editors are assisted by freelancers and other contributors and, in Brooklyn at least, form a bit of a network. Right now there's a Prospect Heights Patch, Park Slope Patch, Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Patch, Carroll Gardens/Cobble Hill Patch, and Bed-Stuy Patch.
What, no Brooklyn Heights or Williamsburg? Maybe those communities were seen as already "taken" by the Brooklyn Heights Blog and culture blogs like Free Williamsburg. (Disclosure: I've done one freelance piece for Patch.)
Not just news
Patch, self-described as "your local source for news, events, business listings, and discussion," got some semi-skeptical treatment in a New York Times article January 17--an article that ignored Patch in New York but pointed out that the company is focusing on relatively affluent suburban towns that can generate advertising.
Indeed, Patch strikes me as optimized for small communities that don't have a newspaper to cover key local institutions like the school board and mayor's office. (See, for example, the comment by Ann O. at the bottom of this CJR post.)
Brooklyn lacks such cohesion--even the community boards stretch beyond a single community--so the match is inexact.
And Patch is still feeling its way. I'm not sure what an article on "Rent is Too Damn High" candidate Jimmy McMillan shilling for a New Jersey car dealership was doing on the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill Patch. Then again, Patch did a nice job covering the memorial for former District Leader Bill Saunders--and no other news outlet bothered.
Posted by eric at 11:26 AM
January 17, 2011
Washington Post re-launches Fact Checker column; CJR says every reporter should evaluate truth; what about KPMG's report to the ESDC?
Atlantic Yards Report
The Washington Post has re-launched its Fact Checker column that previously concentrated on the presidential campaigns and "will focus on any statements by political figures and government officials--in the United States and abroad--that cry out for fact-checking."
Writes Glenn Kessler:
But we will not be limited to political charges or countercharges. We will seek to explain difficult issues, provide missing context and provide analysis and explanation of various "code words" used by politicians, diplomats and others to obscure or shade the truth.
The Post will use the Pinocchio Test, which includes:
- One Pinocchio: shading of the facts, but no outright falsehoods
- Two Pinocchios: significant omissions and/or exaggerations, without necessarily a formal error
- Three Pinocchios: significant factual errors and/or obvious contradictions
- Four Pinocchios: whoppers
Unalloyed truths--they will get "our prized Geppetto checkmark."
And in New York?
There's a crying need for such a service in the New York media; to my knowledge, fact-checking has been deployed mainly when checking claims in political advertising.
But what if the media decide to check, say, KPMG's report to the Empire State Development Corporation on the condo market? I give it four Pinocchios.
NoLandGrab: We prefer to call our Pinocchios "Yormarks."
Posted by eric at 11:06 AM
January 15, 2011
Yormark claims "disbelief that the Dodgers left... has been passed on from generation to generation"
Atlantic Yards Report
On ESPN, True Hoop J.A. Adande listens to New Jerseyan Brett Yormark pontificate on Brooklyn:
I chatted with Nets CEO Brett Yormark about what the arena means to Brooklyn, why the Nets need a superstar, the building of the brand and a man he calls Michael -- that would be Mikhail Prokhorov.
“I’ve been engaged in this whole move for about six years,” Yormark said. “I’m in Brooklyn quite often, if not daily. The disbelief that the Dodgers left [in 1957], that underserved nature with respect to sports and entertainment, has been passed on from generation to generation."
Not so. He needs to get out more.
As I wrote in March 2009, Michael D’Antonio's revisionist biography of Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner,and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles, put Dodgers nostalgia in perspective, blaming it on Roger Kahn’s book The Boys of Summer.
Posted by steve at 11:44 AM
January 12, 2011
"Shocking news": Observer floats lightly-sourced claim that Apple is looking for store near arena location; what about the EB-5 story?
Atlantic Yards Report
Yeah, and LeBron James is going to cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the first Frank Gehry-designed Apple Store, which will also contain 300 units of affordable housing.
The New York Observer claims it's broken "some shocking news recently and nobody noticed," because only subscribers to the new Commercial Observer Now tri-weekly newsletter got it.
The headline in the Observer is iRatner! Apple Digging Atlantic Yards for First Brooklyn Store, but the story--likely based on a real estate broker--is more vague:
With plans dashed for a fifth Apple store on 34th Street late last year, sources say the tech behemoth is now setting its sights on a location near the proposed Atlantic Yards arena in Brooklyn, future home to the Nets basketball team.
Since last month, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has been informally chatting with potential landlords, including Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, about leasing options in the area, a source with ties to Forest City Ratner told The Commercial Observer on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Observer and others have steered clear of some other "shocking news," such as the admission, by a firm with ties to Forest City Ratner, that its agents are misleading potential immigrant investors about an EB-5 investment in Atlantic Yards tied to green cards.
Related coverage...
The Commercial Observer, Apple Mulling Atlantic Yards Store
"They've been very gun shy, the Apple people," said the source, who refused to be identified because the person was not given clearance to speak publicly. "They're focusing on the arena area right now, but there's no space. But it's the only place in Brooklyn that's super visible, close to trains and about as close as you can get to a 24-hour community in the borough."
Spokespeople for Forest City Ratner and Apple did not immediately return calls Wednesday.
If you're wondering how these fanciful stories sometimes take on a life of their own, here's how...
Curbed, Atlantic Yards to Get Brooklyn's First Apple Store?
Gothamist, Brooklyn Teased With Talk of Atlantic Yards Apple Store
Posted by eric at 12:26 PM
January 8, 2011
A letter to the editor gets published by the Courier-Life, but mention of my blog and EB-5 series gets excised.
Atlantic Yards Report
So I wrote a letter to the Brooklyn Paper and Courier-Life chain in respond to the year-end round-up.
The Brooklyn Paper doesn't have a letters page this week, but the Courier-Life does. However, the paragraph that mentioned my blog, italicized below, somehow got excised. So much for serving the readers.
Also, oddly enough, they changed my rhetoric from "Shouldn't Brooklynites care?" to "Brooklynites should care." (They also changed "committed by" to "committed to," which misleads.) At least we know that a two paragraph letter from the editor's father in the Westchester suburbs merited a four-column headline.
The original letter:
I was amused to read, in your year-end round-up, a fanciful tale involving me on the final night of Freddy’s Bar and Backroom. I was less amused to recognize that the Brooklyn Paper has not covered some important Atlantic Yards news, notably Forest City Ratner's effort to raise $249 million from immigrant investors seeking green cards.
Shouldn't Brooklynites care that Borough President Marty Markowitz, in a video message taped for potential investors in China, claimed that "Brooklyn is 1000 percent behind Atlantic Yards"? Shouldn't Brooklynites care that tax money already committed by city and state agencies is apparently being used to help calculate the jobs "created" by such investors? Shouldn't Brooklynites care that the spirit, if not the letter, of a federal immigration program is being violated?
The tape of Markowitz's statement and extensive coverage of this controversy appears in the "Anatomy of a Shady Deal" series on my Atlantic Yards Report blog (AtlanticYardsReport.com).
Norman Oder Park Slope
Posted by steve at 8:45 AM
January 5, 2011
Village Voice jettisons Wayne Barrett, fellow investigator Tom Robbins resigns, local journalism loses (for now) institutional memory, watchdogs
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, just a few hours after I finished the amazingly (and disturbingly) detailed 1988 book, City for Sale: Ed Koch and the Betrayal of New York, by Jack Newfield (R.I.P.) and Wayne Barrett, did I learn that Barrett had been laid off from the Village Voice for budgetary reasons and that Tom Robbins, the other Voice investigative reporter with deep knowledge of the city and state, had resigned in solidarity.
(Voice editor Tony Ortega disagrees with the latter interpretation.)
Wrote Barrett in his valedictory:
It never mattered to me what the party or ideology was of the subject of an investigative piece; the reporting was as nonpartisan as the wrongdoing itself. I never looked past the wrist of any hand in the public till. It was the grabbing that bothered me, and there was no Democratic or Republican way to pick up the loot.
The greatest prize I've ever won for the work I've done in these pages was when Al D'Amato called me a "viper" in his memoir. Chuck Schumer, who ended D'Amato's reign after 18 years, ascribed his victory in a 2007 memoir to a story I'd written a decade earlier that devastated the incumbent Republican. What Schumer didn't say was that as soon as Hank Morris, Schumer's media guru, went up with an ad based on my revelations about D'Amato, Arthur Finkelstein, who was running D'Amato's 1998 campaign, aired a commercial about Schumer's near-indictment and flashed my nearly two-decade-old clips breaking that scandal on the screen as well. I was the maestro of a commercial duel.
I've cited Barrett and Robbins periodically, including Barrett's amazing (and criminally ignored) report on Democratic Mayoral candidate Bill Thompson's reason for never getting tough on Mayor Mike Bloomberg (that museum Thompson's wife leads and Bloomberg has funded), or Robbins's description of Bloomberg's "Velvet Coup" in getting term limits overturned.
Neither turned their attention to Atlantic Yards, rich if complicated fodder, and that's another piece of luck for Forest City Ratner. (Was it because of lingering sympathy for ACORN? Too many other juicy targets?)
Their role at the Voice
I've been inspired by Barrett and Robbins, who come to conclusions and opinions--unlike reporters constrained by journalistic convention--but only after doing the reporting.
“The reporting I do I believe is very objective,” Barrett told WNYC. “After I’ve reported a story, I am allowed, unlike people at dailies, to frame the reportage in a piece that contains opinions. But it’s the reporting that shapes the opinion. It’s not the opinion that shapes the reporting.”
Posted by eric at 10:16 AM
January 2, 2011
The Battle of Brooklyn Trailer
tricityrealestatenews.com
The Battle of Brooklyn explores the poorly understood phenomenon of eminent domain abuse. A feature-length documentary from filmmakers Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley, and David Beilinson, this film investigates how real estate developers, local government, community activists, and the media have clashed over the largest single-source development project ever proposed in New York City. Widely known as the Atlantic Yards project, this undertaking has for the past four years been a major source of contention as local residents resist a billionaire developers attempt to use eminent domain to seize their homes and businesses. Done in the name of “development,” schemes such as this one eviscerate private property rights and make a mockery of the Fifth Amendment–and yet they freely exploit lucrative taxpayer subsidies, easements, and tax abatements.
Posted by steve at 7:36 PM
December 25, 2010
In novel Prospect Park West, "Atlantic Yards" is a screenplay about terrorism and a character has the arena on the brain
Atlantic Yards Report
Amy Sohn's dishy novel Prospect Park West, optioned to be a mini-series starring Sarah Jessica Parker, has gotten lots of buzz for her satirical take on motherhood and Park Slope, with the park, the food co-op, the Park Slope Parents listserv, house envy, and more serving as the backdrop.
(See local reviews pro and con from FIPS and OTBKB.)
There are numerous real people and places in the book, but Atlantic Yards watchers may notice a few stretches:
Lizzie and Jay's brick walk-up [on Park Place] was between Vanderbilt and Underhill, in the footprint of the developer Bruce Ratner's proposed Nets arena, which meant that it might be knocked down in order to build the arena.
Actually, the project footprint doesn't go beyond Dean Street south to Park Place, nor does it go east of Vanderbilt Avenue.
Atlantic Yards, the film?
More entertaining is the name of the screenplay being written by Stuart Ashby, an Australian actor married to Melora Leigh, a Park Slope super-couple based loosely on Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly:
"Atlantic Yards. It's sort of a thriller about gentrification and terrorism."
"What's thrilling about gentrification?"
"Well," he said, "ultimately it's more about the clash between different types of people. There's a terror cell run out of a muffin shop, and a corrupt borough president funneling money to the terrorists, and then there's this weathered Seventy-eighth Precinct cop who catches on to the scheme and winds up saving the day. She's a woman. And I'm trying to figure out a way to work in that rape on the ball fields."
Well, you could probably get a good screenplay--Russian billionaire, Chinese millionaires, obsessed Borough President--involved in the real Atlantic Yards.
Ratner on the brain
There's also an entertaining moment in which a zonked-out Melora, unable to find a cab or orient herself homeward, winds up walking north in the Slope after a show at Southpaw:
Up Fifth Avenue, she could see the lights of the Atlantic Terminal mall.
What an atrocity. How this Ratner idiot had gotten permission to build it, she had no idea. When Heath [Ledger] was alive, he and Michelle [Williams] had gotten her and Stuart to sign on to the Develop-Don't Destroy advisory board. Even though Frank Gehry was supposedly going to design the arena, if Bruce Ratner was behind it, it was bound to be ugly.
Why was she thinking about the feasibility of the Nets arena at a time like this?
Good question. Maybe it sticks in too many people's minds.
Posted by steve at 8:55 AM
December 24, 2010
In the Brooklyn Paper, editor insists that the newspaper's covering Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
In a very interesting phone interview (Vito speaks — sort of!) with Vito Lopez, in which the beleaguered Assemblyman urges the Brooklyn Paper to cover affordable housing issues--good idea--editor Gersh Kuntman asks,"Assemblyman do you really think we aren’t covering the Brooklyn Bridge Park and Atlantic Yards and other issues?"
Lopez says he doesn't read the paper, but I do, and I can say--sorry to sound like a broken record--that the Brooklyn Paper doesn't cover Atlantic Yards all that much any more.
Yes, there's some good stuff about the census in this week's issue, and the Paper covers Atlantic Yards news when it emerges via press release and yes, it's shorthanded, but...
Did the Brooklyn Paper cover the Empire State Development Corporation board meeting December 16 in which a 25-year project buildout was deemed not to have significant impacts or the subsequent court hearing December 22?
Nope.
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
December 22, 2010
A developer (not Ratner) described as "in full marketing mode"
Atlantic Yards Report
There was an unusually skeptical close to an article in yesterday's New York Times headlined Council Approves West Side Apartment Towers:
Work on the new buildings may not begin until 2012, the developer said.
“It will be the capstone for the newest and most vibrant neighborhood in the city,” Mr. [Gary] Barnett said, in full marketing mode.
What about AY?
If only reporter Charles Bagli made similar observations when he covered Atlantic Yards. Consider this quote from an 11/25/09 Times article headlined Ruling Lets Atlantic Yards Seize Land:
Mr. Ratner called the court’s ruling a “light-switch” kind of decision for the long-stalled project. “I look at this as the last major hurdle; now we can proceed as we’ve wanted to for the last three years,” he said on Tuesday. “The courts have made it clear that this project represents a significant public benefit for the people of Brooklyn and the entire city.”
As I pointed out at the time, the courts had not made such a thing clear; they deferred to the Empire State Development Corporation rather than conducting any fact-finding.
Posted by eric at 11:45 AM
December 19, 2010
Thinking about the press: David Cay Johnston on "news on the cheap;" Jay Rosen on "radical doubt"
Atlantic Yards Report
Who's covering Atlantic Yards any more?
From David Cay Johnston in Neiman Reports, It’s Scary Out There in Reporting Land: ‘Beats are fundamental to journalism, but our foundation is crumbling.’:
Far too much of journalism consists of quoting what police, prosecutors, politicians and publicists say—and this is especially the case with beat reporters. It’s news on the cheap and most of it isn’t worth the time it takes to read, hear or watch.
Like, um, this?
A reporter's job?
NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen quotes Michael Massing on New York Times Reporter Judith Miller:
Asked about this, Miller said that as an investigative reporter in the intelligence area, “my job isn’t to assess the government’s information and be an independent intelligence analyst myself. My job is to tell readers of The New York Times what the government thought about Iraq’s arsenal.”
Rosen adds:
That’s not getting the story wrong. That’s redefining the job as: reflecting what the government thinks.
"Radical doubt" and Atlantic Yards
Rosen connects the dots to WikiLeaks:
Radical doubt, which is basic to understanding what drives [WikiLeaks founder] Julian Assange, was impermissible then. One of the consequences of that is the appeal of radical transparency today.
You don't need "radical doubt" to question some aspects of Atlantic Yards. Entry-level doubt would suffice.
Posted by steve at 10:01 AM
Journalism 101: false dichotomies when it comes to Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Students at Columbia Journalism School produce a web site of local coverage called City Beats. One recent BUILD-centric article, headlined Atlantic Yards project needs further review, shows a student journalist falling for a false dichotomy:
November 9th was a great day for the Brooklyn residents who want to see the Atlantic Yards project reevaluated, but it was an awful day for Lloyd Mathews.
State Supreme Court Justice Marcy S. Friedman ruled that the $4.9 billion Forest City Ratner development project, known as Atlantic Yards, needs further review. To critics of the project, it means a progress; to Mathews, the decision means his job prospects are uncertain.
...Despite the potential benefit of more jobs in Brooklyn, opponents also take issue that the Community Benefits Agreement was designed without public input.
Let's rewrite that:
...Despite the potential benefit of more jobs in Brooklyn, opponents also take issue that the Empire State Development Corporation operates with little oversight.
ad absurdiam....
...Despite the potential benefit of more jobs in Brooklyn, opponents also take issue that Prospect Park shouldn't be used for a new development.
Posted by steve at 9:45 AM
December 11, 2010
The Brooklyn Paper tally: two Ratner/Nets announcements, no coverage of EB-5
Atlantic Yards Report
Last week, the Brooklyn Paper covered the debut of a Russian-language web site for the Nets.
This week, we learn that the circus will come to the Barclays Center.
It's easy for a newspaper to cover such press releases, and while the information may be worth sharing, is it more important than:
- the new seven-year potential delay in Phase 1 of the project?
- Brooklyn Borough president Marty Markowitz's astonishing words in China?
The answer is no.
Both of the latter stories are connected to Forest City Ratner's attempt (my series) to raise a $249 million no-interest loan from Chinese investors seeking green cards under the federal government's EB-5 visa program, thus saving the developer perhaps $191 million.
Posted by steve at 8:43 AM
December 10, 2010
Corrections
The New York Times
The Times has been correctin' up a storm this week, but still doesn't seem interested in Forest City Ratner's green cards-for-cash program.
The Arts
A Critic’s Notebook article on Wednesday about political theater based on real events, including the show “In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards,” misstated the circumstances under which Daniel Goldstein, an opponent of the Atlantic Yards project portrayed in the show, lost ownership of his condo in a building that needed to be emptied for ground to be broken. While he did receive $3 million in a settlement, the State of New York took the condo under eminent domain. He did not sell it. (Go to Article)
Posted by eric at 7:22 AM
December 9, 2010
Wikileaks and the role of Documentary
rumur.com
Battle of Brooklyn filmmaker Michael Galinsky draws some parallels between the Wikileaks controversy and Atlantic Yards.
I’ve been pretty much ignoring the wikileaks mess because I know that if pay attention I’ll get infuriated. I understand that governments need a certain level of secrecy to function properly. So when I first heard about some of the diplomatic cables being released I cringed a little. In some ways these releases seem vindictive and counter productive in terms of bettering relations among nations. On the other hand, as a documentary filmmaker, working without support or credentials, my hackles are raised by the way Assange is being attacked by both governments and the media. Still, I tried to avoid paying attention because all of the focus on Assange takes away from the very legitimate concerns of those who want to hold governments and the military accountable when they cross the line. When soldiers accidentaly kill innocent people, even when following protocol, it’s important that we have the right to discuss it. Knowing that there are consequences for our actions gives us a reason to be more careful.
Last night, while going through footage for our current documentary, “Battle of Brooklyn” I came across the footage embedded below. The occasion was a hearing on the environmental impact statement about the Atlantic Yards project in 2006. This hearing was supposed to be an opportunity for community residents to air their concerns about the environmental impacts of the proposed project. I was filming the crowds outside the event when a publicist instructed me to head across the street to a press conference being given by the developer. I was extremely excited because I knew that I needed the developer’s point of view to keep my documentary balanced. some parallels between the Wikileaks controversy and Atlantic Yards.
I ran across the street and got set for the fun to begin. After about 10 seconds another publicist told me that I had to leave. I explained to this gentleman that his colleague had instructed me to come over, but as you can see in the footage he made it clear that the event was only for credentialed media. What made this particularly galling to me was that the publicity company organizing the event was owned - or at least previously owned - by documentary filmmaker Dan Klores.
There is no question that Mr. Klores is a very talented filmmaker, and I would hope that he understands how important the free flow of information is to telling even-handed, complex stories. I also understand that he now has very little to do with the day to day running of the organization that bears his name. Last year, while discussing a recent film on the radio, when questioned about the project, he made statements in support of it. While I believe that he has every right to support the project, I object to the fact that the company bearing his name worked diligently for 7 years years to obstruct the flow of useful information.
NoLandGrab: Keep in mind that Forest City Ratner is the company that claims: "When it comes to sharing information with the public and governmental bodies, there’s no such thing as too much, as far as we are concerned."
Posted by eric at 4:57 PM
December 8, 2010
Anatomy of a Shady Deal: Norman Oder Takes A Close Look At Ratner's Quest for Money in China
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
While The New York Times publishes its third article about The Civilians' extraordinary production of "In The Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards" (and we congratulate The Civilians for this deserved accomplishment and the rave reviews the play has been receiving) Norman Oder has been running an extensive series on Bruce Ratner's shady cash for green cards scheme otherwise known as the EB-5 program. The Times has not once made mention of this highly questionable use of the little-known immigration program.
...It is a complicated issue which boils down to this: The Ratner crew and its public and private enablers are gaming this federal EB-5 immigration program by making stuff up, deceiving potential Chinese investors, double counting and wildly exaggerating job numbers all to pump up the developer's bottom line rather than benefit the public.
In other words: The usual, only overseas.
Posted by eric at 10:02 PM
A theater critic lectures The Civilians on journalism regarding "In the Footprint." He has a point. Maybe the Times should follow it, too.
Atlantic Yards Report
As per normal, Norman Oder covers a story with a bit more nuance than we do.
This is kind of rich: New York Times theater critic Jason Zinoman pens a Critic's Notebook column for tomorrow's paper, When News Events Are Retold Onstage, raising (reasonable) questions about the balance in The Civilians' IN THE FOOTPRINT: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, then lectures solemnly about the value to a documentary theater company of "the rules taught in journalism school."
Well, if the New York Times were following "the rules taught in journalism school," it might be giving paying attention to stories like state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman's decision last month rebuking the Empire State Development Corporation for "what appears to be yet another failure of transparency" regarding Atlantic Yards.
Instead, we got a blog post a day later.
If the Times were doing its job, we might see some coverage of Forest City Ratner's attempt to save some $191 million--a conservative estimate-- by marketing green cards to Chinese millionaires enticed to invest in an arena that doesn't need funding.
If the Times were doing its job, we might have seen a dollop of skepticism in the Times Magazine 10/31/10 cover story lionizing Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the new Nets owner.
Instead, in the last month, we've seen two feature articles and a review regarding The Civilians, as if Atlantic Yards is ovah, history, an arts story. Nah.
NoLandGrab: Oder also points out that The Times barely covered, and only belatedly, Forest City Ratner's $1.5 million bailout of ACORN — something In the Footprint skips over, too.
Posted by eric at 10:18 AM
When News Events Are Retold Onstage
The New York Times
by Jason Zinoman
The Times, which has failed in its coverage of Atlantic Yards in so many ways, thinks The Civilians should be more "balanced" in their staging of In the Footprint. Say what?
If the company uses tools of journalism and benefits from the authority of real reporting, does it have an increased responsibility to journalistic standards? Is it enough to aim for the essence of truth, or should its artists also be concerned about conflicts of interest or that famously elusive virtue, balance?
...In reviving the debates over a plan to reconfigure 22 acres of urban landscape in Brooklyn, displacing residents and small businesses in the process, “In the Footprint” expresses a range of viewpoints, but make no mistake: the way its material is edited, expressed and contextualized belies a passionate perspective.
“In my work, I don’t think about balance,” Steve Cosson, who wrote and directed “In the Footprint,” said in an interview. “I think more about conflict. To have a good conflict in a real-life story, the opposing perspective needs to be equally strong. I try to make that conflict as difficult to solve as it is in real life.”
Judged by these standards, the show succeeds much more often than most examples of its genre, but not as much as it could. The arguments by those opposed to the Atlantic Yards are more fleshed out than those in support of the project, partly because they are based on actual interviews, while major players on the other side, like the developer Bruce Ratner and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, did not agree to talk. Their lines were taken from public events, making them seem remote. Instead of being played by actors, they are represented by symbolic props. (Mr. Bloomberg is an empty suit.) In a show that humanizes a wide range of real people, they are figures from a morality tale.
Atlantic Yards supporters generally come off as defensive, while the opponents are reasonable and endearingly ordinary.
NoLandGrab: Gee, could that possibly be because we're right, and they're all in on the fix? Get back to us when you run a story on Bruce's magical mystery EB-5 China tour.
Posted by eric at 10:09 AM
Corrections
The New York Times
The Arts
A theater review on Nov. 24 about “In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards” misstated the name of the rail yards that the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn is to be built over, in part, and also referred incorrectly to them. They are the Vanderbilt Yards, not the Atlantic Yards, and they are still used by the Long Island Rail Road. They have not been abandoned.
A listing of credits with the review misspelled the surname of an opponent of the project who is played by Colleen Werthmann. As the review noted, she is Patti Hagan, not Hagen. (Go to Article)
NoLandGrab: There, New York Times. Doesn't that feel better?
Posted by eric at 10:02 AM
December 1, 2010
Blogger says new book doesn't give full story on ACORN's support of new Brooklyn arena
The Sports ITeam Blog {NYDailyNews.com]
by Michael O'Keeffe
"Seeds of Change" by John Atlas has earned favorable reviews since it came out a few months ago. But in a lengthy and detailed analysis, Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder says the book about ACORN, the anti-poverty group that's become a favorite target of Republicans, is rife with errors and omissions when it comes to the organization's support of the Nets' Brooklyn basketball arena and the rest of the massive Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at 10:26 PM
When "low six figures" makes the Times (a new Nets sponsor) and when it doesn't (the failure to hire a monitor for the Community Benefits Agreement)
Atlantic Yards Report
From today's print New York Times, Nets Add Zippo as Team Sponsor:
The Nets and Zippo announced on Tuesday a sponsorship deal that includes courtside advertising, advertising on local radio broadcasts, and ads on the Nets’ English and Russian-language Web sites. The one-year agreement is thought to be worth “low six figures,” according to an industry executive.
Funny, but the Independent Compliance Monitor Forest City Ratner was supposed to hire to oversee the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement required a payment of $100,000 in escrow, and presumably annual fees, as I reported Monday.
Sounds like "low six figures," as well.
Not that the Times deemed it worthy of coverage.
NoLandGrab: "Zippo" is also the number of stories in The Times we can recall about minor sponsorship deals involving any metro-area team not partly owned by its headquarters development partner.
Posted by eric at 7:46 PM
November 30, 2010
Meaningful news on timetable lawsuit and CBA failure, meaningful press avoidance
Atlantic Yards Report
Was it meaningful that two coalitions of civic groups just asked state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman for a stay on Atlantic Yards construction?
Sure. It's a longshot Friedman will stop the arena, but the petitioners--coalitions organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks--have to be taken seriously.
The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) and developer Forest City Ratner (FCR) knew that the project could take 25 years but only studied the impact of the official ten-year construction period.
So the ESDC must either appeal Friedman's stinging November 9 ruling on the project timetable or, more likely, produce a document that claims that a 25-year buildout would create no more burdensome impacts than the ten-year one.
Given the track record of ubiquitous environmental consultant AKRF, which always produces the reports its clients want, it's likely such a document can be finessed.
But it's also likely that document will be highly questionable. After all, the state never studied the impact of an "interim" surface parking lot that could last for decades.
Press avoidance
And publications like the Brooklyn Paper and New York Observer, which readily covered the Forest City Ratner press release last week that steel had arrived at the arena site, have so far ignored the latest story on the lawsuit.
The only news outlet to cover it so far is the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, via Ryan Thompson (FCR executive MaryAnne Gilmartin's favorite reporter), who called the decision an "unusual, but possibly meaningless, legal victory."
No, no matter what happens, it's not meaningless.
Journalists and others who think the Atlantic Yards story is ovah simply have closed their minds.
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
November 26, 2010
Two front pages, two weeks apart, two AY stories
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper cover this week. (Click on images to enlarge.)
The Brooklyn Paper front page two weeks ago.
Draw your own conclusions.
Posted by eric at 11:12 AM
November 24, 2010
From theater critics, "In the Footprint" draws mostly raves; no one agrees with Brooklyn Paper's claim that play would "appall" project opponents
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, after a dubious pan by the Community Newspaper Group's Gersh Kuntzman (oddly and hastily endorsed by the Observer) and my mixed but appreciative review, theater critics are pretty much raving about IN THE FOOTPRINT: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, by The Civilians.
The key review, from the New York Times's Charles Isherwood, sums it up:
This simple, scruffy-looking but smartly put-together production, written and directed by Steve Cosson and featuring songs by Michael Friedman (“Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson”), is as fresh, inventive and frankly as entertaining as any new work of musical theater to open this fall.
TheaterMania's review calls the show "often-compelling" though it acknowledges the challenges:
There's a lot of matreial here to squeeze into 100 minutes, and while director Steven Cosson does an admirable job, the staging can feel unfocused.
Critic Aaron Riccio writes on his That Sounds Cool blog:
It is also one of the year's most sincere, clever, and enjoyable shows, period.
Related coverage...
The New York Times, A Brooklyn Civics Lesson, Offered in Word and Song
As subjects for musical comedy go, it would be hard to fathom anything less promising than the legal intricacies of the concept of eminent domain. Or, for that matter, the socioeconomic diversity of the crazy quilt of Brooklyn neighborhoods. The great Stephen Sondheim himself might find it tricky work to make lyrical magic of the relationships among the various civic entities charged with approving land-use deals in New York City.
Yet these matters are rhapsodized in song with style and wit in the spirited new show from the Civilians, “In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards,” which opened on Monday night at the Irondale Arts Center in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, within a demolition ball’s swing of the site in contention.
...It is not hard to discern where the sympathies of the show’s creators ultimately lie. Marty Markowitz, the Brooklyn borough president who was an early and enthusiastic supporter of the multibillion-dollar redevelopment proposal, is depicted as a yapping basketball. Frank Gehry, the renowned architect whose signature pencil-shaving design for the arena is represented by a twirling disco ball, is heard pontificating fatuously about his “iconic” buildings in Spain and Los Angeles and the tower he refers to as “Miss Brooklyn,” one of more than a dozen in the original plans.
As for Bruce Ratner, the prominent developer behind the project — let’s just say that should anyone offer Mr. Ratner a pair of tickets to the show, he would be wise to decline. Mr. Ratner might be marginally more welcome at a Nets game in New Jersey this season.
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], Atlantic Yards: The Musical
...the real stars of the show are local residents, who were interviewed by The Civilians, a self-described investigative theater company that incorporated the neighbors’ words into the script and into lyrics.
“I felt that a play could tell that story in a different way than a newspaper article or journalism,” said Steve Cosson, the director and co-writer. “Since a play is social and it brings an audience in, and it’s a community experience, I just think there’s a particular value to the art form.”
WNYC Radio, Atlantic Yards Gets Musical Treatment
For this production, the actors were also the reporters. Greg McFadden plays half a dozen characters, including Brooklyn Borough president Marty Markowitz and architect Frank Gehry. He interviewed all the people that he plays on the show and said he tried to absorb everything, from their beliefs to the rhythm of their voice. “It’s nerve racking to portray someone who is a real person and who is going to come see what you’re doing with their words and their cause and their life really,” he said. “So you try to be as faithful as you can to them.”
Cosson says that if the play sounds too much like reality, well, that is the idea. “It’s not a satire, it’s not a sketch comedy, it’s all authentic. It’s all people represented by actors, but real people are fascinating idiosyncratic creatures.”
Posted by eric at 9:55 AM
November 21, 2010
Jay-Z's new book Decoded is anthology, catalogue, memoir of his creation of a persona; no AY; bio next year should dig deeper
Atlantic Yards Report
So, is there anything about Atlantic Yards, and his fractional ownership of the Nets, in Jay-Z's new book Decoded?
Not really, at least according to my quick skim of the book at the bookstore. It's not an autobiography. The New Yorker, covering Jay-Z's recent appearance at the New York Public Library, described the book as "part memoir, part carefully annotated lyrics anthology, and part visual catalogue."
Click on the link to read about the Shawn Carter and the cultivation of his alter-ego, Jay-Z.
Posted by steve at 11:32 AM
November 20, 2010
A letter to the Courier-Life (and Brooklyn Paper) on coverage of the Friedman decision
Atlantic Yards Report
Uneven coverage in the New York media, in general, and in the Brooklyn Paper specifically, continues to prevent an understanding of the issues surrounding the Atlantic Yards project.
I sent this letter to both the Brooklyn Paper and the Courier-Life chain, which published identical articles, in the Brooklyn Paper as Yards foes win a big case that will not likely change a thing.
There's no Letters page in the Brooklyn Paper, but my letter is published this week in the Courier-Life under the headline "Nervy claim."
Note that italics indicate words added by the editor, while bold indicates words in my original letter that were not published:
Your recent coverage described the state Supreme Court's decision slamming the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) for its questionable behavior regarding the Atlantic Yards timetable as a "meaningless victory" for Atlantic Yards foes ("Yard foes win a big case," Nov. 12).
That's rather conclusory. Neither the ESDC nor developer Forest City Ratner made such a claim. In fact, a day after the decision, an executive from Forest City Enterprises, FCR's parent company, seemed somewhat unnerved as he discussed the issue. (See my coverage at http://bit.ly/dAEYON.)
It's unclear at this point whether the ESDC will appeal the decision--and have to further defend its behavior--or whether the agency will produce a document that asserts that a 25-year buildout (as opposed to the ten-year buildout that was studied) would have little impact on the community around the project site. Either tack invites more litigation.
As Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman noted, courts typically defer to administrative agencies, but "judicial review must be 'meaningful." In this case, a meaningful review meant that the corporation's delay in releasing the Development Agreement it negotiated--an agreement kept under wraps until just after a crucial court argument--didn't get a pass.
Evidently, And that meant that someone official agreed that the process behind Atlantic Yards was just a little fishy. That's meaningful.
Norman Oder Park Slope
Oder, a journalist, writes the Atlantic Yards Report blog.
The slight edits--the omission of my credits--serve to diminish my authority a bit.
Posted by steve at 8:12 AM
November 15, 2010
What's different today from Jane Jacobs's time? The Village Voice, and the journalistic milieu
Atlantic Yards Report
I've written periodically about The Battle for Gotham: New York in the Shadow of Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs, by Roberta Brandes Gratz.
When the book was issued in the spring, Gratz spoke at a bookstore in SoHo and, at one point, recalled the battle to stop Robert Moses from building a highway through that then-transitional neighborhood.
"There was a very important element, which we don't have today, and that was the Village Voice. Mary Nichols of the Village Voice was totally in [Jane] Jacobs's camp," Gratz said. "Because the daily press paid very little attention to these issues. The Voice was out there, so the press was on top of it."
Posted by eric at 8:09 AM
November 14, 2010
From Bed-Stuy stoops, 21 years later, to Absolut stoops
Atlantic Yards Report
Seeing the posters advertising Absolut Brooklyn via an idealized version of Brooklyn stoops (and reading Clay Risen's kinda-late meditation in The Atlantic's food blog, How Spike Lee and Absolut Vodka Sold Out Brooklyn), I was reminded: stoops were crucial to Lee's most enduring work, Do the Right Thing, which emerged in 1989, a time when Brooklyn was much rougher.
Set in a Bedford-Stuyvesant subject to very little gentrification, the stoop was not just the neighborhood porch but also where conflict played out. As one description of the plot has it, "Da Mayor walks by Mother Sisters' stoop, and the lady denounces him as a drunken fool."
Then there was another stoop-side confrontation, as described in this teaching guide:
Buggin' Out shows up, declaring that Mookie is "the man." As he turns to go on his way, a white property-owner wearing a Boston Celtics shirt accidentally steps on his Nike Air Jordans. Yo! YO! This white man is lucky that "a black man has a loving heart."
Does this have anything to do with Atlantic Yards? Only in the macro sense: some people (on both sides of the conflict) are shaped by 1989, and others by 2010.
Posted by steve at 12:21 PM
Two letters on the Times Magazine's Mikhail Prokhorov cover story
Atlantic Yards Report
So, how many letters did the New York Times Magazine publish today regarding its generous profile two weeks ago of Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov?
One, and it was an attaboy.
Letter: The Playboy and His Power Games
Chip Brown’s article about the New Jersey Nets’ owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, was fascinating, but it omitted a strand of the billionaire Russian’s life story that could have been illuminating. In addition to his roles in banking and industry, Prokhorov has been president of the Russian Biathlon Union for over two years, and he is credited with turning around a moribund organization tarnished by doping. It would have been interesting to read more about Prokhorov’s work in that sport, since the Nets seem to be in need of a similar reversal.
NATHANIEL HERZ
Williamstown, Mass.My letter
Here's a letter they didn't publish:
The profile of Russian billionaire and New Jersey Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov ("An Oligarch of Our Own," Oct. 31) fails to answer who, exactly, is "us" (other than a Nets fan who was unwilling to reveal his name).
As to whether Prokhorov has "the cash to save a reeling franchise," consider--unmentioned in the article--that the oligarch has more to spend thanks to the subsidies, tax breaks, and eminent domain for the new arena (of which he owns 45%), which also will raise the value of the team. Had Prokhorov been the team's owner before the Atlantic Yards project was approved, it would have been much tougher to have justified all that governmental help.
The article suggests that Prokhorov, in trying to build a winning basketball team, faces heavy "pressure to live up to expectations." Prokhorov bought the team in order to become a household name in North America and open up investment opportunities. The Times's mostly uncritical article has already helped him live up to those expectations.
Norman Oder
BrooklynThe writer, author of the Atlantic Yards Report blog, is writing a book about the project. In June 2010, he wrote an essay for the Times, "A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals."
Posted by steve at 12:16 PM
November 13, 2010
In Brooklyn Paper, Shake Shack and racist cabby seen as bigger news than court ruling slamming ESDC on Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
There you have it. Among the articles the Brooklyn Paper considers more important than this week's Atlantic Yards court decision are ones concerning the arrival of Shake Shack and the arrest of a racist cabby.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Paper is sure to tell us the court decision is unimportant:
The state agency overseeing the Atlantic Yards mega-development purposefully withheld information on the project’s timetable to avoid having to reexamine the project’s negative impacts, a judge ruled on Tuesday in what appears to be a meaningless victory for foes of Bruce Ratner’s project.
As I commented:
It's curious that the Brooklyn Paper can so confidently assume that this is a "meaningless victory." The day after the decision, an executive from Forest City Enterprises, the parent company of developer Forest City Ratner, was somewhat unnerved as he discussed the decision. He didn't call it "meaningless."
Note that the deck beneath the YARDS FOES WIN A CASE headline is even more conclusory than the text: "Judge says state lied, but ruling won't change a thing."
Battle over?
By the way, the article in the companion Courier-Life chain, on p. 16, is paired with a longer feature article on The Civilians' play In the Footprint.
The article begins with an inaccurate claim:
The battle over Atlantic Yards may be over, but it's still brewing on stage.
Yes, the battle to stop the arena from construction is over, and most (but clearly not all) of the legal fight is over. And, yes, activism has diminished. But the controversy is not over.
Posted by steve at 8:20 AM
November 11, 2010
Why was the court decision on the Development Agreement so late? It wasn't the petitioners' fault
Atlantic Yards Report
Oh, snap.
Too Little, Too Late: Atlantic Yards Opponents Finally Win a Court Case, reports the Observer.
Yards foes win a big case that will not likely change a thing, suggests the Brooklyn Paper.
Neither publication bothered to cover the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) belated, delayed release of the Development Agreement in January, nor the oral arguments in the case in January and June during which the document was very much at issue.
(Updated and corrected: the Observer didn't cover the oral argument in January, but the Brooklyn Paper did, though I earlier said it didn't.)
Had they bothered to do their job, they and others in the press might have recognized that the reason this new decision might be "too late" is because the ESDC didn't play fair, not because those filing suit were delaying things.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
November 10, 2010
Despite official efforts to downplay news, Friedman decision represents severe rebuke to ESDC; why did several news outlets ignore it?
Atlantic Yards Report
At the Atlantic Yards arena groundbreaking in March, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg soothingly declared, "[N]obody's going to remember how long it took, they're only going to look and see that it was done."
The official line regarding yesterday's ruling by state Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman seems similar: "Nobody's going to remember how it got done, they're only going to look and see that it was done."
“Nothing was announced today that’s going to impact construction,” Jeff Linton, a spokesman for Forest City Enterprises, parent of Brooklyn developer Forest City Ratner, told Bloomberg Business Week.
An Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) spokeswoman--who didn't respond to my queries--told the Brooklyn Paper that the agency was “reviewing today’s ruling, which does not enjoin construction taking place on the Atlantic Yards project.”
Why it's important
Well, it won't stop current construction, but it could impact future construction. And, despite the Brooklyn Paper headline (Yards foes win a big case that will not likely change a thing), the case will, at the very least, provoke the ESDC to issue more findings justifying its ten-year timetable.
That timetable is less and less defensible--and that could lead to additional lawsuits, possibly affecting Phase 2 of the project. The upshot: people can and will very much remember how it got done.
Also, despite attempts to downplay the ruling, it's news when a judge rebukes the ESDC for "what appears to be yet another failure of transparency" and "totally incomplete representations" in legal papers.
In other words, the agency in charge of economic development in the state behaves somewhat like a guy on Craigslist trying to rent you an apartment he doesn't quite own.
Posted by eric at 9:53 AM
November 6, 2010
Times finally corrects error claiming Ratner took possession of entire AY site
Atlantic Yards Report
From a September 28 New York Times City Room post headlined Latest Design Is Unveiled for Atlantic Yards Plaza: This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: November 5, 2010
An earlier version of this post stated inaccurately that Mr. Ratner had taken possession of the entire 22-acre Atlantic Yards site. Because condemnation is taking place in phases, he has possession of only a portion of the site.
It shouldn't take so long to get such a simple correction made.
The back story
When the article emerged, I filed a online comment that evening regarding the error.
The next day, I filed an official request for a correction through the proper channels and wrote to reporter Charles Bagli directly. He acknowledged the error but, for whatever reason, no correction emerged.
On October 24, I posted another comment regarding the error, as I wrote October 28.
Today I wrote to the Public Editor, with copies to the news desk in charge of corrections and the reporter. That did the trick--without having the Public Editor intervene.
Posted by steve at 12:25 PM
October 31, 2010
In promotional "Brooklyn Tomorrow," architect Pasquarelli hailed as Barclays Center savior; he says arena's in a "residential neighborhood"
Atlantic Yards Report
After taking an Atlantic Yards hiatus in 2009, the infamous Brooklyn Tomorrow advertorial published by the Community Newspaper Group, publisher of the Brooklyn Paper and the Courier-Life chain, again puts Atlantic Yards on the cover, as it had in the 2007 and 2008 issues.
...
The Table of Contents pulls no promotional punches regarding p. 14: "Barclays Center: Architect Gregg Pasquarelli will be remembered as the man who saved basketball in Brooklyn."
The letter from the editors, Vince DiMiceli and Gersh Kuntzman, further assists developer Forest City Ratner (who just happens to be the two newspapers' landlord) citing "our exclusive interview with the man who saved the Barclays Arena (the focal point of what we're sure is to become America's Downtown)."
The focal point of America's Downtown? Even for a promotional real estate publication, that's a double stretch. The arena would extend Downtown Brooklyn to the southeast.
And no one's going to mistake the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, even with the new temporary plaza Pasquarelli's designing, as America's Downtown. Not even New York's. Does America's Downtown feature Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls?
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Paper hasn't touched the story about Forest City Ratner's effort to raise $249 million by hawking green cards to Chinese investors.
Click on the link below to read about an "exclusive" interview with architect Gregg Pasquarelli and see how he boasts about designing a building for which he only did the facade work.
NoLandGrab: The publicity machine put in place to promote the Atlantic Yards project at least made some sense as part of an effort to get the project approved. Any hype generated now is just an indication of how bad this project is.
Posted by steve at 8:25 AM
October 30, 2010
Regan Jaye Fishman on KingCon II
Talking with Tim
A panel about Atlantic Yards will be part year's KingCon II, an independent comic, animation and illustration convention being held November 6 and 7 at the Brooklyn Lyceum. The blog's author interviews KingCon II's co-organizer.
O’Shea: The second panel to be also held on Thursday (at 9 PM), what can you tell me about it?
Richmond: [The second panel is] The Wants of the Few: Atlantic Yards, Comics and the Changing Face of Brooklyn
Was it the right place?
Was it the right time?
Was it the right process?
Atlantic Yards continues to fulfill the major media expectation of Brooklyn as a backwater where the people don’t matter.
Laws that seem pretty clear are ignored.
Captains of industry (well real estate) rule the day.
The common man is marginalized so that they an tear down middle class housing to build rich person housing while promising that they “might” throw a bit of affordable housing out there. All at the promise of more tax revenue that is clearly a bald-faced lie.
Judges make rulings that only seem appropriate if you believe everyone is already in the bag since the rulings grasp at any straw to not actually deal with the issues at hand.
Kind of make comics irrelevant if the actions of the leaders and monitors of gotham are already that much of a caricature.
And, lastly, where is the urban grit and spit in your eye that propelled comics to a position of status anyways? Will everything look like a cheap glass tower that charges ore for less?
Maybe the comic industry should start the pullout from an urban psyche if that urban core is just like Des Moines.
Posted by steve at 7:07 AM
October 28, 2010
Does Ratner have “possession of the 22-acre Atlantic Yards property”? No, but the request for a Times correction is a month old
Atlantic Yards Report
This isn't big news, but it's an example of how errors in the "Paper of Record," however basic, need correction, given that they could mislead readers and researchers, as with the yet-uncorrected claim that the arena would be built "on the railyards."
A 9/28/10 New York Times City Room post, headlined Latest Design Is Unveiled for Atlantic Yards Plaza, claimed that the entire 22-acre site was controlled by the developer:
Seeking a correction
I posted a comment that day saying it wasn't true, given that several properties (e.g., houses on Dean Street east of Sixth Avenue, the P.C. Richard building on Site 5) are controlled neither by the state nor the developer, and that eminent domain is supposed to proceed in at least one more phase.
...I filed an official request for a correction through the proper channels and wrote to reporter Charles Bagli directly. He acknowledged the error but, for whatever reason, he and his editors have been unable or unwilling to get it corrected.
...Meanwhile, the Times today publishes corrections that tell us that the first name of the daughter of an artist recently profiled is Ona, not Oona and that the surname of a customer of a designer is Rattazzi, not Ratazzi.
Posted by eric at 8:50 AM
October 26, 2010
Errata
Every once in a while, it's important to remind people that Atlantic Yards is still not a place. It's a project, a marketing slogan, it has a footprint, even — but there's still no physical "Atlantic Yards."
Gothamist, Guess The Year: Model Edition
If you can figure out what's going on here, you may be able to guess the correct year. Put your best guesses in the comments, and we'll update later with the answer, more details and photos.
UPDATE: These photos were taken in 1955, and are of a model of Ebbets Field. When the Brooklyn Dodgers outgrew Ebbets, club owner Walter O'Malley announced plans for a privately-owned domed stadium at the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn, but New York City Building Commissioner Robert Moses wanted the city to build a stadium in Flushing Meadows instead—the team eventually chose Los Angeles over Queens, and the original field was demolished in 1960.
NoLandGrab: Wrong on two counts! O'Malley wanted to build his stadium across the way from the Vanderbilt Yard, on a site now occupied by Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Center mall.
The New York Times, Making Construction Beautiful in Brooklyn
Mauricio Lopez’s “Color Mesh,” one of four designs selected in a recent city competition aimed at beautifying construction sites, had its debut on Monday on a construction fence at Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn.
NLG: "At the Atlantic Yards project site" we'd accept. "At Atlantic Yards," not so much.
Posted by eric at 11:53 AM
October 24, 2010
To ESPN, the biggest thing about the (non-turnaround) Nets is still their owner, likened to the omnipotent Galactus
Atlantic Yards Report
In ESPN The Magazine's preview issue on the National Basketball Association season, each team is represented by a comic book cover rendering.
It's notable that, among the 30 teams, only four don't feature players dominating the image: the New Jersey Nets, with Mikhail Prokhorov (right); the Charlotte Bobcats, with player-turned-owner Michael Jordan; the Indiana Pacers, with player-turned-president Larry Bird; and the Dallas Mavericks, with flamboyant owner Mark Cuban.
The text
FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
Mikhail Prokhorov is many things to many people: billionaire entrepreneur, playboy, and new owner of the Nets. But to Marvel, he's Galactus, an omnipotent figure with infinite resources and a voracious appetite for devouring worlds. Prokhorov took over the Nets in May, and the team already has a new GM (Billy King), coach (Avery Johnson) and arena (Newark's Prudential Center). But Silver Surfer Devin Harris remains. Can Prokhorov's team turn around last season's 12-70 mark? He's not that powerful--yet.
Some caveats
First, some people, like Matt Taibbi, might add the term "gangster" to the description of Prokhorov.
Also, it's misleading to conclude that Prokhorov is fully responsible for the changes cited. Longtime GM Rod Thorn decided to leave, precipitating the search for a replacement, and the team had had interim coaches last season.
And the interim move to Newark had been in place since last March.
Posted by steve at 8:41 AM
From the Village Voice's Best of New York: Prokhorov, Stoudemire, and Markowitz
Atlantic Yards Report
The Village Voice "Best of New York" issue reflects diminished journalism.
In the category of Best Oligarch - 2010, we get (of course) Mikhail Prokhorov:
We're sorry that recent Russian émigré Mikhail Prokhorov couldn't sign LeBron James, even though he was rich enough ($13.4 billion) and tall enough (six-foot-eight) to look the hoops star in the eye. But give the guy a break: The owner of the New Jersey Nets (soon to be the Brooklyn Whatevers) is still the world's second richest Russian, the tallest of the world's richest, and one of the youngest of the top 100 (he's only 45). Talk about a guy who fits in well with our homebred corporate piranha: Prokhorov made his billions by feasting off Russia's helter-skelter, mostly illegal, and highly immoral conversion from merciless Communism to merciless capitalism. Now if he can just translate some of that money into a winning team.
In other words, winning will make us forget
There is also an entry classifying Amar'e Stoudemire as the Best Jewish Athlete - 2010, even if the evidence for his Jewishness is thin at best.
Finally, the entry for Marty Markowitz (Best Between-Acts Concert Entertainment - 2010) pokes fun at Brooklyn's Borough President without an indication of an understanding of the BP's role.
Wingate Field in Bushwick is the place to be every Monday night during the summer, when the Martin Luther King Jr. Concert Series brings through a cavalcade of old-school hip-hop, soul, gospel, and r&b stars. (This year featured Parliament/Funkadelic, BeBe & CeCe Winans, and an epic set from Salt-N-Pepa.) The free shows lure in thousands of lawn-chair-toting nostalgia enthusiasts in need of between-act cajoling, and for that, thank God, there is Marty Markowitz. We have no idea what being Brooklyn borough president actually entails other than emceeing these things (there's a weekly summer series at Coney Island, too), but we can confirm that it does involve inviting to the stage a motley crew of City Councilmen, radio DJs, preachers, wayward Applebee's employees, and assorted other yahoos. All of them have their charms, but none can compare with ol' Ramblin' Marty himself, soothing an oft-restless crowd in dulcet tones, never failing to enthrall even when he's announcing that Aretha Franklin canceled the show she was supposed to play there next week. It's infuriating at first, but eventually you come to regard it as a virtuoso performance: No one on earth kills time with more grace than Marty Markowitz. He is the Picasso of stalling. Go watch him paint sometime. Bring a chair.
Ah, it takes a certain kind of ignorance to say "We have no idea what being Brooklyn borough president actually entails other than emceeing these things."
For Markowitz, such cheerleading duties actually represent a large part of how he's defined the relatively powerless post, but it's not the only model.
Posted by steve at 8:23 AM
October 16, 2010
So, how was Atlantic Yards massaged for the media? Ask DKC
Atlantic Yards Report
Would you like to help break up a lively Brooklyn neighborhood on behalf of a billionaire developer? If so, you might enjoy a career in public relations.
The public relations and marketing firm DKC (formerly Dan Klores Associates) is proud of its work on Atlantic Yards, as summarized in a case study.
(They're leaving out brochure-maker KnickerbockerSKD, now known as SKDKnickerbocker, now home to former Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt. And we can't forget the role, as I explained 11/1/05, of "dark genius" Joe DePlasco, a DKC managing director.)
From the DKC site
Forest City Ratner
objectivesDKC was retained by Forest City Ratner Companies, one of the country’s leading developers, to prepare the groundwork for a Frank Gehry-designed development in the Atlantic Yards near downtown Brooklyn.
strategy
The cornerstone of DKC’s strategy was a community and media awareness program consisting of outreach to local advocates and activists around affordable housing, public space development, sustainable development and other community and design benefits.
DKC handled all messaging for the development over the next four plus years, including media materials, local, national and international, along with all media events, including everything from individual reporter walking tours to international press conferences with Frank Gehry and the landscape architect Lauri Olin.
result highlights
In addition to dealing with all levels of media, DKC arranged for numerous editorial board and opinion meetings, ultimately winning support for the project from the New York Times, Daily News, New York Post, Newsday and Crains. DKC also secured coverage of the project throughout the United States and in outlets in the UK, France, Italy, Germany, and Japan, among many others.
Posted by steve at 7:30 AM
October 14, 2010
Some props from the Observer on the EB-5 story, but more reporting is needed
Atlantic Yards Report
While I appreciate that the New York Observer's Matt Chaban was willing to recount the high points of my EB-5 coverage, and I appreciate the observation that my "frustration with the media for ignoring the story is understandable," that's not quite enough.
The government agencies backing this plan, the developer, and the New York City Regional Center need to show their math regarding the ten jobs that each of 498 investors is supposed to create or save.
Posted by eric at 7:37 PM
October 13, 2010
A profile in the Observer: "Brooklyn's Angry Man" (and the absence of the Times on the EB-5 story)
Atlantic Yards Report
On September 21, when news that I was leaving my job to write a book about Atlantic Yards surfaced, the New York Observer covered it in their Real Estate blog.
They told me they wanted to run a piece in print, but that didn't happen, as Lockhart Steele, he of the nationwide Curbed ambitions (appropriately) merited precedence as The Player. (Moi?)
However, my coverage of the EB-5 controversy apparently was enough of a hook for them to return to the idea of a print article, so this week we have Brooklyn’s Angry Man: Norman Oder Plans to Keep Up the Fight.
I wouldn't say I'm keeping up the fight so much as continuing to dig.
In closing
The close of the piece references my expectation that news about the project would slow down, and how it hasn't:
That was before Mr. Oder broke one of his biggest scoops ever, a plan by Forest City Ratner, the developer of Atlantic Yards, to arrange thousands of green cards for Chinese investors to drum up $249 million for the project, using a program known as EB-5. Mr. Oder revealed how the numbers on the program do not add up, as well as Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's planned trip to China to stump for it. Mr. Markowitz canceled after the Post re-reported Mr. Oder's findings. And yet the only other outlets to pick up on it were the Journal and the Daily News (and the story may have been leaked to the Journal before Mr. Oder's post to steal his thunder).
The Transom asked Mr. Oder to name his favorite restaurant. He arched his eyebrows and responded, "Totonno's, in Coney Island."
Really?
"Come on!" he declared, becoming momentarily exasperated. "You should be writing about the EB-5 scandal, not Norman's favorite fucking restaurants."
I'm not sure the Observer should accept that I "revealed" how the numbers don't add up. I'd rather they do some reporting and come to a conclusion.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
Brooklyn’s Angry Man: Norman Oder Plans to Keep Up the Fight
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
Norman Oder was standing at the corner of Vanderbilt Avenue and Dean Street in Prospect Heights last Saturday explaining the cappuccino test. "I have a friend that says if you can get a cappuccino within one block, the area can't be blighted."
He was referring to Atlantic Yards, the 22-acre project that will include a new arena for the Brooklyn Nets and possibly 6,400 apartments, assuming the developer, Bruce Ratner, can find more financing for the $4.9 billion project. Mr. Ratner had acquired much of the land between here and Atlantic and Flatbush avenues based on the argument that the area was blighted. With the backing of the state and the attendant threat of eminent domain, he forced a number of businesses and homeowners out, though not before a seven-year fight.
Mr. Oder led the Transom on a brief stroll down Dean. He knows the place well, having written 3,980 posts—and counting—on his Atlantic Yards Report, the blog he launched in September 2005. He is accustomed to giving tours, operating a company that leads them all over Brooklyn, though far less often since the blog took off.
..."I'm motivated by my recognition that reality as I understand it does not comport with what's being represented," he said. "It requires skepticism and what may be perceived as advocacy journalism. I argue the opposite, that taking a lot of this at face value is a dereliction of duty."
He points to the lead Metro story in a recent Times about the drinking habits of MetroNorth riders compared to LIRR riders. "What the fuck?" Mr. Oder said. "That could be a cute little blog post, but why that needs to take up prime real estate in the paper, I don't know. It's a dereliction of duty."
NoLandGrab: Oder is not so much angry as he is aghast at the failure of any mainstream media outlet to blow the lid off the biggest land-grab scam in New York's history.
Photo: Jonathan Barkey
Posted by eric at 11:27 AM
October 11, 2010
Noting One Oddity, The Times, in Another, Neglects Obvious Explanations: Ratner’s EB-5 Green Cards Sale; A Reason For the Nets To Go To China, And. . .
Noticing New York
Why are the Nets going, as the article reports, to China and Russia? Though the article pronounces it odd that they are going abroad and then spends most of its time tendering possible explanations, it passes up taking a crack at the possible explanations that would seem to be the most logical, but perhaps also the most impertinent to mention.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report specifically mentions this particular Times sports story (“The Sports section, however, is all over the Nets' trip to China.”) in writing about how the Times has avoided reporting on the scandalous sale of green cards in China by Ratner and Prokhorov to finance their nets arena.
The sports section may be “all over the Nets' trip to China” except that it isn't reporting that the likely explanation as to why the Nets owners have made it a priority for the Nets to go to China is the EB-5 green cards the owners are selling to the Chinese, something the Times apparently doesn’t want to report about. Also not mentioned is that New York state and local government officials have been expecting to tag along with Ratner to sell the U.S. issued green cards with him in China.
...We have a question for the Times: If, in their estimation, now is not the time to report on the EB-5 green card selling scandal and the dark not-so-secret back stories relating to Prokhorov’s wealth, then when will those things be discussed in the gray lady’s pages? Maybe it is just that the Times reporters, sports reporters and others, are not able to read Chinese. The answer then would be to hire a Chinese translator which is what Mr. Oder did and the reason he has consequently been able to keep breaking new gripping stories in his series about the EB-5 scandal.
What are New Yorkers left to do when the Time sidelines itself this way? Here's one thing we can tell you: If, as the Times reports, “The Nets are creating a Russian-language Web site” then New Yorkers are all going to have to hope that Mr. Oder opens his wallet up one more time for another translator, a Russian one. If he doesn’t, with the Times asleep, we will probably miss out on some major news stories that matter a great deal to our city’s local politics.
Posted by eric at 11:37 AM
Times Covers Nets Fluff Instead of Bruce Ratner's Green Cards for Cash Deal in China
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Bruce Ratner's ol' friend, The New York Times, is looking the other way when it comes to a Ratner story involving local, federal and international intrigue — the scamful green cards for cash trip to China Ratner is taking with the Empire State Development Corp. You know, the story Norman Oder has been blowing out of the water the past few weeks (and the one the Daily News and the Post haven't totally ignored.)
Posted by eric at 11:14 AM
October 10, 2010
AY Report: NYTimes and Brooklyn Paper Asleep At The Wheel For EB-5 Story
Atlantic Yards Report
Where's the Brooklyn Paper on the "green cards for investors" story? And the Times?
There's been a lot of news about Atlantic Yards in the past week or so, including coverage by the New York Post of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's planned (and aborted) trip to China in support of Forest City Ratner's "green cards for investors" scheme, and the New York Daily News of the claims behind the scheme and the construction jobs at the site.
The New York Times, which has a tiny Brooklyn bureau and a real estate/development reporter far more concerned with Stuyvesant Town, has ignored the stories. Dismaying, but not surprising.
It's more surprising that the Brooklyn Paper (and its now-mirror, the Courier-Life chain) has missed those stories.
(The EB-5 story has been picked up by a couple of blogs devoted to the topic.)
Selective coverage
It's not that the Brooklyn Paper doesn't cover Atlantic Yards--the lead story this week (PDF) is on crowd control at the planned plaza--it's that they're way behind others.
Once upon a time (2007) the Brooklyn Paper earned awards for its aggressive coverage of Atlantic Yards. Not anymore.
Is it the ownership by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation? (How can it be--after all, the Murdoch-owned Post has covered the story.)
Atlantic Yards fatigue?
Failure to read other newspapers and blogs?
Short staff?
Unwillingness to cover stories that others break first? (If so, that's just not serving the reader.)
From a New York Times editorial yesterday headlined Mr. Paladino and the System, a critique of Republican gubernatorial nominee Carl Paladino:
A look at his record as a developer shows that he has been an eager recipient of just the sort of government largess he so bitterly condemns and a generous contributor to politicians who can best do him favors.
His flourishing real estate business was stoked with tax breaks, multimillion-dollar state leases and government land giveaways.
...He won $3 million in tax reductions for his renovations, but, as The Daily News recently reported, only 25 jobs were directly created. His campaign has said that that does not count the jobs indirectly produced by his tenants, but a large number of those tenants were state agencies, which have paid him tens of millions of dollars in rent over the years.
Ok, and what about the low-cost or no-cost financing sought by Forest City Ratner, which, as the Daily News recently reported, won't directly create any jobs?
The Times has ignored the entire EB-5 story.
Posted by steve at 9:23 AM
October 9, 2010
The power of the press
Rumur
Here is an examination of how the mainstream media did such a poor job of covering the Atlantic Yards fight.
In 2010 it is time for us, as a society, to take a hard look at the role of the news media in our political and financial systems. After 7 years of following the Atlantic Yards development project I am troubled by both the print and TV media’s inability or unwillingness to engage in any level of real reporting on this story.
When Forest City Ratner’s project was announced in Dec of 2003 we were compelled to start our documentary because everything that we read was simply a regurgitation of press releases. Not one reporter looked to urban planners or others in government who might be able to respond critically to the information flowing from the developer and their government partners. In the days following the announcement of the project I talked to many of my neighbors about what was really going on, but I had no luck finding out useful or credible information. Those 7 long years ago, blogs were far from being a significant source of information and Facebook had not been launched, and as such the web was not a very useful source of information. The developer had staged a fancy press conference complete with pop stars (jay-z), sports stars (Bernard King), and starchitects (Gehry) in order to distract people from the enormity of what they were proposing. It worked.
...
When the project was announced, one of the main complaints by those opposing it, was that all of the developers promises were unenforceable. They also objected to its massive scale, enormous government subsidies, lack of public process and oversight, and the abuse of eminent domain. However, all of these complaints were waved away by saying that the project would bring enormous benefits.
Now the land has been seized, the streets have been closed, the subsidies have been given, and when the developer admits that he doesn’t plan to build the press barely covers it, and only as part of a story about the unveiling of a private plaza at the site.
Click on the link to get a fuller picture of how the press stood on the sidelines regurgitating press releases, virtually forcing others to get the story of the Atlantic Yards land grab to the public.
Posted by steve at 8:12 AM
The Next Generation - Cristina Cacioppo, Mark Rosenberg & Marco Ursino pick New York City's emerging filmmakers
New York Press
This round-up includes the documentarians who are working to finish their opus dealing with the Atlantic Yards fight.
Michael Galinsky & Suki Stetson Hawley
Husband and wife Michael and Suki have been making radical shoot-from-the-hip fiction and documentary films since the mid-90s, landing films in festivals, theaters and on TV without losing their filmmaking integrity and ceaseless energy. Their latest project is “The Battle of Brooklyn,” a feature documentary about the controversial Atlantic Yards development. Without overt editorializing, the film highlights the fallacy of the developers promises, the co-opting of the neighborhood, and the immanent doom represented in eminent domain.
Posted by steve at 8:04 AM
September 30, 2010
Local Blogging, Both Skeptical and Elegiac
City Room
by J. David Goodman
The blog of The New York Times, which never has any problem getting access to the developer of its headquarters building, recognizes that some others do.
But as Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report keeps discovering, angering the powers that be can also lead to annoyances in the real world: Sometimes they won’t let you into their news conferences. In the latest instance, Mr. Oder reports that he was kept from attending the unveiling of new designs for the Atlantic Yards project on Tuesday.
NoLandGrab: Perhaps if The Times had ever bothered to take a hard look at Atlantic Yards, they might find themselves on Norman Oder's side of the velvet rope.
Posted by eric at 12:39 PM
September 29, 2010
Traffic-free plaza unveiled, with bollards (despite NYPD claim), but the big story concerns Ratner's timetable admissions; the Times whiffs
Atlantic Yards Report
Barred from the press conference, Norman Oder instead evaluates media coverage of Bruce Ratner's big plaza reveal.
The big news yesterday, led by the Brooklyn Paper and WNYC, was not the publication of oddly traffic-free Barclays Center plaza designs with a new subway entrance and the giant oval oculus at the center (remember, there's a meeting tonight at 6 pm), but Bruce Ratner's admission he has no timetable for the project.
As WNYC's Matthew Schuerman pointed out, "the city, state and Forest City all conducted or commissioned economic impact analyses that assumed a 10-year build out."
(I've previously pointed out that such analyses, such as the one conducted by the New York City Economic Development Corporation, depend on an over-optimistic ten-year time frame. And note the "vaportecture" in the official renderings, by SHoP Architects.)
And, Schuerman noted, "Ratner’s associates repeatedly used the 10-year time frame in talking to the press and the public." (I also pointed to Ratner's 2010 contradiction of his 2008 op-ed as well as a changing story regarding the first tower. But I wasn't allowed into the press conference.)
New York Magazine's Chris Smith also noticed that the contrast between the "unveiling" of a plaza versus the planned office tower, as well as the suspended timetable.
Posted by eric at 9:12 AM
Times looks into tainted past of Paladino aides; what about the New York City Regional Center, in charge of EB-5 visas?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times article about the Republican nominee for governor, Carl Paladino, is headlined Paladino Has Aides With Tainted Pasts:
But some of the people whom Mr. Paladino has recruited to run his campaign are plagued by brushes with the law and allegations of misconduct, an examination of public records shows.
His campaign manager failed to pay nearly $53,000 in federal taxes over the last few years, prompting the Internal Revenue Service to take action against him. An aide who frequently drives Mr. Paladino on the campaign trail served jail time in Arizona on charges of drunken driving.
Another adviser has been indicted on charges of stealing more than $1 million from Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s re-election bid last year. And Mr. Paladino’s campaign chairwoman left a local government position amid claims that she had steered $1 billion in public money to a politically connected investment manager.
...Sure, that's worth covering.
But what about the questionable past of one of the two Managing Principals of the New York City Regional Center, the private company that has been delegated (like other private companies) to process immigrant investors under the EB-5 visa program? Shouldn't one of the "Billboard Boys" get some scrutiny?
Posted by eric at 8:32 AM
September 25, 2010
Times still not sure whether arena would be "near" Downtown Brooklyn or in it
Atlantic Yards Report
The TImes continues to be thick-headed as regards Brooklyn geography.
From the today's New York Times, Nets Discuss 4-Team Deal to Acquire Anthony:
The Nets are scheduled to move to a new arena in downtown Brooklyn in two years, placing them squarely in competition with the Knicks. Anthony, who was born in Brooklyn, would provide instant star power and credibility and set up a rivalry with Stoudemire, his good friend.
From the Corrections box in the 4/27/06 New York Times:
Because of an editing error, an article in The Arts on Tuesday about Frank Gehry's design for the first phase of the Grand Avenue development project in Los Angeles misstated the location of the proposed Atlantic Yards project that Mr. Gehry is designing in Brooklyn. (The error also appeared in sports articles on Feb. 9 and April 11, in the City section on Jan. 15 and in several articles in 2003, 2004 and 2005.) It is on rail yards and other land in Prospect Heights and on a block in Park Slope; it is not in Downtown Brooklyn, although it is near that neighborhood.
A 9/12/10 Times Arts article said "near downtown Brooklyn."
A 6/30/10 Sports article said "in downtown Brooklyn."
A 6/26/10 Sports article said "in downtown Brooklyn."
A 5/20/10 Sports column said "near downtown Brooklyn."
C'mon, can't they get this straight?
Posted by steve at 8:50 AM
New Ad by Brooklyn-Bulldozing Company Barclays Shows City as Personalized Amusement Park
The Measure
Here's an indication that, instead of building a good name, Barclays will generate lots of ill will by having its name put on the new Nets arena.
Barclays, the company that now owns the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic (where it's begun building its Barclays Center), premiered this new ad earlier in the year, in which the British financial firm outlines its vision of urban design. The insinuation that New York City is your own private plaything pretty much makes sense coming from a company that's been handed a multi-billion dollar site by city agencies. Go Nets!
Barclays does not own the Atlantic Yards development, but the state did fail to derive any money paid by Barclays to Forest City Ratner for naming rights. Despite the factual mix-up, there's no mistaking the anger in this post.
Posted by steve at 7:33 AM
September 22, 2010
Atlantic Yards Report’s Plan to Turn the Development’s Story into a Book
Unbeige
by Steve Delahoyde
We’ve posted our fair share about the trials and tribulations of the seemingly always rocky creation of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards development, from the early protests to Frank Gehry‘s removal to the disregard for public design reviews and the lawsuits that have nearly shut it all down at times. But as often as we’ve written about the project, we can’t hold a candle to Norman Oder, the man behind the Atlantic Yards Report, a blog that, since 2006, has laboriously chronicled all the many ups and downs the development has been through. Thanks to a tip from a reader, we were passed along the news that Oder has decided to quit his job as news editor of the Library Journal to concentrate on turning his blog about the Yards into a book. Though he doesn’t yet have a publishing deal for it, he’s striking out on his own in order to tell the story of this storied development.
Related...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Norman Oder to Give Full Time to Atlantic Yards Book (No, He Hasn't Been Giving Full Time)
In a column on Library Journal, where Norman Oder does his day job, the Atlantic Yards Report creator and sole proprietor announces that he is leaving his journalistic duties at that publication to work on the definitive book about the Atlantic Yards epic.
...We wish you, Mr. Oder, all the discipline you need and all the best in your pursuit of this massive endeavor.
NoLandGrab: Only DDDB knows as well as NoLandGrab how valuable Norman Oder has been to the Atlantic Yards fight. For the former, he unearthed numerous stories that fueled and aided their opposition; for us, he's provided about a quarter of our content.
Posted by eric at 10:12 AM
September 21, 2010
Norman Oder Quitting Day Job to Write Definitive Atlantic Yards Book
NY Observer
by Matt Chaban
Matt Chaban, another reporter who's done some good Atlantic Yards reporting of his own (until recently at The Architect's Newspaper), covers the man who's set the bar on Atlantic Yards coverage impossibly high.
Since he launched The Atlantic Yards Report in 2006, Norman Oder has written 3,747 blog posts on the contentious Brooklyn development project. It's probably enough to fill an encyclopedia, let alone a lowly paperback.
But that is exactly what Mr. Oder is setting out to do, when he announces later today—in his 3,748th post—that he is leaving his full-time job (that's right, he's got a day job) at Library Journal to dedicate himself to writing a book about Atlantic Yards.
..."I think the story needs to be told," Mr. Oder said in his demure way. "It's been told in dribs and drabs. It will be mythologized, and it will be spun, and parts of the story will get lost. The story needs to to be synthesized and made sense of. And made compelling."
Therein lies the challenge—how to make DEISes, State Appeals Court cases, and eminent domain sexy. No one knows this stuff better than Mr. Oder. He had yet another blockbuster scoop this morning (more on that in an upcoming post) that was so juicy it was apparently leaked to the Journal to stem the bleeding. But can he write a best-selling book?
"I don't profess to be writing the next Power Broker," Mr. Oder said. "I hope it will be substantial and interesting." He points to Times Square Roulette and Little Pink House as inspirations, but says the former is too long and the latter "scants on policy." What he so loves about the prospects of the book is all the complex pieces involved.
"It's about a certain project in a certain time. It's about development in a certain time. It's about Brooklyn in a certain time. It's a story about our time. It's got politics and planning and architecture and neighborhoods. And journalism, that will be a big subplot." (The blog started as the Times Ratner Report, a critique about the lack of coverage of the project.) "This is a story about a whole bunch of things."
Here's hoping he can get that all sorted out before the arena opens in the fall of 2012. It would make a way better door prize/giveaway than Ratner bobbleheads.
Posted by eric at 6:22 PM
After the film and the play, time for a book about Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder is leaving his day job (how does he even have time for a day job?) to pen Atlantic Yards: The Book.
Well, if Atlantic Yards has spawned a documentary film, Battle of Brooklyn, and documentary-inspired theater, In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, shouldn't it also generate a book?
That's what a number of people have told me, and why I'm leaving my job to get it done, as I explain in a farewell column for Library Journal, where I've written about library issues for more than 14 years:
With so much to cover, why am I leaving? For more than four-and-a-half years, I’ve been moonlighting on my own blog, the Atlantic Yards Report, about an enormously controversial real estate development—Atlantic Yards—that would bring an arena for the relocated New Jersey Nets basketball team and 16 towers to Brooklyn, just a short walk from my apartment.
I’ve immersed myself in issues like urban planning, affordable housing, and eminent domain. It’s been tiring but rewarding; I’ve written for the New York Times (though I’ve been a fierce critic of its coverage) and cowritten a law review article. Now, I’m working on the book the saga deserves. (Agents, yes, you’re welcome to contact me. Librarians, yes, I’m happy to visit on book tour.)
I'm still in the early stages--just keeping up with the blog has kept me busy--but there's a lot of material to go over.
You can read Oder's valedictory Library Journal column here.
Posted by eric at 5:29 PM
The Anatomy of a "Scoop"
Several weeks ago, a friend called to tell us about a story he'd heard from a business contact — Forest City Ratner was planning to raise funds for Atlantic Yards in China through something called the EB-5 Visa program. He told us to Google EB-5, which we did, and we discovered that there's a two-decade-old U.S. program that essentially trades U.S. resident alien status for half-million-dollar investments that allegedly create at least 10 jobs.
Amazed that Forest City, even with Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov's ill-gotten billions, would need or want to raise yet more money, especially through such a non-traditional and none-too-savory means, we passed the tip along to Atlantic Yards Report.
At first, Norman Oder didn't seem especially interested. After a little more prodding, he started to look into it, and when he came across this Chinese tour itinerary, he quickly became convinced that this was a big story that needed telling. The more he dug into it, the murkier it got. He started calling around, to the Empire State Development Corporation and the New York City Economic Development Corporation, who told him to talk to Forest City Ratner and the New York City Regional Center, who stonewalled him. Even motor-mouthed Marty Markowitz went mute.
Oder was prepared to publish his exhaustive look into Atlantic Yards and the EB-5 program this morning. Late last evening, however, he got "scooped" by The Wall Street Journal's Eliot Brown. Brown, one of the few mainstream media reporters to distinguish himself with his Atlantic Yards coverage, published a 434-word story that barely scratches the surface, and raises no questions about the Atlantic Yards project's ability to actually deliver on the program's "requirements" for job creation.
It's clear to us that Forest City Ratner, while brushing off inquiries from Atlantic Yards Report, scrambled to leak the story before Norman Oder could publish. It's now up to the mainstream media to dig deeper, and toss a wrench or two into Forest City's spin-control operation. Oder's done all the hard work — let's see if they can pick up the ball and run with it.
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
September 6, 2010
New York Times Public Editor seeks to maintain "sacred cloak of impartiality." Isn't it a bit late?
Atlantic Yards Report
In his second column, Arthur Brisbane, the new New York Times Public Editor, is already wading into deep waters.
His column yesterday, In an Age of Voices, Moving Beyond the Facts, expresses alarm about news articles that contain "opinion" or "interpretive journalism":
When I asked Matt Bai about his Aug. 12 “Political Times” column on Representative Paul Ryan — the one Mr. Johnson criticized — he said: “I guess my column is part of a broader effort to take some chances in the paper and explore different formats for a new era. I think that represents a great and exciting trend for the paper; none of us can afford to think in old rubrics for new generations of readers.”
Bai’s editor, Richard Stevenson, the deputy Washington bureau chief, elaborated on how The Times is navigating the new norms. “We are still exploring how much of a voice you can have ... what kinds of conclusions you can draw when it comes to politics,” he said.
A news-page column like “Political Times” carries the “freedom to reach a reported conclusion,” he said. Not to “throw opinion around,” but to “express in a restrained and fact-bound way a conclusion about something.”
The "reported conclusion"
I think the notion of a "reported conclusion" is legitimate. Why? Because the Times, and the "objective" press, is full of implicitly reported conclusion.
Consider, for example, the egregious example of the Times quoting, without qualms, the claim last September by a New York City Economic Development Corporation spokesman that Atlantic Yards was "a site that is now an open railyard without any public benefit."
What made that claim even more egregious was that, well before the deadline for print, I posted a comment on the CityRoom blog demolishing that claim. I ran this all by Brisbane's predecessor, Clark Hoyt, who, predictably enough, ignored it.
NoLandGrab: If it emanates from Seth Pinsky's mouth, that ought to be reason enough for a healthy dose of journalistic skepticism.
Posted by eric at 9:56 AM
August 31, 2010
To the Times's new Public Editor: Get up to speed on Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder pens a letter to the latest Public Editor of The New York Times. Here's a snippet.
I know, I know. As a new Public Editor, you only look forward, not back. But you should know that the Times, in editorial, op-ed, and news coverage of Atlantic Yards, has not come close to meeting its standards.
(I write this having examined and critiqued the Times coverage for more than five years and, yes, having an op-ed on Atlantic Yards finally published this past June.)
Your predecessors as Public Editors have not distinguished themselves regarding Atlantic Yards, either offering weak defenses of the newspaper or ignoring issues completely.
NoLandGrab: Standards? The Times don't need no stinking standards!
Posted by eric at 12:56 PM
August 28, 2010
Paterson's penchant for fudging facts seen as context for potential perjury charges; Atlantic Yards episode deserves a mention
Atlantic Yards Report
When trying to get support for bad development, it helps to have politicians in high places who put little value in telling the truth.
Now they tell us. An article in today's New York Times, headlined With Paterson, the Simple Facts Can Get Complicated, begins:
A thoroughly honest politician has pretty much always been considered an undiscovered species. But for Gov. David A. Paterson, the distinction between the truth and an untruth can get unusually murky.
Once asked if a statement was accurate or inaccurate, Gov. David A. Paterson replied, “Neither.”
On Thursday, an independent counsel asked the Albany County district attorney to determine whether Mr. Paterson intentionally lied to investigators about paying for baseball tickets, something that could lead to the governor being charged with perjury.
But how do you sort that out? After all, according to many people who deal with Mr. Paterson, it’s not always clear when he might be intentionally lying and when he is just saying wrong things. Or doing something that, by his reckoning, is neither lying nor telling the truth.
And it contains this summation:
But these same people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they continue to deal with his administration, say Mr. Paterson tends to fudge facts, as well as to tell one group one thing and another the opposite.
...
Those of us who saw Paterson (at the Atlantic Yards arena groundbreaking) claim, ridiculously, that Atlantic Yards would "have job creation the likes of which Brooklyn has never seen," got a pretty strong hint of all this in March.
But that anecdote didn't make the Times today. After all, the reporter on the scene took Paterson's claims at face value.
Then, and now, that was unwise.
NoLandGrab: Is Atlantic Yards going to be a powerful economic engine that will benefit others besides Bruce Ratner? Was it approved after a careful public review? Neither.
Posted by steve at 9:26 AM
Battle of Brooklyn
Creative Arson
On my b’day this year, I ran into Beyonce and Jay Z while shooting the ground breaking of the Barclay Center: the largest development project in New York since, I don’t know, forever. It’s being plopped down next to downtown Brooklyn and will make billions for some, while taking away central Brooklyn’s low scale, neighborhood sensibility. The footage I shot was for/with my friends at Rumur Inc who are making an epic doc about the whole debacle. Read all about it and watch the amazing trailer here:
www.rumur.com/bobAnd yes, Beyonce and I had a moment.
Posted by steve at 8:45 AM
August 21, 2010
Show About the Atlantic Yards Finds a Home Near the Atlantic Yards
New York Times
By Erik Piepenburg
This announcement of a show based on the Atlantic Yards fight describes Atlantic Yards as "eight million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and an arena for the New Jersey Nets." The arena is under construction. Except for one or two residential towers, it looks like the rest of the project will just be acres of parking.
The downtown company the Civilians has announced that its new show, “In the Footprint: The Battle Over the Atlantic Yards,” will open in November at the Irondale Center, a theater space not far from the future home of that planned 22-acre development.
“In the Footprint” is a series of songs and monologues about the conflicts over the building of the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project near Brooklyn’s downtown that is to include eight million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and an arena for the New Jersey Nets. The show’s material is taken from interviews that members of the Civilians conducted with Brooklyn residents, community organizers, business owners and politicians who are either for or against the project. Performances are scheduled to begin on Nov. 12 and continue through Dec. 11 at the center at Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church in Fort Greene.
Related coverage...
The L Magazine, Atlantic Yards Musical In The Footprint Premiering in Fort Greene in November
ArtsBeat reports that documentary theater company the Civilians will premiere their show In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards this fall at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene, a few blocks from the titular mega-development. The show, which combines songs and monologues drawn from interviews with local residents, activists, business-owners, developers and politicians on either side of the fight over the in-progress project to build condos and a basketball stadium along Atlantic Avenue, will begin performances on November 12 and continue through December 11. Can't wait that long? The Civilians will perform songs from the show during a cabaret night at Joe's Pub on September 10. Either way, unfortunately, it appears to be too late.
Atlantic Yards Report, The Civilians' theater piece about Atlantic Yards will debut November 12
In December 2008, the theater troupe The Civilians, which bases its shows on interviews but doesn't quite produce documentaries, debuted Brooklyn At Eye Level, its first (and preliminary) show based on its look into the controversy and passions of the Atlantic Yards project.
I thought the show was well worth seeing, though it also had gaps. Starting in November, we'll see how much the story has been updated and how many of the gaps will be filled in.
Posted by steve at 8:09 AM
August 15, 2010
The Times and Lipsky: skepticism about the city's claims on Willets Point (but what about AY?)
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times, likely on a tip from lobbyist Richard Lipsky, ran a story on August 13 expressing skepticism about the Willets Point project. State officials are particularly concerned about the design for highway ramps. Why was Lipsky never skeptical about Atlantic Yards?
Lipsky, on his Neighborhood Retail Alliance blog, slammed the New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC):
The fact remains, however, that this entire issue-and the review process itself-is begging to be removed from the parochial clutches of EDC and its flimflam consultant AKRF. If that happens, the economic development agency and its friends may just die from exposure.
But did Lipsky make a peep about AKRF's performance on Atlantic Yards, for example the market study it was hired to do but never did?
...
Did he salute transportation analyst Brian Ketcham's criticism of the ESDC's traffic analysis for Atlantic Yards, surely equivalent to what Lipsky called Ketcham's "blistering critique of EDC's defective [Willets Point] traffic report"?
Nope.
That's because Forest City Ratner hired Lipsky to lobby for Atlantic Yards, and neutralized him.
Posted by steve at 7:32 AM
July 21, 2010
Jane Jacobs, esthete? (or why the High Line belongs in the Metro section)
Atlantic Yards Report
While urbanism certainly encompasses questions of design, it equally involves politics, policy, and economics. So it was a little jarring to see, in today's New York Times, news that High Line Founders To Get Jane Jacobs Medal appear in the Arts section.
The High Line is a spectacular new park and, while it's spurred inventive architecture, it belongs in the Metro section. Last week, a front-page Times article about the High Line's notable ripple effects, After High Line’s Success, Other Cities Look Up, began on the front page, but jumped to the Metro section.
Oddly enough, online that article is assigned to the arts desk.
Posted by eric at 11:31 AM
July 18, 2010
The paradox of "Google News"--or, how AYR original content appears in Google News only when someone else borrows it
Atlantic Yards Report
A Google search has become a critical part of almost everyone's on-line experience, but when it comes to news, and particularly to Atlantic Yards, Google's approach to what is news could probably stand to be improved. For example, press releases are treated as "news" while stand-alone journalists, can only show up as bloggers.
Google, which is based on algorithms rather them whims, should get it right, or at least be consistent, right?
It depends where you look.
If you search on "Atlantic Yards" in Google Blogs, not only do Atlantic Yards Report posts and articles appear in the list, but AYR gets prominence up top, as shown in this screenshot from July 11.
...
But if you search on "Atlantic Yards" in Google News, AYR is ignored.
That's because Google News algorithms exclude sites written and maintained by one person, no matter the quality or reputation.
There's surely the logic behind the rule, and it would be difficult to police, but it disserves readers.
Google News includes self-serving press releases, which, however labeled, are less likely to provide solid information than legitimate standalone journalism, a concept that's more than five years old
And it leads to absurd results, because Google News includes news articles that are partly based on AYR--such as several Gothamist posts in Google News--or nearly completely based on it, such as:
Click on the link for further insight into Google's policies, and see that one way around the exclusion of blogs is to reference blog content in comments on news items.
Posted by steve at 7:55 AM
July 4, 2010
First Annual Kickstarter Film Festival by Kickstarter & Rooftop Films – July 9th – super cool
Transmedia Camp 101
The first annual Kickstarter Film Festival will include the documentary "Battle Brooklyn," about the Atlantic Yards fight.
On Friday, July 9th, Kickstarter and Rooftop Films are hosting the first annual Kickstarter Film Festival on the roof of the OId American Can Factory in Brooklyn. The festival will feature 90 minutes of film and video from a dozen Kickstarter projects, including feature films, stop-motion animation, documentaries, art, and dance. All of them amazing.
...
LOGISTICS
The American Can Factory holds roughly 700 people — 300 on the roof and 400 in the courtyard below (there are two screens). This project’s 260 tickets are for the rooftop seats (some are being reserved for the filmmakers and press). Four-hundred courtyard seats will be sold at the door on the night of the festival, weather-permitting.
TIMES
8pm Doors
8:30pm Music
9pm Films
11:30pm AfterpartyADDRESS
The Old American Can Factory
Corner of 3rd St and 3rd Ave, Brooklyn NY (Map)
Here's a short synopsis of the documentary:
Battle of Brooklyn by David Beilinson, Suki Hawley and Michael Galinksy A documentary about the Atlantic Yards fight over a Brooklyn neighborhood (about 15 blocks from the festival) between a developer, the government, and the people who live there. A 25-minute premiere.
Posted by steve at 9:06 AM
June 22, 2010
My Times op-ed: "A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder on Norman Oder.
Balancing (?) a one-source portrait of Bruce Ratner, today's New York Times Sports section offers a piece by me labeled "essay" (initially "analysis") that I'd simply call an "op-ed," headlined A Russian Billionaire, the Nets and Sweetheart Deals.
OK, take a read. The conclusion:
But the arena process should have been fair, and [Prokhorov] should have paid full freight. Surely he can afford it.
Someone might've called foul
I posted an FAQ below, but first I'd like to amplify the piece slightly by restoring one line that was cut from the edit I saw three weeks ago:
All was forgotten as flashbulbs popped for Prokhorov, as was the notion that had a man worth nearly $18 billion put his hand out for subsidies, someone might have called foul.
Would it have been possible for Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Governor David Paterson to justify helping Prokhorov's cash flow, as they did with Ratner last September?
...FAQ
Why write the piece?
I was astonished how much the sports press buffed Prokhorov, as if his purchase could be disassociated from the Atlantic Yards controversy and the public subsidies involved.
Why'd they accept the piece?
I can only speculate. But there's been overwhelmingly positive publicity about Prokhorov. And there's a very friendly article about Bruce Ratner today. So there's a hint of balance.
Where was the photo taken?
On the north side of Dean Street east of Sixth Avenue; in the background are two houses subject to eminent domain, but that "taking" has been shifted to a later phase.
Lots more FAQs via the link.
NoLandGrab: Since Oder submitted his piece several weeks ago, we can only speculate that The Times assigned Araton to interview Ratner to "balance" Oder's facts.
Related coverage...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Norman Oder on Prokhorov, Ratner and Atlantic Yards in the NY Times
Norman Oder, who began his Atlantic Yards reporting as a critic of the NY Times faulty coverage of the controvrsial project, has an oped in today's NY Times sports section. Kudos to the paper for holding back ego and publishing one of its chief critic's columns. But shame on the paper for waiting until the Atlantic Yards horse was so far out of the barn.
Oder offers a synopsis of the Atlantic Yards rip-off, honing in on the public subsidies and government support benefitting one of the richest men in the world, Mikhail Prokhorov, and the fawning press gaggles that followed every little joke and cute remark by the oligarch during his whirlwind April visit to New York.
The question remains: would the Mayor and various governors have propelled Atlantic Yards forwards with all of its public favors if it were a project driven by and owned by Russia's wealthiest man? We doubt it, but that is what has occurred, in the end.
Brownstoner, Oder Does The Times
After years of (rightly) criticizing The New York Times for its failure to bring a critical eye and adequate resources to its coverage of the Atlantic Yards project, Norman Oder, publisher of the Atlantic Yards Report, got his own essay (that's what The Times calls it; he calls it an Op-Ed) in the paper of record. A central point of the essay, and the one that he parses further in a follow-up post on his blog, is that public officials might have thought harder about handing out hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies if they'd known that someone with unlimited financial resources--in this case Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov--would end up being the beneficiary.
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter, Norman Oder article in the Times
Norman Oder has an op-ed (according to the Times it's an essay) in today's Times.
...In film news- We are finally digging into the final sections of footage- the ground breaking. Yesterday we viewed a long assembly of the footage and it was very powerful.
On July 9th- we will be part of a kickstarter film fest- in conjunction with our very good friends at rooftop films. At that event we will likely show the end of the film- we'll certainly send out an update as it comes closer.
Posted by eric at 10:58 AM
June 20, 2010
Behind the Brooklyn Paper's LeBron-maybe-at-Toren story
Atlantic Yards Report
I'm trying to imagine how the Brooklyn Paper went about the article headlined (online) Apartments that are fit for a king — King James and in print "A HOME FIT FOR A KING: Rumor: LeBron looked for Bklyn crib, but he shouldn't miss these palaces."
Here's how it might have gone down.
Editor Gersh Kuntzman: "Hey, Steve, did you see that New York Times interview with Donald Capoccia, the developer of Toren?"
Reporter Stephen Brown: "Yeah."
GK: "He said LeBron James might be looking at the penthouse apartment."
SB: "Shouldn't he know? He's the developer. LeBron is kind of a noticeable individual. He's just trying to get some free publicity."
GK: "If a rumor's good enough for the Times, it's good enough for the Community Newspaper Group."
SB: "Some blogger guy checked into it and found an original purveyor of the online rumor admitted it was a joke."
GK: "We don't listen to that blogger guy any more."
SB: "But Gersh, even if LeBron joins the Nets as a free agent, he'll play in Newark for at least two years. He can't commute from Brooklyn."
GK: "Don't you understand, the story's not about the Toren and LeBron, it's about super-premium real estate still available in several buildings. That's news. Get to it. We'll even put it on the front page."
SB: "If you say so."
Posted by steve at 7:05 AM
The Atlantic asks, "Can Anyone Replace the Local Beat Reporter?" Not that likely (but City Limits is trying to crowd-fund a development story)
Atlantic Yards Report
This blog entry starts by referencing an article from The Atlantic that shows, although a beat reporter can be well-positioned to find a story that might otherwise be missed, sometimes ordinary citizens can come up with story on their own.
Norman Oder's perspective on beat reporter versus citizen reporter:
I'm pessimistic that beat reporting can just bubble up.
Writing in April 2009 on a debate about the future of news between Princeton sociologist Paul Starr, a pessimist, and Outside.in founder Steven Johnson, an optimist, I noted that Johnson agrees that traditional reporting skills are needed "for the macro issues, but on the hyperlocal level the true experts are people on the streets."
As I pointed out, Atlantic Yards is both hyperlocal (and thus too fine-grained in its iterations for daily print coverage) as well as macro (encompassing a wide range of beats, including real estate, public policy, sports business, law, and local politics). So traditional reporting skills are necessary. It's very hard to become an expert on that stuff.
Oder points to one attempt at filling in the gap between the numbers of reporters available and the stories that ought to be written.
Meanwhile, City Limits magazine, which does solid work on a shoestring, is now trying to crowdsource funding for an investigation, aiming to raise $5000 with the following pitch:
Anyone who has lived in or visited New York in the past decade has seen the tower cranes and orange netting that color the skyline—harbingers of the new developments that are remaking the city, from baseball stadiums to shopping malls to luxury condos. This progress has costs, primarily the impact these projects have on existing neighborhoods.
To fend off opposition to their plans, developers often promise “community benefits” in the form of housing, amenities and jobs.
But do the benefits ever get delivered?
If so, who gets them?
And if not, who holds the builders’ feet to the fire?
City Limits wants to conduct a detailed investigation of big projects—and big promises—around the city to figure out which developers have kept their word.
Posted by steve at 6:39 AM
June 13, 2010
Times Public Editor Hoyt offers valedictory; no mention of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times's Public Editor, Clark Hoyt, is leaving his post after three years and, in his last column (A Final Report From Internal Affairs), he offers some reflections:
The public editor receives as many as 300 messages on a typical day, and the total can spike into the thousands if a blogger or one of the media watchdog sites urges its followers to protest something the paper has published. Coverage of presidential politics in 2008, the Middle East at any time, and the latest developments in the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church reliably produced torrents of protest.
He doesn't mention any concerns raised about the Times's coverage of Atlantic Yards, and he surely had enough to keep him busy. But he was certainly put on notice.
Posted by steve at 7:38 AM
June 9, 2010
Brutally Weird Times Front Page Juxtaposition: Brooklyn Neighborhood Afflicted By Withdrawn Funds and Simultaneous Subsidies to Atlantic Yards
Noticing New York
Those who caught the front page of Saturday’s New York Times were witness to a brutally weird juxtaposition of stories concerning: 1.) the angst of Brooklyn neighborhoods faced by city budget cuts surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards Forest City Ratner mega-monopoly, and 2.) the frivolous focus of the Bloomberg administration on subsidizing basketball. Were the Times editors aware of the contrast they were setting up or out-of-touch with the linked import of their stories?
Brooklyn Woe: Concentrated Overlapping City Budget Cuts
One of the Times stories, the one that clearly deserved to be on the front page, began with three short truly remarkable paragraphs setting forth a tale-of-Job-style account of how a single individual Brooklynite, Christina Nieves, in the Prospect Heights vicinity, has been beset by multiple city budget cut woes:
Christina Nieves’s life revolves around a handful of blocks in Brooklyn: Drop off her 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son at the Strong Place day care center. Make sure her 75-year-old grandmother, who uses a wheelchair, makes it to lunch at the Gowanus Senior Center. Then, on too many occasions to count, take her son, who is asthmatic and prone to seizures, to the Wyckoff children’s clinic.
And with warm days now here, watch her children frolic at the Douglass and DeGraw pool.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to close all four places.
(Budget Cuts Hit a Brooklyn Area Over and Over, by David W. Chen, June 4, 2010.)
Bouncing Basketball Fluff Onto the Front Page
The second story, appearing right beside this tale of woe, reveled in Bloombergian PR fluff. (See: Luring a Star: Big City Beckons; Cleveland Begs, by Alan Feuer, June 4, 2010.) It really didn’t deserve to be on the front page except that it is actually critically important for its meta-story, for the way that it stands as an example of how the Times, by preoccupying itself with the dutiful and superficial pass-along of Bloomberg and Ratner promotional materials, is missing the bigger stories in this city, including how intrinsically related the tale of budget woes was to this sillier second story about luring LeBron James to play basketball in New York. Play basketball where? Perhaps within about a half mile of all the four community facilities the Bloomberg administration will, by closing, remove from Christina Nieves’s life. Play basketball where? Perhaps in the highly, highly subsidized Prokhorov/Ratner basketball (aka “Barclays”) arena that the City Independent Budget Office calculated will be a $220 million net loss for the city.
Posted by eric at 12:22 PM
June 8, 2010
Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest = first Absolut shillfest?
Atlantic Yards Report
As with the borough, the Brooklyn Blogfest sure has changed.
There's a lot of shilling for Absolut Brooklyn before the Fifth Annual Brooklyn Blogfest, which is sponsored by Absolut. And surely there will be more, thanks to Absolut's Brooklyn Stoop Life campaign, where "Bloggers Share Their Love for Brooklyn."
Absolut has generated sponsored blog posts as well as other posts that sure look like they're sponsored, since the bloggers have "been chosen to collaborate with Absolut Vodka, to celebrate Absolut Brooklyn."
Renaming Brooklyn
So let me suggest an update of John Pinamonti's classic Atlantic Yards elegy/fight song, "The Burrow."
Original version:
"It makes me mad/and it's such a pity/they're trying to rename Brooklyn/Forest City"
My update:
"It makes me mad/and for so little loot/they're trying to rename Brooklyn/Absolut"
Absolut accountability
Yes, as I wrote after last year's Blogfest, the disparate blogs of Brooklyn all have their role.
But relatively few people in the “bloggiest place in America” provide what we need most: solid civic information, "holding institutions accountable on a daily basis," to quote author, The Wire creator, and former reporter David Simon.
Posted by steve at 3:32 PM
June 6, 2010
Compelling documentary about Freddy's debuts this week at the Brooklyn International Film Festival
Atlantic Yards Report
Less than six weeks after Freddy's Bar & Backroom closed in the wake of eminent domain for Atlantic Yards, an intimate documentary (titled Freddy's) about the noted Prospect Heights watering hole will debut this week at the Brooklyn International Film Festival.
The film will be screened (tickets) on Wednesday June 9 at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema (7 pm) and on Friday June 11 at indieScreen in Williamsburg (6pm). The director is Vicente Rodriguez Ortega.
Having seen the film, I highly recommend it--it hits deeper than the whimsical trailer below, with lots of (engaging) talking heads, music, and some intriguing filmic composition. And I learned a bunch.
I have some questions and quibbles, of course, but I'll save them until after the first screening, where manager Donald O'Finn and other Freddy's staffers will be present for the Q&A.
...
In case you're wondering, the anti-folk song in the trailer is Bumbling Along, by Steve Espinola.
It's clear why it was chosen--it serves as a bridge between the artsy bohemianism of Freddy's and the development project that ended Freddy's.
Near the end of the song, the music pauses, and Espinola unleashes a rapid-fire rant: "The ones who are trying to destroy my multicultural neighborhood so they could build a basketball stadium and skycrapers. They are efficient, they are organized and sometimes murderously effective, but they are ethically short-circuited and spiritually adrift."
Then the whimsical music picks up, with the segue, "But they don't know what's going on, even they are bumbling along."
As noted, the documentary, though often lighthearted, doesn't stick at that level of whimsy.
Posted by steve at 8:01 AM
May 26, 2010
"Freddy's", the Documentary, to Screen on June 9 and 11. Find Out What's Been Lost
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
On June 9th and June 11th the Brooklyn International Film Festival will screen the World Premiere of "Freddy's"—the documentary about the world's best bar which has been confiscated and shuttered forever by the State of New York for Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov's billion dolllar arena.
Many have heard that Freddy's was taken by eminent domain but may be wondering what the big deal is about this bar, this cultural hub. This film will help you understand what has been lost.
...
Synopsis: Freddy's Bar & Backroom was a thriving cultural hub situated in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. Open since prohibition, the bar featured a unique and colorful history. This documentary chronicles the diverse set of characters in Freddy's community - the bartenders, the regulars, the artists and the musicians. Through their barside reflections, both hilarious and poignant, we see the true importance of this Brooklyn institution. Beyond the late nights and naked Mondays, Freddy's was a vital part of the neighborhood. Unfortunately, it also sat in the footprint of a controversial real estate deal that has threatened to radically transform Brooklyn's character.
Click on the link for details of the screenings and a trailer.
Posted by steve at 8:44 AM
May 23, 2010
Up
Honky's Movie Year
This movie reviewer finds a parallel with the Atlantic Yards development as he compares the the difficulties faced by the hero in the animated film "Up", Carl Fredricksen, with those of Daniel Goldstein.
When I saw Carl's house being surrounded by construction work, and a conglomerate trying to buy his land (or force him out, whichever...) I thought of a recent situation here in New York City. A group of investors led by Bruce Ratner (Booo...) bought up property around a piece of land known as the Atlantic Yards, with the intent of building a giant mall, condo units, and a new home for the Nets basketball team. They bought out (and forced out) a lot of people from their homes, but there was one lone holdout. Then the recession hit, and the entire construction project sort of got put on hold. Meanwhile this poor guy was living in a virtual ghost town in downtown Brooklyn, which couldn't have been safe. Finally he did get a large payout in order to move - so I'm wondering why Carl couldn't have taken the construction company's best offer, or forced them to pay for his home to be moved somewhere else.
NoLandGrab: In "Up" the hero attaches a multitude of balloons to his home and flies off to South America. An Atlantic Yards fantasy might include attaching balloons to Bruce Ratner, Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the entire ESDC. They fly off and Prospect Heights is left intact.
Posted by steve at 8:52 AM
May 22, 2010
Not So "Just Wright" (Because It is After All "Not So Just")
Noticing New York
This is not a review of the movie "Just Wright", but this blog entry is critical in how the film is used to promote the New Jersey Nets. Also, click through to read the "Quirky Addendum" about an illegal billboard being used to promote the film.
We just realized that the one of the new fables being spun is the new film “Just Wright,” a giant promo for the (still New Jersey) Nets that is apparently quite consciously directed at the urban black minority population. The two leads are rappers, Queen Latifah and Common (Scott McKnight). Common plays a Nets star player and Queen Latifah plays a Nets fan.
...
As for the product placement we picked up this from NPR’s “Tell Me More”:
There was a time when I would have criticized such blatant product placement and crass commercialism but there's just not enough financial support for smaller motion pictures in the marketplace — particularly, if they're African American oriented.
Here is Noticing New York’s response to the “Tell Me More” assessment. We are in favor of financial support for smaller motion pictures that are African American oriented but the cynicism here in our opinion renders this a rather sad abuse. This above others, is the perfect instance in which to criticizes “blatant product placement and crass commercialism” as something worse, cynical manipulation.
Posted by steve at 4:58 PM
May 13, 2010
In Daily News, Yormark defends Ratner; wishful editorial urges Prokhorov to build subsidized housing planned for AY project
Atlantic Yards Report
Prokhorov, with ownership interests in the team and arena, has an option for 20% of the rest of the project, but no role in it. He has no obligation to build the subsidized housing nor has he made a commitment to do so. He got involved in Atlantic Yards as a platform for business expansion in the United States.
The affordable housing will be built if the city and state administrations assign enough scarce subsidy dollars to do so. What no one's analyzed is whether more such housing could be built elsewhere with the same dollars.
Posted by eric at 11:57 AM
May 9, 2010
Let the bulldozers roll
Glen Ellyn & Wheaton Real Estate
by Cindy Voss
Here, when you scroll down the page, in 5 sentences, is the entire Atlantic Yards saga -- as seen through narrow focus of an out-of-town real estate agent.
You know those stories you hear periodically about the homeowner who becomes the last holdout against the mega-developer who’s buying out an entire neighborhood?
Daniel Goldstein bought his condo in Brooklyn for $590,000 in 2003, and didn’t budge when offered a buyout by the developers of the enormous Atlantic Yards project in 2004 — though his 29 neighbors in the building took an offer of about $850 per square foot, according to the New York Post. That would have been about $1 million for Goldstein. But, no, thanks.
Recently, however, he accepted an offer of $3 million.
NoLandGrab: You know the story where a community resists a corrupt land grab? It looks like the author of this blog entry doesn't.
Posted by steve at 7:00 AM
May 6, 2010
In coverage of Goldstein move, the New York Post lies and Forest City Ratner (apparently) displays its vindictiveness
Atlantic Yards Report
Evidence suggests that Forest City Ratner is still trying to be vindictive to Daniel Goldstein, and the tabloid press is a happy partner. The New York Post's Rich Calder, diminishing his integrity, wrote, in a blog post yesterday headlined It's game over for Nets Arena holdout Goldstein:
Here’s Brooklyn’s new $3 million man packing up his belongings and fleeing his longtime hood to pave way for Nets basketball.
Two lies, one sentence. He's not close to being a "$3 million man," given the cost of legal fees, taxes, and a replacement apartment. (Forest City Ratner's gained far more value from the override of zoning.)
And Goldstein, who's moving a short distance away, could hardly be said to be fleeing, after living alone in his building with his family for more than five years.
Who let the photographer in?
...Well, it is a private street, so why was photographer Benny J. Stumbo allowed? Did FCR tell the guard to let the photographer in? Does the Post really think that a picture of someone's baby is fair game?
Goldstein's response
I asked Goldstein for comment and he responded:
"The photographer was shooting right out on my street and shooting me. I do not know how he knew I was moving at that precise moment, but I have my guesses. When I told him to leave me alone and he wouldn't, we had a heated exchange (one in which I explained to him the street was private and residents and their visitors were only allowed, and he did not want to believe me despite a big sign saying so at the entrance to the street), ending with him telling me 'Put down your baby, take off your glasses and I will beat your ass.' It was an idle threat, but out of proportion to anything I did. I certainly did not threaten him in any way.
...Some perspective
Why was this more important news than any analysis of, say, the Development Agreement that sets 25 years as a deadline to finish the project?
Because the Post, like so many in the media, doesn't think its job is to hold public agencies accountable. Its job is to grab a few eyeballs, at whatever the cost to its reputation.
Posted by eric at 1:12 PM
May 1, 2010
Radio show State of the Re:Union's lame take on Atlantic Yards: "Isn't any job better than none?"
Atlantic Yards Report
Here are the money quotes from the public radio show State of the Re: Union and its Atlantic Yards segment, courtesy of host Al Letson. (The show will run on WNYC this weekend but is available online.)
Letson's not so much a journalist--his bio reads "Renaissance Man: Playwright/Performance Poet/Public Radio Host-Producer"--so analysis is less important than feeling. Indeed, the name Forest City Ratner is never mentioned in the segment, which lasts less than 13 minutes.
Letson said on the Brian Lehrer Show yesterday that he came in against eminent domain but emerged with a more nuanced sense of the controversy. Yes, he's sincere, but his takeaway is shallow:
But those who oppose Atlantic Yards will tell you that the jobs are a pipe dream, that the work created won't be sustainable middle-class building careers, and they may be right, but I wonder if it matters. In these tough times, when families are losing their homes and unemployment is through the roof, isn't any job better than none?
Isn't any job better than none? Well, no, because enormous public subsidies might be used to create more jobs and more housing.
Posted by steve at 8:35 AM
April 30, 2010
Post columnist: "If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably just the media not doing its job."
Atlantic Yards Report
Columnist John Crudele, writing in the New York Post:
So if you read outrageous stories like the one on new-home sales, remember the old adage: "If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably just the media not doing its job."
That old adage applies elsewhere. Did the media ever critique the Forest City Ratner brochure excerpted at right?
That photo suggests that the far west segment of the railyard--one of 7+ blocks--would somehow become a full project with smudgy greenery and red-topped buildings.
Actually, it's slated to become half the arena block.
Posted by eric at 12:37 PM
April 26, 2010
Greg David of Crain's gets it very wrong: "New Yorkers, through their political process" decided "Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city"
Atlantic Yards Report
In a column headlined An eminent name in domain debate, Crain's New York Business editorial director Greg David defends eminent domain for Atlantic Yards while, astonishingly, neglecting to acknowledge how local elected officials were ignored.
...I always tell that story to my class on the New York City economy when we study commercial development issues. Then I explain how the indomitable Brooklyn gadfly Daniel Goldstein—who last week finally gave up his long fight to stop the Atlantic Yards project—convinced me the mayor was right.
Historically, eminent domain allowed governments to seize land for public purposes such as roads, schools, parks and airports. In Kelo, the Supreme Court said it was constitutional for states and cities to take private property on behalf of private interests for a public purpose such as improving the economy.
The complications are obvious. The government is putting the interests of one private party, in this case Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, above those of another, in this case some existing Brooklyn residents and businesses.
Critics of the Kelo decision say that the doctrine is unfair and creates opportunities for abuse by powerful interests and that developers like Forest City can and should use their resources to buy out the other parties.
But Mr. Goldstein wasn't interested in the money. He grudgingly sold his condo last week only because his choice was to accept a $3 million offer today and move out in two weeks or wait two months for a court to evict him and award him less money. He could have gotten much more months ago, maybe years ago.
He didn't do that because his mission was to impose his vision of what was best for Brooklyn, even though New Yorkers, through their political process, had decided that Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city.
Without eminent domain, he would have succeeded.
Hold on. Goldstein was reacting to the developer's vision, one the city supported from the start. There was no political process, no role for the City Council, no role for any local elected officials. In fact, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff told the New York Observer in December 2007:
“I am a huge believer in the ULURP process. I think it makes sense. It allows the issues to be aired in an appropriate way. If it happened again, and the state were to ask if I would encourage them to take Atlantic Yards through the ULURP process, I would say yes.”
The project was approved by the board of the unelected ESDC and the state funding was upheld by the Public Authorities Control Board--the "three men in a room": the governor, Assembly Speaker, and Senate Majority Leader.
Goldstein's comment
Goldstein wrote in response:
Mr. David, your argument almost made some sense until the very end. I wasn't trying to "impose my vision on what was best for Brooklyn even though New Yorkers, through their political process, had decided that Atlantic Yards was in the best interest of the city."
There WAS no political process. Not a single elected official ever voted on Atlantic Yards. ULURP and NYC's zoning laws were overridden, and the unaccountable, unelected ESDC and MTA made all the key decisions. New Yorkers had no political process to make any decisions about Atlantic Yards.
That is the fundamental problem with Atlantic Yards that so many have been shouting and fighting about all this time.
Furthermore, all of the benefits of Atlantic Yards, including the arena and the housing, could have been built without using eminent domain, without taking my home. All of them. But that wouldn't have been the huge gift to Forest City Ratner that the use of eminent domain has been.
So while I and many others certainly have ideas of what would be good for Brooklyn and what urban planning ideas could work and wouldn't work, I didn't impose my vision on some publicly and politically approved project. I resisted, along with thousands of others and numerous politicians, the imposed vision of one developer.
Posted by eric at 10:03 AM
April 23, 2010
Brutally weird City Room post suggests neighborhoods with development fights as potential homes for Goldstein
Atlantic Yards Report
A notably trivial post on the New York Times's City Room blog, headlined For Developers’ Foe, Suggestions for the Next Battleground, whimsically suggests that Atlantic Yards opponent Daniel Goldstein might want to move into a development fight elsewhere, such as Manhattanville; New London, CT; and New York University.
The post is so sloppy that, regarding Willets Point, Queens, it claims that "[t]he city headed off an eminent-domain squabble." It hasn't, as a glance at the Willets Point United site would show.
Posted by eric at 9:31 AM
April 22, 2010
$3 million vs. $131 million and 25 years
Atlantic Yards Report
It is dismaying but unsurprising that the news coverage about Daniel Goldstein's settlement to vacate the apartment he and his family occupies focuses mainly on the $3 million payment by Forest City Ratner (worth considerably less to him), but does not mention the $131 million that city taxpayers have contributed to pay for nearly half the property the developer has purchased or the Development Agreement that sets a 25-year deadline for the project, rather than the ten years promised by the developer and the state.
Yes, the surprising settlement is news, and worthy of debate. But so is the larger context.
Posted by eric at 10:54 AM
April 21, 2010
The Times, unmindful of the Development Agreement, claims Ratner "eventually plans" 6,000 apartments and office space in 16 towers
Atlantic Yards Report
From the New York Times's coverage of Daniel Goldstein's settlement:
The developer has already started work on a $1 billion basketball arena for the Nets, the centerpiece of Atlantic Yards, and eventually plans to build 6,000 apartments, office space and possibly a hotel in 16 towers. At least 30 percent of the units are to be for moderate and middle income tenants.
(Emphasis added)
That's completely speculative and highly unlikely. That's the announced plan, as approved by the state. We have no idea what the developer plans.
But the Development Agreement allows a project to be far, far smaller, with no penalty. And Forest City Ratner now plans four buildings (including the arena) in Phase 1, rather than six.
That won't add up to 16 towers.
Posted by eric at 10:43 PM
April 20, 2010
FCR affidavit regarding DDDB's litigation strategy relies on one not-so-reliable Brooklyn Daily Eagle reporter
Atlantic Yards Report
Having Forest City Ratner cite your reporting in an Atlantic Yards-related affidavit is kind of like winning the anti-Pulitzer.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, thanks to columnists Dennis Holt and Henrik Krogius, has been a longtime cheerleader for the Atlantic Yards project.
But it's neither Holt nor Krogius but courts reporter Ryan Thompson whose conclusionary and loaded language regarding Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's (DDDB) legal strategy is crucial to Forest City Ratner executive Maryanne Gilmartin's affidavit in support of an eviction order.
The affidavit is part of an ESDC package of legal papers aiming to convince state Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges to ensure that all condemnees leave the Atlantic Yards footprint by May 17. DDDB is not a party to this case, though DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein is a condemnee.
A hearing will be held Wednesday at 10 a.m. at Supreme Court in Brooklyn, 320 Jay Street.
DDDB's strategy
While delay is surely a calculation, Thompson suggests that DDDB's litigation strategy is solely about delay, rather than any legitimate effort to hold government accountable.
Thompson, it should be pointed out, was the reporter behind the scoffing report, cited Saturday, that Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn asked "the court to consider new evidence that DDDB claims was not available at the time of the oral argument in January."
Choosing to cast doubt on DDDB's "claims," Thompson failed to point out that the Development Agreement was, in fact, not made public for nearly a week after the oral argument.
Posted by eric at 10:01 AM
April 6, 2010
The DBP's "Downtown Development Story" and the Atlantic Yards asterisk
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder comments on Dennis Holt's column yesterday about Downtown development projects.
Holt acknowledges that "no one really knows right now" how many of the announced 6430 apartments would be built" and thus that, without the AY figures, the numbers under planning don't seem so impressive.
Still, he concludes by accepting the DBP's figures:
The Partnership's new score card is thus a very useful format, and tells the story of the building of a new Downtown Brooklyn in a more meaningful manner. The totals are impressive. They include $9.7 billion spent to create 22,615,000 new square feet of built space, and 14,481 new housing units.
But there's no assurance that figure is being spent or will be spent. Remember, only 24% of that square footage has been built.
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
March 29, 2010
A Very Brooklyn Passover Haggadah and the world of Internet content
Atlantic Yards Report
Not even the Passover Haggadah is safe from the long keyboard of Norman Oder.
Remember, the New York Times sent a reporter to the Atlantic Yards groundbreaking who had never covered AY before, as if this were some spot news story that any warm (journalism degreed) body could have handled.
So it's small beans, relatively speaking, to watch the semi-snarky blogosphere froth up some content about their discovery of the Atlantic Yards Passover haggadah.
Flashback to 2006
This is how it happened.
NoLandGrab earlier today posted A Very Brooklyn Passover Haggadah for an Atlantic Yardseder.
No date is given, but those of us who've been around for a bit remember it popping up in April 2006 and even playing a cameo in a Times article that month headlined A Blogfest Over a Project in Brooklyn.
...However, like the rest of the project, the Haggadah needs an update from four years ago. Below, a few suggestions.
Posted by eric at 10:29 PM
March 23, 2010
Hacked (F**k Ratner) traffic sign is huge news. Go figure.
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes The New York Times to task for devoting several paragraphs today to the hacked traffic sign on Flatbush Avenue while having given short shrift to more important stories.
Really, NY Times? You consider this a news story, but, say, bogus claims by the developer and the governor about jobs and tax revenues either get ignored or reprinted without analysis.
...And the Times still hasn’t reported that, despite an announced 10-year buildout, the Development Agreement for the project allows for 25 years, with ample opportunity for extensions.
In other words, the traffic sign might have been hacked to:
Construction
For 25 Years
He also has something we missed, the statement by faux-indignant Ratner mouthpiece Joe DePlasco:
Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco, in high dudgeon, tells the Post:
Some irresponsible prankster apparently thinks it's fun to compromise public safety by hacking into the sign and changing the message. It is not funny. It is serious and offensive and, most importantly, a safety issue. We are reporting the vandalism to the Police Department."
NoLandGrab: Oh, please, Joe. Spare us the outrage and the phony concern for public safety. You want to protect the public? Give the city and state back the hundreds of millions in subsidies being pissed away on Bruce's basketball emporium so they can keep open the 20 firehouses on the chopping block and hire more cops. Want to report a crime? Turn in your boss.
Posted by eric at 9:05 PM
March 22, 2010
CNG watch: Courier-Life editor leaves, Brooklyn Paper's Kuntzman takes over; two chains start sharing more content
Atlantic Yards Report
Not surprisingly, the New York Post's Community Newspaper Group (CNG) has moved toward consolidating its two chains in Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Paper and the Courier-Life.
The evidence? The departure of the latter's editor and increased sharing of copy among the two chains.
As can be seen by a close look at the Courier-Life mastheads from last week and this week, longtime Courier-Life Editor Kenneth Brown has been replaced by Brooklyn Paper Gersh Kuntzman.
Posted by eric at 11:25 AM
March 15, 2010
The New York Times and Atlantic Yards: A Pattern of Inadequate, Misleading, Mostly Uncritical Coverage. Still.
Atlantic Yards Report
For Norman Oder, Atlantic Yards has come full circle.
He first waded into the morass way back in 2005, when he wrote a lengthy, detailed report (not surprising) on The New York Times's failings in covering the proposed Brooklyn megaproject of Forest City Ratner, developer of The Times's headquarters building.
Apparently, no one at The Times has ever bothered to heed his critique.
My apologies. In my haste to shoot, process, edit, and transcribe video, then turn it into blog posts, and go to my office and do my job, I neglected to sufficiently explain how the New York Times disdained and misled its readers when it covered the Barclays Center groundbreaking.
The Times sent a reporter who had never covered the project before. Never.
Their rationale, apparently, was to send the guy available in the Brooklyn bureau. (At least they didn't send an unpaid "citizen journalist.")
I tried to warn them. On the Times's CityRoom blog, at 5:07 pm, well before deadline, I posted a comment that included my FAQ, aimed, among other things, to set the record straight about claims regarding jobs and tax revenues.
It didn't help.
Posted by eric at 9:34 PM
March 14, 2010
Brooklyn Paper "exclusive": a photo of Bruce Ratner and some construction equipment
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Paper crowed that, in this week's issue, "we have a big exclusive about Atlantic Yards."
"[B]ig exclusive" apparently refers to a staged photo of Bruce Ratner posing in front of an earth-moving machine he's not qualified to operate.
[Update: as noted in the comment, the "big exclusive" is the news that David Childs talked with Bruce Ratner about working together on the residential buildings. And it is marked as an exclusive, so I apologize for the error. But I still think the staged photo, placed more prominently than the exclusive, is sucking up.]
...The Brooklyn Paper's online coverage of the groundbreaking included a good, if unskeptical, overview of the event, plus a cutesy video. But the print paper? A photo of Bruce Ratner and a full-page ad on the back touting the Barclays Center.
Posted by eric at 9:50 PM
March 11, 2010
Post columnist Peyser still reading from Ratner's script
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder dismantles the Andrea Peyser fiction piece in today's Post.
Posted by eric at 5:20 PM
The Daily News "advertorial" on the arena groundbreaking
Atlantic Yards Report
It's not online, as far as I can tell, but today's New York Daily News includes an eight-page section with numerous advertisement for and about the Barclays Center, and one piece of text, a column by Denis Hamill (he of the 10,000 jobs fiction) reminiscing about the Dodgers.
To quote DDDB, in another context, it is not to be missed.
Yes, they're playing it as the second coming of the Dodgers, despite the obvious enormous contrasts.
Funny, but the section is not labeled "advertorial."
NoLandGrab: There was a day when the News was the working man's newspaper. Now it's owned by a billionaire real estate developer intent on puffing up multi-multi-millionaire real estate developers.
Posted by eric at 4:46 PM
Daily News columnist Louis admits qualms about project benefits, still blames opponents, ignores transparency issues, supports governance entity
Atlantic Yards Report
I admit, when I read the headline of Errol Louis's column today in the Daily News, Developer must build a bridge at Atlantic Yards, I thought that he might have tried to suss out why the Carlton Avenue Bridge, closed for an expected two years for demolition and reconstruction, would be closed for more than four years.
But no.
Rather, its Louis's big-picture reflections on the project, filled with some more qualms than before, including the cost of decking over the railyard, yet with his fundamental hostility toward those who've resisted the project, without attendant concern about issues of accountability.
Posted by eric at 10:44 AM
March 8, 2010
"AY starts off an economic boom for Brooklyn contractors"? Check the evidence--and a non-independent compliance report from compromised Darryl Greene
Atlantic Yard Report
According to an article this week by the Courier-Life's notorious Stephen Witt, AY starts off an economic boom for Brooklyn contractors.
However, the evidence is sketchy, and hardly supports that conclusion.
Moreover, the much-touted Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) was supposed to generate an Independent Compliance Monitor (ICM), but that has never been announced.
The only report to surface has come not from an ICM but by Forest City Ratner's own consultant on M/WBE (Minority/Women Business Enterprise) issues, the Darman Group, run by Darryl Greene, who's recently been in the news for his questionable role in the Aqueduct video casino contract.
The Darman Group was supposed to help the CBA Executive Committee hire an ICM. The most recent evidence suggests that, instead, the Darman Group has performed that function.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
March 6, 2010
Anthrax-Free Zone
The fascination continues with the story of a mailing to Kings County Supreme Court Justice Abrahama Gerges that contained white powder
The Brooklyn Paper, Judge in Yards case gets a powder-filled threat
By Stephen Brown
The judge who approved the state’s seizure of properties in the Atlantic Yards footprint earlier this week received a letter containing a suspicious white powder on Thursday, causing an evacuation of the entire 24th floor of the Kings County Supreme Court on Jay Street in Downtown.
It is unclear whether the substance mailed to Justice Abraham Gerges — which was found to be “inert,” according to cops — was sent in connection with the Atlantic Yards case, a steroid case that he is currently hearing or something deeper in the long career of this judge and former City Councilman.
BioPrepWatch, Brooklyn judge in anthrax scare
By Nick Rees
The secretary of a Brooklyn judge opened an envelope on Thursday containing a suspicious white powder, a spokesman for the Office of Court Administration has announced.
Police, fire and hazmat crews responded to an emergency call just after noon from the Kings County Supreme Court Criminal Term. The 24th floor of the building, located at 320 Jay St., was evacuated and sealed off.
The letter, sent to Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Abraham G. Gerges, was filled wit sh a white powder that was later found to be "inert," the spokesman said.
Gerges' secretary was decontaminated by the NYPD's Emergency Services Unit.
Speculation on the letter centers on it being a retaliatory response to a recent judicial order by Justice Gerges that transferred the tile of the land at Atlantic Yards to the state via eminent domain.
The Brooklyn Ink, More on Atlantic Yards Judge White Powder Scare
The judge who approved the state seizing property for the Atlantic Yards development got a letter laced with a white powder yesterday.
Cops say the substance was not dangerous, but weren’t sure if Justice Abraham Gerges was being targeted for Atlantic Yards, his current case – steroids – or something else in his 45 years of service.
NoLandGrab: Fortunately, the anthrax threat wasn't real. Unfortunately, the promises of Bruce Ratner to provide an economic benefit to New York via the proposed Atlantic Yards project are also not real.
Posted by steve at 4:54 AM
March 4, 2010
Correcting a misleading Daily News photo/caption regarding condemnation
Atlantic Yards Report
It's not a major detail, but a photo accompanying a Daily News article concerning a judge's decision to allow condemnations for the Atlantic Yards project includes a misleading caption:
Some of the property in the picture above will be knocked down for the Atlantic Yards project.
Actually, none of the property pictured will be demolished thanks to the decision by Justice Abraham Gerges.
Only the two buildings in the center of the photo are private property within the Atlantic Yards site, and both of them--Lots 19 and 28 of Block 1120 (see map below)--are scheduled not for the first phase of condemnation, but an unspecified later phase.
That saves Forest City Ratner cash and gives it more time to work on the upgraded railyard.
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
March 3, 2010
In a takedown of critic Ouroussoff, Atlantic Yards is front and center
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, I've written frequently about New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, including a June 2006 critique of his first major piece on Atlantic Yards. Now, when the critic comes in for a drubbing by a peer, AY is front and center.
In a Design Observer essay headlined Why Nicolai Ouroussoff Is Not Good Enough, Alexandra Lange writes:
Should Ouroussoff turn out to be the last architecture critic, that makes it even more imperative to say: He is not good enough. He is not winning hearts or minds. He is not making a case for keeping the breed.
...Near the end of the essay, Lange fixes on something very important:
It is our city the New York Times architecture critic should be trying to save, not the gargantuan works of Frank Gehry or Jean Nouvel (or Philip Johnson). They can parachute in and out, but we (and ideally the Times itself) remain to live with the consequences.
Indeed, Ouroussoff's reflex--remember his public defense of Gehry when the architect was grilled about AY?--is to identify more with the architect than the city.
Related coverage...
Curbed, Architecture Critic Ouroussoff Called Out in Epic Takedown
Is there anything juicier than a savage attack on one critic penned by another? How about when the evidence cited includes meaty topics like Frank Gehry, Jean Nouvel, Atlantic Yards, preservationists and other matters of big-time architecture in the Big Apple? Kaboom!
...Calling him "the perfect critic for the boom years," Lange echoes the oft-repeated Ouroussoff criticism that the dude is too in love with starchitects: "Yes to Gehry, Norman Foster, Zaha Hadid, Jean Nouvel; no to people you haven't already heard of."
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
Why Nicolai Ouroussoff Is Not Good Enough
Design Observer
by Alexandra Lange
Alexandra Lange — journalist, architectural historian, architecture criticism professor, and Brooklynite — offers a withering, detailed and spot-on (and not just because she cites NoLandGrab) critique of New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff. The prime evidence: Ouroussoff's fawning treatment of Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards design.
Exhibits A and B in this critique are Ouroussoff’s reviews of the massive Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. It was unclear from his first review whether Ouroussoff had ever been to Brooklyn, so grateful did he think we should be for the services of (Los Angeles) architect Frank Gehry. On July 5, 2005, he wrote:
Frank Gehry's new design for a 21-acre corridor of high-rise towers anchored by the 19,000-seat Nets arena in Brooklyn may be the most important urban development plan proposed in New York City in decades. If it is approved, it will radically alter the Brooklyn skyline, reaffirming the borough's emergence as a legitimate cultural rival to Manhattan.
To which the proud Brooklyn resident could only respond: We need Frank Gehry’s affirmation?
There are those — especially acolytes of the urbanist Jane Jacobs — who will complain about the development's humongous size. But cities attain their beauty from their mix of scales; one could see the development's thrusting forms as a representation of Brooklyn's cultural flowering.
Here Ouroussoff performs a neat trick, (mis)characterizing the opposition as a bunch of Jacobsian sentimentalists, and informing us that Gehry’s new architecture would be the borough’s best representative. Those brownstones are apparently so retrograde that they and the rest of the project’s existing context warrant only a three-sentence paragraph. Ouroussoff never bothered to orient his readers to the importance of the site, the windy, well-trafficked corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Naturally the Brooklyn bloggers had a field day with this piece, for reasons valid and conspiratorial. ←NoLandGrab reference!
Later, much later, Ouroussoff would try to make amends, when, in one of the more scathing reviews of his Times career, he told Gehry to walk away from the compromised vision.
Posted by eric at 12:10 PM
Bob Guskind, 1958-2009, still missed
Atlantic Yards Report
In the wake of Brooklyn's mainstream media consolidation, Norman Oder is still haunted by the chasm of neighborhood coverage left in the wake of Bob Guskind's death.
Bob Guskind, founder of the Gowanus Lounge blog, died a year ago. He's still missed, especially since the two main weekly newspaper chains in Brooklyn are now owned by Rupert Murdoch's Community Newspaper Group and renting office space from Bruce Ratner's Forest City Ratner.
Robert Guskind 1958-2009 from Blue Barn Pictures, Inc. on Vimeo.
NoLandGrab: If Bob were still with us, he would have been grinding it out this week.
Recently, there has been little good news for community activists fighting to stop or mitigate the effects of the unbelievable corruption of local government to accommodate Bruce Ratner's unprecedented real estate monopoly.
However, yesterday, the funk briefly lifted, making one victory all the more sweet, when the EPA officially designated the Gowanus Canal area a federal Superfund site. Bob's repeated visits to former industrial sites in the neighborhoods near the Gowanus Canal and Greenpoint/Williamsburg, and his photographs of the pernicious and perpetual ooze and oily sheen, gave the communities a voice and helped attract political and media attention to our toxic city.
The countless people on the front lines of the Gowanus Canal's Superfund Me campaign are missing Bob today, and would have loved to share this moment with him.
Posted by lumi at 5:48 AM
March 2, 2010
In the print Times, no coverage of the AY condemnation case, but ink for a Nets promotion of questionable value
Atlantic Yards Report
I wasn't surprised to see the New York Times's coverage of Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges's decision in the Atlantic Yards condemnation case relegated to online coverage only.
While I can disagree with editorial judgment--after all, in print today is coverage of a delayed Metropolitan Transportation Authority reality show--that's part of a pattern; the Times frequently publishes AY and other metro stories online only (and, with the former, often without disclosure of the New York Times Company's ties to Forest City Ratner).
In the Sports section
But I was surprised to open the Sports section and see this article:
The Nets are offering a coupon that can be redeemed at a Roni Deutch Tax Center to get a state income tax return done free. That's a $29 value but, actually, nothing special, since, as the article states, a similar coupon can be downloaded from Roni Deutch’s web site.
NoLandGrab: It would be one thing if The Times covered the Nets with a sense of irony, but that is clearly not the case.
Posted by eric at 10:40 AM
February 13, 2010
Owners' Counsel of America Honors Journalists for Investigative Reporting of Eminent Domain
PR-USA.Net
This article catches up with awards rewarded to two journalists including Atlantic Yards Report's Norman Oder.
As Oder professes skepticism of the developer's claims, the expected economic benefits of the project, and the fairness of the process, he comes closer to aligning himself with project opponents than with the government and developer. "My goal as a blogger is fairness, not some 'he said she said' version of objectivity," he asserts. He maintains rigorous standards, sourcing his work with links and critiquing project opponents when they stray from the facts.
Oder's work involves assessments of media coverage, reporting of events such as public hearings and oral arguments, and detailed analyses of legal briefs, environmental reports and other documents. His reporting bridges the gap between legal formality and ground-level reality by demonstrating that the state's claims of blight in and around the project footprint are suspect. Oder offers a longitudinal view of an enormously contested project while analyzing the process by which the city and New York State, considered to have the most condemnor-friendly eminent domain laws in the nation, go about development and condemnation.
Posted by steve at 7:52 AM
February 8, 2010
As controversy over Queens video deal continues, Darryl Greene drops out
Atlantic Yards Report
Hypocrisy alert!
The Times, Daily News and Post are shocked — shocked! — that the bidding for the Aqueduct "racino" contract may not have been on the up and up. In other news, we're still waiting for even a smidgen of similar outrage about the rigged Atlantic Yards deal.
Well, the frenzy over the Paterson administration's controversial selection of the Aqueduct Entertainment Group to run a video casino hasn't let up, with multiple news outlets reporting that consultant Darryl Greene, who had 0.6% of the deal, has dropped out.
Green, who pleaded guilty in 1999 to a misdemeanor count of mail fraud, as detailed in the document below, has long worked on minority contracting for Forest City Ratner, including on Atlantic Yards. (He was disbarred, according to the Daily News.)
Yesterday, the New York Post reported, in a careful locution, that "Companies connected to Greene owe nearly $1 million in state taxes."
...On Saturday, the New York Times weighed in (late) with an editorial, headlined Looks Sleazy to Us, opining:
[Assembly Speaker] Mr. [Sheldon] Silver may have preferred another bidder. But his demands seem more than reasonable. He should also insist that the governor release documents showing how this bid was chosen. It shouldn’t stop there.
On Sunday, the New York Daily News ran a second editorial, headlined Two-armed bandits: Daily News demands sunlight on shady Aqueduct deal:
New Yorkers especially need to see how much money the competing bidders put on the table. We also need to understand how Paterson, Silver and Sampson justify allowing AEG to match the high bid by adding $100 million to its offering at the last minute.
NoLandGrab: Spare us the sanctimony. And never mind who gets the contract — the whole idea of slot-machine parlors as state revenue patches is morally bankrupt.
Posted by eric at 10:03 PM
February 7, 2010
In this week's Courier-Life, street closures article on p. 4 is contradicted by news brief on p. 12
Atlantic Yards Report
Facts bite newspaper.
Does the Courier-Life chain have any editors?
This week's print issue of the Park Slope Courier includes an article (p. 4), headlined Closures around Barclays Center site begin, which is flat wrong.
It states, seemingly unequivocally, "Effective Feb. 1, sections of both Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street will be permanently closed."
Stephen Witt's article was posted online at 8:09 pm on January 29 with a different headline, Downtown street closures explained at cop meeting. That 78th Precinct Community Council meeting was January 26.
...Misleading the public
Rather than updating that article to explain the delay, a headline expressing more certainty, Closures around Barclays Center site begin, was added to the article appearing in this week's issue.
Posted by eric at 11:05 PM
February 5, 2010
A sweetheart deal in Queens for a video casino (involving Darryl Greene) gets the Daily News and Post abuzz
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Daily News and the New York Post are quite exercised, not inappropriately, about the selection of Aqueduct Entertainment Group, which has ties to influential Queens Rev. (and former Congressman) Floyd Flake to run a video casino at Aqueduct Raceway.
They published editorials today decrying secret, sweetheart deals, big spending on lobbyists, and even ties to a controversial figure in minority contracting named Darryl Greene (whose company regularly works for Forest City Ratner).
Wouldja believe that all those things obtain for Atlantic Yards, notably the decision at the outset to direct the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's valuable Vanderbilt Yard to Forest City Ratner, 18 months before a truncated RFP was issued and attracted just one other bidder for what Chuck Ratner, CEO of Forest City Enterprises, calls "a great piece of real estate."
Posted by lumi at 5:02 AM
February 4, 2010
Hunt claims arena construction has started; Barclays Center web site offers "New York Post" article about the commencement of arena construction
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reports on chimerical construction and the faulty attribution of a faulty newspaper story.
Forest City Ratner has not held the arena groundbreaking parent company Forest City Enterprises (FCE) in December "anticipated" by January 31, in the fourth quarter of FCE's fiscal year, and title to the land needed for the arena has not been transferred, as anticipated, to the Empire State Development Corporation.
But that hasn't stopped the Indianapolis-based Hunt Construction Group, in announcing that it got the contract to build the arena, that the Barclays Center "has already commenced construction."
...Also, the press section of the Barclays Center web site offers a link claiming Construction on Barclays Center Commences.
It's attributed, without equivocation, to the New York Post, though it never appeared in the print newspaper and, when posted on the Post's web site, was clearly attributed not to the Post but to the Post-owned weekly Courier-Life.
As I pointed out January 15, the conceptual scoop by the Courier-Life's notorious Stephen Witt evaded everyone else in the media.
NoLandGrab: Kudos to Oder for coining the term "conceptual scoop," a nice way of saying "made-up b.s."
Posted by eric at 9:46 AM
February 3, 2010
CNG Watch: Coverage of the Atlantic Yards condemnation hearing is 1) absent and 2) secondhand
Atlantic Yards Report
Can we depend on the two major weeklies in Brooklyn to cover Atlantic Yards carefully? Nope.
In the Brooklyn Paper
The Brooklyn Paper actually sent a reporter to the condemnation hearing last Friday. But no article has appeared yet, either about the hearing itself--which put the condemnation on hold, news even for the Times--or the confusion regarding street closings.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Paper has informed us about possible dormitories in Red Hook, a new new sex toy shop in Williamsburg, and a green gym in Bushwick.
In the Courier-Life
The Courier-Life didn't send a reporter, but today offers us this news brief, headlined Judge studies AY condemnation papers, almost certainly penned by the notorious Stephen Witt....
Posted by eric at 10:30 AM
January 31, 2010
Judge, I’m Telling You, the Car Was Grandma’s
New York Times
By Jim Dwyer
This light-hearted story starts off with a faux-mysterious tone regarding the location of Traffic Violations Bureau for Brooklyn North.
Traffic court.
To get to the one on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, you go to a big mall that all the subways on Earth run to, take the escalator up to the second floor and walk in one end of the Target, then out the other. There you are: the Traffic Violations Bureau for Brooklyn North.
Of course, the location in question is the Atlantic Center Mall, which is owned by Times business partner, Bruce Ratner. This is another example of more fluff in Metro coverage.
NoLandGrab: Isn't a mall a funny place for the Traffic Violations Buerau? Not if you're Ratner. Not only did his mall require public subsidies when first built, but now the the public keeps paying rent for the Department of Motor Vehicles, the mall's biggest tenant. And where was the Department of Motor Vehicles before moving to the mall? It was in a Bruce Ratner MetroTech building that he demolished so he could build his 36-story, luxury rental DKLB project.
Posted by steve at 7:38 AM
January 29, 2010
OCA Announces Two Crystal Eagle Award Recipients for 2010
The Eminent Domain Law Blog
The Eagle has landed — in the hands of (award-winning) journalist Norman Oder.
Owners' Counsel of America (OCA) will honor two journalists in 2010 with the Crystal Eagle Award for their remarkable journalism and unwavering effort to be critical and objective, specifically with respect to their investigative reportage and balanced analysis regarding the government’s use of eminent domain.
...Norman Oder, freelance journalist and creator of the watchdog blog Atlantic Yards Report, and Robbie Whelan, Business/Real Estate Reporter for The Daily Record (Baltimore, Maryland) and freelance writer/blogger will each be honored with the Crystal Eagle Award at OCA’s tenth annual meeting on February 6, 2010.
...Oder’s work involves regular critiques of media coverage, long-form reporting of events like public hearings and court arguments, and detailed analyses of documents like legal papers and those submitted for the state’s environmental process. He regularly gleans scoops by filing Freedom of Information Law requests and bridges the gap between legal formality and ground-level reality by showing how, for example, the state’s claims of blight in and around the project sight are suspect.
In writing hundreds of thousands of words a year over more than four years, he offers a longitudinal view of an enormously contested project, one that Kent Barwick, former president of the Municipal Art Society, suggested might be “this generation’s Penn Station,”—in that, just as the demolition of the station galvanized the historic preservation movement in the 1960s, so too the enormously questionable process behind Atlantic Yards might prompt revision of the way the city and New York state, which is considered to the most condemnor-friendly eminent domain laws in the nation, go about development and eminent domain.
NoLandGrab: Congratulations, Norman. Without you, we wouldn't have half as many news items to post.
Posted by eric at 3:11 PM
Times sinks toward irrelevance as it uses scarce Metro section space for Nets fluff
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times bungles the biggest story in Brooklyn even as it promotes its business partner, Bruce Ratner.
When I read this cutesy New York Times story yesterday headlined A Marketing Quandary: How Do You Sell a 4-40 Team? about a media event--a couple of Nets players coming to Brooklyn--I figured it would appear only online, in the CityRoom blog.
Surely they wouldn't put that fluff in the paper, not when there's real news about government accountability and Atlantic Yards, like the gap between the promised ten-year timetable and the more generous deadlines in the master closing documents.
But that 18-paragraph article appears in today's paper, headlined Straddling Two Arenas, Nets Woo Fans for Both.
Timetable issues
It contains the not-quite-inaccurate-but-imprecisely-generous statement that "the move is not expected to take place for at least another full season."
Had someone read the comment I posted early yesterday, they might have been reminded that a Forest City Ratner executive said the other night that the arena would take 28 months to build.
And construction has not yet begun.
Posted by steve at 5:17 AM
January 25, 2010
What "not a target" means in the New York Times, and why self-serving statements (like that issued by FCR re Ridge Hill) should be checked
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes The New York Times to task (again!), this time for the failings of its coverage of the recent Yonkers indictments and Forest City's possible role.
Well, I sent my post critiquing the New York Times's coverage of the Ridge Hill indictments (in which developer Forest City Ratner was cited but not indicted) and got the following response back from Senior Editor/Standards Greg Brock:
I had two editors go over your note and I agree with them that no correction or Editors' Note is warranted on any of these points. You might want to consider writing a Letter to the Editor about your thoughts on our journalistic efforts and how we could have improved this article. But there were no errors here and no violation of any ethics/standards policy that would merit an Editor's Note.
First, consider the implicit sneer (and not the first one) in Brock's invitation to me to write a letter with my "thoughts" on the Times. The newspaper has never printed a letter from me and has very little space for letters.
And my analysis does not consist of random "thoughts;" rather, it's backed up by clear evidence. We just read the evidence differently.
Posted by eric at 8:36 AM
January 15, 2010
CNG Watch: Carlton Avenue Bridge delay in Brooklyn Paper, not Courier-Life, which proclaims that arena construction begins
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reviews a tale of two papers:
This week's Brooklyn Paper, in its article on streets being closed to further construction of the Atlantic Yards arena--before legal challenges are resolved--mentions, albeit almost as an aside, that the Carlton Avenue Bridge would not reopen until April 2012, far longer than originally promised, as I reported.
And is that included in the report (posted first on the New York Post's web site) from the Courier-Life's notorious Stephen Witt? No.
Posted by lumi at 5:27 AM
January 12, 2010
The Approval Matrix: Week of January 18, 2010
New York Magazine
 |
Both "Highbrow" and "Brilliant":
Unlikely allies: George Will echoes the arguments of anti-Ratner rabble-rouser Daniel Goldstein in a column attacking the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by eric at 10:05 AM
January 8, 2010
Got “Bilked?” The New York Times Biased Report on Federal Investigation Involving Forest City Ratner
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White catches The New York Times bilking readers out of accurate reporting in this must-read piece of media criticism.
What’s your definition of “bilk”? We think that these days “bilk” generally evokes the concept of someone being swindled out of something valuable by fraud, trick or deceit, as in any of the following usages in the New York Times (here and here- at the risk of going just a tad too far to be sure we make our point):
. . . Irving Picard, the trustee for the investors bilked by Bernard L. Madoff. . .
. . . where Mr. Stanford, 59, has been held since he was indicted in June on charges of bilking investors through a scheme involving Antiguan bank certificates.
Marc S. Dreier, once a high-flying New York lawyer who orchestrated an elaborate fraud scheme that bilked hedge funds and other investors of $700 million. . .
...Times Says Ratner Was "Bilked" by Public Officials
Why do we want to be so sure of the meaning conveyed by the New York Times use of word “bilk”? Because of the story the Times wrote today about a federal corruption case in Yonkers where three individuals, two of them public officials, have been indicted for taking improper payments in connection with two development projects in Yonkers. One of them is Forest City Ratner’s $630 million, 1000-apartment, 81-acre Ridge Hill project. The Times reported that Forest City Ratner has allegedly been bilked by the public officials. Specifically, the Times article said that the indicted public officials:
. . . are accused of bilking two developers of tens of thousands of dollars and funneling the money and other favors to Ms. Annabi in return for her support.
...Ratner, a Specialist in Public Officials, Is “Bilked”?
So the Times is reporting that Forest City Ratner, a real estate firm whose specialty is collecting government subsidies through its relentless cultivation of public officials, was outsmarted....
It sounds to us instead as if Forest City Ratner got a pretty good deal and likely everything it was bargaining for. It doesn’t look at all like it was swindled.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Was FCR really "bilked" by indicted Yonkers pols (and shouldn't an unwitting Brooklyn Standard contributor be careful writing in the NYT about FCR)?
In his Noticing New York blog, Michael D.D. White lays out the evidence to suggest that the New York Times leaned over backwards to accommodate Forest City Ratner in its story about the indictments in Yonkers.
By the way, the Times contributor who wrote the article, Nate Schweber, was a prominent, though unwitting, contributor to Forest City Ratner's Brooklyn Standard Fall 2005 "publication," with his name attached to two articles that he didn't write (as well as two others that he did write, at least in some form).
Posted by eric at 11:21 AM
January 7, 2010
The journalism of verification: FCR's statement that it's not a target in Yonkers goes mostly unquestioned, though the feds won't confirm it
Atlantic Yards Report
So, after the stunning news yesterday that Forest City Ratner was the unnamed, unindicted "Developer No. 2" cited in a Yonkers corruption scandal, the developer issued a statement saying it had cooperated fully with federal prosecutors and "has been advised by the U.S. Attorney's Office that neither the company nor any of its employees is a target of the investigation."
Does that mean they're cleared? Not exactly.
The U.S. Attorney's office would not comment when I asked them to confirm the statement. LoHud.com reported that U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara "declined to comment on whether Forest City Ratner had broken the law by hiring Jereis or whether they were a target of the continuing investigation."
And, as I wrote, "not a target" could mean they're not a target now but could be in the future.
Still, other than AYR and the local LoHud.com (home of the Journal-News), the press did not try to verify Forest City Ratner's claim. The New York Times dutifully printed FCR's statement, without adding, as the newspaper did in a 5/5/08 article on the investigation, that Forest City Ratner "partnered with The New York Times to build its new headquarters."
The Daily News and the Observer also quoted the FCR statement without question. (I couldn't find coverage in the Post.)
Posted by lumi at 7:37 AM
January 5, 2010
It came from the Blogosphere...
StreetsBlog, Stadium Deals Drain Cities
In New York, local businesses in the Bronx have complained they're being hurt rather than helped by the new Yankee Stadium, which is designed to encourage fans to spend all of their game-day dollars within the ballpark walls. Meanwhile, Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project, which centers on a stadium for the NBA's Nets, grinds forward, with one of the last property owners holding out on the site reportedly considering moving out. Both the Nets and the Yankees deals earned a place on our 2009 Streetsie roll of shame.
FireDogLake, Here’s some quality, independent media that’s worth your time
The Atlantic Yards Report is a single investigative project that focuses on a nearly $5 billion development in Brooklyn.
The Local, Linkfest: Bees, Trees, Beer and Sardines
In the department of year-end wrap ups, Atlantic Yards Report has a comprehensive look back at 2009 in Atlantic Yards developments, or lack thereof.
The Liberty Zone, And you thought Kelo was bad!
Kelo vs. New London was one of the most repulsive, sickening infringements on the right to private property I've ever seen and the most egregiously noxious decision by the Supreme Court in decades. In it, the Supreme Court decided that the "benefits" a community reaped from destroying private property in favor of a developer outweighed the rights of private property owners. In essence, the court decided that the use of eminent domain for economic development didn't violate the constitutional limits placed on the government, and that it constituted "public use."
To me, it means that the government can seize anyone's property any time some overzealous developer wants to build a Wal Mart. It's economic development after all, and according to the Kelo case, that makes it "public use."
NoLandGrab: Bet you won't have a hard time guessing what "this" is.
International Liberty, Another “Eminent Domain” Scandal
Ever since the Supreme Court’s odious Kelo decision, which allowed a city in Connecticut to seize a woman’s home for the benefit of a politically-connected big corporation, there has been a deep concern that this would open the door to more examples of government-sanctioned theft. George Will is particularly (and appropriately) vicious in his analysis of how corrupt politicians in New York are seeking to steal private property to benefit a rich developer....
Posted by lumi at 5:16 AM
January 3, 2010
Citizen Journalism and Blogging
California Greening
Norman Oder gets props from a left-coast Green Party blog.
The archetype of good, knowledgeable, investigative journalism on the internet is the Atlantic Yards Report, where Norman Oder has been a major pain in the ass to developer Bruce Ratner, Brooklyn Borough President Martie Markowitz and particularly to the NY Times whose every story on this issue is subjected to Oder's scrutiny and evaluated by his obviously higher standards of journalism. There are very, very few Norman Oder's around.
NoLandGrab: By way of full disclosure, the author is a relative of one of our regular contributors, and surely pays a bit more attention to Atlantic Yards than most California Greens. Regardless, his assessment of Oder's work is spot-on.
Posted by eric at 10:27 PM
Atlantic Yards Report Sunday Media Supplement
Norman Oder knows a cure for Atlantic Yards when he sees one.
Perhaps it was sly subversion, perhaps it was guilt, but in a New York Times Metropolitan section cover story today headlined New York’s Resolutions, an effort to solicit advice for the city, the respondent placed first took a swing at the Times and its brethren:
Jimmy Breslin, 80
Author and newspaperman
First, you’ve got to find a way to get rid of Albany. They’ve got people up there — I mean, all you have to do is look at what they’re up to. For 30 years, they let this guy Bruno, for example, just go on and on and on. It’s the seat of larceny, so I say just get rid of it.
Then you have to start a real newspaper. Do the newspapers today even attack anybody anymore? They had Bloomberg winning by a mile and a half. The people know more than the newspapers and the television does. They sure knew not to like Bloomberg as much as they were told to. People are getting away with murder all over the place, and the papers have a chance to say something about it. But they just don’t do it.
Well, someone's responded to Jimmy Breslin's call to be tough on Mayor Mike Bloomberg, but it's not the local daily newspapers. Writes Newsweek contributor Joel Kotkin:
But as Bloomberg begins his new term, New York needs to reexamine its core economic strategy.
...Nurturing these neighborhoods will require a distinct shift in public policy. During the Bloomberg years the big subsidies have gone to luxury condo megadevelopments, sports stadiums, or huge office complexes. Consider the 22-acre Atlantic Yards project in downtown Brooklyn, which will include luxury housing and a new arena for the NBA's Nets; one recent report by the city's Independent Budget Office put the total subsidies provided by the city, New York state, and the transit authority at $726 million and estimated the project will hurt, not help, the city's economy over time.
Of course, AY is promoted as including more than luxury housing; the questions are how much of the subsidized affordable housing would be available to members of ACORN, which signed an agreement with Forest City Ratner, and how much the housing would cost relative to subsidized housing elsewhere.
During the course of the Atlantic Yards fight, much of the New York Times' coverage has been less than stellar. A less patient person might just quit trying to get the Times to correct its coverage of the project and business partner, Bruce Ratner. But Norman Oder perseveres.
New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt today writes about three episodes in which the newspaper's ethics guidelines were not followed by freelancers.
In only one case did the violation lead to a tainted product on the page, so I'm dismayed that Hoyt played the issue so prominently--he could've put most of the column on the web. Meanwhile, he remains obdurately unaware of the Times's inability to cover the Atlantic Yards project, or to even disclose its business relationship with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner.
In other words, he should focus on how readers are being served.
In two recent cases--FCR's bailout of ACORN and the revision of the Barclays Center naming rights deal--the Times slipped in information either parenthetically or at the end of the article, thus downplaying significant news.
Posted by steve at 5:38 PM
Atlantic Yards, Bloomberg get national bad press
The Village Voice
By Julia
This article notes how Mayor Bloomberg's pet project, the proposed Atlantic Yards, is a money-loser for the city. National media is catching on, too.
The press in other places have discovered the Mayor's pet Atlantic Yards project, with a scathing AP piece on the human cost of eminent domain and a firebreathing George Will column on how much the Founding Fathers would have disapproved. Neither mentions the mayor, but both make it far more difficult for Bloomberg to frame the project as one of the triumphs of his last term, as he did as recently as last week.
Newsweek, however, was a bit more pointed about it: as an economic engine, the city's investment in building His Honor's "luxury" city is a loser
...
The author, a fellow of the Center for an Urban Future, makes the case that the financial services and media industries which support His Honor's vision of New York as a premium "luxury product" are waning, and that the city must make itself more friendly to the middle class to survive. He makes the same case today in an article for Forbes, although that one blames the problem on the self-conscious liberalism of baby lawyers, B-school graduates and "trust[a]farians," and I have no idea what to do with that.
Suffice it to say the national roll-out of the New Bloomberg doesn't appear to be going well.
Posted by steve at 4:41 PM
December 29, 2009
New Leader Seeks Stronger Voice for Art Society
The "Paper of Record" [The NY Times] gets it wrong (again), this time in an article about the Municipal Art Society (emphasis added):
Committed preservationists in particular say that it hasn’t been aggressive enough lately, on issues like the redevelopment of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and of 2 Columbus Circle.
NLG, FOR THE RECORD: "Atlantic Yards" hasn't been developed, so it can't be developed again. The MTA's "Vanderbilt Railyard" comprises about a third of the property Bruce Ratner plans to develop and add to his real estate portfolio, which includes the Atlantic Center Mall and Atlantic Terminal Mall, both located across the street from the footprint of "Atlantic Yards."
Judging from The Times's refusal to correct past distinctions that muddy the debate on "Atlantic Yards," don't hold your breath waiting for a correction.
Atlantic Yards Report, The Times takes a look at the Municipal Art Society, but gets the Atlantic Yards angle wrong
Norman Oder's critique of the article goes into more detail:
Wait a second. The criticism of MAS's role on AY doesn't come so much from "committed preservationists" as Brooklyn activists like planner Ron Shiffman, who said the MAS critique "falls short because it avoids discussing the process issues and attempts to apply a design solution to a fundamentally flawed and ill-conceived plan."
And there's no such thing as "the redevelopment of Atlantic Yards," because AY was never developed in order to be redeveloped. Atlantic Yards is a project, not a place.
...
First, the MAS came significantly late to the Atlantic Yards debate, beginning in June 2006 as the project approached approval in the next six months.Then again, MAS did take the initiative by offering a sophisticated critique of urban planning issues, such as the function of open space, thus helping fill a vacuum in the discussion.
However, additional streets were a feature of the UNITY plan alternative, announced more than 18 months earlier. And, while criticizing superblocks, MAS accepted a superblock for the arena.
[For MAS,] Atlantic Yards has never been an issue of development versus no development; the issue was whether pragmatism versus principle, whether better future process could redeem past bad process.
MAS, by forming BrooklynSpeaks, gave that a shot, but now many of the groups in BrooklynSpeaks have gone to court, in recognition that their "mend it don't end it" strategy got them nowhere with the state and the developer.
Posted by lumi at 5:31 AM
December 16, 2009
The Times backs into acknowledging the much-reduced Barclays naming rights deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Tacked on to the end of the New York Times print edition article today. headlined $500 Million in Bonds Sold in 2 Hours for Nets’ Arena, is this:
Barclays agreed to pay $10 million a year for 20 years for the naming rights under a deal that has been revised twice since it was struck in 2007. The original deal was worth $400 million and was set to expire at the end of 2008. The bank agreed to extend the deal but at a reduced price.
Nets officials, however, say Barclays will pay an additional sum for other promotional rights connected to the project.
Yes, but Nets officials haven't specified that number, which likely isn't close to $10 million a year. And that means that the deal might not be a record--or just barely be one--after all.
All in all, it's pretty tepid context, given that the newspaper touted the original naming rights agreement as a record, and repeatedly cited the reported $400 million total as fact.
Posted by lumi at 4:48 AM
December 14, 2009
Bloggers continue banging Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards
The Brooklyn Blog [NY Post]
By Rich Calder
Blogging on blogging on Atlantic Yards... a sure sign that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project should be put out of our misery.
As Brooklyn’s biggest project, it is no shock that Atlantic Yards is by far the boroughs most blogged subject.
In fact, one blogger, Norman Oder, has reported the subject to death over the past four years through his Atlantic Yards Report site, pissing off developer Bruce Ratner and the state and exposing various funding anomalies that have been picked up by the major media.
But, with $4.9 billion arena and office and residential tower project hinging on whether financing can be secured by the end of the year, many other independent bloggers have also stepped up their game the past few weeks.
Posted by lumi at 8:25 PM
Times editorial on eminent domain: ESDC's determination of blight in Columbia case "thoroughly defensible"
Atlantic Yards Report
The key thing to understand about today's New York Times editorial, Eminent Domain in New York, is that, as editorial writer Carolyn Curiel has stated, "We are reasoned, in how we come to opinion. But no, it's not a democracy; it's reflective of the spirit of the Times."
So "the spirit of the Times" means that the newspaper--without acknowledging its parent company's business relationship with Forest City Ratner (in building the Times Tower) and without acknowledging how eminent domain was crucial to the construction of that building--endorses, without question, the Empire State Development Corporation's highly questionable assessments of eminent domain in the cases of Atlantic Yards and the Columbia University expansion.
...Blight defensible?
Here's the key line:
The Empire State Development Corporation also made a thoroughly defensible decision that eminent domain was appropriate given the blighted condition of the land at issue, between 125th and 133rd Streets near the Hudson River.
That's it? No recognition of the three blight studies? The use of underutilization? The lower court's conclusion that the blight designation in the instant case is mere sophistry?
This conclusion?
ESDC failed to demonstrate any significant health or safety issues other than minor code violations that exist throughout the city, but more particularly in the buildings controlled by Columbia.
Posted by eric at 10:30 AM
December 7, 2009
Total condemnation: State botched eminent domain for new Columbia campus
NY Daily News, Editorial
What, no vitriol about a "small band" of "selfish holdouts?" Errol Louis must be on vacation.
New York State's supposed economic development geniuses have only themselves to blame for the scathing court ruling that barred the use of eminent domain to spur Columbia University's $6.3 billion expansion plan.
The Manhattan Appellate Division cited persuasive evidence in declaring that the Empire State Development Corp. essentially concocted a determination that the neighborhood where Columbia wants to build was blighted.
...The ruling was stunning. While it may slow construction of Columbia's hugely important campus in West Harlem, the decision was nonetheless welcome for putting public authorities on notice that they must meet minimal standards before trying to seize private property.
NoLandGrab: Of course, those "minimal standards" haven't been met with Atlantic Yards, either, but neither the News, nor the Appellate Division, seem to have made that connection.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Daily News editorial endorses court decision in Columbia case, doesn't grapple with AY similarities
While the editorial noted that the Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the state two weeks ago in the AY case--subject of a wrongheaded Daily News editorial--it fails to acknowledge that the dissent in the Columbia case cited the AY case, while the court opinion ignored it.
Yes, there are some differences in the underlying facts of the Columbia and AY cases. And the state's highest court might in fact uphold the challenge to the state's use of eminent domain for Columbia on narrow grounds, without revisiting the Atlantic Yards case.
But the court should confront the essential similarities between the two decisions: the use of underutilization to determine blight and the Empire State Development Corporation's vague blight standards.
Moreover, the majority opinion in the Columbia case pointed to the evidence of pretext--that blight was not identified as a justification until after the project was announced. In his dissent in the Atlantic Yards case, Judge Robert Smith cited similar evidence in the Atlantic Yards case, but the majority ignored it.
Posted by eric at 5:47 AM
December 6, 2009
The Brooklyn Paper's curious choices when it comes to front-page treatment of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
It's unlikely that a Brooklyn news story comparable to the Atlantic Yards fight will come around again any time soon. So how have local newspapers been doing in their coverage of this important story?
Let's compare. This week's front-page news concerns the newspaper's effort, via the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), to find out how the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) determined its low-ball market value of Atlantic Yards opponent Daniel Goldstein's apartment.
It's legitimate news, but why is it on the front page? Likely because the editors want to play up their exclusive.
Last week's Brooklyn Paper coverage of the Court of Appeals' eminent domain decision didn't make the front page. It should have.
However, the editors apparently thought that coverage of Jonathan Lethem's effort to read his new novel aloud and a drug bust in Williamsburg constituted more important news.
This week's print issue of the Brooklyn Paper does not contain the newspaper's online coverage of the bond rating for the Atlantic Yards arena.
Maybe that was a space issue, but the newspaper's coverage also was two days late. The Courier-Life's notorious Stephen Witt does have a fawning article on the bond rating, which begins:
It’s all systems go for the Brooklyn Nets arena, and perhaps an NBA championship banner hanging from the rafters following the 2011-12 playoffs in the borough. The idea did not seem that far-fetched to current Nets owner Bruce Ratner...
...
The front pages of the other two Brooklyn weeklies last week straightforwardly highlighted the eminent domain decision. In fact, the Courier-Life, using tabloid shorthand, even called the Court of Appeals' ruling a "land grab." Did that have anything to do with the fact that Witt didn't write the article?
Posted by steve at 8:20 AM
November 25, 2009
From the Times: a misleading "Atlantic Yards" photo, a buffing of "tenacious" Ratner, and no rebuttal to claims of benefits
Atlantic Yards Report
There are some unsurprisingly dismaying aspects to the front-page New York Times article today, headlined in print "Atlantic Yards Wins Appeal To Seize Land" and online as Ruling Lets Atlantic Yards Seize Land.
First, though the article correctly states that the state would exercise eminent domain, the shorthand headline inaccurately casts the inanimate "Atlantic Yards" as the actor.
Public benefit?
Second, the Times quotes developer Bruce Ratner, unrebutted, as saying "“The courts have made it clear that this project represents a significant public benefit for the people of Brooklyn and the entire city.”
The courts have made no such determination. Rather, the Court of Appeals decision issued yesterday was based on a record compiled in 2006 by the Empire State Development Corporation. The assertions in that record have not been vetted by the courts and there's much evidence--such as from the New York City Independent Budget Office--casting doubt on official claims.
"On the railyard"
Third, the original version of the article posted online said that the "arena would be built on an 8.5-acre railyard;" it took several messages to convince the Times to revise that description to "an 8.5-acre railyard and on adjacent property." (That's a basic error the Times has previously corrected.)
Actually, part of the arena would be built over the western segment of that railyard, occupying less than 30% of the total railyard acreage.
Another misleading photo
Fourth, and most important, the Times published a picture (above) of only a fraction of the Vanderbilt Yard, the railyard, and called it Atlantic Yards. The photo covers the railyard and a few buildings between Sixth and Carlton avenues and Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street, or Block 1120, outlined in red on the map below left.
NoLandGrab: And this article could be considered error-free compared to the one in The Times' sports section, posted above.
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
November 22, 2009
A collection of writings from Times architecture critic Muschamp omits his Atlantic Yards embarassment
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder looks at what is missing from a new collection of Herbert Muschamp pieces.
The new collection Hearts of the City: The Selected Writings of Herbert Muschamp memorializes the late New York Times architecture critic (who died in 2007) in 912 pages.
Guess what: his error-filled, cheerleading 12/11/03 appraisal of Atlantic Yards, headlined Courtside Seats to an Urban Garden, is not included.
A look back at that ill-informed review:
But sometimes Muschamp got Gehry wrong. That shouldn't be lost to history, especially since developer Forest City Ratner was quick to use Muschamp's praise in its first mailer (aka "liar flier") to Brooklynites.That praise--"A Garden of Eden grows in Brooklyn"--was presented as the voice of the Times, not its Gehry-besotted architecture critic.
Muschamp's extravagant review was off-base--no, the site was not an "open railyard;" no, there was not to be "parkland;" no, the Atlantic Yards differed significantly from Battery Park City. Worse, Muschamp mooned over the rooftop open public space, but that space was quickly turned private.
Though Gehry was used to sell the project to the public--remember Kurt Andersen's interview with Bruce Ratner--Gehry was later bounced from the arena and the project.
So the Urban Room Muschamp praised is no longer a feature of the arena block until and unless an office building--for which there is now no market--is built. And the idea that "the stadium [sic] will be tucked into the urban fabric" is also scotched, because it's highly unlikely that the arena, if built, would soon be wrapped in four towers as Gehry intended.
A conclusion is drawn from a review in Architect magazine by Clay Risen, who believes regarding Muschamp that "His real project was to document the imprint left on late-century urban life by gay culture."
The story of this struggle—between corporatized urban spaces and the new urban flowering seeded by gay urban pioneers, between soulless Postmodernism and the humanistic, socially engaged work of Gehry & Co.—is the story Muschamp wants to tell us, the conventional obligations of the architecture critic be damned. It is a great story, but is it accurate? Have these architects, like urban gay culture, actually made the city better?
Early Muschamp would have said no, for the same reasons he savaged Postmodernism. Later on, though, he was unable to see that no matter how good Gehry or Nouvel might be, their projects are not exempt from the privatization of public space, the impoverishment of civil society, or any of the other social ills Muschamp linked to their stylistic predecessors.
This, then, is the third reason to read Hearts of the City: as the tragic story of a critic who becomes so emotionally invested in a cause that he loses the ability to do his job effectively.
Posted by steve at 8:27 AM
November 19, 2009
An Atlantic Yards koan: how can you anchor "vaportecture"?
Atlantic Yards Report
A caption from Crain's New York Business attached to the image below (click to enlarge):
The Nets' new Barclays Center sports complex is an anchor to the planned Atlantic Yards development.Well, how can you anchor "vaportecture"?
Posted by eric at 9:30 PM
November 17, 2009
In Markowitz's publication Brooklyn!!, again no mention of Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards is still the 800-lb gorilla in Brooklyn Borough Hall:
The Fall 2009 issue of Brooklyn!!, Borough President Marty Markowitz's promotional publication, appeared in my mailbox yesterday....
With the regular "Marty's on the Block" feature, Brooklyn!! offer a seamless transition from Markowitz's campaign literature. And, as with the campaign literature, there's no mention of Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn's most controversial project, on which Markowitz has staked his reputation.
Posted by lumi at 5:13 AM
November 16, 2009
Ghostwritten letters on health care for elected officials make NYTimes front page; FCR's orchestration of letters for MTA bid got no such scrutiny
Atlantic Yards Report
It was front-page news in yesterday's New York Times. The article, headlined In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’, described how the official record of the House of Representatives's debate on health care contains similar-sounding speeches by many legislators, ghostwritten by lobbyists.
A not dissimilar effort in 2005 orchestrated by Forest City Ratner, in which elected officials sent similar letters to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) endorsing the developer's bid for the Vanderbilt Yard, never generated such skeptical coverage, though the Times covered the issue glancingly, as I'll detail below. (Click on graphics to enlarge.)
From yesterday's article:
Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies.
...In the summer of 2005, numerous elected officials and civic representatives sent letters to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority endorsing FCR's bid. I was not yet covering Atlantic Yards, and didn't see the letters until the bid surfaced as part of an affidavit in the 2007 challenge to the AY environmental impact statement.
The letters almost surely came from a template supplied by Forest City Ratner. The examples below--from federal, state, and city elected officials--all contain the same talking points, that the development "is part of the borough's ongoing evolution" and that the project is more than a sports arena.
...Press coverage
No one, as far as I can tell mentioned the orchestrated letters at the time. However, an 11/6/05 New York Times article (Routine Changes or Bait and Switch?) pointed out that elected officials in letters kept promising 10,000 office jobs even though the developer had swapped office space for condos.
Click through to see a sampling of the letters.
Posted by eric at 12:00 PM
November 14, 2009
dddb before city council hearing scene
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
On the day that the City Council planned to hold hearings on the Atlantic Yards Daniel Goldstein and Patti Hagan talked to a tv reporter about the event. The actual city council hearing was informational only. The city council had no say over the project.
Posted by steve at 9:46 AM
November 12, 2009
Columnist Collins says NYT "apologizes endlessly when we make an error" (nah)
Atlantic Yards Report
I think New York Times op-ed columnist Gail Collins does a generally excellent job, but she unleashed a brutally weird claim in today's column:
I work for a paper that rends its garments and apologizes endlessly whenever we make an error.
Posted by eric at 9:58 PM
Whatever happened to "Tenacious B"?
Atlantic Yards Report
Ha! Crain's NY Business changed the headline of the profile of Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner from "Tenacious B - Bruce Ratner must clear yet more do-or-die hurdles at Atlantic Yards," to "Ratner faces Atlantic Yards hurdles," removing the developer's rapper handle, which had bloggers LOAO.
The Notorious "Mad O's" reaction: "Odd."
NoLandGrab: We're not sure what happened, but the change to a tongue-in-cheek headline only highlights Ratner's reputation of being thin-skinned.
Posted by lumi at 5:16 AM
The "bloggiest" claim goes borough-wide, but deserves a big footnote
Atlantic Yards Report
The future of hyperlocal news--and the business models behind it--was the subject of a most interesting conference held today at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. (See coverage on Twitter.)
One factoid, however, deserves a big footnote. Introducing the hyperlocal landscape, CUNY's Jeff Jarvis said there are "a thousand blogs in Brooklyn alone."
There may well be that many, but only a handful or two or doing journalism (and many more conveying information in various forms). So, despite the apparent nation-leading concentration of blogs, Brooklyn hasn't yet produced a blog news network, nor should it be expected to do so.
...
And, for what it's worth, none of the blogs with the most content about Atlantic Yards--No Land Grab, this blog, DDDB, and Noticing New York--have a business model. (Well, DDDB is raising money.) The controversy over Atlantic Yards is a quite a motivator.
Posted by lumi at 5:13 AM
November 11, 2009
An academic looks at NYC politics, relies on a New York Times clip file, gets Atlantic Yards mostly wrong
Atlantic Yards Report
Last week’s opportunity to have Bruce Berg, a Fordham University professor of political science, answer questions from readers on the New York Times’s CityRoom blog, sent me to Berg’s January 2008 book New York City Politics: Governing Gotham, a book that treats the West Side Stadium and Atlantic Yards as prominent examples.
In covering AY, he gets part of the story right, notably the bypass of local elected officials, but he gets a lot wrong, proving that a reliance mainly on clips from the New York Times (hardly the "paper of record" when it comes to AY) is simply irresponsible.
The "modern blueprint"
Notably, he relies on an article listed as "Confessore 2005b," which is academic-speak for To Build Arena in Brooklyn, Developer First Builds Bridges, the notorious 10/14/05 Times article that posited that Forest City Ratner had achieved a "modern blueprint" in outreach, a statement that was dubious from the start and more dubious today.
Berg should have done a lot more digging. In fact, his citation of Times articles, unencumbered by his own fact-checking or a willingness to seek out critiques of those articles, suggests that academic research ossified into a book can be far less incisive than continuing coverage via a blog.
And because academics like Berg rely on the Times, it's important for the newspaper to get things right and, when it doesn't, to correct the record. And the Times so often doesn't--still, as shown in its recent assertion that the city agreed to finance Atlantic Yards affordable housing.
Posted by eric at 10:23 AM
November 7, 2009
Spider-Man on Broadway: The Atlantic Yards of Musicals?
Gothamist
The proposed Atlantic Yards project is used as an example of how not to do things.
The massive project is falling further behind schedule, it's millions of dollars in the hole, and will need a miracle to meet a looming make-or-break deadline. All we need now are a string of eminent-domain lawsuits, and Julie Taymor's wildly ambitious Broadway adaptation of Spider-Man might as well change its name to Atlantic Yards: The Musical. (Starring Harvey Fierstein as embattled developer Bruce Ratner!) Today Taymor is meeting with producers to decide whether to proceed or postpone the technically insane project, which is hemorrhaging money like Mr. Orange gushing blood in the back seat of Mr. White's car. Is it gonna be okaaay?
NoLandGrab: We'd enjoy any script for "Atlantic Yards: The Musical" that ends with the monster development dying in developer Bruce Ratner's arms as they sing the stirring "There's NO Place For Us".
Posted by steve at 8:30 AM
November 4, 2009
Press Conference about the project
Battle of Brooklyn via Kickstarter
Here's today's video clip from the documentary filmmakers behind Battle of Brooklyn: a press conference early on in the fight, on the steps of City Hall, at which Daily News columnist Errol Louis accuses project opponents of bending facts, an accusation he's never laid at the feet of the frequent fabricators at Forest City Ratner.
This scene is long - we cut it early on and didn't know where the movie was headed yet. Now its a small scene as part of a long montage. We are increasingly relying on montages to help build a sense of time passing. Some of these montages grab bits of scenes that are powerful themselves but just too long for a two hour movie.
Posted by eric at 10:59 PM
November 2, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Looks At How The Times Is Doing - It Could Be Doing Better
Atlantic Yards Report
When it comes to the mayoral race, the Times calls a lie a lie
From a New York Times article today, headlined In Mayoral Race, a Blitz of Truth-Stretching Ads:
As the New York City mayor’s race enters its final, combative stretch, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his opponent, Comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., have unleashed a flood of advertisements that contain distorted, misleading and, in some cases, outright false claims about everything from the creation of jobs to plans for tax increases.
(Emphasis added)
Sounds pretty declarative. So why can't the Times avoid publishing a lie from a government spokesman about the Atlantic Yards site or avoid falsely referring to "[t]he city’s agreement to help finance the [Atlantic Yards housing] plan."
The Times confirms that metro news does not constitute "core coverage"
New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt writes today about cuts at the paper, in a piece headlined Recession, Revolution and a Leaner Times:
William Schmidt, the deputy managing editor in charge of the newsroom budget, said editors are focused on preserving core coverage: national, foreign, business, and culture and arts. Over the past 10 years, the paper has added seven national correspondents and 10 foreign correspondents, and has expanded the Washington bureau and the business news department. The paper is spending more than $4 million a year to feed, house and protect its journalists in war zones, Schmidt said.
Meanwhile, the metro staff, with more than 60 reporters, is still the largest, but it has been reduced by nearly 20 percent over a decade. The paper, for example, no longer has correspondents in the state capitals of New Jersey and Connecticut.
(Emphasis added)
...
Well, for those who'd forgotten that metro does constitute core coverage, the day's newspaper, with no pages devoted to breaking New York City news, offers confirmation.
There's now a fluffy, feature-based weekend section called Metropolitan, which circulates in the tri-state area; it succeeds multiple regional sections, including the City section.
The lead story: a marathon walk around his Park Slope block by Andy Newman, who's main job is to run The Local, the Times's blog on Fort Greene/Clinton Hill.
Posted by steve at 4:52 AM
November 1, 2009
A tight deadline to fund and finish the documentary "Battle of Brooklyn"
Atlantic Yards Report
This blog entry focuses on the efforts of filmmakers Michael Galinsky, Suki Hawley and David Beilinson to find the funding in order to complete their documentary on the Atlantic Yards fight "Battle of Brooklyn".
Galinsky tells me, "Our goal at this point is to get the film ready for the Tribeca Film Festival. (The festival begins April 21, with final cuts due in March.)
And while Galinsky says, "I tend to favor films that are shorter--like 90 minutes--but I think this one will clock in at two hours."
Well, with 300 hours to pick from, even a two-hour documentary will have to compress a lot.
I also should point out that, while the producers presume a resolution of Atlantic Yards by December 31, I wouldn't put big money on it. Atlantic Yards is a "never say never" project.
Posted by steve at 9:14 AM
October 31, 2009
"Eminent Decision for Brooklyn": Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse captures some key exchanges in Court of Appeals argument
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes a look at the latest video offering from Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse.
Most of Eminent Decision for Brooklyn, the 25-minute episode of Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse concerning the October 14 Court of Appeals hearing in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case, consists of plaintiffs and supporters speaking at a press conference.
But the producers have deftly chosen some of the most telling exchanges from the argument, leading off with the astonishing exchange--reminiscent of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's fiery dissent in the 2005 Kelo v. New London case, in which Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) attorney Philip Karmel admits, in response to a question from Judge Robert Smith about "a perfectly nice house," that such a house is vulnerable to taking via the state's loose eminent domain laws.
Then, a little after 21 minutes in, the video returns to some key moments in the hearing: Smith asks if the area was gerrymandered; Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman points out there's a great deal of public subsidy behind the project; and Smith asks when exactly blight was designated as the rationale for the use of eminent domain.
Of course, there was a lot more to the hearing, including significant skepticism of the plaintiffs' arguments. But the video surely does the job of seeding criticism of the state's action, and the yet-unreformed state laws that would enable it.
Posted by steve at 7:01 AM
October 30, 2009
The Voice's Robbins: thin press means little scrutiny of Bloomberg (and what about AY?)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder contends that the media's inattention goes beyond the Mayor's record and reelection:
I'll suggest some other un-covered or undercovered stories:
- the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) new concessions to Forest City Ratner upon re-approving Atlantic Yards in September
- Forest City Ratner's bailout of ACORN
- New York University's questionable absorption of Polytechnic University
Posted by lumi at 5:45 AM
October 29, 2009
My Little O debuts, underwhelms
Atlantic Yards Report
Following in the footsteps of, oh, Brownstoner (sort of) and the New York Times's blog The Local, a new blog, My Little O, has launched to cover (and network) the vastly ignored neighborhoods of Fort Greene & Clinton Hill.
...
The latest piece of breaking news is nine days old, from October 20, headlined Car Accident at Atlantic Yards. Um, that's the Vanderbilt Yard.
Posted by lumi at 8:46 PM
The Times takes on stalled development: barely a mention of AY but questions about the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership
Atlantic Yards Report
The photo attached to today's front-page New York Times article, headlined A Stalled Vision: Big Development as City’s Future, is of the CityPoint site at the Fulton Street Mall in Downtown Brooklyn, but it could just as easily have been of various parts of the Atlantic Yards site.
But Atlantic Yards--well, a segment of it--might get going, so maybe it wasn't the perfect poster child.
Still, the development deserves significant mention because it has been enormously delayed: when Atlantic Yards was announced in 2004, the arena was supposed to open in 2006; when the project was approved in 2006, the arena was supposed to open in 2009; and now it's supposed to open in 2012, though uncertainties abound.
In fact, Atlantic Yards gets barely a tangential mention in an article that touches on Downtown Brooklyn, Hudson Yards, new baseball stadiums, Willets Point, and more.
The mention follows up on an investigation by the Attorney General's office into apparently illegal lobbying by lobbyists for Willets Point, with a revelation that there may be similar questions concerning the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) when it comes to AY.
Posted by lumi at 6:01 AM
October 27, 2009
How 2005 fudge from the mayor's office on AY affordable housing led the Times into a 2009 error it won't correct
Atlantic Yards Report
Back in 2005, Mayor Bloomberg's office overstated the City's role and commitment to affordable housing in Atlantic Yards, which found its way into an October 2009 article in The NY Times, which has informed Oder that the paper has no intention of setting the record straight, since the "reference to Atlantic Yards captured a specific moment in time."
[T]he Times claims that city officials were "signing off" on an "agreement" to help finance the Atlantic Yards affordable housing, even though the Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), excerpted at right, involved only Forest City Ratner's subsidiary Atlantic Yards Development Company and the advocacy group ACORN, not the city.
The error, as noted below, apparently was derived from a mayoral press release that inaccurately announced the deal as a fait accompli.
The bottom line: an error reprinted is an error, even if it can be attributed to a seemingly reliable source.
The larger context: the amount of time the Times spent in responding to me--and rather defensively denying that readers could be misled--could better have been used to print a correction or clarification regarding the article at hand.
Read the rest of the article to find out how Times staffers put their heads together and still got it wrong.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder has a point — maybe the article "captured a specific moment in time," but it still erroneously cited "The city’s agreement to help finance the plan." There wasn't and still isn't a signed agreement with the City.
If Oder wasn't burning his time reminding the Times of this fact, few people would know otherwise.
Posted by lumi at 5:01 AM
October 23, 2009
The Brooklyn Paper, under new ownership, buffs Ratner's reputation in an editorial and blames only the state
Atlantic Yards Report
What a difference a new owner makes.
The Brooklyn Paper editorializes this week that State must keep Ratner on hook for affordable housing, but blames only the state, not the developer.
...Looking back
When the Brooklyn Paper was independently owned, before the purchase earlier this year by Rupert Murdoch's Community Newspaper Group, the editorial stand was a wee bit tougher.
Click thru for a look back at the good ol' days, pre-Rupert Murdoch.
NoLandGrab: There is a school of thought that says that Ratner is just doing what he's supposed to be doing — trying to maximize profit — and that government is responsible for representing the public interest, a task at which they're failing miserably. However, the press, too, has a watchdog role, and giving Ratner a pass is another miserable failure.
Posted by eric at 11:24 AM
October 20, 2009
Atlantic Yards lawsuit fatigue? News of the suit challenging the ESDC's approval of the project is ignored in the dailies
Atlantic Yards Report
Does Atlantic Yards get too much press coverage, or not enough?
So, in yesterday's print New York Times, the Metro pages brought news of Glee! The Retirees’ Talent Show. The Sports section offered For Potential Owner, a Background Check Worthy of the K.G.B.
So, was news of yesterday's suit leveling serious charges against the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) regarding the Atlantic Yards approval worth an article in today's print newspaper?
Apparently not. It wasn't even worth an online article. Not in the Times, not in the New York Daily News, and not in the New York Post. (The tabs, however, each ran print Sports section stories about Nets point guard Devin Harris.)
It was covered by the New York Observer, WNYC, Crain's New York Business, Reuters, and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, plus the Record. Perhaps the once AY-focused Brooklyn Paper will catch up in due time.
Posted by eric at 10:08 AM
October 19, 2009
The "aggressive enough press"? The lapses mount, and the Atlantic Yards arena bonds issue might become a prime example
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember, Mayor Mike Bloomberg last week said he wants to get rid of the Public Advocate's office because, among other things, "we have an aggressive enough press."
The press has had a fairly weak track record on Atlantic Yards revelations.
But here are a couple just from last week's (non-daily) press, with emphases added. The last example, of course, involves Atlantic Yards.
The manipulation (or falsifying) of property values to satisfy the financing needs of sports-team owners would normally be a scandal, except in NYC, where it is just business as usual.
From Wayne Barrett's Village Voice feature this week, headlined A Bloomberg Score Card: The Mayor's Hits and Misses:
The evidence that top officials of the Bloomberg administration reversed land assessments for the Yankees deal to artificially jack up the value in order to qualify for the tax-exempt financing is overwhelming and would—in a time when a good scandal had staying power in New York—make Bloomberg wince at the thought of an election eve parade. E-mails like one from a top aide to Deputy Mayor Doctoroff explicitly said they were making the assessment "so high" in an attempt "to support the tax-exempt financing."
By December, the Bloomberg administration will replicate its scandal-ridden history of bonding these projects by supporting the issuance of $678 million in state tax-exempt bonds for the Nets. The IBO estimates that the arena will also cost the city $350 million, combining direct and indirect subsidies, concluding that it will lose at least $40 million over the life of the deal, assuming the most optimistic revenue projections. Salty Mike's response to the unstated, apolitical IBO: "I don't know what the IBO studies would have shown back when they tried to establish the value of Central Park."
Posted by lumi at 7:09 AM
October 18, 2009
再開発をめぐる論争が州最高裁に
Tokyo MX
NY1's "Sister Station" in Tokyo gives coverage, mostly using NY1's video, of the Eminent Domain case heard in Albany this past Wednesday.
(To see the video, click on the link below, and then click on the "Movie" icon.)
Posted by steve at 8:32 AM
October 16, 2009
So, why did the print Times ignore the eminent domain hearing?
Atlantic Yards Report
Today, Norman Oder revisits the original raison d'etre of his blog, the pattern of shoddy coverage of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in The NY Times, in light of the developer's business relationship with the paper.
Why did editors of the print-edition Times kill the report from the "City Room" blog, covering the "landmark" oral arguments before the NY State Court of Appeals in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case?
Breaking news routinely appears on the blog when a story is filed, and is subsequently published in the print edition, or at least is summarized in the "City Room" column — not this time.
If it wasn't "interference" by the publisher, then it was "incompetence;" either way "it's sure suspicious."
Consider that the City Room post, by former Brooklyn reporter Nicholas Confessore, focused on tough questioning of the lawyer for the Empire State Development Corporation and could have been balanced by some references to the skepticism the judges showed toward the attorney for the nine plaintiffs.
(Would you believe it: a New York Times article slightly unbalanced in favor of Atlantic Yards opponents?)
Surely Forest City Ratner wasn't pleased by the coverage. Did someone call the publisher's office at the Times? I don't know. Does the publisher intervene in news coverage? That is not supposed to be happen.
If not, then the only explanation is incompetence. Was a print article about a real estate fraud in Harlem, however interesting, more important than the "landmark legal test"?
That's not a tough call, but here's an easier one: Are two paragraphs about Pataki's portrait more important than even a mention of this case?
Posted by lumi at 6:32 AM
October 15, 2009
Something is Wrong at the Times
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Largest development proposal in Brooklyn's history?
Check.
Project proposed by most powerful developer in New York state with political tentacles everywhere?
Check.
Most expensive basketball arena in the history of the planet?
Check.
Eminent domain required to build that project and that arena?
Check.
New York State's high court holds argument on owners' and tenants' challenge to New York State's use of eminent domain for the Atlantic Yards project?
Check.
Mulitple important issues relevant to the entire state, and beyond, discussed in the court room?
Check.
Blog post on the New York Times website about the argument?
Check.
Print edition article in the Post and Daily News as well as coverage by Reuters and Associated Press?
Check.
New Times tower built utilizing eminent domain?
Check.
Newspaper article on the court argument in the print edition of the New York Times.
Nope.
Posted by eric at 2:08 PM
October 14, 2009
The MTA lawsuit gets mostly ignored in print, though the "pretty rotten deal" (as per Russianoff) affects a lot of people
Atlantic Yards Report
Never mind that financial shenanigans at the MTA affect millions of people:
So, how seriously did New York's major newspapers take the lawsuit filed yesterday that challenges the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's sweeter deal with Forest City Ratner for the Vanderbilt Yard?
The New York Times relegated coverage to a City Room blog post, with a one-paragraph reference in the print paper. The New York Daily News mentioned the suit in the last two paragraphs of a page 14 article (not yet online) on today's eminent domain suit.
The New York Post took the story more seriously, with six paragraphs in print, on page 2. The freebie Metro gave it five short paragraphs.
Posted by lumi at 6:31 PM
October 10, 2009
CNG Watch: news of downtown condo price cuts but not KPMG's Atlantic Yards market study
Atlantic Yards Report
You might think that a newspaper that covers Brooklyn would give priority to the largest proposed project for the borough. In the past, you would be right, but now, you'd be mistaken. The Brooklyn Paper has a story about price cuts for the new Oro Building, but misses a story that connects inflated sales figures for Oro to Atlantic Yards.
But there's nothing in the Brooklyn Paper, nor its Community Newspaper Group (aka Murdoch-owned) sibling Courier-Life, about the dubious KPMG report released Wednesday concerning the market for condos and rentals in the Atlantic Yards project. That report claimed that the Oro was 75% sold.
Nor did the two newspapers cover the Empire State Development Corporation's September 17 vote to approve the 2009 Modified General Project Plan.
In March, Brooklyn Paper editor-in-chief Gersh Kuntzman, who regularly reminds us how both he and the paper are "award-winning," asserted that "our coverage of Atlantic Yards has not 'tailed off.'"
The evidence, however, shows that it has.
Posted by steve at 7:40 AM
October 7, 2009
Still waiting for the Times and the Public Editor to notice the FCR-ACORN connection
Atlantic Yards Report
This past Sunday, as I noted, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt, in his column about ACORN, passed on an opportunity to mention Forest City Ratner's bailout of the embattled organization.
Linked from his column was his blog, The Public Editor's Journal, which posted the letters referenced in the column.
The blog, unlike the column, accepts comments. I posted the comment at right. (Click to enlarge.) According to the official policy, "Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive." This one was never approved.
Atlantic Yards Report commenter "brokeland2003" posts: "Why is the Times protecting ACORN and Ratner? Your comment was clearly on topic and not abusive."
Posted by eric at 12:23 PM
October 4, 2009
The Times Public Editor passes on an opportunity to mention Forest City Ratner's bailout of ACORN
Atlantic Yards Report
So New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt today follows up on last week's ACORN column with a piece headlined Notes About Bias, From Opposite Points of View. He begins:
LAST Sunday’s column about the coverage of Acorn prompted nearly 400 messages and online comments from readers, some convinced that The Times is suppressing news that might damage liberals, and others equally convinced that The Times is about to cave in to extremists on the right.
...Hoyt, however, did not take the opportunity to reference my comment on last week's story:
There’s a far more substantial ACORN story that the Times and nearly all of the mainstream press has ignored.Following an embezzlement scandal that led to the loss of foundation support, ACORN was bailed out last year with a $500,000 grant and $1 million loan from… Brooklyn-based Forest City Ratner, a developer which counts ACORN as a partner on the enormously controversial Atlantic Yards project.
Click thru for links to Norman Oder's past coverage of the ACORN bailout.
Posted by eric at 5:13 PM
What Purnick Has Purged: The Bloomberg Bio Mysteriously Missing Atlantic Yards
Noticing New York
Michael White has read Joyce Purnick’s "Mike Bloomberg: Money, Power, Politics", a mostly adulatory biography of Mayor Bloomberg. One way that the bio manages to look so lovingly at Bloomberg is to ignore his mayoralty's failures in the areas of development and urban design.
A prime example of ignoring significantly errant Bloombergian megadevelopment is Purnick’s lack of mention of Atlantic Yards. Her book contains only an oblique misleading sliver of a reference. Neither Atlantic Yards nor Bruce Ratner or his Forest City Ratner are mentioned anywhere in the book. Similarly, you won’t find mention of Yankee Stadium in the index, though there are two paragraphs about the new Yankee and Mets stadiums into which there is tucked the slight hint that there might be plans for a megadevelopment far more problematic than either stadium. On page 207 Ms. Purnick breezes through this topic area thusly:
After blocking Giuliani’s subsidies to new stadiums for the Mets and the Yankees in his first year, judging, in his pragmatic businessman’s fashion, that the city could not afford them, Bloomberg later relented. He was lavishly generous to the two teams and their ultraluxurious stadiums, as well as to a new basketball arena in Brooklyn.
The stadiums benefited (sic) from tens of millions of dollars* in city investments, tax breaks and subsides, bundled into complex deals whose true cost to the taxpayers may never be clear. The city will gain from economic activity in the long run, the mayor said, as all mayors say about sports stadiums everywhere. Rarely do the predictions meet the promise but the stadiums are built anyway.
(*Only “tens of millions of dollars”? Total public subsidies for Atlantic Yards are in the hundreds of millions aggregating up to $2-$3 billion and the subsidies that come from the state and other levels of government should not be disregarded: Those are funded with taxes from NYC taxpayers too, and divert resources from other city projects. ESDC and the MTA just piled on hundreds of millions of extra subsidy on the basketball arena alone.)
Posted by steve at 7:53 AM
October 2, 2009
Regarding Bloomberg, what a difference a year makes for the Brooklyn Paper
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder looks back at The Brooklyn Paper's editorializing from October, 2008.
What a difference a new owner makes. This week's Community Newspaper Group (CNG) editorial endorsing Mayor Mike Bloomberg, published in Brooklyn Paper and across the newspapers, stands in stark contrast to the Brooklyn Paper's stands last year.
Click thru for a trip down memory lane.
NoLandGrab: Either Gersh Kuntzman is now actually a pod person, whose body has been inhabited by some Murdochian organism, or someone else is pulling the levers when it comes to the paper's editorial positions.
Posted by eric at 10:38 AM
September 30, 2009
The Times corrects DePlasco's railyard misinformation
Atlantic Yards Report
Looky here! The Times just got around to correcting an egregious week-old lie by Atlantic Yards snake-oil salesman Joe DePlasco.
Six days after allowing Forest City Ratner flack Joe DePlasco to say, "“Most of Atlantic Yards is being built over the Long Island Rail Road," the New York Times finally publishes a correction:
about 40 percent of the project — not “most” of it — is being built over a railyard.Actually, it's not being built yet either.
For what it's worth, I filed a request for a correction last Wednesday night, shortly after the article appeared online--it was published Thursday--and again yesterday.
Read the full correction (scroll to bottom)
Posted by eric at 7:43 PM
September 26, 2009
Media Observations From The Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder returns to the theme of the failure of much of the press, and particularly the New York Times, to fully cover the important real estate story that is the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
The deal to buy the New Jersey Nets has finally gotten some scrutiny in the New York Times, but the Empire State Development Corporation's willingness to offer concessions to developer Forest City Ratner still hasn't drawn coverage, even as the Times is willing to write whimsically about comparisons between Mikhail Prokhorov and Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Norman Oder notes how, in the case of the yet-to-be-completed documentary "The Battle of Brooklyn", sometimes film can capture that which cannot be blogged.
In one instance, Develop Don't Destroy spokesperson, Daniel Goldstein confronts ACORN's Bertha Lewis
The filmmakers recently put up a clip of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Goldstein confronting ACORN leader Bertha Lewis after a press conference on affordable housing. As Galinsky writes:
After the event, Daniel Goldstein confronts her with the fact that tenants are already being pushed out. She admits that ACORN hasn’t actually talked to any of the tenants yet. She then argues that the developer has nothing to do with greedy landlords forcing out tenants before they buy the property.This is not a gotcha moment, but instead a small part of a complex tale. We feel that it is relevant to follow up on published reports that call into question the relationship between the developer and ACORN. At issue is the fact that the developer gave a $500,000 grant and $1,000,000 low interest loan to ACORN in the midst of a previous scandal when many long time donors refused to continue supporting them.
I think the clip also clearly shows something else: the theatrical Lewis knows she can be intimidating, but Goldstein is not intimidated.
In another case, Borough President Marty Markowitz seems to inadvertently predict the involvment of Mikhail Prokhorov years before the fact.
In a fortuitous moment, the filmmakers years ago filmed Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz as claiming the project "puts the Russian dressing on a great pastrami sandwich." (It's about 2:27 of the trailer below.)
Whether Markowitz considers the sale of the Nets to Russian mogul Mikhail Prokhorov such an equivalent is yet unknown.
Atlantic Yards will be a focus on The Brian Lehrer Show on Wednesday
This coming week, The Brian Lehrer Show, which runs 10 am to noon on WNYC radio, will focus on development in New York City, including a focus Wednesday on Atlantic Yards: All this week, we’ll be discussing what’s at stake for development in New York City, from affordable housing and zoning to close examinations of Atlantic Yards and other high-profile projects.
6 Mon 9/28 Eminent Domain
7 Tues 9/29 Industrial and Commercial Development
8 Weds 9/30 Focus: Atlantic Yards
9 Thurs 10/1 Affordable Housing
10 Fri 10/2 Focus: World Trade CenterLehrer's New York Development Wiki is pretty thin.
Posted by steve at 10:32 PM
September 25, 2009
Russian to the rescue: Moscow mogul may be savior of vital Atlantic Yards project
NY Daily News, Editorial
Here's a shocker — the Daily News's editorial board loves Russian dressing. More Soviet-style blather from Atlantic Yards' biggest fans.
With unemployment over 10%, Wall Street struggling for footing and the real estate industry in the tank, breaking ground on both a Nets arena and 1,000-plus units of housing would be a major economic boost.
Prokhorov started out in the free markets selling blue jeans and is reported to have done fabulously in nickel ore in the Russian north. Assuming he passes muster among the NBA owners - and pray that he does - his money muscle should more than put to rest doubts about the financial viability of Atlantic Yards.
Which isn't to say the project is out of the woods.
Despite the enormous benefits of the development's $4 billion master plan - including 6,400 units of affordable, middle-income and market-rate housing - a tiny but determinedly litigious opposition has used the courts to hamstring Ratner.
He has a last legal fight to win. The opponents have asked the state's highest court to radically and unwisely overhaul New York's law of eminent domain for the sole purpose of stopping Ratner. The court must respond: Nyet way, nyet how.
NoLandGrab: "Tiny" opposition? We hardly think that "controversial" and "Atlantic Yards" would so rarely appear without each other in public if opposition to the project wasn't so widespread.
Posted by eric at 9:49 AM
September 21, 2009
In Miami, the Times finds public consternation over a sweetheart deal for a stadium
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder follows up on The Times' sudden interest in bad publicly funded sports-venue deals — in Miami.
The New York Times, which treated the passage of the Atlantic Yards plan last Thursday as an event barely worthy of mention, much less scrutiny, today does some delving into a controversy about another sports facility.
...The situation in Brooklyn is both better and worse. The city and state are devoting $305 million in direct subsidies to Atlantic Yards, with--according to the IBO--about $250 million to the arena. The $726 million represents a combination of subsidies and tax breaks, including $194 million in federal tax breaks on tax-exempt bonds.
Arguably, however, Forest City Ratner is gaining even more of a benefit from opportunity costs--provisions that reduce the level of potential additional revenues--given that the state handed over all control of naming rights, a sum reported at $400 million.
Beyond that, the construction of an arena approaching $800 million would be paid by PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes), which, according to Assemblyman Richard Brodsky--at least when describing a similar funding scheme for Yankee Stadium--counts as a public subsidy. (Sports facilities expert Neil deMause says instead that the property tax breaks are a subsidy.)
Posted by eric at 10:57 PM
September 19, 2009
Rounding up the press non-coverage
Atlantic Yards Report
They say it's lonely at the top. It was a little lonely, media-wise, at this week's meeting of the ESDC board, as it gave its rubber-stamp approval to the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
Who in the press takes seriously the amended Atlantic Yards plan, the ESDC's rubber-stamp, and the concessions to Forest City Ratner?
Not the Brooklyn Paper. It didn't send a reporter. Nor did the Courier-Life. Yes, it was a deadline day, but this is a big story. (The print Brooklyn Paper does include two AY articles the paper already published on the web: about the IBO report and the public appearance of the arena architects.)
The New York Post didn't send a reporter but ran a 92-word summary. The New York Daily News did send a reporter, but didn't run a story. (The newspaper did have a lot of room to cover anchor Ernie Anastos's use of the F-word, though.)
The New York Times mentioned the action in an aside to a story on the potential investment in the Nets and the project by a Russian billionaire. (The Local didn't even cover it.)
The only (paid) reporters to approach the decision with some professional curiosity and skepticism were Eliot Brown of the New York Observer, who nailed the conclusion that the decision helped Forest City Ratner's cash flow, and former Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman of WNYC, whose main story was bland, but dug deeper in the station's news blog.
Crain's New York Business ran a story that just hit the surface, as did the Record, Reuters, and Globe Street.
Posted by steve at 11:09 AM
September 12, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report In Search of Truth
Atlantic Yards Report
Here is an open letter to Clark Hoyt who is the New York Times' "readers' representative." The Times let stand a claim that the site of the proposed Atlantic Yards project is just the 8.5 acre Vanderbilt rail yards, when it’s actually a 22-acre site encompassing the adjoining neighborhood in Prospect Heights.
Bruce Ratner is a business partner of the New York Times.
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
Surely you've grappled with this question: how does the newspaper handle clear untruths told by government officials?
Let me give you an example--in which the Times was apprised of the lie, but still let it go into print.
On the CityRoom blog, on September 10, the Times reported on a new report on the Atlantic Yards arena from the NYC Independent Budget Office. The article was posted at 1:45 pm.
The Times quoted David Lombino, a spokesman for the NYC Economic Development Corporation, as saying that the Atlantic Yards site was "a site that is now an open railyard without any public benefit."
At 3:33 pm, I posted a comment, noting, in part: "The site’s not 'now an open railyard without any public benefit.' It’s a 22-acre site. The railyard is 8.5 acres."
However, on the September 11 print edition, on page A24, a somewhat truncated version of the CityRoom post, headlined "Report Sees Loss In Brooklyn Arena" ended with the above-mentioned quote from Lombino.
It's clearly untrue. And the Times had ample reason to know that.
Moreover, given the parent NYT Co's business relationship with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, the Times has a special obligation to be exacting in its coverage, and has not done so.
Your attention to this is appreciated.
Regards,
Norman Oder
Atlantic Yards Report
AtlanticYardsReport.com
Norman Oder questions the truth in Courier-Life reporting. Bruce Ratner's relationship to reporter Steve Witt is reminiscent of an old Groucho Marx quote: "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"
Showing again why he's the reporter who prefers trusting Forest City Ratner to reading any documents, Witt reports:
Ratner also briefly took off the gloves last week at opponents of his Atlantic Yards project. His remarks came in response to this paper asking him about recent reports on opponent blogs and websites alleging that Ratner is moving away from building the affordable housing component of the project.“They [opponents] are 100 percent wrong about the affordable housing. It’s another red herring. We’re required to build affordable housing and it has been my personal commitment from the very beginning,” said Ratner.
“They [opponents] have been dead wrong about everything. What they constantly do is throw up another false statement and hope something will stick,” he added.
Well, maybe Witt could do some reading. And, perhaps, recognize that a good chunk of "affordable housing" would be above market rate.
Btw, the Daily News--not an opponent web site--did follow up on the story.
Posted by steve at 9:02 AM
September 7, 2009
The "iron core of information," newspapers, blogs, and sunshine
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder (inevitably) brings a critique of a book fretful about the future of mainstream journalism's watchdog role back to Atlantic Yards.
Democracy requires both information and a light on that information. Important information isn't important until someone who commands attention or some trusted institution validates it.
The system is already broken--the news about Carlton Avenue Bridge was ignored--but it may have to break more before it can be reconstructed.
Imagine a world in which there are fewer established media outlets but more sunshine. Some institutions, whether they be online journalism or civic organizations, would have to emerge to validate the importance of the information uncovered.
But perhaps more people would have been reading the documents of the Empire State Development Corporation and more oversight would have emerged.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
August 19, 2009
Times Blogger Accused of Karaoke Bias (Updated!)
Runnin' Scared
by Roy Edroso
Back in March, a correspondent from the Times' Fort Greene Blog posted a photo of himself doing karaoke with a staffer from
the campaign of councilmember Tish JamesTish James' "official staff site," Team Tish. "No political endorsement is implied here," added blogger Andy Newman. "I would just as gladly have duetted with someone from the campaign of Ms. James's challenger, Delia Hunley-Adossa, if such a person had materialized."It was a night [cue sinister music] that Andy Newman would come to regret...
On August 12, a different Times blogger chided Hunley-Adossa for not being available to media enquiries. Yesterday Hunley-Adossa defended herself in a Brooklyn Courier Life article, charging the paper is biased in favor of James -- and in defense of her charge "pointed out that Times reporter Andy Newman... published a photo of himself singing karaoke with the woman who runs James' blog," the Courier Life says. Hunley-Adossa added, "I'm not sure he would sing with one of my staffers."
NoLandGrab: There's no shortage of irony in the fact that Atlantic Yards beat reporter Stephen Witt, who gave voice to this silly, baseless story of media bias, threw a big old bear hug around Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner at the public hearing on the project's draft environmental impact statement on August 23rd, 2006. Media bias indeed!
More coverage...
A Short Story, Delia Can You Hear Me?
Posted by eric at 9:50 AM
August 18, 2009
Times revises stance on public authority reform, agrees land should be sold at below-market rates
Atlantic Yards Report
After wholeheartedly endorsing landmark legislation reforming the state's public authorities less than a month ago, the New York Times--after listening to Mayor Mike Bloomberg and maybe even Forest City Ratner--agrees that the legislation should be revised somewhat.
The Times appears to buy the Mayor's line that barring state authorities from selling land for less than market value would hamper affordable-housing projects (not to mention basketball arenas!), yet the paper's editorial board thinks the bill should maintain its insistence that directors of said authorities carry out their fiduciary duties.
The fiduciary duty connects directly to selling land at below-market rates, as Assemblyman Richard Brodsky has said, and the most direct example concerns the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard, which at this point would be used far less for affordable housing than for a profitable arena for Forest City Ratner, which, of course, was the partner with the newspaper's parent company on the new Times Tower.
In other words, it's not being sold to a government agency to build housing. It's being sold to a private developer who, with sufficient subsidies, may build housing.
NoLandGrab: Here we are agreeing with Delia Hunley-Adossa again — The Times just ain't objective. Does anyone else think it's a problem when the city's leading media outlet is chummy with the billionaire mayor and real estate developers?
Posted by eric at 11:10 AM
Hunley-Adossa, via the compromised Witt & C-L, counter-attacks weakly against coverage in The Local, AYR
Atlantic Yards Report
The Courier-Life's Stephen Witt tosses Norman Oder a big, fat softball, and Oder knocks it out of the park.
The entire post, which sets the record straight, is well worth a read, but this passage in particular makes the Community Newspaper Group look like the gang that couldn't shoot straight:
It's pretty funny that CNG's BoroPolitics site is hosting an article claiming that Hunley-Adossa is accessible, given that the original piece in The Local quotes Gersh Kuntzman of the Brooklyn Paper, which is one of the contributors to BoroPolitics:
Nor are we the only news outlet that is having trouble contacting Ms. Hunley-Adossa.“We at The Brooklyn Paper have been astounded by the lack of response to our questions from Delia and her campaign,” said Gersh Kuntzman, editor of The Brooklyn Paper. “She aspires to a very lofty position –- public servant –- and, as such, she needs to answer questions from independent media.”
Related coverage...
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill], We Stand Accused
We usually try to avoid getting too self-referential (no we don’t) but felt journalistically compelled this morning to alert you to a piece in the Courier-Life weekly in which City Council candidate Delia Hunley-Adossa accuses us of being biased against her in favor of the incumbent, Letitia James.
Posted by eric at 10:20 AM
Paper of record accused of bias
Courier Life Publications
by Stephen Witt
Steve Witt, who was nosing around last week trying to conjure up a story of discord here at NoLandGrab (sorry, Steve, the only thing troubling us is Atlantic Yards), instead found his "story" in a sordid tale of alleged media bias. Buckle your seatbelts for this one.
A longtime civic activist charged The New York Times with propagating a smear campaign as she tries to unseat incumbent Letitia James in the upcoming 35th District City Council Democratic Primary.
Delia (Dee) Hunley-Adossa, who has been the president of the 88th Precinct Community Council for the past 10 years, said she was appalled that The Times ran a story about her this week saying she was unreachable.
The story, which ran under the headline, “Have you seen this woman?” alleges that Hunley-Adossa has been unreachable and is dodging the media.
“I question their objectivity and have from the beginning,” said Hunley-Adossa, who has always been very reachable by this newspaper.
Well of course she's always been reachable by the Courier, which hasn't exactly been critical of Atlantic Yards or its supporters.
As for The Times, we have also questioned their objectivity — because Bruce Ratner is their development partner. We find it a bit odd, though, that the Atlantic Yards candidate would think that The Times, which has always supported the project editorially, would be out to do a hatchet job on a pro-project candidate. Times reporter and The Local blogger Andy Newman, however, has always played it straight.
“I’m also appalled that The New York Times constantly links to someone’s blog who reports one-sided on Atlantic Yards,” said Hunley-Adossa, referring to Norman Oder’s Atlantic Yards Report blog, which writes lavishingly of James and continually criticizes any community supporters of the project.
We'll leave it to the one-sided Mr. Oder to poke holes in these far-fetched claims.
Hunley-Adossa is the chair of a group of community-based organizations that signed a Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner.
Several of these organizations, including Hunley-Adossa’s, received funding from Ratner as per the CBA.
Good for you, Steve Witt, for including this disclaimer. But to say that Ms. Hunley-Adossa's organization "received funding from Ratner as per the CBA" makes it sound like everything's on the up and up. The CBA has been widely criticized, and let's keep in mind that Ms. Hunley-Adossa's organization's biggest expense is Ms. Hunley-Adossa's compensation.
“This campaign is not only about Atlantic Yards. It’s about the 35th Council District and I will continue to run our race. The Local is highly favorable to James and it is what it is,” said Hunley-Adossa.
NoLandGrab: Readers can decide for themselves if The Local is highly favorable to Ms. James. However, we're betting the voters will most definitely be so.
Check out Atlantic Yards Report for more coverage of The Courier Life's non-story.
Posted by eric at 9:05 AM
August 13, 2009
A bizarrely belated AY debate in the Brooklyn Eagle, plus Jane Jacobs's 2004 criticism of subsidizing stadiums
Atlantic Yards Report
In a bizarre chapter that should be titled, "All your word are belong to us," Norman Oder gives us his reaction when he found out that the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an entire Atlantic Yards Report post in yesterday's online and print editions.
[T]he Eagle decided to run my full post from June 11, with comments, critiquing an essay by the Eagle's Henrik Krogius. At the bottom of the piece, below a brief response by Krogius, was the notation "sent by Norman Oder."
I didn't send it and, given the two-month gap, whoever did send it must have used Snail Express.... Then, after a couple of phone calls and emails, the Eagle agreed to excise the "sent by" and give me some kind of credit up top, so the piece now looks different. They did not, however, publish the clarification I requested. And the whole thing was in print, as well.
Ironically enough, the Eagle warns readers that "It’s not considered polite to paste the entire story on your blog." I decided not to push it because I borrowed liberally from the Eagle, albeit for a noncommercial site. But the Eagle is a commercial enterprise.
Let's just say the Eagle doesn't quite get the "Internets."
NoLandGrab: Section 17 of the US Copyright law permits "the fair use of a copyrighted work" "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research," making a distinction between "whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes." Though its editors may not realize it, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle is a commercial publication, while Atlantic Yards Report and NoLandGrab are not.
Posted by lumi at 5:07 AM
Anti-Bloomberg Group’s Newspaper Hits the Streets
The Indypendent
Note to Bruce Ratner: Your Atlantic Yards megaproject is on the short list of what's wrong with Mayor Bloomberg.
A new, free rag has hit the streets of our city, put together by a group calling itself the Fed Up New Yorkers Coalition (FUNY). Billing itself as “the best of NYC blogs about the worst of NYC politics,” the coalition boasts some impressive names: Nat Hentoff, a former writer for the Village Voice; Ira Glasser, the former national director for the American Civil Liberties Union; and John Scott, the downtown “club chair” for the Working Families Party. The founding member of the coalition is Neil Fabricant, who publishes BloombergWatch.com.
Their main line of attack is that “no third term means no third term,” although inside the paper you will find plenty of anti-Bloomberg screeds ranging from criticism on mayoral control of schools to his support for the massive development project known as Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 4:44 AM
August 12, 2009
Some Critical Thoughts on Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report via Brooklyn Daily Eagle
In an episode bizarre even for a newspaper that gives unfettered voice to Dennis Holt and Henrik Krogius, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle today, online and in print, ran a full Atlantic Yards Report post — including two reader comments — from June 11th. The online version ran over a byline saying "by Brooklyn Eagle," while the print edition carried no byline.
The story concludes with "sent by Norman Oder," though Mr. Oder assures us he never sent his post to the Eagle. He has, however, requested some sort of correction and/or acknowledgment.
Henrik Krogius, whose story Mr. Oder critiqued in his original post, did "respond" thusly to said critique.
These various observations are interesting, but they turn a blind eye to the brilliance and complexity of the Gehry plan. Was it just too unexpected, too different, too challenging for so many in Brooklyn? It had greater diversity than Rockefeller Center. I think friend Alex Garvin ( respected planner) would likely agree that a near-empty place at such a confluence of public transit warrants a very high density development — precisely AY. As to having moved more quickly if subjected to the city’s ULURP process rather than a state-initiated community board reviews and public hearings, that’s highly questionable. Note also that I wrote last week that Jane Jacobs might have been “sensible enough to recognize that Atlanic Yards represents a well-nigh unique situation for which a high-rise solution requires no destruction of a viable neighborhood.”
For the record, we couldn't find any direct appraisal of Atlantic Yards by Alex Garvin, though Mr. Garvin did speak, critically, to our ear, of Atlantic Yards at a panel discussion last year. As for what Jane Jacobs might have thought about Atlantic Yards, Mr. Oder has already explored that in detail.
Perhaps the Eagle would like to reprint that story, too?
Posted by eric at 4:42 PM
August 10, 2009
Business as usual: Times notes Ratner's seeking more housing subsidies, but ignores lack of a cost-benefit analysis (and omits disclosure)
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder parses today's Atlantic Yards coverage in The New York Times.
There are a couple of notable things about the New York Times article today headlined Atlantic Yards’ Developer Races a Court Hearing, a Bond Deadline and Opponents.
First, it portrays the project through the perspective of the developer, while not acknowledging that Forest City Ratner never testified at the public hearing last month (which the Times didn't cover in print, only on The Local, the blog aimed at Fort Greene and Clinton Hill). Second, it states that new renderings of the arena will be released, likely before Labor Day, but--it goes unmentioned--that likely would be after the opportunity for public comment ends on August 31.
Third, it reveals that Forest City Ratner has sought additional housing subsidies from the city, despite the careful statement by FCR executive MaryAnne Gilmartin last month that “Forest City does not expect to ask for more subsidy.”
The reason that's news: while Forest City is now framing Atlantic Yards as an affordable housing project, the developer won't build the affordable housing without sufficient city subsidies. And we still don't know--though serious doubts have been raised by experts like Michelle de la Uz of the Fifth Avenue Committee--how the cost-per-unit compares to alternatives.
Posted by eric at 9:23 AM
August 9, 2009
How FCR "seeks protection," why the Courier-Life needs an ombudsman (never happen), and new tales from fictioneer Witt
Atlantic Yards Report
Steve Witt, reporter for the Courier-Life, has produced a lot of coverage of the Atlantic Yards fight and has just published a novel. Norman Oder implies that fiction is the kind of writing for which Witt is best suited.
After the Courier-Life's notorious Stephen Witt last week gave pro-AY project hecklers an implicit endorsement and wrongly stated that Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn asked a couple of black ministers for "protection," I dissected the story and quoted one of his sources saying Witt got it wrong.
But one reader suggested a simpler response to Witt's misleading headline, AY opponents seek protection from the community.
After all, it's Forest City Ratner that has sought protection from the community; after all, no representative of the developer was willing to face questions at a public meeting for nearly three years before MaryAnne Gilmartin appeared at an informational session on July 22. And when Gilmartin left the room, she had a couple of people clearing a path for her.
...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn sent a letter, published in the paper this week under the headline "At Witt's end."
To The Editor:
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) stands accused, by "reporter" Steve Witt, of community organizing and outreach.'' To that we plead guilty, as we are a grassroots, community-based organization. We are extremely proud of the widespread support we have (which has grown larger and larger, year after year, since 2004), the alliances we have made in Brooklyn and beyond, and the community organizing and outreach we have done over the years. I state this to counter the fiction published in this paper by Witt.
How long are you going to allow Steve Witt to write fiction in the news pages, and support such fiction only with anonymous allegations?
In some weird attempt to smear the Atlantic Yards opposition, gin up a conflict that doesn't exist and abet Forest City Ratner's deliberate attempts to divide the community along lines of race and class, his article headlined, "AY opponents seek protection from the community" claims that "following several raucous meetings concerning the Atlantic Yards project, opponents have put out the call for protection."
This is a wild and baseless accusation, and is offensive, absurd, and bizarre - and it is fiction. Witt fails in his attempt to suggest that DDDB and our supporters are somehow not part of the community. Sorry, Steve, but we are.
Having said that, we would like to seek protection from Witt's dangerous and incendiary brand of "journalism." Can we get some help on that?Daniel Goldstein
Develop Don't Destroy BrooklynStephen Witt replies: I stand by the story as written.
...
Well, we don't expect Witt--a reporter who took seriously the incoherent claim that AY foes "are the real land grabbers, because they took the property first and turned back what was jobs into condos"--to own up to errors.
Nor will his bosses.
The Courier-Life needs an ombudsman to handle complaints. It's a very imperfect solution--the New York Times's Public Editors have steered clear of Atlantic Yards--but at least it's a solution.
Another solution is simply more public criticism, However, the most obvious venue, a competing newspaper, no longer exists. The Brooklyn Paper, which once chronicled Witt's more colorful activities--like hugging developer Bruce Ratner--is now a sibling to the Courier-Life, both owned by Rupert Murdoch's Community Newspapers Group.
After taking a look at a Courier-Life review of Witt's novel, and what it reveals about Witt, Oder concludes:
How much of what Witt writes regarding AY is journalism?
Posted by steve at 8:36 AM
August 8, 2009
Brooklyn Paper, Courier-Life synergy (and more) leads to BoroPolitics.com
AtlanticYards Report
Local media has played a significant role in the Atlantic Yards fight, so it's logical that Norman Oder notes with interest the launching of BoroPolitics.com by the Community Newspaper Group.
First came the occasional appearance of articles by Courier-Life writers in the Brooklyn Paper, and vice versa. Now comes more synergy.
From the Brooklyn Paper: Local political junkies finally have a place to call their own on the Web.
On Friday, the Community Newspaper Group — of which this newspaper is a part — will launch BoroPolitics.com, the Internet’s only Web site devoted solely to politics, elections, issues and races in Brooklyn, The Bronx and Queens.
Notably, the web site seems based on the Brooklyn Paper's modern web design, rather than the Courier-Life's less successful yournabe.com.
As for "devoted," let's say that's a work in progress. Coverage, for example, of the 35th District campaign seems quit thin, given that only one article, from the Brooklyn Paper, is included. I know there are articles from the Courier-Life, but apparently they haven't yet been added.
Also, the repackaging of content has its flaws. For example, an article on the BoroPolitics.com web site about Senator Chuck Schumer's endorsement of Steve Levin in the 33rd Council District race has none of the comments, critical and supportive, attached to the original article on the Brooklyn Paper's web site.
Posted by steve at 7:36 AM
August 6, 2009
Brooklyn’s Tallest Is Back In Atlantic Yards Plan
File this under "news you can disabuse" — Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Dennis Holt scoured the latest Atlantic Yards "Project Documents" and declared that "the tallest building in Brooklyn is back on the site," since developer Bruce Ratner's announcement that the signature tower would cap off at one foot shorter than the previous tallest building in Brooklyn didn't buy him any friends.
The arrival of the “2009 Modified General Project Plan” with all of its 45 pages and 7 exhibits is also of more than passing interest.
It requires study, especially the small print, of which there is much, and in reading the small print one discovers on Exhibit C, with no emphasis whatsoever, that the tallest building in Brooklyn is back on the site.
Building 1, which used to be called “Miss Brooklyn,” the visual keystone to the entire project, is to be 620 feet tall.
Atlantic Yards Report, No, Brooklyn’s Tallest Is Not Back In Atlantic Yards Plan
Norman Oder explains why you can't believe everything you read, especially when the source is the credibility-challenged Empire State Development Corporation and project promoter Dennis Holt:
So, why does the document state 620 feet as the maximum when Forest City Ratner has already committed to a downsizing?
Because changing the height might represent a material change in the project, a change that the Empire State Development Corporation does not want to admit.
Posted by lumi at 5:41 AM
August 4, 2009
It's Orwellian, almost: the Courier-Life's Witt salutes a heckler's veto and wrongly claims DDDB sought ministers' "protection"
Atlantic Yards Report
Some corrective journalism from Norman Oder.
The Courier-Life's notorious Stephen Witt this week offers not just an undiscerning round-up article on the first day of the Atlantic Yards hearing.
He also pens an "Orwellian, almost" sidebar in which he gives pro-project hecklers an implicit endorsement and wrongly states that Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn asked a couple of black ministers for "protection."
Oder's repair work is too extensive to chronicle here, so we suggest you surf on over to AYR and read it firsthand.
Posted by eric at 11:51 AM
July 25, 2009
The big news was the informational meeting, but the media mostly missed it
Atlantic Yards Report
The proposed Atlantic Yards project should have been a great story for major New York media to cover, but the coverage continues to be lacking. An informational meeting hosted by Community Boards 2, 6 and 8 went largely unnoticed.
While the official required Atlantic Yards public hearing takes place over two days, Wednesday and Thursday, that, I think, will be something of a sideshow, an opportunity for both opponents and proponents to face off and to posture--though some substantive criticism surely will be lodged.
The bigger news, I believe, already happened on Wednesday at the informational meeting before three Community Boards, given the unprecedented presence of both Empire State Development and Forest City Ratner representatives and their responses--both answers and evasions--to tough questions.
And it got relatively little press coverage. None of the three dailies sent a reporter, nor did any TV stations, including NY 1 or local Brooklyn cable.
...
But the dailies, as well as the Village Voice and others who've paid attention to Atlantic Yards, missed an important story about governmental responsibility and public review of major development projects--a story with a number of potential mini-headlines, such as the unavailability of a cost-benefit analysis or arena renderings, or the ESDC's unwillingness to comment on a New York City Independent Budget Office analysis that the arena would be a money-loser for the city.
It's a story not merely of neighborhood and borough interest, but given the city and state subsidies involved, of interest to the city and state, and--given the heat and complexity of the controversy, as well as the controversy over building sports facilities--of national interest.
Atlantic Yards opponents, who generally alert the media ahead of public hearings and meetings, could have done a better job of soliciting coverage. But the media should be able to figure things out themselves, as well.
Posted by steve at 8:37 AM
July 20, 2009
Be the Journalist: Atlantic Yards Update
The Local [Fort Greene/Clinton Hill]
by Sarah Maslin Nir
The newspaper that paid people this week to write articles about corsets for men and the trend in eyebrow-shaving is looking for a "citizen journalist" willing to cover an Atlantic Yards meeting this Wednesday for free.
Interested in the Atlantic Yards project? Then this assignment is for you.
We need a citizen journalist to head to a tri-community board informational meeting on the development of Atlantic Yards. CBs 2 (that’s us), 6 and 8 are joining forces on Wednesday, July 22, to have a good long chat (it’s scheduled to go from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.) about what’s going on with the Yards.
We’d love you to go and send us some meeting minutes, new information and all the news that’s fit to blog from that meeting. Deadline: as early as possible Thursday morning. Please send us an e-mail if you’d like to be our citizen journalist for this meeting.
NoLandGrab: We suppose we could be upset that The Times, to which we pay several hundred dollars a year for home delivery, can't be bothered to assign a salaried reporter to this important story, especially since Forest City Ratner, the developer of the paper's headquarters building, is at the center of it. But we choose to look on the bright side — at least there's a chance the coverage might be objective!
Posted by eric at 8:53 PM
July 17, 2009
Courier-Life's Witt responds to letter, misses the point completely
Atlantic Yards Report
More brutal weirdness from Courier-Life "reporter" Stephen Witt.
I wrote a letter June 15 to the Courier-Life chain complaining about unfounded criticism of me; rather than publishing it in the first issue possible, the newspaper has waited until the fifth issue, with a similarly unfounded response from reporter Stephen Witt.
...Witt's response
Stephen Witt responds:
Mr. Oder,
Rev. Daughtry deserves his say. The fact that many longtime community people support the project has been largely ignored by all the media, including your highly speculative brand of "citizen journalism." I do note that since my article came out you and a few other media outlets that push the public agenda are beginning to include these views. I also don't agree with journalists that buy into your view that Rev. Daughtry and other groups who signed the CBA are somehow tainted as sources because Ratner helped fund their non-profits. These groups represent thousands of people of all income levels. They are respected in the community and their points of view are just as valid as those who oppose the project. I suggested you take your "brutally weird" self down to the BUILD office and speak to those in the waiting room looking for work.My rebuttal
It's not a question of whether Rev. Daughtry deserves his say; surely he has been having his say, especially while heckling at the May 29 state Senate oversight hearing.
It's just that, as I wrote, Daughtry's arguments are debatable, and Witt ignores countervailing evidence, such as my citation of Daughtry's longtime ally Charles Barron, an Atlantic Yards opponent, and the long delays in delivering the benefits Daughtry seeks.
Witt ignores the evidence I provide regarding whether I have contacted Daughtry or learned "his side."
Witt initially disparaged me by writing that "many media outlets utilize [my blog] for information without checking his facts," but offered no evidence of errors in my work. He continues to do so in his response, citing my "highly speculative brand of 'citizen journalism.'"
Highly speculative and "brutally weird"? I think that applies to the "real land-grabbers" quote Witt dutifully published.
Yes, I've been to the BUILD office. I recognize that large construction projects create jobs and that people involved in groups and unions that train people or organize workers have an interest in seeing those projects go forward. But that doesn't obviate the responsibility to examine the project.
Witt suggests that it's simply "my view" that groups that signed the CBA are tainted as sources. I direct him to experts on CBAs like Good Jobs New York, Good Jobs First, and the Partnership for Working Families.
Posted by eric at 11:09 AM
July 11, 2009
David Carr's review of the I.F. Stone bio, the alleged lack of shoe leather reporting, and the blog coverage ignored
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder defends the usefulness of blogs, and of his Atlantic Yards Report in particular, in this open letter to David Carr.
Dear Mr. Carr,
I'm befuddled by your blanket dismissal of the blogosphere in today's New York Times review of the new biography of legendary independent journalist I.F. Stone.
In your concluding paragraph, you wrote: After reading Mr. Guttenplan’s extensive, loving reconstruction of Stone’s outside-in approach to journalism, it might be tempting to suggest that Stone was a protoblogger, a postmodern journalist who hacked his own route to an audience long before there was something called the Internet. But his insistence on shoe leather over rhetoric has yet to be replicated in digital realms. As it is, his life and work are reminders that knowing more than anyone else is the surest way to win an argument. (Emphasis added)
Sure, no journalist using the blog format has produced a body of work to rival Stone's output, but there's lots of shoe leather reporting out there. Scott Rosenberg cites Talking Points Memo and Firedoglake, among others, in his new book Say Everything.
Closer to home, and I know you live in New Jersey, you somehow haven't noticed how my Atlantic Yards Report often provides a far more comprehensive account of the Atlantic Yards controversy than does the Times.
Just in the past six weeks, consider coverage of the May 29 State Senate oversight hearing; the June 22 Metropolitan Transportation Authority Finance Committee meeting (and more); the June 23 Empire State Development Corporation board meeting; and the June 24 MTA board meeting (with video).
And consider how the Times fell down, either ignoring the events entirely or downplaying crucial details.
As for winning an argument, consider this dispute I had with the Times over the newspaper's unwillingness to correct an unqualified prediction that the Barclays Center, the arena in the Atlantic Yards plan, will be built.
Please keep in mind that the unlimited space provided by the Internet, as well as the ample opportunity for citations and factchecking, should foster much more work, not less, in the spirit of Stone.
I read with interest your piece last Saturday about stumbles by the Washington Post's publisher. Consider that the Times, given its inadequate, distorted, and absent coverage of Atlantic Yards--a project of the parent New York Times Company's business partner, Forest City Ratner--is long overdue for similar scrutiny.
Regards,
Norman Oder
Atlantic Yards Report
Brooklyn, NY
Posted by steve at 7:21 AM
July 9, 2009
Journalism of verification? Times won't back down from claim that there will "soon be a Barclays Center"
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times, utilizing snark typically reserved for the blogosphere, passes on Norman Oder's suggestion that the "Paper of Record" get out of the business of predicting the future:
A June 24 article on naming rights for the Atlantic Avenue/Pacific Street subway station stated:
There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center, the sports arena planned as the focal point of the Atlantic Yards project...
No correction was printed and, five days later, in a roundup article June 29 on arenas, the Times reported:
Five major complexes — four existing and one planned — will soon be slugging it out within an area 30 miles wide.
...By the time the arena in Brooklyn, which will be called Barclays Center, is built, there will be a total of nearly 100,000 seats to fill, 365 days a year.
Senior Editor Greg Brock responded:
We have been very responsive to your queries in the past and have run corrections when appropriate. I do not think this rises to the level of a correction. I realize you monitor every word in these articles because you have your own perspective. But at some point, we have to use common sense on these points. I am sure you will not agree: but I think this is splitting hairs and not worthy of a correction.
[Read: We have tried to ignore you in the past and have run some corrections in order to try to get you to go away. I do not think you are right, because only a crazy person would read every word in these articles. But at this point, we are the arbiters of common sense, though I'm sure that you will not agree: you are wasting my time, go away.]
Norman Oder comes up with some hypothetical parallel language that might raise some eyebrows:
Let's try a thought experiment. What if the Times were to report today:
There will, however, soon be a nuclear war, a tactic planned as the focal point of North Korean foreign policy
For Mayor Bloomberg, there will, however, soon be a third term, a period planned as the focal point for his sustainability initiatives
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder's "journalism of verification" has a better batting average than the "Paper of Record," so you have to wonder who really has his "own perspective."
Posted by lumi at 5:44 AM
July 5, 2009
Documentary Says Only 15 Residents Holding Out in Brooklyn
Nets Daily
Boosters of the proposed Atlantic Yards project want to find some way of justifying a project that, increasingly, has no good reason to proceed except to benefit the developer Bruce Ratner. In this particular case, a claim is made that there aren't enough people living in the proposed project's footprint to justify challenging eminent domain.
A mini-documentary reports that only about 15 people are still living in the footprint of Atlantic Yards, Bruce Ratner’s Brooklyn real estate project that includes Barclays Center. A prominent critic challenges the accuracy of other parts of the documentary (Barclays Center won’t be twice the size of the Garden…it’ll be smaller) but lets the number of holdouts stand. Six hundred people have left, according to the film.
In the comments section, Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report sets the record straight.
The ever-responsible Mr. Income takes me to task for not questioning the report’s statement that there are 15 people living in the footprint without even linking to my coverage.
For what it’s worth, the 2009 Modified General Project Plan states (p. 19): http://www.empire.state.ny.us/pdf/AtlanticYards/MODGPP2009.pdf Based on the best information available to the Project Sponsors as of the date hereof, in the 31 households that are currently occupied with no agreements to vacate, 5 of which are owner-occupied and 27 of which are rental units, there are approximately 62 people who remain in occupancy.3
3 These figures do not include transient occupants of the homeless facility who will be accommodated elsewhere.
NoLandGrab: Also from the Nets Daily, commentor, BrooklynBound, says: "Not one person should have to leave the property they own for a BASKETBALL ARENA."
Posted by steve at 8:05 AM
July 4, 2009
“HoldOut” – A short documentary about Atlantic Yards holdouts
Not Another F*cking Blog!
This blog entry offers commentary on the latest Atlantic Yards documentary, Hold Out.
After trudging through every nook and cranny of the footprint, taking tens of thousands of photos, trying to capture what it was, what it is now, and what it’s becoming, I recognize nearly every location and person in this visually stunning short. A small part of my home even makes an appearance. It’s not factually perfect, per Norman Oder on his Atlantic Yards Report, but I feel that it does put a much needed human face on those directly in the path of the developer Forest City Ratner’s wrecking ball.
My only regret is that it was so short. I hope this team has a longer Atlantic Yards project in the works.
Posted by steve at 5:50 AM
July 2, 2009
The Times low-balls the total subsidies and tax breaks for Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times head real estate reporter Charles V. Bagli totally lowballed the amount of public subsidies for Bruce Ratner's subsidy-sucking Atlantic Yards megaproject. In his article yesterday he had it at $300M. Imagine his surprise when he finds out that the direct cash subsidy is already at $305M, and that's ignoring an ever-growing list of tax breaks, affordable-housing subsidies, brownfield clean-up funds, and the naming rights contract for the "publicly owned arena."
The real figure is one of the great mysteries of Atlantic Yards and is predicted to be headed towards the billions.
Norman Oder thinks that Bagli and the Times can do better:
I know the $300 million was not the focus of the article. Still, such a sloppy estimate reinforces my argument that the Times should consistently disclose its parent company's business relationship with Forest City Ratner.
Such disclosure should--though I can't say it does--prompt reporters and editors to be more exacting in their coverage.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
June 30, 2009
Nets one step closer to Brooklyn
The Examiner
By Josh Lobdell
Talk about being "conclusory," here's a story that practically has Bruce Ratner measuring for the drapes:
The New Jersey Nets are now one step closer to a move to Brooklyn. In a move that has had more than its fair share of legal and financial problems the Nets owner Bruce Ratner cut a deal that will eventually lead to the construction of a new NBA arena on the site that was once proposed for a domed stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers.
NoLandGrab: Some myth-busting is required here — just because Mayor Bloomberg tells people that the arena is planned for "the site that was once proposed for a domed stadium for the Brooklyn Dodgers," doesn't make it so. That site has already been developed... by Bruce Ratner for the iconic Atlantic Center mall.
Posted by lumi at 5:35 AM
June 27, 2009
Reaction to Daily News Editorial
Today's Daily News editorial, "Build, Bruce, build: Developer Ratner presses ahead on Atlantic Yards" brought immediate reaction from the blogs Queens Crap (The Daily News editorial board smokes crack) and Atlantic Yards Report (Daily News disses straphangers, endorses Ratner bailout). Below is each point of the Daily News editorial followed by each blogger's reaction:
Bully to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for making a deal that keeps the Atlantic Yards development alive in Brooklyn. And bully to builder Bruce Ratner for hanging in there to get the project done.
AYR: It doesn't keep the development alive. It keeps the arena (and one building) alive. Ratner, who was willing to pause construction on the Beekman Tower in Lower Manhattan to renegotiate more favorable terms with unions, was not so much "hanging in there" but gaining the benefit of an agency run by a governor and mayor unwilling to challenge him.
QC: Bully? More like bullshit. The guy came in with a lower bid that for some strange reason was accepted by the MTA and is now scaling back every aspect of what he promised while the MTA is currently up shit's creek and forcing riders to pony up more money at the turnstile.
After five years, the defeat of 23 lawsuits and an economic meltdown, he is pushing to start the $4 billion development's first component: an 18,000-seat arena, home to the Nets and a major entertainment venue.
AYR: Or, alternatively, he's desperate to start before the December 31 deadline for tax-exempt bonds.
QC: The lawsuits aren't over yet. And the city needs this like we need a hole in our heads.
The plan then envisions construction of 6,400 apartments (35% of them deemed affordable), a school and a health care center, amid 8 acres of open space. This good stuff would be located primarily on land that has been vacant for decades, including a Long Island Rail Road yard.
AYR: "Primarily" is a weasel word. The railyard has always been used as a railyard--and still would be used as such. Only recently did the rise in property value make it feasible to deck over railyards. As for the rest of the properties, most haven't been vacant for decades. Some have been vacant only since Forest City Ratner bought them and razed them.
The school would be built by the School Construction Authority.
QC: Huh? They do realize that much of that 8 acres of open space was bulldozed and that there are still several buildings in the footprint of the planned development, right? Here's a map of a walking tour of the area. And the rest of the space is and always has been an active railyard... Vacant?
But financing is not as available as it was a few years ago. The MTA board wisely voted to let Ratner pay $100 million over time for the rights to build above the yards, rather than demand a lump sum. With interest, the agency comes out whole.
AYR: Comes out whole? What about the generous 6.5% interest rate? The $100 million loss (and savings to Ratner) on the new permanent yard? The temporary yard that would linger twice as long as projected?
QC: Does anyone not smoking crack seriously believe that? Especially when Bruce asks for more money every time you turn around and this very paper reported that the arena would be a big money loser?
Ratner will now seek private financing for the arena. His bankers hope to raise the money by the end of the year. Wouldn't that be nice for Brooklyn?
AYR: "Private financing" would be tax-exempt financing, with Ratner likely saving more than $100 million thanks to federal subsidies. The "end of the year" deadline drove the breakneck pace for this deal, in which the MTA board had all of two days to consider it. The newspaper somehow ignores that the New York City Independent Budget now says the arena would be a money-loser for the city.
QC: No, it wouldn't. The plan calls for eminent domain abuse, would put some parts of Brooklyn in 24-hour darkness, create a clusterfuck of traffic, and build an entire new neighborhood full of "superblocks" in the middle of low-rise areas. And those are just the things I can think of at 6am off the top of my head.
Posted by steve at 8:39 AM
June 24, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Two Times
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder looks at two pieces from The Times, one from yesterday's paper, and the other from 15 years ago. [Unlike a fine wine, The Times is not getting better with age.]
The Times gets conclusory: "There will... soon be a Barclays Center"
WTF?
There may soon be a Barclays Center. And certainly the MTA's passage of the deal today with Forest City Ratner, coupled with the Empire State Development Corporation's preliminary approval of a new AY plan, make it more likely than before.
However, when the Atlantic Yards arena was announced in 2003, it was supposed to open in 2006. Every year the goalposts move. A little skepticism--or at least a little hedging--is in order, especially since FCR is the parent New York Times Company's business partner in the Times Tower.
New York Times editorial (in 1994): "It is wiser to walk away than stumble into a giveaway"
The Finance Committee of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) was told Monday by CFO Gary Dellaverson that they had to go ahead with a sweeter Vanderbilt Yard deal for Forest City Ratner because it would be hard to get development on the property in this economy.
He also acknowledged that FCR's deadlines for tax-exempt bonds were driving the breakneck schedule.
Other than Nicole Gelinas in the New York Post, no one's editorialized about the deal, which is expected to be approved tomorrow (though not without some dissent). The New York Times's news coverage seemed especially tailored to downplay the controversy.
Once upon a time, however, the Times crusaded against a somewhat parallel effort to lowball a land deal and said it was better to wait than to rush.
NoLandGrab: We know that The Times would never let its business dealings influence its editorial page, so we're sure that it's just coincidence that their crusading against the sale of the old New York Coliseum site to developer Mortimer Zuckerman had nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Zuckerman was and is the publisher of the rival Daily News, just as the paper's silence on the giveaway to developer Bruce Ratner surely has nothing to do with the fact that Ratner is The Times's development partner.
Posted by eric at 10:21 AM
June 21, 2009
AY: "Out of the barn" or driven by Forest City Ratner's tightening timetable?
Atlantic Yards Report
In an article headlined Atlantic Yards won't be derailed and, bizarrely enough, accompanied by a rendering of a previous iteration of the AY arena block, Crain's New York Business offers the conventional wisdom: Forest City Ratner's long-delayed, dramatically altered Atlantic Yards project faces two key votes this week on its latest changes. Critics say the modifications will dilute—or erase—the plan's pledged public benefits.
...
Despite fierce opposition to the shrinking project, bets are running heavily in favor of state officials' reaching the necessary compromises to push it along. Far too much time and money has been invested, officials say. It's also unlikely that another developer could be found to take over in this economic climate.
“Too much has happened on this project,” said Robert Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association [RPA]. “The horse is out of the barn on this one.”
As DDDB and NLG point out, the horse isn't exactly out of the barn, because the project has changed so much, with the promised benefits far attenuated.
...
As for finding "another developer," the question is a false one. There indeed might not be another developer to build Forest City Ratner's project, but there might be other developers to build on the MTA-owned land, and at a faster pace than Forest City Ratner and the ESDC are willing to project.
What's driving the timetable is the need to issue tax-exempt bonds for the arena by the end of the year, and Forest City Ratner's aim to reverse losses on the Nets by moving them to a new building in Brooklyn.
The RPA conveniently forgets its endorsement of Frank Gehry's arena block and its dismay over the process.
Posted by steve at 4:29 PM
June 20, 2009
"Calling bullshit," accountability journalism, the WaPo's Dan Froomkin, and Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The disturbing trend of an increasingly credulous press is the focus of this blog entry.
The big political journalism story this week is the firing of Dan Froomkin, the "White House Watch" blogger for the Washington Post. Note the hundreds of critical comments in response to the blog by the WaPo's ombudsman.
I'll point below to quotes from and about Froomkin in Glenn Greenwald's Salon piece headlined The Washington Post, Dan Froomkin and the establishment media.
The key quotes, to me, are Froomkin (a journalism colleague in college) saying that a journalist's job is to "call bullshit" and NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen describing Froomkin as an "accountability journalist."
The same challenges arise for the Atlantic Yards story.
- Did any of the journalists at the May 29 state Senate oversight hearing believe Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) Marisa Lago when she claimed that the Atlantic Yards project had not changed?
- Did they believe New York City Economic Development Corporation President Seth Pinsky's claims about new revenues?
- Did reporters believe Forest City Ratner's claims that railyard work stopped because of litigation?
- Have sports reporters believed Brett Yormark's ever-changing assertions about the arena opening date?
The list goes on.
Posted by steve at 11:05 AM
June 12, 2009
Brooklyn Paper, fulfilling predictions after Murdoch sale, endorses Gehry-less arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes his red pen to this week's Brooklyn Paper editorial, which, after the sale of the paper to Rupert Murdoch's media empire, cannot be blamed on former publisher and arena fan, Ed Wientrob.
[The Brooklyn Paper] has not only retreated from aggressive coverage of the Atlantic Yards issue, it has continued to roll over for the project on the editorial page.
So, rather than taking an opportunity to criticize Atlantic Yards supporters for shameful behavior at the May 29 state Senate oversight hearing, the Brooklyn Paper this week urges that the AY arena be built. It's a follow-up from the "brutally weird" editorial the newspaper ran in February, shortly before it was purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
And this time, the editorial is not signed by Ed Weintrob, the publisher who wrote the February editorial and is now publisher emeritus. So we can assume it's the corporate view. Convergence with the Courier-Life continues.
NoLandGrab: The Courier-Life was purchased by News Corporation in September, 2006.
Check out the rest of the article to learn more about how The Brooklyn Paper conveniently ignores the fact that the arena is now expected to be a money loser for the city and gets in the way of righting the project's "original sin."
Posted by lumi at 5:32 AM
June 11, 2009
MISSING: atlanticyards.com
Sure, it's a lot of work keeping up on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, but, here at NoLandGrab, we don't have the inside track... which makes us wonder about what's going on at Forest City Ratner, if the company's atlanticyards.com web site is now being redirected to barclayscenter.com.
dddb.net, Atlantic Yards Dot Com Is Dead
If ever there was any doubt that Atlantic Yards as proposed (in 2003) and as approved (in 2006) will never be built as planned, and that Brett Yormark and Joe DePlasco are extraordinary spinmeisters facing their toughest challenge, try visting the official site for the project, www.atlanticyards.com...
You can't.
Atlantic Yards Report, For now, at least, AtlanticYards.com doesn't exist, but resolves to BarclaysCenter.com
I think AtlanticYards.com is more likely suspended (pending major modifications) than dead (as per DDDB, which noticed first), but it sure suggests that the arena is the developer's priority, not the housing, open space, or other promised benefits that seem ever more attenuated.
Here are some screenshots of the now-hidden AY site.
And the designers of the Barclays Center site didn't get the memo, because that site still sends visitors to AY and claims that Frank Gehry is designing the project.
Posted by lumi at 5:50 AM
June 8, 2009
So, Daniel, how was YOUR weekend? Redux
NYPost.com
by Gersh Kuntzman
It was inevitable that Rupert Murdoch's media empire would begin to realize economies of scale from its purchase earlier this year of The Brooklyn Paper. Evidence of that popped up today, when the NY Post's web site republished word-for-word Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman's story on DDDB's Daniel Goldstein's trip to the Forest City shareholder meeting.
For now, we can be thankful that The Brooklyn Paper (so far) hasn't republished Steve Cuozzo's loony Saturday column painting opponents as the Atlantic Yards fight's deep-pocketed, bullying liars.
Regardless, however, media consolidation does not bode well for the future of elucidation and exposition, for this story or any other.
Posted by eric at 2:40 PM
June 6, 2009
Oversight hearing coverage in the weeklies: underplayed in the Brooklyn Paper, predictably mangled in the Courier-Life
Brooklyn residents depend on local papers to stay close to important stories. Norman Oder looks at the coverage of last week's state Senate oversight hearing (the first such hearing ever held for the project) given by The Brooklyn Paper and the Courier Life.
He wonders why The Brooklyn Paper, despite some in-depth coverage in the past of the proposed Atlantic Yards project, seems reticent to give the hearing proper coverage.
Now we have an oversight hearing hijacked by groups supported by or orchestrated by Forest City Ratner--an event that led one onlooker to describe it to me as "something out of Weimar Germany" --and the Brooklyn Paper puts the article on page 5 and (see below) gives the same space to a meaningless challenge to Borough President Marty Markowitz from a Republican who thinks the Beep doesn't defend Atlantic Yards enough (see below).
Instead, a "fun" feature attempting to plumb the difference, book-wise, between Park Slope and Prospect Heights makes the front page.
And the Brooklyn Paper, rather than editorializing about the shameful behavior of protesters or the deceptions by government officials, chose to opine about the Fulton Street BID.
...
That said, the Brooklyn Paper's report was creditable, if relatively brief, while the sister Courier-Life chain's article, as noted below, was predictably obtuse.
The Brooklyn Paper article, headlined LIRR chief: Sweeter MTA deal for Ratner could get Yards back on track, got the gist: Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner is poised to receive new, generous terms from the MTA that supporters say could jumpstart his stalled mega-project even as a new report revealed that the city would actually lose money on the basketball arena at the heart of the $4-billion housing and office complex.
And the newspaper noted the curious behavior at the hearing: No one from Forest City Ratner appeared at the hearing, the Senate’s first investigation into the 22-acre development.
The company’s presence was felt in the form of 200 or so construction workers (and would-be construction workers) who showed their support — punctuated by frequently shouting down their opponents.
Despite its shortcomings, The Brooklyn Paper's coverage looks great next to what is presented by the Courier-Life:
The Courier-Life article, by the redoubtably pro-project Stephen Witt, focused on the MTA land sale. It curiously omitted any mention of testimony by the Independent Budget Office's George Sweeting, who estimated that the arena, once predicted to supply a modest boost in tax revenues for the city, would instead be a loss.
The article misidentified the 8.5-acre MTA railyard as 11 acres. And it stated that Forest City has been "winning lawsuit after lawsuit," which is incorrect; the developer, for example, was not party to the state eminent domain lawsuit, which was filed against the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC).
And there was a nice unattributed quote from an ESDC spokesperson: "We can all agree having the project stalled doesn't help anybody, especially when this project can bring forth jobs to residents of Brooklyn."
Helping anybody? Unmentioned is that the major beneficiary would be Forest City Ratner.
And what happened?
The article gave one acknowledgment, in the third-to-last paragraph to the disarray at the hearing: The developments follow a recent raucous Senate hearing on the project last week at Pratt Institute, in which hundreds of community and union members repeatedly interrupted the proceeding with catcalls and demands that it's time to start the project.
Unmentioned: that's behavior for a political rally, not an oversight hearing.
Posted by steve at 12:12 PM
May 31, 2009
Daily News to MTA: compromise with Ratner (and ignore all else)
Atlantic Yards Report
While the New York Daily News advocates for New Yorkers to just toss their tax dollars at Bruce Ratner for no good reason in particular, Norman Oder suggests a different approach.
The New York Daily News, ostensibly the newspaper of the city's working class, is owned by a real estate developer and has maintained blinkered support for Atlantic Yards, today editorializing that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should compromise on a deal with Forest City Ratner.
In an editorial headlined Net the Nets: New York must get behind a new basketball arena for Brooklyn, the newspaper urgeds the MTA to be "flexible... in getting the deal done."
Missing reality
While the Daily News cites an extension on the Hudson Yards deal as a precedent, the newspaper neglects to point out that an adaptation to changing conditions might also require a new assessment of costs, benefits, and subsidies, as City Council candidate Brad Lander, among others, points out.
After all, if the Independent Budget Office now thinks that the arena would be a money-loser for the city in terms of new tax revenue, maybe "netting the Nets" deserves a bit of reconsideration.
Fair process?
The Daily News suggests that the MTA would get "revenue it would otherwise lose."
Remember, Forest City Ratner's proposed payment would be even less than half the appraised value--and stretched over a longer period of time. Rival Extell bid $150 million, rather than Ratner's $50 million, later upped to $100 million.
One reason for the MTA's willingness to negotiate exclusively with FCR was the developer's promise of a new railyard--apparently more elaborate than the one incorporated in Extell's bid. But now FCR promises to scale that back too.
Given that only one bidder emerged after an RFP was issued 18 months after Forest City Ratner was anointed the site, can we assume there was fair competition for what Chuck Ratner, CEO of parent Forest City Enterprises, calls a "great piece of real estate"?
Posted by steve at 9:22 AM
Times takes semi-skeptical look at Brooklyn arena plans, doesn't question professed 2011 opening
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder looks at an article in today's New York Times reviewing the status of the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
Well, the New York Times didn't cover the hearing yesterday, but in a long article in tomorrow's Sports section, sports business reporter Richard Sandomir asks, Will the Nets ever play basketball in Brooklyn? and concludes: maybe.
For one thing, the Nets have some $500 million--albeit over 20 years--in sponsorship commitments for the arena, notably from Barclays Capital, which bought naming rights.
(Hm--one question no one asked--and I didn't think of: why exactly does the Empire State Development Corporation let Forest City Ratner sell naming rights to an arena that is nominally publicly-owned? The fig leaf of public ownership is necessary for tax-exempt arena bonds; FCR gets to keep the revenues.)
The cost of the arena was approved at $637.2 million in 2006, ballooned to $950 million, and now may be cut by $200 million. The Times reports that Forest City Ratner hopes to have $600 million in tax-exempt bonds sold, which would imply some portion of taxable bonds.
The Times reports that Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is committed to lawsuits that could continue to delay the project, though it's not clear they can stop the crucial exercise of eminent domain and thus stop the sale of bonds.
The entire entry is well worth a read as Oder examines:
- The credibility of claims for a arena built by 2011
- Expectations that work could resume on the MTA rail yards
- A point/counterpoint between FCR and DDDB
- The whereabouts of Gehry
Posted by steve at 8:26 AM
May 21, 2009
Today not today Maybe today on the Brian Lehrer Show
UPDATED UPDATE: OK, we throw up our hands. This segment may air today, it may not. You're on your own. However, if it does air, and they do discuss Atlantic Yards, we'll have it, after the fact.
World Trade Center
WNYC reporter Matthew Scheuerman talks about the World Trade Center and Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 9:54 AM
May 17, 2009
Here's that grain of salt you ordered...
NY1
Ratner: Atlantic Yards To Break Ground This Year
May 16, 2009
Developer Bruce Ratner says he is confident ground will be broken this year on the proposed Nets arena in Brooklyn, as his controversial Atlantic Yards project cleared another hurdle Friday.
A panel of four appellate judges ruled unanimously the state can use eminent domain to go forward with the project because of the public benefits associated with the plan.
...
Ratner says he expects the new home for the Nets will be ready for the 2011-2012 season.
Atlantic Yards To Begin Construction By Year's End
September 10, 2008
The controversial Atlantic Yards project development plan in Brooklyn is moving forward against the wishes of many residents and businesses.
Developer Forest City Ratner announced plans to break ground in December.
Construction Begins On Atlantic Yards Project
February 20, 2007
The Atlantic Yards redevelopment project has been the subject of a lot of debate, but it is now finally the subject of some construction.
The first stages of construction began Tuesday.
...
Construction of the new arena for the NBA's Nets is scheduled to begin in the fall.
PACB Gives Atlantic Yards Green Light
December 20, 2006
After hours of delays, the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project was finally given the go-ahead by a key state board Wednesday.
Republicans, Governor George Pataki and State Senate Majority leader Joe Bruno, control two of the three votes on the Public Authorities Control Board. Both were known supporters of the plan.
...
Developers say work on the stadium and the buildings should begin next fall, ending in 2010.
Posted by steve at 7:59 AM
May 16, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report: Media Attention Deficiency
Atlantic Yards Report
Media coverage, or, rather, the lack of it, has had a significant effect on the Atlantic Yards fight. Norman Oder illustrates in this morning's entries.
When Atlantic Yards news breaks, the media outlets have a hard time being accurate, because none of them cover this story on an ongoing basis. Norman Oder surveys coverage in light of yesterday's ruling on the State eminent domain case.
- Is this latest ruling really the final hurdle for Bruce Ratner?
- Is Frank Gehry any longer the architect for this project?
- What is the cost of the proposed Arena?
- What would Phase 1 of this project look like?
Answers to these questions, and more, are covered.
OK, so when does Bruce Ratner promise a groundbreaking for the Atlantic Yards arena? This summer, according to the New York Daily News; in September (which could be this summer), according to the New York Post; or in October, according to the New York Times. This year, according to an official statement.(available on the Barclays Center site but not yet the Atlantic Yards site).
Why does it matter? First, it suggests that Ratner can't get his story straight. Second, it assumes a certain time frame for a decision regarding an appeal of the eminent domain case announced yesterday.
Perhaps most importantly, it allows Ratner, at least for now, to continue to promise that the arena would open for the 2011-2012 season. I think that's highly unlikely, because Ratner already suggested the arena would take 30 months to build, and the environmental review said 32 months, but it's remotely possible that a stripped-down design could be completed faster.
The state of legal battle:
Plaintiffs' attorney Matt Brinckerhoff left open the possibility that current legal cases could be cleared by the fall: "At a minimum, if we lose every single thing imaginable, it's still going to take them four to six months," he told the Daily News. That would then lead to the effort to exercise eminent domain by the Empire State Development Corporation.
But if the eminent domain case appeal is heard, it could slow things down for another two years. That's important, because Forest City Ratner has until the end of the year to see tax-exempt bonds issued to fund arena construction, a savings of well over $100 million.
...
What about the pending request for an appeal in the case challenging the AY environmental review? The Post reports: There is also a suit pending challenging whether the state conducted a proper environmental review before approving Atlantic Yards, but Ratner's staff said it feels construction could still begin while that case remains under appeal. Opponents, however, said they disagree.
Perhaps construction work might be able to go forward, but would bonds be approved (via a local development corporation set up by the Empire State Development Corporation) before that case was cleared? If that case goes forward and is successful, a revised environmental impact statement might be required, so the ESDC might want to wait until the case is resolved.
Wherefore art thou, Gehry?
So, is Frank Gehry still on the project? According to the Post: Ratner said a revised arena plan would be released at a later date and promised it would still be a Gehry-design that's top-notch.
According to the Times: He has also said he wants to pare the projected $1 billion cost of the arena by about $200 million. He said he would decide within 60 days whether to keep the original design, by the architect Frank Gehry, or use another.
Gehry's participation is important, because the arena has been sold to sponsors as a Frank Gehry arena. Should Gehry no longer be involved, presumably they would be able to renegotiate their level of support. I predict that some hybrid will emerge, with Gehry's name--if not his and his firm's ongoing participation--attached to the arena.
Arena costs and why you should care:
The price tag had previously been stated at $950 million. Trimming $200 million would bring it to $750 million. Previously, the Times had reported that Ratner wanted to cut the price tag in half, and in February I expressed skepticism, pointing out that an arena in Orlando, where construction costs are much lower, has a $480 million price tag.
The cost is important because, the higher the price tag, the larger the amount of PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes) and the larger amount of foregone property taxes. And that means that the arena site would have to be assessed--in echoes of the Yankee Stadium controversy--so the value is high enough to generate those PILOTs. Stay tuned for that controversy to emerge.
Who's planning to build what?
The Forest City Ratner press release stated: FCRC expects to start at least one residential building during the first phase of construction.
Only one? There initially were supposed to be four buildings around the arena, and another building at Site 5. The City Funding Agreement suggests that the developer can meet obligations without penalty by building three towers within 12 years after the exercise of eminent domain.
The Lopez-Sander dust-up, Ratner lobbying, and the Weinstein case: why so little coverage?
Have you been reading a lot lately about how Vito Lopez was behind pushing out MTA head Lee Sander or how Forest City Ratner spent enormous sums lobbying for it's standstill project or what the court decision for Henry Weinstein means for the proposed Atlantic Yards project? Probably not, because New York papers are largely ignoring these stories.
"Society doesn’t need newspapers," wrote Clay Shirky recently. "What we need is journalism."
...
While not everyone agrees--newspapers, at their best, offer a menu of coverage a reader might not seek out--Shirky's argument got a boost this week..
That's because the New York Times and New York Post ignored the New York Daily News's scoop that Brooklyn Democratic leader Vito Lopez may have been behind the ouster of generally-respected Metropolitan Transportation Authority Executive Director Elliott (Lee) Sander.
...
And what about Forest City Ratner's lobbying? It didn't quite make the Top Ten last year in New York state, but the developer did have the third-largest contract, which is notable, given that no construction proceeded but the developer surely was seeking indirect subsidies (or even direct ones).
That news didn't make it into last week's editions of the Brooklyn Paper or the Courier-Life chain, but that wasn't surprising, given that the news broke at or after those newspapers' deadlines.
What about this week? Nope.
...
An appellate court's decisions in favor of Atlantic Yards footprint landowner Henry Weinstein, who charged that his tenant, developer Shaya Boymelgreen, had improperly transferred a lease (to a building and parking lot) to Forest City Ratner, got a very brief article in the Courier-Life and hasn't yet been covered in the Brooklyn Paper.
Posted by steve at 8:39 AM
May 11, 2009
NYT heart FCR?
Atlantic Yards Report stumbles over two more indications that The NY Times is full of it, when it comes to covering the company's business partner and Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner.
In yesterday's column, the New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt wrote:
But when the story involves the most revered company in the industry — and it happens to be yours — I think there is a special obligation to be aggressive, which The Times has seemed loath to do.
(Emphasis added)
Norman Oder came to that exact conclusion years ago, in his white paper analyzing the business relationship between The Times and Forest City Ratner and the paper's coverage of the controversial Atlantic Yards project.
Ironically, Hoyt was talking about the paper's failure to work the beat in the coverage of negotiations between the Boston Globe (owned by the Times Corporation) and union workers.
Rats, empty lots in Allston, like Brooklyn, so what's the five year plan?
The Times overlooked the rat-infested constuction site in its own backyard to cover the one in Boston.
An article in the New York Times Saturday had a not unfamiliar ring, beginning: BOSTON — The rats are out in spades this spring in North Allston, a gritty neighborhood wedged between the Charles River and the Massachusetts Turnpike, and residents are blaming Harvard.
There's a stall in construction work for a once-ballyhooed project, and the rat infestation recalls a report April 23 in the New York Daily News, in which Dean Street residents neighboring the Atlantic Yards footprint said demolitions have led to notable quantities of rats.
Harvard's explanation is that the site is part of a 50-year plan — one resident would prefer a five-year plan to assure that the surrounding neighborhood is livable.
Oder points out that Atlantic Yards should have some sort of five-year plan, now that the timeline extends "decades," and that this would make a good point of inquiry for an eventual public hearing on the project.
Posted by lumi at 4:50 AM
May 10, 2009
The newspaper crisis, David Simon, the role of blogs, and the (somewhat misread) Brooklyn example
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes a good look at the news business and the future role of newspapers and blogs.
So the biggest discussion this past week about the role of blogs was generated not by the fourth annual Brooklyn Blogfest, held Thursday in DUMBO, but by the Senate hearing on the newspaper crisis held Wednesday in Washington.
But it’s worth connecting some dots between the the above, especially since Brooklyn blogs (including this one) were invoked--not always accurately--in the national debate that followed the Senate hearing.
The most contentious issue, via Gawker and the New York Times’s Opinionator blog (as noted below), concerned the claim by former Baltimore Sun reporter and “The Wire” producer David Simon that he doesn’t see bloggers covering nitty-gritty local issues like zoning board hearings.
Some critics responded that bloggers, in places like Oakland and Brooklyn, in fact do that. I’ll grant that, but I think the Brooklyn contribution to watchdog journalism was overstated and, as I wrote recently, Atlantic Yards is an anomalous case.
NoLandGrab: It's hard not to be worried about where people can find well done news coverage when so many bloggers are largely aggregators who sometimes let personal lives and a lovely sunny Sunday take precedence over in-depth analysis. Happy Mother's Day!
Posted by steve at 12:48 PM
May 8, 2009
AYR dissed by Brian Lehrer, who misses the point
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, WNYC's Brian Lehrer aired a discussion about the future media landscape and took a call about the Atlantic Yards blogosphere, prompting Norman Oder to stick up for himself and others from the "echo chamber of like-minded individuals."
The Atlantic Yards segment came at about 20:57.
Prospect Heights resident and activist Raul Rothblatt, aka "Raul in Brooklyn," was on the line.
...BL: On both sides, do you think, do people go to Norman Oder's site, which is, y'know, pitched primarily Atlantic Yards Project and have a discussion on both sides? Or is it just an echo chamber of the like-minded?
Lehrer seems to be confusing my blog with a talk show. My goal is to explain to people what's going on, and to look into questions of civic importance.
NoLandGrab: From here in the "echo chamber," we're always amused when the Atlantic Yards blogosphere is characterized as a group of like-minded individuals talking amongst ourselves. One might similarly describe Brian Lehrer's show. How many Rush Limbaugh and Fox News fans storm WNYC's switchboard to offer fair and balanced rebuttals to left-leaning guests?
Keep in mind, NoLandGrab has always linked to media coverage supportive of the project. Except for the local daily newspapers, most of it has just faded away. Heck, even Bruce Ratner himself had to downsize the company's web presence, presumably due to cost-cutting.
Posted by lumi at 5:36 AM
April 30, 2009
Atlantic Yards through the looking glass
If you can wrap your head around this... NoLandGrab.org was referenced in Atlantic Yards Report's article analyzing a UK mag Prospect Magazine cover story that referenced the Atlantic Yards fight and Atlantic Yards Report.
In other words, not only is Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards a poster project for eminent domain abuse, massive public subsidization of the private sector, lack of transparency, and piss-poor urban planning, but the media culture that has emerged from this shameful real estate morass is now a self-referencing "case study" of how new media is shaping and responding to citizens' new news diet.
Atlantic Yards Report, In debate about the future of news, AY and AYR become a case study
In the UK's Prospect magazine, the cover story, an epistolary debate between author (and Outside.in founder) Steven Johnson and Princeton professor of communications and public affairs Paul Starr, is headlined Will the coming age of news be better than the old?
Interestingly enough, both the optimistic Johnson and pessimistic Starr cite Atlantic Yards and AYR to buttress their arguments.
I think that any discussion of the media ecology around Atlantic Yards needs several explanatory footnotes, which I offer below, but I believe that the volunteer media response to Atlantic Yards is an unusual phenomenon, not easily duplicable, which places me much closer to Starr's camp.
Someone has to do the work of journalism--reading documents, showing up at meetings, asking questions, making analytical connections over a period of time--and it's not easy.
Prospect, Will the coming age of news be better than the old?
Steven Johnson:
Let’s talk about what it’s like in my home town, Brooklyn, right now. You talk about the decline in state government reporting in New Jersey. For the past three years, the dominant civic issue in Brooklyn has been a controversy over the Atlantic Yards, a big urban redevelopment project. On Outside.in the page for the Atlantic Yards brings together news, reporting, commentary and chatter. There are 30 stories from the past five days. The New York Times print edition ran exactly one story mentioning it in the past month.
How much richer will coverage of an important civic issue like Atlantic Yards be in five years?
Paul Starr in reponse:
Let’s take a closer look at your business, Outside.in, and see whether it is a substitute for professional journalism. I see that when you launched Outside.in in October 2006, you used the same Atlantic Yards example. It’s two-and-a-half years later, and I’m sure by now you must have a second. But anyone looking around your site will see that investigative reporting is not what it does. From what I could tell, it doesn’t do any reporting of its own. It aggregates what appears elsewhere. There seems to be no standard of relevance or significance. And if what appears elsewhere is garbage, it helps to spread that garbage because, by its nature, an automated news site lacks the one thing that every good editor has—a crap detector.
NoLandGrab: To Starr's point, if anything, NoLandGrab.org, though primarily a news aggregator, has spent the last five years being an Atlantic Yards "crap detector." Ironically, we assumed this responsibility because the old media abdicated theirs, which leaves us WHERE in this debate?
Posted by lumi at 6:06 AM
April 21, 2009
A little bird told me...
Though we're not sure how the Mad Overkiller Norman Oder will abridge his daily posts on Atlantic Yards into short "tweets," updates from Atlantic Yards Report r now availb on Twttr:
I will link to at least some of my posts via Twitter (you can sign up to "follow" AYReport) and perhaps offer other Atlantic Yards-related observations.
The latest AYR Tweet:
"OK, New York Times. Now you've got the Pulitzers, can you report on how biz partner Forest City Ratner bailed out ACORN?"
Posted by lumi at 5:38 AM
April 20, 2009
Gehry layoffs get a mention in the Times, but questions about AY role remain unanswered
Atlantic Yards Report
Nearly five months after Frank Gehry laid off his Atlantic Yards project team, The NY Times finally reports that Gehry Partners has laid off staff, and that his "billion-dollar mixed-use developments in Los Angeles and Brooklyn are in limbo."
As I wrote March 31, developer Forest City Ratner says Gehry is still the lead architect on Atlantic Yards. But Gehry's laid off his staff working on the project. So what does that mean:
- Is Gehry still working on the project? How actively?
- Will he rehire staff to work on the project?
- Have other architects taken Gehry's designs and reworked them to save money?
Shouldn't Gehry and Ratner be asked those questions?
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder is right. Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project is the LARGEST single-source private development project in NYC HISTORY. If it were "in limbo," as yesterday's article in the business section reports, does that somehow rate as important news deserving of followup? The lack of coverage might make readers conclude that the Times deliberately downplays negative Atlantic Yards news.
Posted by lumi at 5:55 AM
April 14, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
WebCommentary.com, Don't Blame ACORN Whistleblower Anita MonCrief for Providing Proof!
On Good Friday, Norman Oder wrote an open letter to the Public Editor of The New York Times, asking why The New York Times has ignored developer Forest City Ratner's "incredible" bailout of ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now).
...
Hurray for Mr. Oder for raising what he described as "the complicated, vexing question of the impact on Times coverage from the parent New York Times Company’s relationship with developer Forest City Ratner (FCR), which together built the Times Tower in Midtown--a relationship that has drawn critical scrutiny from Editor & Publisher's ethics columnist."But Mr. Oder's criticism of [whistleblower] MonCrief for "decid[ing] to make public what [NY Times reporter] Strom considered confidential reporter-source communication" is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of privileged communications.
The attorney-client privilege belongs to the client, not the lawyer. A lawyer cannot conceal his or her malpractice by claiming privileged communication with the client.
Likewise with the physician-patient privilege.
NoLandGrab: To be clear, Oder said he was "uncomfortable" that a souce released a "confidential reporter-source communication."
Curbed.com, It Happened One Weekend: eBay for Apartments, Starter Studios Cheapen Up, Kosciuszko 2.0, More!
"Atlantic Yards" and Columbia University have become the NYC gold standard of eminent domain abuse:
4) The Kosciuszko Bridge, the unpronounceable worn strip of metal that connects Greenpoint and Maspeth along the BQE, is set to be replaced with a new nine-lane bridge, with construction beginning in 2013. The scrap metal dealers and wholesalers located below will lose their land via eminent domain, but don't expect another Atlantic Yards or Columbia. After all, good lord that bridge needs replacing. [The City/'Uneasily Contemplating the Arrival of a Spiffy Newcomer']
Orange Juice Blog, Do we have 21st century “pirates” operating in NJ & NY today?
The news about Bruce Ratner and his eminent domain-abusing subsidy-sucking "Atlantic Yards" megaproject is getting around:
Exactly five months ago I blogged about a major redevelopment project that I first became aware of when attending an Institute for Justice, IJ conference in the Washington, DC area two years ago.
A property rights victim from Brooklyn, NY attended the conference to share their efforts and literature as well as to gain our support in fighting to protect their homes and businesses from the corporate wrecking ball in a pending eminent domain action involving Bruce Ratner. The name of this development is “Atlantic Yards.”
Here we go again. Another professional sports team with their hands in the public trough.
Reason Online, SLAPP Silly
The online libertarian mag is NOT POSTING about the developer who is suing the author of a book about an egregious case of eminent domain abuse, the book's publisher, the professor who wrote the blurb, and two newspapers who ran reviews.
And in case you-know-who is checking, we're not saying anything either.
Noticing New York, Bloomberg Update: Fire and Ice (Part I)
A two-part -volume series outlines how Mayor Bloomberg uses his "unfathomable wealth" to collect support and promote pet projects with little consideration for impacts to the environment and surrounding communities.
Part II: If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with the ex-Blagojevich operative Bloomberg hired to run his reelection campaign.
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
April 10, 2009
An open letter to the NYT Public Editor: why has the Times ignored Forest City Ratner's "incredible" bailout of ACORN?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder pens an open letter to The New York Times regarding its (absent) coverage of the ACORN/Forest City Ratner relationship.
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
I know you’ve steered clear of previous requests to look into the complicated, vexing question of the impact on Times coverage from the parent New York Times Company’s relationship with developer Forest City Ratner (FCR), which together built the Times Tower in Midtown--a relationship that has drawn critical scrutiny from Editor & Publisher's ethics columnist.
As you read on, you’ll find evidence that a Times reporter knew of (and was alarmed by) a $1.5 million loan/grant that Brooklyn-based FCR gave last August to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which had suffered severe cash flow difficulties in the wake of an embezzlement scandal.
“This is incredible,” reporter Stephanie Strom wrote after learning that the deal was allegedly approved without ACORN board’s assent, adding that an explanation given to her “doesn’t hold water.”
In doing so, FCR has helped bail out an organization reeling from the revelations that not only did the brother of ACORN’s founder embezzle nearly $1 million in 2000 but also, as the Times reported 9/10/08, that the news was “concealed by senior executives until a whistle-blower told a foundation leader about it in May.”
Also, as the Times reported 10/22/08, ACORN's budget has been suffering, as it apparently owes taxes to federal and state authorities while foundations that previously supported the organization have backed off. Meanwhile, two board members, both members of a committee established to lead ACORN through its turmoil, have sued the organization, charging that ACORN was destroying financial documents and covering up improper expenditures.
The Times chose not to report on that crucial loan. But that FCR-ACORN relationship remains worthy of sunlight, given the crucial partnership between FCR and ACORN’s New York affiliate in the enormously controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
Posted by eric at 10:28 AM
April 8, 2009
ACORN/NY Times/Obama Campaign Story: Some Details Not as Reported
Tips-Q
By Warner Todd Huston
The connection between ACORN and the Obama campaign has been seized upon by right-wing pundits. However, ACORN whistleblower Anita Moncrief explains that the story is more complex, especially if one looks at the connections between ACORN, Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner and the NY Times Corp.
The ACORN/New York Times connection seems to run deeper than just a desire to help out the Obama campaign by killing further ACORN stories. Moncrief informed me of some rather cozy financial ties between the Times, the Forest City Ratner corporation and ACORN that she discovered from the inside.
I do feel that The New York Times was complicit in all of this. It wasn’t just in killing the Obama story, they killed several stories in relation to ACORN. Including one where the Forest City Ratner owned by Bruce Ratner, the same people that own 48% of the Times’ building, gave ACORN a 1.5 million dollar loan. This was interesting because that’s news in New York City, there’s been a lot of contention over the Atlantic Yards deal where they’re bringing the Nets to Brooklyn?
Moncrief speculates that another reason that the Times suddenly ceased writing stories that might embarrass ACORN is that one of its leading investors and partners had suddenly become close associates financially with ACORN. This situation occurred because ACORN had done an about face on Ratner’s sports deal and was rewareded by that generous “loan.”
ACORN has also been known to be helping Forest City Ratner to get federal stimulus money since the $1.5 million kickback “loan” that Ratner gave to the community organizers. Sadly, at the same time Forest City Ratner was giving ACORN that princely sum, they were laying off workers claiming they were about to go bankrupt.
NoLandGrab: From the outside, it's not clear that ACORN did "an about face" — certainly Moncrief might know more about the timing of ACORN's position on Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn than we would. Suffice it to say, very early on in the process, Ratner reached out to and struck deals with groups that have criticized his projects in the past.
Certainly The NY Times did not report on Forest City Ratner's $1 million loan and $500K grant to ACORN, which came as a surprise to watchdogs when it was later revealed by Moncrief. The financial bailout of ACORN by Forest City Ratner underscores the fact that the signatory of the "historic" housing agreement has a clear financial stake in its relationship with the developer.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
April 6, 2009
An update on the "same site" error
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has been trying to set the record straight about a recently released book that cites an uncorrected "fact" from a "newspaper of record." One of the two is unrepentant. Can you guess which one?
I sent my post yesterday about the "same site" error in a new book on the Brooklyn Dodgers to both the New York Times and the publisher of the book.
Michael D'Antonio, author of Forever Blue, responded, saying he appreciated the information and said he'd make a correction, so future editions do not suggest that Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley sought the site now planned for the Atlantic Yards arena.
By contrast, Times Senior Editor Greg Brock sent me a snippy, sarcastic letter that reminded me that the Times makes mistakes, and that anyone using the Times archives should double-check their facts.
He had earlier told me "[t]here is a limit to how many old articles we can correct in print." The amount of effort expended, however, in responding to me could easily have been applied to a correction.
Posted by lumi at 6:27 AM
(Homage to) GL Analysis: journalistic self-congratulation at MetroTech
Atlantic Yards Report
Many bloggers turned out Saturday to pay tribute to Bob Guskind and his blog, Gowanus Lounge. The lack of comprehensive media coverage of Brooklyn and its beloved neighborhoods left the landscape wide open for a writer like Guskind, who had the passion to recognize important stories and the journalistic skills to tell them.
According to Norman Oder, Brooklyn's loss is all the more poignant in the wake of News Corp's purchase of Brooklyn's most prominent weekly newspapers:
So I'll try to channel the spirit of Bob's notoriously scathing GL Analysis, liberal in its use of boldface for emphasis, in assessing the self-congratulatory coverage in this week's Brooklyn Paper and Courier-Life of the two papers' move into new offices in Metrotech.
Posted by lumi at 6:19 AM
April 5, 2009
Two From Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards Report
This is an illustration of what can happen when the New York Times doesn't correct its Atlantic Yards reporting:
As I reported March 23, Michael D’Antonio, author of Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley, Baseball's Most Controversial Owner, and the Dodgers of Brooklyn and Los Angeles, in interviews showed that he knows that O'Malley sought a site for a new stadium north of Atlantic Avenue, then the Fort Greene Meat Market and later the home of the Atlantic Center mall.
In the book, however, D'Antonio gets it wrong, writing in a Postscript: The borough started to bounce back in the 1980s, and in 2004 a developer proposed an indoor sports arena for the site O'Malley had been denied. The Atlantic Yards project didn't progress any faster than O'Malley's domed stadium. As of 2009 it was still alive, but the place where O'Malley would have built remained untouched.
No, it wasn't the same site, and "the place O'Malley would have built" contains a mall.
...
So, where did D'Antonio get his misinformation? His source notes point to a 1/16/04 New York Times article headlined Yo, Dodgers? No Way! Brooklyn Is Betting on the Nets for Revival.
...
The problem, as I pointed out, was that the failure to print a correction or attach it to a public database would mean that "other researchers and reporters drawing on those pieces may be misled."
Which is exactly what happened. D'Antonio apparently trusted the Paper of Record.
Lupica: Nets to Willets Point?
From today's column by New York Daily News sports columnist Mike Lupica:
If the Nets really want to come to New York and Brooklyn comes off the table, how come they don't do something with the Islanders on all that land on Willets Point? This would involve the next Nets owner, of course, after Ratner inevitably sells the team.Until Brooklyn comes off the table, the response, of course, would be that Brooklyn is a more central location--which it is. But a baseball stadium out there still does pretty well.
Posted by steve at 8:15 AM
April 4, 2009
The Tish James tax story, the incumbent's misstep, and the weeklies' avoidance of the bigger picture
Norman Oder picks up on the kinds of choices being made by the Brooklyn Paper and its sister publication, the Courier-Life.
So, after ignoring the news value of the 35th District City Council campaign of Delia Hunley-Adossa, who runs a questionable nonprofit organization with ties to Forest City Ratner (but won't answer questions about it), the Brooklyn Paper finally covers the race--by picking up a story broken by its new Courier-Life sibling (right): that incumbent Letitia James owes nearly $10,000 in back taxes over the past year.
Sure, it's defensible to lead with the latest news. And James's explanation isn't fully credible.
But the bigger picture, which the Brooklyn Paper hasn't yet provided--and the Courier-Life's Stephen Witt likely will never provide--is that James's main challenger has failed to answer legitimate questions about the operation of and support for Brooklyn Endeavor Experience (BEE), an organization that pays her a salary while she more visibly organizes rallies in favor of the Atlantic Yards project.
Oder directly contacted the Councilwoman for her reaction.
I contacted her yesterday, giving her a chance to elaborate, and she said, "No further explanation other than there is a huge difference between not paying taxes at all and paying late. I have paid property taxes for the last seven years and will pay, albeit late, as part of my responsibilty as a property owner. This is frankly nothing more than a distraction away from the more serious issues that I am dealing with in this district. I guess I should start a not for profit and accept funds from Murdoch, Bloomberg and Ratner to keep me afloat. Fortunately, I choose not to."
The papers are missing the big picture:
James's lapses do not indicate that she owes favors to any major powerbroker. Hunley-Adossa's silence suggests she might owe such favors to Forest City Ratner.
Similarly, the silence (in response to questions from both me and the Times) of Hunley-Adossa's campaign treasurer, Charlene Nimmons, regarding her dubious nonprofit's ties to FCR is also dismaying.
That's the bigger picture.
Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Paper completely misses a story about an appeal to the recent Atlantic Yards environmental review case and the Courier-Life coverage gives the last word to Forest City flack, Joe DePlasco.
The Brooklyn Paper, which once deemed a Forest City Ratner lie about Frank Gehry's birthplace worth of page 1, ignored this week's news about the plaintiffs seeking an appeal in the case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review.
The Courier-Life covered it, with Witt drawing significantly from a Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn press release. He then gave the last four paragraph to Forest City Ratner mouthpiece Joe DePlasco, who declared, "There is is nothing new to say about Daniel Goldstein's court cases."
By suggesting that a case involving 26 organizations, including Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (for which Goldstein is a spokesman), is somehow one person's case, "Dark Genius" DePlasco is apparently reverting to Tactic #3: Reality Be Damned.
As I wrote 11/1/05, DePlasco sometimes makes outlandish claims, almost daring reporters to make the effort to find a counterargument. When the Courier-Life's main rival, the Brooklyn Paper, simply punts on the story, readers are ill-served.
Posted by steve at 7:26 AM
April 1, 2009
It came from the Blogosphere...
Noticing New York, Looking at Things From Another Point of View: Do We See Distinctions That Make A Difference?
Michael D. D. White ponders the figurative and real appropriation of Brooklyn's icon and what changes may be in store for the recent Rupert Murdoch conglomeration of neighborhood newspapers:
We said at the outset that with the Murdoch takeover of the Brooklyn Paper and other local papers we were worried about coverage of all Brooklyn real estate development. Truthfully, you should be able to tell from what we just said that we are worried about coverage of real estate development throughout the city by all of the media and, beyond that, we are also worried about coverage of the political process in the city as a whole.
We had our concerns. We read Mr. Oder’s interview with [Brooklyn Paper editor] Mr. Kuntzman and we think we have considered his alternative point of view. But considering that alternative point of view has brought us back to the same place. We are still concerned.
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards: The Play-by-Play
"You can sue, sue, sue—but nothing ruins megaplans like a crashing economy." So goes the sub-head of New York Magazine's historical timeline of the Atlantic Yards saga prompted, presumably, by architect Frank Gehry's much-blogged blooper, “I don’t think [Atlantic Yards] is going to happen.”
Z.A.C., Untitled
About a year ago I attended the Brooklyn Ball as a guest of my friend’s family. It was a great stroke of luck and one of the most exciting nights of my life. I saw Linda Evangelista and ran into Anna Wintour on my way into the bathroom. After Kanye West’s set, I hocked my Murakami placemat (a gift for everyone who bought a ticket, for God knows how much) for the entire contents of some rich woman’s wallet–a cool $600.
At that time, Atlantic Yards was imminent. Bruce Ratner was one of the guests being honored, and there was a sizable group of Brooklynites (uncannily for me at the time, a group I’d consider closer to “my people”) protesting his presence across from the museum on Eastern Parkway. And today? Atlantic Yards is on hold.
Posted by lumi at 5:29 AM
March 31, 2009
What's left out of New York magazine's AY footprint
Atlantic Yards Report points out what's missing in the NY Magazine photo of the Atlantic Yards project site (click to enlarge). Hint: most of the project site.
It's worth noting that the Frank Gehry rendering at the top represents only Phase 1, the arena block, bounded by Flatbush, Atlantic, and Sixth avenues, and by Dean Street. (Site 5 is omitted.)
It's also worth noting that the photo at bottom, which shows Forest City Ratner's malls and the Williamsburgh Savings Bank for perspective, only portrays part of the arena block. It focuses mainly on (part of) the Vanderbilt Yard, cutting off the block bounded by Flatbush, Fifth, and Sixth avenues, and Dean Street--the block that houses plaintiffs in two lawsuits.
Posted by lumi at 5:20 AM
March 29, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Looks for Media Accuracy
Atlantic Yards Report
Did you think that this would be the week when the New York Times would start giving more intense coverage to the largest single development in Brooklyn history? Dream on!
Why the New York Times needs to cover the Gehry story
Architect Frank Gehry's doubts about the Atlantic Yards project, which surfaced last week, generated widespread coverage, including in the New York Daily News and New York Post, and some creative backpedaling from Nets CEO Brett Yormark.
The New York Times ignored it. However, as DDDB reminds us, only a little more than a year ago, on 3/21/08, Forest City Ratner CEO Bruce Ratner "did say he was confident about starting construction on a $950 million basketball arena for the Nets by the end of the year."
That didn't happen. And now Yormark is promising construction this year. But there are a number of variables, and all predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. So the Times should be asking questions, rather than reprinting Bloomberg News stories based on Yormarkisms.
The Gehry born-in-Brooklyn claim may have started in the Brooklyn Paper
At one time the web site for the proposed Atlantic Yards project erroneously said that Frank Gehry (who, apparently, is no longer the architect for the project) was born in Brooklyn. The error was corrected, but what was the source of this error?
It was a tempest in a teapot last March: Forest City Ratner claimed, in legal papers and on its web site, that Atlantic Yards architect Frank Gehry was born in Brooklyn. What it was pointed out that Gehry actually was born in Toronto, FCR changed the Atlantic Yards web page.
Given that biographical information about Gehry is readily available, I think Forest City Ratner should've gotten it right, but I recently concluded that the developer doesn't deserve all the blame. The Brooklyn Paper also reported the born-in-Brooklyn claim when the project was announced nearly five years ago.
Posted by steve at 8:09 AM
March 28, 2009
"Dee raises more than Tish" and other reasons for more journalistic voices (plus a new 35th District candidate)
Atlantic Yards Report
The race for the 35th Council District seat, now occupied by Tish James, is still in its early stages. Norman Oder bemoans the lack of journalism in the Courier-Life's coverage.
In other words, we don't need another newspaper now owned by the same publisher to tell us that the headline "Dee raises more than Tish" (attached to an article written by the Courier-Life's inimitable Stephen Witt)could easily have been rewritten.
How about: "Challenger Hunley-Adossa holds first fundraiser; incumbent James has yet to hold one" (in the race for the 35th Council District).
...
Curiously enough, the Courier-Life's Witt sells Hunley-Adossa's campaign short, attributing to "sources" some broad-brush generalizations: James will also get the anti-arena crowd in droves and the churches, sources said.
Well, won't Hunley-Adossa get the "pro-arena crowd"? And which churches has James locked up? Hunley-Adossa makes no secret of her religious faith, so I'm sure she'll get her share of support from churches.
The synagogues and mosques, apparently, are up for grabs.
Also noted is the entry of a third candidate into the race: Medhanie Estiphanos.
Posted by steve at 6:53 AM
Take Note: News Corp Quietly Owns NYC Neighborhood Newspapers
BlackandBrownNews.com
This article voices concern over Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation acquiring neighborhood newspapers in Queens, the Bronx, and Brooklyn (including the Brooklyn Paper). The fear expressed by the author, a former communications director for Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, is that News Corp.'s moves signal the end of independent media in New York.
The role of the Brooklyn Paper in the Atlantic Yards fight is reviewed.
It was the Brooklyn Paper that was the chief media challenger of the Atlantic Yards Project, a major real estate development plan orchestrated by ONE real estate developer to redesign Brooklyn with the centerpiece of this grand design being a new NETS Arena designed by iconic architect Frank Gehry.
(Editor’s Note: You don’t have to live in New York City to get the scope of this real estate development project. Every major city has its own version of this project including the motley crew that makes it all happen.)
For at least three solid years it was the Brooklyn Paper – whatever its motivation – that challenged what seemed to be an unchecked process that gave the developer free reign to move ahead with over-the-top goals of redesigning Brooklyn, all with the stamp of approval of city and state authorities. I know this because at the height of public hearings surrounding this project I was communications director (a stint that lasted everso brief) for Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who was the chief cheerleader for all things Atlantic Yards Project and a fierce advocate for that ONE developer. The Brooklyn Paper was relentless - as they should have been – in their reporting on this story.
Posted by steve at 6:27 AM
PR Teams Work Hard to Patch Up Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards 'Misquote'
Media Bistro
This item gives a quick synopsis of the bit of controversy stirred up by Frank Gehry's comment on the state of the proposed Atlantic Yards project ("I don’t think it’s going to happen") and ends on a humorous note.
So as to give you a bit of a breather from these bits of Frank Gehry news until at least after the weekend, you have our promise to be brief. After saying he doesn't have much hope of seeing the Atlantic Yards project ever completed, Gehry, developer Forest City Ratner, and most specifically, both their PR departments, have been working in overtime to repair any damage caused from this brief, off-the-cuff remark. Gehry released a statement saying his comments were being misconstrued and the Ratner people are doing the same:
"Frank Gehry is still the architect of this project," [New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark] insisted on WFAN radio. "He loves it. It's very dear to his heart, no different than it is to all of us."
"Frank was just venting probably," Yormark added later.
Though we wonder how "I don't think it's going to happen," which were Gehry's words, is exactly "venting." Maybe if he'd yelled it, flipped the table over, and poured hot coffee all over the interviewer, that would be "venting" (at least that's how we do it). To us, his original quote sounded more like "resignation" which tends to be a little more genuine and grounded in reality.
Posted by steve at 6:14 AM
March 25, 2009
Gersh speaks! Award-winning Brooklyn Paper editor answers (sort of) questions about new Post parent, Courier-Life sibling
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has been publicly contemplating the implications, especially for coverage of Atlantic Yards, of the purchase of The Brooklyn Paper, by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, which already owns rival weekly Courier-Life Publications.
[Brooklyn Paper Editor] Gersh Kuntzman twice chided me for not contacting him with my questions.
Kuntzman agreed to an email interview. To summarize the news:
- Kuntzman doesn't think anything's changed with the paper's historically critical Atlantic Yards coverage (I disagree)
- he acknowledges that his newspaper can longer critique its former rival
- he doesn't know if the two chains will be consolidated (I predict some level of that)
- he doesn't notice advertising in the paper (I think he should)
Kuntzman--whom I'm tempted to call Gersh, given that the Get your Gersh on headline is imprinted in my mind--indicated he may respond, as well, so stay tuned for another round.
Check out the rest of the article, which has the email interview published verbatim.
Posted by lumi at 5:49 AM
March 23, 2009
Looking at the Times's article on the effects of economics on sports
The Sunday New York Times ran a story entitled "In Economic Downturn, Corporate Ties Put Bind on Sports." This might have been a good opportunity for The Times to catch up on some reporting it hasn't done regarding the New Jersey Nets. Norman Oder helpfully fills in some of the gaps. (Italicized sections are quotes from The Times.)
The worst economy since the Great Depression is settling over the fields, courts, tracks, luxury suites and boardrooms of professional sports.
The N.F.L. cut 169 jobs, and its commissioner reduced his salary by about 20 percent. The N.B.A. shed a tenth of its staff, and ESPN will not fill 200 vacant jobs. The United States Olympic Committee laid off 54 workers to cut millions from its budget, and Nascar teams have laid off hundreds of employees.
...Teams have frozen or cut ticket prices, and some, like the Nets and the Minnesota Timberwolves, will give refunds to season-ticket holders if they lose their jobs.
Unmentioned: the Nets have also pursued the attention-grabbing but (likely) not very useful Snowbird Ticket Exchange.
...
Pro sports were once thought to be more resistant than other industries to recessions, but this is no ordinary downturn. Teams, leagues and tours have become increasingly reliant on revenue from corporate sponsorships, advertising and luxury suites, and are likely to suffer more than they did in previous downturns. The financial and automotive industries, so heavily invested in the marketing of sports, are undergoing upheavals that have required government bailouts and rounds of layoffs to survive.
Unmentioned: the recommitment of Barclays Capital to the Brooklyn arena, a situation that raises questions not only about the funneling of money from AIG but also whether the Frank Gehry arena to which Barclays originally agreed still would be built.
...
The Indiana Pacers are losing $30 million this season and are among 15 N.B.A. teams in the red. The 30-team league would not say if the Pacers were one of 12 teams that borrowed from a recent $200 million addition to its $1.7 billion credit facility. The new credit, Commissioner David Stern said, is an affirmation of strength, not financial weakness.
“Owners can borrow at better terms than they can get individually,” he said, adding that the additional credit is not crisis-related but can be used for various purposes.
Unmentioned is the Nets' borrowing of $20 million, which, as far as I can tell, is an effort to stanch the team's losses.
...
Closer to home, P.S.E.&G., New Jersey’s largest utility, made a decision that, if emulated in stadiums and arenas nationwide, will erode bottom lines. It chose to save $400,000 a year by not renewing its leases on luxury boxes at the Izod Center, the Prudential Center, the minor league Riverfront Stadium and Giants Stadium (although it has chosen to rent one at the new Giants-Jets stadium), and at two arts facilities.
That means more losses for the Nets. And it raises questions about any corporation's willingness to commit to luxury suites at the yet-unbuilt Barclays Center. Remember, Nets' uber-marketer Brett Yormark recently claimed that 20% of the suites have been sold--the same number claimed last May.
Posted by steve at 1:49 AM
March 22, 2009
What Direction Will The Brooklyn Paper Take?
Noticing New York, Tales of Two Landlords Bridged by an Iconographic Clash
This item includes concern as to whether the Brooklyn Paper's perspective will be skewed by having Bruce Ratner as a landlord now that the paper has been bought by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.
Some questions were raised by an earlier endorsement by the Brooklyn Paper for a plan for then-landlords David and Jed Walentas.
The issue of Walentas as Dock Street developer and Brooklyn Paper landlord came up in sharp relief at the City Planning Commission’s Wednesday, March 4, 2009 hearings on the Dock Street project. (See: Saturday, March 14, 2009, At the City Planning Commission Hearings on Proposed Dock Street Project: A Reprise.)
At the CPC hearing, pages of the Brooklyn Paper were introduced into testimonial evidence as substantiation for the supposition that the Dock Street project would not deleteriously detract from the public experience of seeing the bridge. We noted above that the paper editorially supported the project. Pro-Dock Street testimony was delivered that averred that investigative reporting by the paper also substantiated the fact that the “iconic” views of and from the Brooklyn Bridge would not be impaired. That pro-project testimony was thereupon followed up by testimony from those opposing the exceptionably large project pointing out that the Brooklyn Paper’s position and reporting were suspicious and ought to be discredited due to the fact that the Walentases were the paper’s landlord.
Atlantic Yards Report, Will the Brooklyn Paper start distributing Brooklyn Tomorrow?
How could I have forgotten? Perhaps the clearest dependence on/capitulation to developer Forest City Ratner by the New York Post is the production of, by the Courier-Life staff, the annual Brooklyn Tomorrow advertorial distributed by both the Post and the Courier-Life.
That advertorial has included rapturous coverage of Atlantic Yards and, not coincidentally, significant advertising from Forest City Ratner.
That raises a question: will the Brooklyn Paper, now a part of the Post's Community Newspaper Group, start distributing Brooklyn Tomorrow? Will its reporters write for it?
We'll see in June.
(Thanks to longstanding Ratner foe Patti Hagan for the reminder.)
Posted by steve at 9:21 AM
March 21, 2009
Sign of the times: Forest City Ratner buys welcome ad in the Brooklyn Paper
Atlantic Yards Report
This week, Forest City Ratner welcomed its new tenant, the Community Newspaper Group of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, to its new office at MetroTech.
The Courier-Life chain was well on its way; now that the Brooklyn Paper has joined Murdoch's fold, the landlord ran a full-page ad (above; click to enlarge) on the back page of this week's Brooklyn Paper, as well as an ad in the Courier-Life.
It's the first Forest City Ratner advertisement in the Brooklyn Paper in recent years, at least as far as I remember. The developer has been happy to advertise in the Courier-Life, however.
Will the developer keep advertising in those papers? Will that advertising have any influence on the editorial pages or even news coverage?
We'll see, but I did speculate that the Brooklyn Paper's news coverage of Atlantic Yards will diminish somewhat (as it already has), and its editorial criticism will diminish even more.
NoLandGrab: Also interesting in this issue of the Brooklyn Paper is a page-two full page ad (link to a PDF) for Mike Bloomberg, an Atlantic Yards supporter.
More coverage...
New York Times A Scrappy Local Paper Ponders Its New Parent
“The Brooklyn Paper’s always had a very independent feel, and we’ve been told to continue that feel,” said Mr. Kuntzman, whose paper is peppered with playful headlines with exclamation points. “We’re a scrappy paper. We always have been; we always will be.”
Some media-vigilant Brooklynites are skeptical. For example, while The Brooklyn Paper has been generally critical of the controversial Atlantic Yards development project, other News Corporation publications, such as The New York Post, have supported it.
“I’m going to go out on a limb here and predict that The Brooklyn Paper’s news coverage of Atlantic Yards will diminish somewhat (as it already has), and its editorial criticism will diminish even more,” wrote Norman Oder, a critic of the development, on his blog Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by steve at 7:51 AM
March 15, 2009
The Brooklyn Paper and its new Courier-Life sibling: Markowitz, Ratner, and advertising
Atlantic Yards Report
There are questions in the minds of many as to what kind of coverage the Atlantic Yards fight will receive from the Brooklyn Paper now that it has been purchased by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. As a result of the purchase, the anti-AY Brooklyn Paper has the same owner as the pro-AY Courier-Life chain.
This blog entry points out that:
- The Courier-Life has been the publisher of Borough President Marty Markowitz's "Brooklyn!" newsletter, while the Brooklyn Paper has been critical of Markowitz.
- Dan Holt, co-publisher of the Courier-Life newspaper chain has accommodated demands by Forest City Ratner to bar specific individuals from a Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce meeting in 2005.
- The Brooklyn Paper has criticized Courier-Life over the Courier-Life's policy to allow ads for “escort services” and “massages”.
Time will tell if the Brooklyn Paper maintains its independent viewpoint.
Posted by steve at 11:03 AM
Jon Stewart to Jim Cramer: "You don’t just take their word at face
Atlantic Yards Report
Here is a quick item to remind those reporting on issues surrounding the proposed Atlantic Yards project, that good reporting is not merely passing on, and tacitly approving what is told to you. The same advice could be useful for anyone following the Atlantic Yards fight.
In a devastating takedown Thursday of CNBC "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer, "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart offered this sardonic observation: "I’m under the assumption, and maybe this is purely ridiculous, but I’m under the assumption that you don’t just take their word at face value, that you actually then go around and try to figure it out."
Those interviewing New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark might take that warning to heart.
More on media complicity from Salon's Glenn Greenwald.
NoLandGrab: The Salon piece referenced is a good read, and makes the point that enjoyment of the Stewart/Cramer slapdown should not distract us from an ongoing problem in the media.
Posted by steve at 6:56 AM
March 13, 2009
Yup, the Brooklyn Paper's moving into MetroTech
Atlantic Yards Report
With one prediction already coming to pass, Norman Oder offers another one:
As I suspected, the Brooklyn Paper will join the Courier-Life chain in renting space in Forest City Ratner's MetroTech.
I wondered if this might make it tougher to report critically on Brooklyn's most powerful developer.
...
I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that the Brooklyn Paper's news coverage of Atlantic Yards will diminish somewhat (as it already has), and its editorial criticism will diminish even more.
Posted by lumi at 5:56 AM
March 12, 2009
Good buy! The Brooklyn Paper joins News Corp.
The Brooklyn Paper
That didn't take long. The Brooklyn Paper, which was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation earlier this week, is relocating. To Forest City Ratner's Metrotech.
“We are extremely excited to be adding The Brooklyn Paper to our group,” said News Corporation Senior Vice President Les Goodstein. “We bought The Paper because we admire its attitude, its flair and its outstanding design. And we don’t intend to change that.”
The deal was finalized last week, and was first reported on Tuesday by the New York Observer.
In Brooklyn, the Community Newspaper Group also includes the Courier Life chain. Both Courier Life and The Brooklyn Paper will soon be housed in the same office in the Metrotech complex Downtown, Goodstein said.
NoLandGrab: We would cite the chilling effect on a newspaper covering Atlantic Yards of having Bruce Ratner as one's landlord, but honestly, the Courier-Life chain's coverage of the developer's megaproject was equally abysmal both before and after their relocation to Metrotech. For now, we'll give the BP the benefit of the doubt, and urge them to do some dumpster-diving during their lunch hours — you never know what eye-opening document might accidentally end up in Ratner's trash.
Posted by eric at 6:10 PM
March 11, 2009
Brutally weird: Brooklyn Paper sold to Murdoch; now an independent online Brooklyn publication is needed
Atlantic Yards Report
Given the pressures on the news industry, it's not surprising that Brooklyn Paper publisher Ed Weintrob might have put his weekly newspaper chain on the block, and it's not shocking that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, which already controls the Courier-Life chain, might have decided to make the purchase as the New York Observer reported yesterday.
What is surprising--brutally weird, actually--is that Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman, a New York Post alumnus would tell the Observer, "They don’t want the product to change. And they love the product. And the product is fantastic."
Well, um, why wouldn't the News Corporation seek, as they say in the biz, efficiencies and synergies in Brooklyn news coverage and ad sales, given that both papers publish editions for neighborhoods like Park Slope, Brooklyn Heights, and Fort Greene? (There are areas with less overlap.) DDDB calls it Monopolyn.
For how long will two reporters compete to cover the same story for two competing newspapers owned by the same giant corporation? Brooklyn Optimist blogger Morgan Pehme already reports that consolidation has begun, with some staffers and the Greenpoint Courier getting the ax.
The Courier-Life chain recently moved from Sheepshead Bay to rent space in Forest City Ratner's MetroTech. Will the Brooklyn Paper, now headquartered in DUMBO, be consolidated into the same space? If so, it might make it tougher to report critically on Brooklyn's most powerful developer.
Norman Oder speculates about how Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner may benefit from The Brooklyn Paper joining the establishment fold.
Posted by lumi at 3:23 AM
March 10, 2009
Rupert Murdoch Buys The Brooklyn Paper
The Observer is reporting that billionaire newspaper collector Rupert Murdoch is purchasing The Brooklyn Paper, which just happens to be THE ONLY local paper that has taken an editorial stance against Bruce Ratner's $4 billion Atlantic Yards boondoggle:
In 2006, Mr. Murdoch purchased a rival chain of papers, The Courier-Life chain, which publishes 12 papers in Brooklyn.
According to The Observer, editor Gersh Kuntzman isn't worried:
"They don’t want the product to change," said Mr. Kuntzman. "And they love the product. And the product is fantastic."
Ms. Weintrob said an official statement would be released on Friday.
We're cringing; Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn blogger and The Brooklyn Paper's "SmartMom," Louise Crawford, explains why:
That's a shocker to me. Now a lot of things I was wondering about are making sense.
I knew nothing about it although Gersh did recently hint that some investors might be interested in the Brooklyn Paper.
...
This is a crazy turn of events and one that leaves many of us feeling slightly (slightly?) uncomfortable. Gersh has worked for Murdoch before and he's a very independent guy. I am very curious what this mean and how things will roll out. .I was wondering why the Brooklyn Paper's phone-waiting music isn't WNYC Radio anymore. And that recent Atlantic Yards turnaround by the paper's publisher.
Hmmmmm. Questions. Questions.
NoLandGrab: Could this start a new Brooklyn newspaper war for the best Brooklyn Murdoch weekly?
Posted by lumi at 8:25 PM
Episode 11 — Brooklyn At Eye Level: Atlantic Yards
Caught in the Act, Art in Brooklyn
Posted by lumi at 7:51 PM
March 9, 2009
The gaps in the Times's "Living In" Fort Greene
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder notes that aside from placing Brooklyn's Ft. Greene neighborhood next to "the Atlantic Yards area" (a planned project, not a real place), The NY Times totally ignored the high-rise public housing.
The worst thing was the failure of the article to mention the presence of high-rise buildings other than new luxury housing. Fort Greene is a mixed-income neighborhood; it includes public housing and subsidized Mitchell-Lama buildings.
Those buildings do not show up in the New York Times classifieds. They likely are not the desired locations of typical Times readers. But they are part of "Living In" Fort Greene.
Posted by lumi at 5:13 AM
March 7, 2009
Finding Meanings in the New York Times
Here are two odd instances in The New York Times (business partner with developer Bruce Ratner) of how the proposed Atlantic Yards project is mentioned -- and not!
The first is in The Times's Real Estate-section piece about the Fort Greene neighborhood. In trying to describe where Fort Greene is, "Atlantic Yards area" seems to have replaced "Prospect Heights" as one of the nearby neighborhoods. Atlantic Yards is not a place — it is a proposed mixed-use development located in Prospect Heights. The Times's description is something like renaming Washington D.C. the "White House area."
Multiple Identities Can Be a Good Thing
By Jeff Vandam
Snug in its corner between downtown Brooklyn, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Clinton Hill and the Atlantic Yards area, Fort Greene retains more than its share of stunningly intact brownstone blocks. Many include houses rich in embellishments and detail, supported by a pride in ownership that remains steadfast even as brownstones change hands.
The second example is an article in The Times's City section about a playful rivalry between the two Brooklyn bars, Freddy's and O'Connors. The article fails to mention that the much more serious rivalry Freddy's faces is with developer Bruce Ratner, who wants to tear down the bar to build the proposed Atlantic Yards.
Pranksters Amid the Pilsner
By Sarah Stodola
Freddy’s, on Dean Street and Sixth Avenue, is the up-to-date bar. When Freddy’s plucked the bartender Donald O’Finn from O’Connor’s in the mid-1990s, he assumed responsibility for Freddy’s transition from “cop hangout” to second living room for the neighborhood’s growing ranks of artists and artistic types. The back room was turned into an avant-garde performance space, and Mr. O’Finn’s films are shown in the front room.
Posted by steve at 5:59 AM
February 28, 2009
Atlantic Yards Report Saturday Trio of Truth
"Little guy" Gehry says Atlantic Yards is "stopped"; what are the implications?
In a profile of Frank Gehry in the Los Angeles Times, the starchitect says that Atlantic Yards is "stopped". What, exactly, could he mean?
Unexplained is the meaning of "stopped." Developer Forest City Ratner, of course, is chomping at the bit to break ground on the arena. The major legal cases may be cleared this spring, though appeals are possible, but financing remains uncertain.
Gehry could have easily have said the project is "on hold." So either he was infelicitous in his language or he knows more about the developer's plans than the rest of us.
Alternatively, he could have meant that the project is, for him, "stopped," given that his designs for an arena are undergoing major changes.
Gehry's statements back up (if not completely confirm) the reportage in the Wall Street Journal and New York Daily News that he's laid off his staff working on Atlantic Yards. It's too bad he wasn't asked a specific question.
ESPN's Simmons on NBA contraction: "Welcome to the No Benjamins Association"
The economy is making things difficult for lots of enterprises, and the NBA is no exception. A review of an ESPN item causes Norman Oder to ponder if the New Jersey Nets might be sold.
In a piece cleverly headlined Welcome to the No Benjamins Association, ESPN columnist Bill Simmons points to the parlous economic future faced by the National Basketball Association (NBA).
He notes that, at previous All-Star Games, the topics were various: This season? We talked about money. Constantly. We didn't even know about the line of credit on the horizon; that didn't leak until the Monday after the All-Star Game. (On Thursday, we learned that 12 teams will accept the league's offer to borrow $200 million from JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, with between $13 million and $20 million available to each team...) We knew about layoffs of employees within the league and various franchises. We knew various local and national sponsors were bailing, most notably car companies and major banks (two staples for the NBA). We knew certain franchises were losing significant wads of money and reacting accordingly.
Yormark claims (incorrectly) that Bloomberg saluted AY affordable housing
Mayor Bloomberg manages to not mention affordable housing these days when endorsing Atlantic Yards, which is smart as it's not clear if the affordable housing component of the development will be built. Nets CEO Brett Yormark isn't quite with the program.
Yesterday, commenting on the most recent court ruling regarding the Atlantic Yards case, New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark said, in a Fox Business Network (FBN) interview (at 3:45 of video): "I'd love to echo the mayor's sentiments when he said we've got to get this project started, the affordable housing, the jobs, it's much-needed."
Well, Atlantic Yards backers may have memorized the affordable housing mantra, but that doesn't mean everyone else has done so. Why does Yormark have to make things up?
Here's the statement Mayor Mike Bloomberg issued: “The Atlantic Yards project will create thousands of jobs and generate badly-needed tax revenue. The court’s unanimous affirmation today that the review and approvals processes were comprehensive and properly completed is a big step towards the start of construction.”
DDDB noted that affordable housing is on the back-burner.
Posted by steve at 6:51 PM
February 27, 2009
Lawsuit coverage round-up: missing the story and, in most cases, the big picture
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder notices something interesting about yesterday's coverage of the appellate court decision rejecting the case challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review - there's really not much of it. For example, neither the Post, nor Times have the story in their print editions and the News only has a three-sentence item.
Also, what coverage there is misses some key points:
While it is important to point out how the decision helps the project proceed, the court ruling and surprisingly bitter concurrence indicate that something's wrong.
Concurring Justice James Catterson believes that the Empire State Development Corporation's blight study was in many ways bogus, calling one argument "ludicrous."
And the main opinion, upholding the blight study, made no attempt to assess whether it was arbitrary for the state to call a house built to 60% of allowable development rights as underutilized.
Nor did those justices acknowledge, as Catterson did, that the original contract for a Blight Study required consultant AKRF to study market trends in and around the project site, but AKRF did not do so.
So, when Bruce Ratner says, “This project has been reviewed as thoroughly as any in the city and now it is time to put these cases behind us and get to work,” not only should it be pointed out--as NLG did--that nobody's getting to work just yet, but also that a formal and apparently extensive review by the unelected ESDC does not mean a truly thorough review.
Posted by steve at 8:43 AM
February 22, 2009
It came from the Atlantic Yards Report...
Guess what's missing from Bloomberg's campaign web site?
HINT: They rhyme with radium and marina...
Borough President Marty Markowitz kicks off re-election campaign
There's no campaign web site just yet. However, after two terms and the extension of term limits, the Borough President's web site surely does double duty.
Man plans to row Atlantic again. Press dutifully provides publicity.
AYR asks why this gets so much coverage from the media, and what happened to the sponsorship from Barclays Center?
As eminent domain hearing approaches, remember, it's a "publicly owned" arena
Is it a publicly-owned arena--an issue that may come up at the eminent domain hearing tomorrow? DDDB has it wrong. NLG has it right--it would be publicly-owned by leased for a buck.And, if we're going to be precise, I'm not sure Ratner is a billionaire any more, and more than one-third of the apartments would be subsidized (though only about half, perhaps, would be "real housing for the real Brooklyn"). As for whether payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) qualify as taxpayer financing, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky would agree, but it is a matter of debate. Surely PILOTs represent a subsidy--worth perhaps $165 million.
Posted by amy at 10:22 AM
February 21, 2009
Recession? Markowitz Says Not in Brooklyn
Downtown Brooklyn Star
Daniel Bush
And in a pledge sure to draw criticism from opponents, Markowitz vowed to push through the beleaguered Atlantic Yards project.The project - potentially the biggest in the borough - calls for a new sports arena for the New Jersey Nets, apartment buildings, and open space on a vast tract of railyard land that has been unused for years. Plans for the site have been downsized significantly in the past few years in response to organized opposition from some elected officials, residents, and some community groups who have sued the developer, Forest City Ratner, in an effort to block the development.
The Star should never have sent a non-shovel-ready reporter to cover Atlantic Yards when Norman Oder is looking. Atlantic Yards Report makes the corrections:
No, it's not on the railyard only.No, the railyard is not "unused;" it's still a railyard, but until recently a platform for above-ground development hasn't been fiscally feasible.
And, no, the downsizing hasn't been significant.
Reaction to Markowitz's speech from other Brooklyn politicians varied:
"Markowitz was very entertaining and he covered every point in my district," said Councilwoman Letitia James, whose district includes parts of Downtown Brooklyn. "But unfortunately Atlantic Yards is not shovel-ready and it never will be."Others, like Councilman Bill de Blasio, praised Markowitz for delivering a speech that encouraged and lauded borough residents for fighting through difficult economic times. "It’s such a fun experience to hear Markowitz talk about the people of Brooklyn," de Blasio said. "Markowitz has so much energy. He really personifies the Brooklyn ideal."
Maybe Bill was stuttering or something because surely he meant to say "He really personifies the Brooklyn back room deal."
Posted by amy at 11:51 AM
February 18, 2009
Will the Times comment on Ratner's blatant bailout bid? Based on past performance, no
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder offers a reminder to the NY Times newsdesk that they don't have to march in lockstep with the paper's editorial board.
Will the New York Times editorialize against the private bailout Forest City Ratner apparently seeks, deploying federal stimulus funds to complete the new railyard the developer had committed to build?
It's doubtful, given the newspaper's steady path from criticizing AY subsidies to studious silence, even though a stimulus for Atlantic Yards is so contentious that it's drawn criticism from not only Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn but also BrooklynSpeaks and the New York Public Interest Research Group's Straphangers Campaign.
But maybe the news desk, if it truly believes in small-d democracy, will do some more reporting.
Check out the rest of the article, in which Oder offers a retrospective of the Grey Lady's criticism of "taxpayer money to be used to help fund a profit-making real estate venture like this one," before falling silent on the entire affair.
NoLandGrab: Does the Times support "taxpayer money to be used to help fund... a real estate venture like this one" if it is no longer "profit-making?"
Posted by lumi at 5:23 AM
February 17, 2009
ARENA price tag in half, not PROJECT
Yesterday's Atlantic Yards Report article made the top of the list of The Real Deal's links, which, in ten words, managed to mangle the story.
In the original article, Norman Oder was pondering whether or not developer Bruce Ratner could manage to cut the ARENA price tag in half, while The Real Deal's headline went whole-hog, announcing that the "Price tag of Atlantic Yards might be cut in half."
It's amazing how casually misinformation can be generated, in the cut-and-paste era no less. No wonder we keep bumping into friends and acquaintances who assume the project is already dead.
Posted by lumi at 5:04 AM
February 12, 2009
Get your Gersh on
The Brooklyn Paper
Brooklyn Paper Editor Gersh Kuntzman was once again in the moderator chair for Brooklyn Independent Television’s top show, “Reporter Rountable.” This week’s edition was a juggernaut, featuring Rich Calder of the New York Post, plus special guest Daniel Goldstein of the anti-Atlantic Yards group, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (appearing just a week after The Brooklyn Paper’s pro-arena editorial! Yes, the sparks flew!).
The show will air on Monday, Feb. 16 at 9:30 pm and repeat on Thursday, Feb. 19; Monday, Feb. 23; and Thursday, Feb. 25 at 1:30 and 9:30. Time-Warner subscribers will find the show on channel 56, while Cablevision customers will see it on channel 69.
Posted by steve at 5:08 AM
February 7, 2009
This Week On Brooklyn Independent Television
BRIC Community Media
Brooklyn Review
Monday, February 9th
1pm & 9pm
Brooklyn’s Time Warner Cable channel 56, Cablevision channel 69, RCN channel 84, Verizon 44 and streaming live online at briconline.org/bcat (channel 3).
What’s the deal with the Atlantic Yards project? We bring you the update on whether Brooklyn’s biggest development project is a go or a no
Posted by amy at 12:37 PM
February 1, 2009
Let's call it the AY downsizing meme, with a misleading illustration
Atlantic Yards Report
Apparently the reversal of the Atlantic Yards inevitability meme has now been joined by the AY downsizing meme--and both are far less certain than asserted.We don't know what a revamped Atlantic Yards arena would look like, other than there would likely be less glass--which certainly would help with security. Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz recently speculated:
There may be a chance to incorporate design and construction changes that will lower the bottom line and celebrate the ‘Brownstone Brooklyn’ architecture that makes our borough unique.It was unclear how much that referred to the arena or to the associated towers.
Posted by amy at 10:22 AM
January 31, 2009
Dock Street foes, supporters clash at hearing
The Brooklyn Paper this week wrote an article in support of the Dock Street proposal in DUMBO. Since the newspaper's website is open for comments, many angry readers accused the paper of bias. Ed Weintrob, publisher of the paper, jumped in with his own defense comment and used the New York Times' relationship with Bruce Ratner as the posterchild of bias:
As for Two Trees, it is no secret that we are rental tenants in one of Two Trees’ DUMBO buildings (we've mentioned this in the past, and several posters have pointed it out on our own Web site — so, no secret). As far as we know, our lease terms are in line with those of comparable tenants. We PAY for our space.So there is no conspiracy or secret payback here. We are not business partners with Two Trees in the sense that the business fortunes of Two Trees do not affect our bottom line (unlike, for instance, the New York Times, which has a business partnership in its Times Square building with Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner).
Posted by amy at 12:31 PM
January 25, 2009
And the Blog Goes On
New York Times
By Samantha Storey
This article takes a look at New York City real estate blogs and the challenges they face with the downturn in the real estate market. One Brooklynite quoted mentions the proposed Atlantic Yards project as a topic that he follows via the real estate blogs.
Louis Rosenfeld, who lives in Park Slope, started visiting Brownstoner last summer when he was looking for an apartment. He closed on a co-op in the fall, but is still reading the site.
“I find it interesting to use as a lens for what’s going on in the borough,” said Mr. Rosenfeld, a book publisher.
He said he liked the site’s broad approach. “I can find out what is happening with the Atlantic Yards and in neighborhoods like Ditmas Park and Flatbush.” He also said it was difficult to find news about these smaller neighborhoods in mainstream media.
NoLandGrab: Please feel free to think of us as your clearing house for all things Atlantic Yards. We're here to keep an eye on this vital Brooklyn issue whether or not The Times chooses to cover it.
Posted by steve at 7:24 AM
January 24, 2009
New York Times criticized for a deal with (Mexican) tycoon; could those criticisms apply to its deal with Ratner?
Atlantic Yards Report
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim Helu is investing $250 million in the New York Times Company. This transaction has triggered a critical essay in Slate. Norman Oder wonders if some of the criticism being made of the Times Company's close relationship with Slim couldn't also be applied to the chummy relationship with Bruce Ratner, who partnered with the Times in building the paper's new headquarters.
As I quote some excerpts from Martinez's essay, I'll suggest some similar criticisms may apply to the Forest City Ratner deal.
Whether a weak Mexican state can develop and implement muscular antitrust policies to rein in the likes of Slim and foster greater competition is one of the keys to our neighbor's prosperity, which shouldn't be a minor story for an American newspaper.
Whether major projects like Atlantic Yards can be built in New York City via a transparent and fair process, including the role of eminent domain shouldn't be a minor story for New York's leading newspaper, especially given that the Times Tower itself was an example of such challenges.
The point is, Slim doesn't have to interfere at all. I know from experience that publishers do intervene in the editorial process, as is their prerogative. And I can assure you that Slim's investment will be a factor, even if unspoken, in editorial decision-making henceforth at the Times. Perhaps Mexico's crony capitalism will remain a mostly neglected topic—but now conspiracies will be read into the neglect.
I'll take the Times at their word that the publisher doesn't interfere in the news coverage. (Michael Wolff suggests Ratner is "protected" and, while there's no proof of that, and there has been some tough reporting, there's been a lot of weak reporting, too, and never a major investigative piece.)
Posted by steve at 8:42 AM
January 18, 2009
The Brooklyn Wire
This week, The Brooklyn Paper launched a web site that aggregates Brooklyn news from some of "today's most-popular blogs and sites," including Atlantic Yards Report and NoLandGrab.
Check it out at http://www.brooklynpaper.com/sections/wire/.
Posted by lumi at 6:05 PM
January 16, 2009
The Times on "pay-to-play," but not the FCR/Silver version
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times criticizes pay-to-play in New Mexico, but turns a blind eye in its own backyard:
On Wednesday, the New York Times editorialized on the charges involving New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who, beyond the alleged scandal, has received a lot of money from developer Forest City Enterprises.
...
So, how about editorializing about the appearance of Forest City Ratner giving $58,420 to a committee controlled by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, far more than could be given to any individual candidate?And how about editorializing--well, a news story first would help--about Forest City Ratner's bailout of ACORN, its partner on the Atlantic Yards project?
NoLandGrab: The Times has already demonstrated that the paper will ingore any excess or impropriety to support its own business partner Bruce Ratner and his highly leveraged heavily taxpayer-funded Atlantic Yards megaproject.
Posted by lumi at 5:46 AM
January 12, 2009
Some common (and less-common) mistakes in Atlantic Yards coverage
Atlantic Yards Report
This is a MUST READ for REPORTERS covering Bruce Ratner's "Atlantic Yards" megaproject slated to be built over the VANDERBILT RAILYARDS PLUS about 13-14 ACRES of city streets and private property, in PROSPECT HEIGHTS, due to a STATE ZONING OVERRIDE, ACROSS THE STREET from where Walter O'Malley wanted to build a new ballpark for the Dodgers, which was scaled back ONLY AFTER the plans were made larger, etc.
|
Norman Oder compiled a list of eighteen mistakes repeatedly made in the mainstream media, some as late as last week.
NoLandGrab: Heck, even if you're not a reporter, you'll want to be familiar with this list, so you won't get fooled again.
Posted by lumi at 5:58 AM
January 10, 2009
AY "on last legs," as per James? Well, Crain's editorial director says "nothing's for certain," points to March decision date
Atlantic Yards Report
The headline summarizes it all as AYR asks why Greg David, Crain's New York Business Editorial Director, asserts that March is a deadline:
David continued, "Having said that, there are a series of legal challenges pending at the appellate courts in New York. If those challenges are not dismissed before March, the project will be in trouble. If they are dismissed in March, the project will have a chance to go ahead if it can be financed. A year ago, it could've been financed. Can it be financed today? I have no idea."David didn't explain why March is the deadline. Parent company Forest City Enterprises has a loan on footprint property with Gramercy Capital due in February. Perhaps that can only be renegotiated with a short horizon in sight? And would attorney George Locker's assertion that new lawsuits would cause further delay affect that March deadline?
And what of David's comments about the "imaginative campaign" vs. traditional journalism?
Let's take a look at what David called "one of the most imaginative campaigns... that I've ever seen." Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has raised money for multiple lawsuits, helped stage rallies, and maintained a very active web site, blog, and mailing list. The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods has coordinated a wider range of concerned groups, in responding to the environmental review.
...
What about AYR? I don't practice traditional journalism, given that this blog mixes reportage, analysis, and commentary, and I used to say I wasn't neutral. But neutrality can be code for "the mushy middle" and, with Atlantic Yards, it's important to analyze the facts.
Posted by amy at 2:06 PM
January 4, 2009
Slow news leads to front-page treatment for Nets dancers, DDDB baby
Atlantic Yards Report
I had to laugh yesterday when I saw various editions of this week's Courier-Life paper.A front page standalone photo promoted an "exclusive" look (on p. 4) into the lives of two Nets dancers who've moved to Brooklyn "respectively to pursue dance careers. The two talented ladies say they love their new home borough and can't wait for the team to relocate to Brooklyn." (Click to enlarge graphics.)
Well, their commute would be so much shorter. Then again, there are 16 2008-09 Nets Dancers and a bunch are from New Jersey and Staten Island.
Posted by amy at 9:44 AM
January 1, 2009
Watching "The Wire," thinking about Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
When you're a walking Atlantic Yards encyclopeida, even a highly acclaimed television series gets filtered through the lense of development in Brooklyn:
The epic, brilliant five-season HBO series The Wire, now fully available on DVD, takes off from cops and dealers (working the corners, at right) in Baltimore to portray a more deeply troubled ecosystem, including schools, the port, and the local media, with complex, intertwining plots and an array of indelible characters.
If you watch The Wire through a Brooklyn (or, generally, urban) lens, a minor but recurring plot point becomes ever more noticeable: the profits from the drug trade get laundered into real estate, and the port, one of the last bastions of well-paying union jobs, withers away and is replaced by real estate development.
I'll detail some of the choice moments, then try to reflect on some of the larger implications.
Posted by lumi at 9:40 AM
December 23, 2008
Atlantic Yards: "modest initiative"
Talking Points Memo Café
In an article entitled "Bloomberg Not Blue Enough For New York," reporter Ethan Porter reviews NYC Mayor Bloomberg's legacy, including the real estate follies:
Both the Olympic bid and the West Side stadium proposal generated reams of newspaper headlines and volumes of architectural schematics, but no finished products. Even a more modest initiative, the Atlantic Yards Project, which would create a basketball arena in Brooklyn, has gone absolutely nowhere. And of course, Ground Zero has sat dormant throughout Bloomberg's entire administration.
NoLandGrab: Porter falls victim to the persistent Atlantic Yards media lethargy.
Since when does the largest single-source private developement project in New York City history rate as "modest?" If built to the planned scale, Atlantic Yards would be the densest residential community in the nation.
Just because the press has been modest in its coverage of the $4 billion arena and 16-high-rise megaproject, doesn't make it "more modest" than the $1.4 billion football stadium.
Posted by lumi at 4:42 AM
December 21, 2008
Shovel Ready Xmas/Gifting Our Public Servants
Blogger News Network
Carola Von Hoffmannstahl-Solomonoff
Though not elected or appointed, the news media also qualifies for the public servant gift list. Hey hey they’re the fifth estate. And they often partake of government powered development deals– another servant status symbol. Many truth tellers deserve gifts. Remember coverage of the lead-up to Iraq? Celebration of the housing bubble? How about glaring omissions in local corruption stories? Alas. List space is limited. Gotta go with a biggie.For the New York Times, the gift of forgiveness (tis the season) from unhappy investors and employees fired in the name of cost cutting. Sure, erecting a behemoth new headquarters (52 stories, 1.5 million square feet) in midtown Manhattan and sinking capital into owning 58% of the Xanadu wasn’t a great idea. (Developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest, albeit with a mortgage.) Newspapers are facing uncertain times. Still, the Times and Ratner did get help from the state in obtaining the prime land. Think eminent domain. The right of government to take private property for public use projects. Why deem a private real estate deal “public use”? Ask anyone sleeping on a park bench. The Times cuts wind.
Speaking of wind, December marked the fourth anniversary of the announcement by Forest City Ratner of their plans for the massive Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. The project has received tons of government assistance, including the use of eminent domain. Yet Atlantic Yards is mired. Eonomic realty is a Grinch. Ratner wants more welfare FAST. Resistors in nabes rolled over by Rat send a shout out: Happy Landgrabiversary! They’re also tossing a holiday bash …
Posted by amy at 11:07 AM
December 17, 2008
Waiting for corrections: Reuters article on MTA/AY claims $1 billion railyard deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder tries to suss out the meaning of an inexplicable Reuters story about the MTA's sale of the Vanderbilt Yards:
Are we supposed to believe, in a Reuters article bizarrely headlined NY MTA: Still sees $1 bln from Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards:
- that MTA Chief Financial Officer Gary Dellaverson knew what he was talking about when he said "We don't have any current concern with respect to the $1 billion" the agency expects from Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan?
- that the Reuters reporter didn't know the purchase price for the Vanderbilt Yard is $100 million?
- that the reporter thinks Atlantic Yards would "be built on one of the agency's rail yards"?
- that the reporter didn't realize that the real story, which MTA officials wouldn't touch, is the Observer's scoop about Ratner trying to delay paying the money owed?
NoLandGrab: Can we choose, "All of the above?"
Posted by steve at 11:02 PM
December 16, 2008
THE IFC MEDIA PROJECT: Anatomy of a Story
Huffington Post
By Meghan O'Hara
In last week's episode of THE IFC MEDIA PROJECT, we looked at the story of Atlantic Yards, a massive real estate development in Brooklyn, NY, and we analyzed why New York City's three major papers had failed to critically evaluate and report on the project.
We revealed how the Editor-in-Chief of the New York Daily News had bowed to pressure from the project's powerful developer. The Editor, Martin Dunn, pulled a tough reporter off the story. The Daily News still hasn't commented, but New York's other media is beginning to take note [LINK: http://www.politickerny.com/1053/fomer-daily-news-reporter-claims-atlantic-yards] and maybe soon, the story will change.
Posted by lumi at 8:01 PM
Former Daily News Reporter Claims Bias Toward Atlantic Yards
The NY Observer
In a segment of the Independent Film Channel series Media Project, former Daily News reporter Deborah Kolben says she was barred from writing about Atlantic Yards after the the developers complained about her coverage.
Kolben makes her claim around the 4:21 mark, prompting one of the movie’s narrators to confront Dunn outside his home.
“I don’t even know who you’re talking about,” [Daily News Editor in Chief Martin] Dunn says. When pressed, he adds, “You obviously are not an editor, right? I run a newspaper. I can do what I like.”
NoLandGrab: "I can do what I like?" And we thought this quote was originally attributed to Bruce Ratner!
Posted by lumi at 5:37 AM
December 13, 2008
Unreliable Sources: "Undue Influence"
IFC Media Project, via YouTube, takes a look at "one case study where newspapers' comitments to the public trust collide with private business."
Posted by lumi at 5:30 PM
December 12, 2008
See what develops
Crain's Cleveland Business
by Scott Suttell
While we've been keeping an eye on what transpires in Cleveland, home of Forest City Ratner parent company Forest City Enterprises, Cleveland has apparently been keeping an eye on what's going on in Brooklyn.
A new show from the Independent Film Channel contends that developer Bruce Ratner — the New York branch of Cleveland’s Ratner family — used his influence to get a New York Daily News reporter pulled from covering the Atlantic Yards megaproject in Brooklyn.
In Tuesday’s episode of The IFC Media Project, reporter Ali Farahnakian looks at why the big New York newspapers have soft-pedaled coverage of Atlantic Yards, which has generated controversy among residents opposed to the project’s scope and use of eminent domain. It’s helpful in this context to know that Mr. Ratner is the developer of The New York Times’ new skyscraper near Times Square.
Unfortunately, the episode isn’t available to watch online. (I have it on my DVR if you want to come over and watch.) But an anti-Atlantic Yards blog, NoLandGrab.org, has a summary of the show, the biggest scoop of which is the contention that former Daily News reporter Deborah Kolben was removed from covering the project when Mr. Ratner’s “top people” complained about her reporting.
NoLandGrab: Thanks for the props, guys, but our summary was actually a summary of Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report post. As usual, AYR did the heavy lifting.
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
IFC Media Project's "Unreliable Sources" now on YouTube
Atlantic Yards Report
While the video from Tuesday's program still isn't available on the IFC Media Project's web site, it is available via YouTube.
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
Why the fog? Behind Chuck Ratner's obfuscation about why AY is on hold
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder answers his own existential question:
Q. When is something not on hold when it's on hold?
A. When it's Atlantic Yards.
Forest City Enterprises CEO Chuck Ratner said Wednesday that the company was putting "virtually all new development" on hold. Except Atlantic Yards.
If that were true, then Ratner should have continued, "When lawsuits are cleared, we will begin construction."
Instead, he said, "We remain committed to this and when we get--and we believe we will--successfully through the last of the litigation in 2009, we’ll evaluate the market at the time and see what our next steps are."
So, it's on hold.
However, Ratner's obfuscation (fancy word for "lie") was well worth it, because it pretty much confused every mainstream media organization that tried to cover the latest news.
Posted by lumi at 5:27 AM
December 11, 2008
"Unreliable Sources" redux: only one of three dailies covers the Forest City conference call
Atlantic Yards Report
The Daily News article, though placed online in the Brooklyn section, appears on page 3 of the print edition, a deservedly prominent place. I have previously criticized the Daily News for relegating important AY stories to the edition distributed only in Brooklyn.
(I still think the article left unrebutted the developer's claims that litigation is the cause of the current work stoppage.)
The New York Post, whose reporter covering Brooklyn development lamented to the cameras that there was a lack of information about Atlantic Yards, ignored the conference call.
The New York Times, which has neglected Atlantic Yards and other development news only to play periodic catch-up, ignored the conference call.
Posted by eric at 11:04 AM
December 10, 2008
Times Coverage of Landmarks Preservation Commission: The Pieces Needing to Fall Into Place
Noticing New York
As a correction at the end of the article notes, the Times got a little confused about the status of the [Ward] bakery building’s demolition. However, it is easy to get confused about the status of the demolition which has lasted an infernally long time, going back to the Spring of 2007 and involves a suspicious parapet collapse. Some of the grand old building still remains.
The fact that it took three tries for the Times to variously report that the building was torn down last year, this year and is still ongoing indicates that mention of the Ward Bakery might have been included in the article late in its writing. If some of us, Noticing New York included, who have “fiercely” objected to the failure to landmark the Ward Bakery Building contributed to getting it mentioned in the article, so much the better.
Posted by eric at 12:07 PM
The Kolben chronicles: more likely it was her reports for the Brooklyn Paper, not the Daily News, that alarmed Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
So, if the scoop in last night's IFC Media Project report on Atlantic Yards was that Forest City Ratner executives--according to an unnamed source, Bruce Ratner himself--got Daily News reporter Deborah Kolben kicked off the Atlantic Yards beat, what exactly were her transgressions?
The answer: likely none committed while writing for the Daily News.
...[P]erhaps Forest City Ratner had gotten wind of tougher coverage in the works at the Daily News.
More likely, however, they were peeved by Kolben's record at the Brooklyn Paper, where she wrote skeptical articles like the 7/17/04 SILENT PARTNERS, about an attempt to find out who was buying the New Jersey Nets; the 7/3/04 RATNER’S MONEY PIT, a sympathetic account of a critical report on alleged tax benefits from Atlantic Yards; and the 6/26/04 Watchdog calls for arena ‘ULURP’, about the importance of putting the project through the city's land use review procedures.
NoLandGrab: We're pretty sure that Bruce Ratner would be wasting his time if he were to call Norman Oder's editor, Norman Oder, and demand that Oder be taken off the Atlantic Yards beat.
Posted by eric at 8:26 AM
The IFC Media Project scoop: former Daily News reporter says she was pulled off AY beat (and source blames Ratner)
Atlantic Yards Report
The scoop from from last night's broadcast of the IFC Media Project was that Bruce Ratner had reporter Deborah Kolben pulled from the Atlantic Yards story when she was working for the NY Daily News.
The big news comes when former Daily News reporter Deborah Kolben, who had previously worked at the Brooklyn Paper and later worked at the Village Voice, convincingly describes an episode in which “Ratner’s top people” told Daily News officials that they were unhappy with her reporting.
The response: an immediate message to the Metro editor to pull Kolben off the story, without even looking at her clips. Kolben blames the request on unspecified Forest City Ratner executives. The IFC Media Project cites an unnamed source who blames it on Bruce Ratner himself.
IFC Media Project's Ali Farahnakian finally tracks down NY Daily News editor Martin Dunn:
“Do you normally pull reporters off at Bruce Ratner’s request?” Farakhanian asks.
“I don’t pull reporters off at Bruce Ratner’s request,” Dunn replies, pointing a finger at his interlocutor, “but I will say this. You obviously are not an editor. I run a newspaper. I can do what I like. And I can tell people to do what I want. That’s what I do. I run a newspaper.”
Norman Oder tries to explain the exchange:
I’m not sure things are that simple, and an American editor might be counseled against such a combative tone. Then again, Dunn does come from the more rough-and-tumble British journalism tradition. And that tradition is one in which newspapers are more comfortable taking sides in both news and editorial pages, while U.S. newspapers profess (if not always follow) a separation between news and opinion as well as news and business.
The IFC Media Project additionally examines the Times's coverage, and NY Post reporter Rich Calder speaks for himself as to why his paper's coverage isn't better.
Huffington Post, The IFC Media Project: Newspapers, the Economy, Real Estate and Political Power
On November 11, Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich sent a message to Sam Zell. Blagojevich was upset over a string of critical editorials from Zell's paper, the Chicago Tribune. The governor demanded Zell scale back the paper's editorial attack on him and that Zell fire the offending members of the paper's editorial board.
The aide who conveyed the Governor's feelings to the real estate and media mogul reported back, telling the governor that Sam Zell "got the message and is very sensitive to the issue."
When journalism becomes a backroom deal between those with political power and the businessmen who control the media, the news is corrupted. Tonight's [episode of the IFC Media Project] looks at all these issues, starting with a look into how the press has misreported this financial mess.
Then, we dig into the curious case of Atlantic Yards. What happens when New York City's three major papers have to cover the biggest real estate development in Brooklyn? Here's a hint: The New York Daily News is operated by media and real estate magnate Mort Zuckerman and The New York Times hired the developer of Atlantic Yards to build its new headquarters.
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
December 9, 2008
Tonight: IFC's "Unreliable Sources"
The IFC Media Project's Episode 4 airs tonight on the Independent Film Channel at 8 p.m. (check local listings).
This episode looks at the people and outlets that provide us the news, and asks: Who are they? Why should we trust them?
...
Atlantic Yards (10min)
New York has three major daily papers all competing for readers, advertisers and power. This should lead to great coverage of major stories – but in the case of one story at least, it hasn't. Atlantic Yards is one of the biggest real estate developments in the city's history, yet the three papers have barely scratched the surface. In this piece we examine how government collusion with the developer and the developer's business ties to the paper have resulted in a half-told story that's failed to serve the public interest.
Posted by eric at 10:51 AM
December 8, 2008
Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Papers Move To Downtown Brooklyn
NY Observer
by Dana Rubinstein
Rupert Murdoch will consolidate the offices of his chain of weekly newspapers into one 18,000-square-foot space in Bruce Ratner's One Metrotech Center, the 24-story Class A building at 70 Myrtle Avenue, according to an annoucement released this morning.
The group of newspapers, called, appropriately enough, the Community Newspaper Group, includes the Bronx Times Reporter, as well as two chains -- TimesLedger and Courier-Life -- that Mr. Murdoch bought in 2006 for a rumored $16 million.
NoLandGrab: Judging by the Courier-Life's coverage of Atlantic Yards, we'd have guessed they were already tenants of Bruce Ratner.
Posted by eric at 1:59 PM
Cash-Strapped New York Times Wants to Borrow Against Its HQ: Anyone Want to Lend It $225 Million?
MediaMemo
by Peter Kafka
The New York Times is running low on cash but has a $400 million debt payment due next spring. How to foot the bill? Raise money anywhere it can.
Last month, the Times cut its dividend, a move that could save it up to $100 million a year. Now the paper is looking to borrow against its new Manhattan headquarters. It has hired a real estate firm to raise up to $225 million using the value of the building as collateral. The company is looking at either a sale-leaseback or a mortgage, reports…the New York Times (NYT).
The Times doesn’t actually own the entire structure–it owns 58 percent, and Bruce Ratner’s Forest City Ratner owns the remainder–but the value of the Times’s share has been previously estimated in the $850 million to $1 billion range. It’s not clear whether the Times now thinks the building is worth much, much less than it did a year ago, or if it’s not looking to borrow against the total value of its property.
More coverage...
The New York Times, Times Co. to Borrow Against Building
NoLandGrab: We're guessing The Times won't be turning to cash-strapped business partner Forest City Ratner for the money.
Posted by eric at 11:54 AM
Atlantic Yards Report: media watch
In anticipation of Episode 4 of the IFC Media Project, which airs tomorrow night at 8pm, Norman Oder posted three articles on his Atlantic Yards Report blog, covering the IFC documentary, neutrality vs. the middle, and a litany of significant stories that the local media missed or plain ignored:
Unreliable Sources: The IFC Media Project takes a look at AY (and AYR)
[E]pisode 4, to be broadcast on Tuesday at 8 pm ET, takes a look at Atlantic Yards. The show, which contains five elements under the rubric Unreliable Sources, devotes the longest segment, lasting 10 minutes, to AY, in which I will appear.
No screening copy has been made available, so I don't know what the episode will say.
The description:
Atlantic Yards New York has three major daily papers all competing for readers, advertisers and power. This should lead to great coverage of major stories – but in the case of one story at least, it hasn't. Atlantic Yards is one of the biggest real estate developments in the city's history, yet the three papers have barely scratched the surface. In this piece we examine how government collusion with the developer and the developer's business ties to the paper have resulted in a half-told story that's failed to serve the public interest.
I was interviewed at length, but I know they interviewed a lot of other people.
Neutrality, the "mushy middle," and "false-balance" journalism
The act of fact-checking should spur skepticism of supporters' claims, given that neutrality should be pursuit of the truth, as Laurie Becklund comments below. (Thus claims by AY opponents or other critics should not be taken as gospel, either.)
...
Former Los Angeles Times reporter Laurie Becklund, co-author of two books and winner of a team Pulitzer, commented:It has always seemed to me that one of the most dangerous errors of American journalism is mistaking the center for neutral. The center is a mid-point on a sliding scale. Its place is determined by opinions and prevailing winds.
Neutral is, or should be, the radical willingness to find and communicate what's true, no matter whether that truth lies in the middle or to one side.
This is hardly a novel notion, and no decent journalist wants to be unfair or wrong. Often, we don't know the facts. But, when was the last time you read a "for the record" from a news organization apologizing for tacitly reassuring the public, often over and over again, even after the facts were in, that it had missed reporting the very heart of the matter?
For example, why hasn't the New York Daily News explained that taxpayers paid for the front-page Bonanza it claimed developer Forest City Ratners was offering homeowners in the Atlantic Yards footprint? And why hasn't the New York Times explained that taxpayers paid for helping former footprint residents find "greener grass"?
A dozen Atlantic Yards stories that have gotten scant or no coverage
Oder offers more details on this dirty-dozen list with links to his past criticism on his blog, but here's a quick run down of stories that many media organizations have passed on:
- The ACORN bailout.
- Last week's work stoppage.
- Ratner's attempt to get out of paying restitution for removing trees.
- The "generous" taxpayer-funded buyouts.
- The Times's pass on the "Brooklyn Day" rally.
- New Atlantic Yards renderings and timetables ignored by the Times.
- "The view of Atlantic Yards in neighborhood scale."
- The bogus economic analysis by Andrew Zimbalist.
- A critical analysis of the Community Benefits Agreement.
- The bogus "scaleback" story in the Times.
- Naming-rights giveaways to sports teams on "public" venues.
- Ratner's unsupported claim of winning 20 court decisions.
Posted by lumi at 5:39 AM
December 5, 2008
AY scoop relegated to Brooklyn section of Daily News
Atlantic Yards Report
The indefatigable Norman Oder, who has thus far published 20 separate posts just since Monday (a pace that threatens to shatter his personal monthly record of 82 items, established this June), managed to slip this one by us yesterday.
If you checked the blogosphere, the Daily News's Atlantic Yards scoop (at least among the dailies) today about the work stoppage at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard was big news.
In print, however, the article appeared only in the newspaper's Brooklyn edition.
Part of a pattern
There's a pattern here. In March 2007, the newspaper relegated another scoop to the Brooklyn section: the explanation that the city would spend $100 million on land for the Atlantic Yards project as part of a $205 million contribution--far more than the originally contemplated $100 million in a 2/18/05 Memorandum of Understanding.
Similarly, in December 2006, the Daily News kept another important story of citywide interest--that the Empire State Development Corporation had slashed projected revenues--in the Brooklyn section.
Prominent stories sympathetic to FCR
But a slight and speculative story about vague and never-to-be-fulfilled Forest City Ratner promises for a new Brooklyn Tech High School made page 2.
And a story about the developers seemingly generous buyouts, headlined Bonanza, made the front page, but, no one followed up after I reported that city taxpayers actually supplied the cash.
NoLandGrab: Weird. It's almost like the Daily News's publisher is a real estate developer or something.
Posted by eric at 2:10 PM
The Times corrects the Ward Bakery error
Atlantic Yards Report
Media critic Norman Oder gets a modicum of satisfaction from The Times:
From today's New York Times:
Because of an editing error, an article on Tuesday about competing pressures facing the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission referred imprecisely to the razing of Ward’s Bakery in Brooklyn, which the commission’s staff decided was ineligible for a public hearing on landmark status. The developer Forest City Ratner began demolition in September 2007 and has almost completed it; the bakery was not torn down last year.
Posted by eric at 10:14 AM
December 3, 2008
Lessons from the Ward Bakery demo
Noticing New York, Landmarks Preservation Commission: Will Times Special Series Have it All Covered?
Michael D. D. White wonders if the NY Times will ever understand the significance of Bruce Ratner's demolition of the Ward Bakery building:
Just as there is no legitimate need to destroy cornices, round-arched windows and serpentine ornamentation first, there was no need to destroy the Ward Bakery Building so soon. It will probably be decades hence if it is ever replaced by Ratner at all. Still, this kind of demolition, driven by Ratner’s inverse values, continues today as he targets for demolition first that which has greatest value to the community. The current case in point is the demolition of three attractive town houses on Dean Street.
Atlantic Yards Report, The Ward Bakery gets an LPC dis (and a timing error) in the Times
Norman Oder notes that the Times finally mentions the Ward Bakery building, but only gets a clue about when it was demolished after the fact:
Yesterday the bakery got a mention in a long round-up article, though an unnamed LPC spokesperson was given the last word, suggesting that losing the bakery was no big deal.
...
The Times's belated attention to the topic is underscored by the newspaper of record's inability to figure out when the Ward Bakery was actually demolished, even though the demolition was completed at the end of October, just as the LPC was considering a proposed Prospect Heights Historic District that comes very close to the Atlantic Yards footprint....the article as published in print (and in a database) incorrectly reports that the bakery was demolished last year.
However, the online version of the article corrects the record without acknowledging the error.
Posted by lumi at 5:32 AM
December 1, 2008
Landmarks Preservation Commission: Will Times Special Series Have it All Covered?
Noticing New York
Michael D.D. White offers a critique of The New York Times's in-progress series analyzing the work of the City's Landmarks Preservation Commission.
The New York Times is running a series of articles that will bring some welcome attention to shortcomings of the city landmarks preservation process. The two articles that have run so far after a “six-month examination of the commission’s operations” contain some very good reporting but notable omissions in the story being told force us to wonder: Are they saving some major criticism for a future article in the series?
...Just as there is no legitimate need to destroy cornices, round-arched windows and serpentine ornamentation first, there was no need to destroy the Ward Bakery Building so soon. It will probably be decades hence if it is ever replaced by Ratner at all. Still, this kind of demolition, driven by Ratner’s inverse values, continues today as he targets for demolition first that which has greatest value to the community. The current case in point is the demolition of three attractive town houses on Dean Street.
Posted by eric at 9:13 AM
November 29, 2008
Is AY site in Fort Greene? Flashback to an odd caption
Atlantic Yards Report says the New York Times has "no excuse for identifying buildings within the Atlantic Yards footprint as located in Fort Greene rather than Prospect Heights, as indicated by the caption in this 4/2/05 Times article." Four additional errors in NY Times captions are pointed out as well.
Despite the Times's stated policy of correcting "all its factual errors, large and small," I'll assume that the failure to correct this--I did request a correction, to no avail--falls under the explanation, as per the Corrections Editor, "There is a limit to how many old articles we can correct in print."
Posted by amy at 10:23 AM
November 20, 2008
IFC Series Rips Local Atlantic Yards Coverage
Runnin' Scared [Village Voice blog]
by Roy Edroso
IFC's Media Project series announces that Episode 4 will take on, among other things, the lousy local coverage of the Atlantic Yards boondoggle. While the topic gets plenty of attention at Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, No Land Grab, Atlantic Yards Report and such places, the "three major daily papers" in New York, says the Media Project, "have barely scratched the surface."
Posted by eric at 9:32 AM
November 19, 2008
Ah, The Irony...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
The New York Times' City Room blog squibs:
A television mini-series focuses on the paucity of news media coverage on the Atlantic Yards project, with a mission to tell “a half-told story that’s failed to serve the public interest.” [The Real Estate]
No further comment.
Posted by eric at 3:39 PM
Film To Bash Media for Not Bashing Atlantic Yards
NY Observer
by Eliot Brown
The Real Estate picks up on news of the Independent Film Channel's planned December 9th airing of a critique of mainstream media coverage of Atlantic Yards.
Opponents of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn have never held back in criticizing the media’s coverage—or what they say is a lack thereof—of the more than $4 billion planned development. Now, as Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn points out to us, the issue has apparently piqued the interest of a TV mini-series that examines flaws of mainstream print and broadcast outlets.
Posted by eric at 3:19 PM
The Mad Overkiller Oderizes NBA Superstar
Will the NBA's hottest property come to New York and will it be with the Knicks or Nets?
NY Newsday columnist Ken Berger reported on the hype from a pregame interview with The One:
The last time he was in the metropolitan area, on a pre-Olympic tour with Team USA this summer, [LeBron] James mentioned that New York was his favorite city and Brooklyn his favorite borough. His favorite rap mogul, Nets investor Jay-Z, had the best seat in the house for LeBron's visit Tuesday night, and could only have been dreaming about the possibilities.
"I don't know, man," LeBron said, when asked what's going on with the Nets' glacial move to Brooklyn. "I haven't been hands-on about what's the problem. I think we all saw the cutting of the ribbon, but that was the last time we've seen anything going on with the Nets moving to Brooklyn.
"I don't know if it's still in the works, but that's not my problem," he said. "I'm not invested in the team or anything, so I can sleep good at night."
Asked what his friend who is invested in the team thinks, LeBron said, "Um, I don't know. I haven't asked him. And even if we did talk about it, I couldn't tell you guys."
LeBron James may be able to sleep good at night, but Norman The Mad Overkilling Fact-Checking Machine Oder doesn't sleep well unless he sets the record straight on his Atlantic Yards Report blog:
For the records, there have been Atlantic Yards announcements that may seem like the equivalent of a ribbon-cutting, but no ribbon has been cut.
Posted by lumi at 5:45 AM
November 16, 2008
The Mayor, The Times' Timing, and a Proper Ordering
Noticing New York
We have asked once before whether the Times editorial page was ineffectually pleading to rein in the Mayor, after the fact, atoning for the damage they did when endorsing the notion that Mr. Bloomberg should be ushered into a third term by special exemption from term limits.
...
Bloomberg may argue that he has managed to avoid owing anybody anything but to give credit for this would be to presuppose that public benefit flows from the situation. It is not at all apparent that it does. What about those developers `routinely outflanking’ the public interest mentioned previously? Clyde Haberman has commented that the “Bloomberg administration . . has yet to meet a developer to which it wishes to say no.” What if we had a different mayor who was in fact taking campaign funds from the real estate industry with frank acknowledgment? Would capitulations to the industry’s wishes be happening any less fast or furiously than now? It is hard to believe that such could be the case.
Posted by amy at 9:20 AM
November 6, 2008
FCR confirms planned increase in AY office space, decrease in condos
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder examines the announcement of increased office space at Atlantic Yards, explains the history, analyzes the implications and busts the NY Times for another failure to disclose the media company's business relationship with developer Forest City Ratner.
We have further confirmation Forest City Ratner plans more Atlantic Yards office space than previously announced, 1 million sf rather than 336,000 sf, an apparent recognition that the condo market is in trouble and a hope, based some mixed evidence, that the office market will pick up.
Also, if the pattern regarding office space in Downtown Brooklyn extends to Atlantic Yards, most of the jobs would be firms relocating from Manhattan to Brooklyn; thus the jobs wouldn't be new.
The New York Times, in an article yesterday headlined Office Tenants Flee Manhattan Rents for Brooklyn, reported enthusiastically on the office market in Brooklyn, focusing on Forest City Ratner (and failed to mention that FCR is the partner of the parent New York Times Company in the new Times Tower).
Posted by lumi at 5:44 AM
November 1, 2008
In gathering information on AY, much opportunity for cognitive dissonance
Atlantic Yards Report
Could it be that ACORN's Bertha Lewis, who isn't really up on Atlantic Yards, only looks at the official Atlantic Yards web site (below), while Jon Benguiat of the Brooklyn Borough President's Office, like others trying to keep up, checks No Land Grab (bottom) every day?
Click here for the link, which includes screenshots of the Atlantic Yards website's press room, which is missing a certain article from the AP...
Posted by amy at 10:28 AM
October 30, 2008
Daily Denial
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn is tracking the daily denials issued by Bruce Ratner, who had to drop the "H-bomb" to deny the latest slew of reports:
Another day, another Ratner denial of reports that his money-losing Nets or his floundering Atlantic Yards project are for sale.
Yesterday the Daily News reported that Ratner had been trying to unload the Nets on some investors but keep the team in the proposed Atlantic Yards arena if it's ever built. Later in the day the NY Post reported Ratner's denial of the Daily News story.
Today, after an exclusive Yahoo! Sports story reported that Ratner had been talking about selling the Nets or the Atlantic Yards project to Dubai investors or Russian investors, respectively, we get the second denial in two days.
You know the "Nets for Sale" chatter is causing serious headaches for Team Ratner because each time that talk bubbles up PR crisis managment guru Howard Rubenstein* is trotted out to deny the reports.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 AM
October 27, 2008
Caveats regarding the real estate media (#9 In Brownstoner's list) and the "Men of Myrtle"
Atlantic Yards Report
Leaving no stone unturned, Norman Oder scrutinizes Brownstoner's Top-50 list and highlights one journalist and several stories that the local media, and even Brownstoner, are overlooking.
While in the list as a whole Brownstoner understandably tried to avoid personages of city-wide influence, the single most influential journalist covering real estate is Charles Bagli, real estate and development reporter for the New York Times. Only Bagli, it seems, can get Bruce Ratner (#1 on Brownstoner's list) to sit down mano a mano, driving the citywide (and even national) discourse with articles about the Atlantic Yards stall and, less credibly, the phantom scaleback.
If and when Bagli turns his attention to the New Domino project in Williamsburg, for example, maybe the city will recognize the project is much less about historic preservation than, as with Atlantic Yards, a request to build bigger than currently allowed. (In this case, it's a city rezoning, rather than, as with AY, a state override of zoning.)
Posted by lumi at 5:27 AM
October 25, 2008
B'stoner: Ratner> Goldstein > Marty >Tish?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder slipped this one by us yesterday.
Brownstoner's list of the 50 most powerful people in Brooklyn real estate places Bruce Ratner at #1, not unexpectedly nor undeservedly, but somehow puts Daniel Goldstein, the most committed activist against the Atlantic Yards project, at #10, while Borough President Marty Markowitz comes in at #11, City Council Member Letitia James is #23, Brooklyn Democratic kingpin Vito Lopez is #31, the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership's Joe Chan is #32, and ACORN's Bertha Lewis is #38.
C'mon--is Goldstein more powerful than the BP, et al.? "The hardest part is the order," says Mr. Brownstoner himself. "It's kind of a silly exercise to actually rank these folks."
NoLandGrab: A project promising "Jobs, Housing & Hoops." Brooklyn's most politically connected real estate developer. The backing of three Governors, the Mayor, the Borough President and many other elected officials. The world's most famous architect. "The most sophisticated political campaign the city has seen in a very long time, better than any professional politician has mounted to win elective office."
One could argue that Daniel Goldstein, as the embodiment of the determined grassroots opposition to Atlantic Yards, having kept the project at bay for almost five years, is underrated at #10.
Posted by steve at 10:00 AM
October 24, 2008
Number 9: The Media
Brownstoner
If a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, does it make a sound? No matter, with hundreds of reporters and bloggers in Brooklyn even the mere crack of a twig can turn into a fever pitch, and as a blog, we see media as a collective force since its work product is consolidated on our pages (yes, we know this is shameless cheating). Battles over projects like the Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment, Atlantic Yards and Coney Island are played out in the media daily, swaying public opinion, galvanizing activists, and selling the borough to buyers and investors.
...A few of the many local notables: New York Post reporter Rich Calder and Daily News reporter Jotham Sederstrom break Brooklyn stories in the tabloid wars, and Brooklyn Daily Eagle columnist Dennis Holt and Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman disagree about almost everything in the local rags. Our publisher Jonathan Butler started Brooklyn’s most-read blog (our commenters, the New York magazine noted, encapsulate the “Brooklyn Wars”), and a city-wide hit with the Brooklyn Flea, bringing an average of 5,000 people into Clinton Hill every weekend. Other notable bloggers include Robert Guskind, founder of Gowanus Lounge and Brooklyn editor of city-wide Curbed, and Norman Oder, who has broken multiple stories on his Atlantic Yards Report. And speaking of Atlantic Yards, No Land Grab is the site that has tirelessly compiled every iota of media since the fight began.
NoLandGrab: We're not tooting our own horn, we're tirelessly compiling another iota of media. Our shout-out goes to those folks above who are writing our material.
Posted by eric at 12:04 PM
Distrust but verify
The Brooklyn Paper
Bruce Ratner's scheme to use Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOTs) to finance his controversial arena is one of the reasons why a skeptical press is of vital importance to a democracy:
Two years ago, we started asking questions about a city financing scheme that allows developers like Bruce Ratner to avoid property taxes — which rise as land value increases — and instead make “Payments in Lieu of Taxes” that are typically much lower than real property taxes. The Internal Revenue Service looked into it and, lo and behold, ruled that such PILOTs do, indeed, scam taxpayers. The Treasury Department this week threw out the use of PILOTs — but exempted Ratner’s Atlantic Yards because it had preliminary government approval in July, 2006.
Preliminary approval? If that’s the case, why did thousands of people line up on three hot summer nights in August of that year to testify against the project? The answer is clear: those public hearings were a sham.
And lest we forget, when the basketball arena at the heart of Atlantic Yards was unveiled in 2003, Ratner promised that it would cost $400 million and be financed privately, a flat-out lie that was enabled by our elected officials, but challenged by this newspaper. Lo and behold, the cost of the arena is now $950 million — and it will be built entirely by public money. Your money.
More reasons to for healthy skepticism here.
Posted by lumi at 6:25 AM
October 21, 2008
Has the Times presented readers with AY information they need to make up their own minds?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder's blog started out as a white paper examining the partnership between The NY Times and Forest City Ratner and to what extent, if any, it affected the coverage of Atlantic Yards. From time to time, he revisits the topic to see if anything has really changed.
After a few choice quotes from the Times ombudsman and editor that seem to make the case for better coverage of the largest single-source private development project in NYC history, Oder finds:
When developer Forest City Ratner promoted its own "Brooklyn Day" rally, which was, as New York Daily News sports columnist Michael O'Keeffe observed, "a dud," the Daily News headlined its coverage Ratner cooks up rally for Brooklyn project.
The Times ignored it completely.
The Times has similarly ignored the information people "need to make up their own minds." It has never published any rendering of the project's scale in neighborhood context.
And, in coverage of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), the Times deemed the project a "modern blueprint", without acknowledging definitive testimony by Bettina Damiani of Good Jobs New York, who told City Council in 2005 about "several major differences between CBAs as they have been used in other parts of the country and the series of negotiations that FCRC is calling a CBA."
There's more, but these three examples are striking enough. In fact, "it's Orwellian almost," to reprise a comment by former Forest City Ratner front man Jim Stuckey to the credulous Times.
Posted by lumi at 6:21 AM
October 15, 2008
The AY meme meets Mike Francesa: project is "about down the drain"
Atlantic Yards Report
The skeptical Norman Oder is tracking the Atlantic-Yards-is-toast meme, this time it makes it all the way to "Double-U-F-A-N — The Fan — New York":
No Land Grab has a clip from WFAN's Francesa on the Fan show, in which Mike Francesa, who, like many sports talk show hosts, sounds authoritative, even though he's talking through his hat.
...
Francesa was on more solid ground when he suggested that 2012 or 2013 are the earliest the arena would open--Forest City Ratner has finally started using 2011, but I think 2012 is a more likely best-case alternative.He predicted principal owner Bruce Ratner will sell the team and it will move to Newark, where the Prudential Center has already opened.
NoLandGrab: Typically, Mike Francesa talks through a mike, not a hat. However, when supporters stop believing, then the air of inevitability may give cover for the developer or NY State to finally pull the plug.
Posted by lumi at 7:53 PM
October 7, 2008
The Sun Sets Again: NYT Metro Section R.I.P.
Noticing New York
You may have noticed that the NY Times has folded its metro coverage into section A of the paper:
You won’t see the Metro section in the future; no more front page stories in a section devoted to city news. It has been replaced by coverage with a “New York” heading tucked away in the paper’s A Section. It is predicted that this will result in diminished metropolitan news coverage.
In mourning the loss of the New York Sun, Noticing New York commented that the New York Times has been ceding local city coverage to others as it reconstitutes itself as a national newspaper. We commented further that in the course of doing so the Times has also not been adequately covering important local issues like New York’s abuses of eminent domain and more extensive abuses such as Atlantic Yards. (Thursday, September 11, 2008, If the Sun Sets and see also Tuesday, September 30, 2008, No Longer If; The Sun Sets)
NoLandGrab: Should we expect The Times to cover Atlantic Yards less adequately, or will the story shift toward the real estate, business or sports sections? For its part, The Times says the reconfiguration won't affect its coverage.
Posted by lumi at 6:28 AM
October 5, 2008
"You be the editor"? Courier-Life allows comments, at least
Atlantic Yards Report takes part in "citizen journalism" with the Courier-Life. Since their new articles do not appear on the web for a week, AYR had to use his own "citizen journalism" tools...
The Courier-Life's follow-up article on the disappearance of AY footprint trees, an issue raised more than two weeks ago on AYR, does advance the story by adding a quote from Forest City Ratner executive Bruce Bender, who gets the final word."While some trees will have to be removed as work at the site progresses, their number will be replaced many, many times over with new trees and over eight acres of new landscaped open space," Bender said.
Unmentioned: all the landscaped open space would appear in Phase 2 of the project. There's no timetable for Phase 2. There's no starting date for Phase 2, nor are there penalties for failing to complete it by a certain time, according to the State Funding Agreement. It's hardly reassuring to promise "new landscape open space" without a target date.
Posted by amy at 10:03 AM
October 1, 2008
No Longer If; The Sun Sets
Noticing New York mourns the Suns closing:
Today’s New York Sun Final Edition, quoting from the front page, “is the final issue.” We are sad.
...
Fittingly, if you search the Sun today for the words “eminent domain”, one article comes up which reports on how the legal challenge to the abuse of eminent domain in connection with Atlantic Yards has set back that megaproject.
...
Though this last short article did not make passing comment about how eminent domain abuse drags down the economy while abusing fundamental rights, the Sun during its too-short life provided a superb forum for such points to be made.
Posted by lumi at 6:35 AM
September 18, 2008
A House Marked by 8 Years of Local Financial Change Now Falls Into British Hands
The New York Times
by Patrick McGeehan
In an article about Barclays' announced acquisition of the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers' midtown headquarters, The Times offers up a 90% discount to the British bank on its purchase of naming rights for the Brooklyn arena planned by Bruce Ratner.
Barclays has agreed to pay $40 million for the naming rights to the arena planned for Brooklyn that is supposed to be the next home of the New Jersey Nets basketball team. It would be called the Barclays Center. But long before the arena is built, there could be another Barclays center a couple of blocks north of Times Square.
NoLandGrab: The actual naming-rights price tag is $400 million, which you'd expect The Times to know, what with Ratner being co-owner of the paper's own headquarters building.
Posted by eric at 1:32 PM
September 15, 2008
The Times corrects the "Atlantic Yards" caption
Atlantic Yards Report
More Atlantic Yards sloppiness from the newspaper that also just happens to be partners with Bruce Ratner in its headquarters building.
From today's New York Times:
A picture caption with an article in some editions on Wednesday about potential hurdles to plans by the developer Bruce C. Ratner to break ground in December on his $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn misstated the name of the railyards that the development will be built over, in part. They are the Vanderbilt Yards, not the Atlantic Yards.The Times could have further specified that Atlantic Yards is not a place. And shouldn't it be "would be built over," not "will be built over"?
I also wonder why the correction took five days. Fact-checking should've taken about ten seconds and led to a correction the next morning. Still, that's better than ignoring corrections altogether.
Posted by eric at 9:14 AM
September 12, 2008
If the Sun Sets
Noticing New York contemplates life without The Sun:
Notwithstanding how ardently the public feels about [eminent domain], the Democratic establishment has ceded this issue to others. Those declaring themselves Libertarians are the most reliably opposed to eminent domain abuse, but Republicans have a somewhat better record of taking the right position on this issue and it must be recognized that Republican Supreme Court appointees- essentially the same ones who voted to put Bush in office in Bush v. Gore.- aligned against the use of eminent domain in Kelo.
With the Democratic establishment ceding this popular issue to others, the New York Times likewise cedes proper coverage of the issue to the extent that it aligns itself with the Democratic establishment. It should also be remembered that the Times, in partnership with Forest City Ratner, took advantage of eminent domain to build its new Times Tower. That use of eminent domain in that particular instance was assertedly abusive and Forest City Ratner’s pursuit of it with respect to Atlantic Yards unquestionably is.
The New York Times has been reconstituting itself as a national newspaper. In doing so it has been making its national coverage much more important than its local coverage. Therefore, to the extent that eminent domain abuse is used in New York, the issue has been doubly, or maybe triply times ceded.
Therefore I will miss the Sun.
Posted by lumi at 5:41 AM
September 11, 2008
The departed "Brooklyn South": views of Prospect Heights a decade ago
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder scours the Steven Bochco cop-drama "Brooklyn South," which used as a backdrop many of the streets in and around what later became the footprint of Atlantic Yards.
Featured prominently is Freddy's Bar and Grill, the cop-bar-turned-music-pub that is under threat of eminent domain and in the path of Bruce Ratner's wrecking ball.
For those interested in Atlantic Yards, the show is fascinating because the mythical 74th Precinct uses as a stand-in precinct house the 78th, at 6th Avenue and Bergen Street in Prospect Heights, a block from the AY footprint, and there are other shots of footprint blocks. (The interiors were filmed in Los Angeles.)
Even though the vision of Brooklyn as crime-ridden can seem a cartoon, it's still notable how renovations and lowered crime have reduced "blight" both in Brooklyn and specifically Prospect Heights--even as the Empire State Development Corporation persists in its dubious claim that, absent Atlantic Yards, the project footprint would remain blighted.
Posted by lumi at 5:23 AM
August 26, 2008
USA Today-heart-Brett Yormark
Atlantic Yards Report
Brett Yormark, CEO and president, Nets Sports and Entertainment (and CEO, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment), is impressive on a lot of fronts, as USA Today's rapturous profile told us yesterday.
Unfortunately, the reporter swallowed the line that Yormark and the Nets "hope to be in [Brooklyn] by the start of the 2010 season." As I commented on the USA Today site, check out Bruce Ratner's 2011 statement to shareholders and Yormark's consistent fudging of the facts.
NoLandGrab: Ratner executives like Yormark rely upon this type of journalism of stenography to reinforce their spin.
Posted by lumi at 4:15 AM
August 21, 2008
Baltimore: What The NYT Didn’t See Fit to Print
Rooflines [National Housing Institute, blog]
By Matthew Schwarzfeld
Last week, we pointed out that a NY Times article about the Johns Hopkins project being developed by Forest City in East Baltimore danced around the subject of eminent domain by using curious euphemisms and code words that would be unfamiliar to those who have not been closely following the issue of eminent domain.
Judging from this Rooflines article, the Times piece, covering the "largest urban renewal project in the nation" by the paper's own development partner, was more of a snow job than we initially thought.
Johns Hopkins has a complex and mixed relationship with the mostly black residents of the east Baltimore neighborhood in which the main campus is located, but a recent article in The New York Times on the university’s $1.8 billion expansion plan largely ignores the issue. Though the university expansion will result in the dislocation of thousands of low-income residents, The Times looks almost entirely at the positive business impact.
Johns Hopkins’ expansion is the largest urban renewal project in the country. The university, through a nonprofit partnership, the East Baltimore Development Inc., has acquired 88 acres, much of it through eminent domain. The project will raze a large part of East Baltimore—an infamously crime-ridden area with high vacancy rates—and replace it with office buildings, university lab facilities, and mixed-income housing.
The Times article, which ran in the real estate section, sees the project as nothing but a positive. It describes EBPI’s work as “turning what had become an urban wasteland into a vibrant, 88-acre community” and “demolish[ing] a neighborhood to save it.” (A June 2007 article that ran in The Times national section presents a more-balanced view).
...
The article’s discussion of Forest City, Hopkins’ development partner, has also caught the attention of opponents of eminent domain outside of Baltimore. The blog NoLandGrab, a strong opponent of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project (Forest City Ratner is a subsidiary of Forest City), blasted the Baltimore article in a recent post. Opponents of Atlantic Yards have called the papers coverage into question, noting that the Times Company and Forest City have a series of business collaborations.“I’ve long commented that, while I don’t think there’s any directive in the newsroom to go easy on Forest City Ratner (or its parent company, Forest City Enterprises), the business relationship means that the newspaper has an obligation to be exacting in its coverage—and, in the case of Atlantic Yards, it has too often failed to do so,” said Norman Oder, editor of the Atlantic Yards Report. “The omission of eminent domain in this article [about East Baltimore] strikes me as another example of that failure.”
NoLandGrab: Of course there's no "directive in the newsroom to go easy on Forest City Ratner (or its parent company, Forest City Enterprises)," and the serious lack of critical analysis is just an odd coincidence.
This is where some of us think that Norman Oder is being a little too considerate. There need not be a "directive" when cozy business relationships and a publisher's personal predilections are often enough to quell the appetite for critical reportage.
Posted by lumi at 4:40 AM
August 20, 2008
It Came from the Blogosphere...
Nets Daily, Barclays Center Updates Renderings
Nets Daily notes the new renderings on the Barclays Center web site, sans the irony pointed out by Atlantic Yards Report, but nods to AYR nonetheless:
Critics jumped on the new renderings, saying they show Bruce Ratner is commercializing a public space.
NoLandGrab: We critics do not accuse Bruce Ratner of commercializing a public space. Rather, we criticize the counting of the obviously private "Urban Room" as "publicly accessible open space."
Kristen's Brooklyn, NY Blog [About.com], A Walk Around the [Brooklyn] Blog
The About.com Guide to Brooklyn gives kudos to A Walk Around the Blog for profiling the likes of Atlantic Yards photobloggers Adrian Kinloch and Tracy Collins.
Noticing New York, Dear Mr. Bloomberg, . . . . . the Harm and the Foul
Michael D.D. White revisits a letter he sent last year to Mayor Bloomberg regarding the folly of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at 11:20 AM
August 17, 2008
In Courier-Life, "Yards foes" find journalistic confusion
Atlantic Yards Report looks at the latest brutally weird exchange between Daniel Goldstein and Courier-Lifer Stephen Witt. Goldstein writes a letter to the editor correcting one of Witt's articles, which was riddled with mistakes. Witt fires back by asking Goldstein questions...in print. Atlantic Yards Report breaks it all down for Mr. Witt:
The eminent domain litigation, first filed in federal court but ultimately dismissed, leading to a successor case filed in state court, is unrelated to the case challenging the environmental review, which was filed in state court and remains under appeal.Why was it filed in the Appellate Division rather than in the lower-level trial court? That's what state law requires. According to Article 2, §207 of the Eminent Domain Procedure Law:
Judicial review. (A) Any person or persons jointly or severally, aggrieved by the condemnor's determination and findings made pursuant to section two hundred four of this article, may seek judicial review thereof by the appellate division of the supreme court...As for whether "opponents... filed yet another legal petition trying to stop the project," Goldstein's technically right. However, Witt and others can point to intertwining motives; DDDB, while not a plaintiff, has organized and helped fund the eminent domain case. And people contributing to DDDB's legal fund are doing so not to help individual plaintiffs but rather to block or change the project.
Posted by amy at 11:06 AM
August 6, 2008
Building a Technology Park in Baltimore by Rehabilitating a Neighborhood
The NY Times
By Eugene L. Meyer
From the newspaper that has never seen a Forest City project it didn't like, today The New York Times ran a fairly uncritical story about how the development company and Johns Hopkins Hospital "have joined forces to demolish a neighborhood to save it." [No joke!]
Though the article contained this disclosure, "One of its affiliates, Forest City Ratner, was the development partner for the new Manhattan headquarters of The New York Times Company," it doesn't mention that the Times Company and Forest City Ratner (FCR) now co-own the building.
Also absent from the article is any mention of "eminent domain," a controversial component of the plan to build The Times's headquarters and FCR's Atlantic Yards project. Instead, The Times dances around the topic:
To accumulate land for the site, the city, state and Johns Hopkins in 2003 created East Baltimore Development Inc. to acquire buildings, tear them down, and then sell the land to developers.
[Read: In order to acquire enough land, the government and Johns Hopkins created a public-private corporation empowered with the use of eminent domain to force people to sell their homes and/or businesses.]
Check out the rest of the article, which cheerily ends with a quote from a Forest City executive: "Hopefully, this is the last time we’ll have to demolish a neighborhood in order to save it.... It’s a real opportunity to create a new model of inclusive city rebuilding."
Posted by lumi at 5:11 AM
August 4, 2008
Dig-it-all! “Truthy” His-Stories On the Decline
Last week we failed to notice one post from Noticing New York.
The YouTube vid showing a cop taking down a cyclist at last month's Manhattan Critical Mass ride has people thinking about the massive digital archive being created on the Internet:
No longer will history be written by the ribbon-cutters if big megadevlopements succeed. NOT if they are unwilling to stick to the truth.
Digital technology is comprehensively laying down the actual facts.
Just take a look at Norman Oder’s story today, “Typo? City/state letter on tax-exempt bonds backdates MTA RFP by three years” where he zeros in to block the tricky use of a backdating “typo” amongst other organized misinformation in a letter to the IRS by which the New York City Industrial Development Authority and the Empire State Development Corporation attempt to rewrite history. They have reason to try to rewrite history since the history is not pretty. (History includes the award of 22 acres of Brooklyn to Ratner Organization on a no-bid basis, giving Ratner a theoretical monopoly on 30 contiguous acres.)
Once upon a time the true history of big city development was inaccessibly buried in musty old city records. Only the power brokers who wanted to tell a story with their particular slant could mobilize the resources to selectively surface the facts or non-facts that supported the tale they wanted to tell. Now you know that if you want the true story about a project like Atlantic Yards you skip the official press releases and quickie news stories that feed off them and go to sources like Oder’s Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by lumi at 3:45 AM
July 28, 2008
AY is a project, not a place (again)
Atlantic Yards Report
The media watchdog's work is never done.
From today's New York Post, in an article headlined LANDMARKS BLOOMBLITZ:
The proposed historic designation for Prospect Heights would cover a neighborhood bordering the megadevelopment at Atlantic Yards. Similarly, the West Chelsea district abuts the massive Hudson Yards project.No, Atlantic Yards is a project, not a place. And nearly all of the project would be in Prospect Heights.
Posted by eric at 12:00 PM
AY advertising, FCR branding, and the Manhattan Media connection
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder speculates that the Atlantic Yards ad in Manhattan Media's "family lifestyle" magazine could be a makegood of sorts for Forest City Ratner's not-so-fondly remembered original foray into fake newspapers, the Brooklyn Standard.
What's a generic Atlantic Yards advertisement--featuring some dubious statements used to promote the project even before it was passed--doing in the July 2008 issue of New York Family/Brooklyn, "a glossy, vibrant city magazine that offers active, sophisticated New York parents an inviting mix of feature articles and selected tips about their interests, issues, and concerns"?
Well, the magazine comes from none other than Manhattan Media, the enterprise that previously teamed with developer Forest City Ratner on the short-lived but much-criticized Brooklyn Standard "publication." Forest City Ratner initially pledged publication "every few months."
NoLandGrab: OK, we have to admit it. We thought the fake news in the Brooklyn Standard was as well done as the fake news in The Onion.
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
July 27, 2008
Talk to the (NY Times) Newsroom: unanswered questions about Atlantic Yards coverage
Atlantic Yards Report writes to the NY Times Metro Editor during "Talk to the Newsroom" week, and receives no response.
Mr. Sexton,In a previous "Talk to the Newsroom" feature, in March 2007, you wrote, "Pick any major topic of the last several years in New York... The paper's coverage has been unmatched."
I'd strongly disagree with that regarding Atlantic Yards. In fact, I'd argue, the Times has a special obligation to be exacting in its coverage, given the parent company's business relationship with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, as partners on the Times Tower. (I wrote about that in a September 2005 report critiquing the Times, linked from my web site, and have continued my media criticism as part of my Atlantic Yards Report watchdog blog.)
Posted by amy at 10:58 AM
July 20, 2008
Interviews on Atlantic Yards Report, WSJ, and points north
Field of Schemes
I keep meaning to find a moment to mention the multipart interview that Norman Oder did with me and is posting in bits to his Atlantic Yards Report blog; now that segment #4, addressing the would-be savior of scandal-ridden ACORN, went up yesterday, what better time than now?
Posted by amy at 12:22 PM
July 19, 2008
Will Olin's open space designs surface in September? Probably not
Atlantic Yards Report
Shortly after new designs for the Atlantic Yards arena and one building were released on May 5, I wrote on May 8 that the magazine Landscape Architecture, published by the American Society of Landscape Architects, predicted coverage of Atlantic Yards in the June and September issues.The June issue is out and the Design section did not include an article on Atlantic Yards.
When's it coming?
Should we wait until September? Nope. A revised editorial calendar, as of 6/5/08, makes no mention of Atlantic Yards.
So we're left wondering what Olin plans as temporary landscaping for empty lots that, as the Municipal Art Society suggested, might turn into Atlantic Lots.
Posted by amy at 9:55 AM
Activism for every attention span
Time Out New York
Jaime Jordan
NoLandGrab might not be a moment of zen, but we're 5 minutes of pithiness:
“The city is catering to megadevelopers while completely ignoring the needs of New Yorkers,” says Candace Carpenter of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. The Atlantic Yards is probably the city’s best-known battleground, but New Yorkers are channeling Jane Jacobs all over the five boroughs. While issues like affordable housing and eminent domain drive many of these campaigns, Deborah Marton, executive director of the Design Trust for Public Space, believes that “environmental quality and sustainability” are also major concerns.5 MINUTES!
If you don’t have time to volunteer with an agency, make a donation to the Design Trust (designtrust.org), or take a $15 walking tour with the Municipal Art Society (mas.org)—both organizations advocate for responsible use of public space. “And remain educated by reading about development issues,” says Marton. She suggests The Architect’s Newspaper (archpaper.com) or Brownstowner (brownstoner.com). If you’re following the Atlantic Yards action, though, the blog No Land Grab (nolandgrab.org) provides a pithy overview of events.“You can yell and scream about development, but you have to contact the legislator to make a difference,” says Carpenter. “Also, elect officials who aren’t beholden to big real-estate money.” To look up your New York City Council representative, go to council.nyc.gov. At Place Matters (placematters.net), you can raise awareness about noteworthy buildings and sites in your community—thus making them harder to bulldoze—and a $50 membership in the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (gvshp.org) gives you reduced rates on events like lectures and walking tours, plus information on how to report landmark violations.
“Join your community board. That’s the main avenue for average residents to get involved,” explains Marton. “They can have an influence on everything about a new project, including use, scale and appearance.” For meeting and membership details, go to nyc.gov/cau. If you’re more interested in preserving the city skyline, GVSHP had two job openings at press time (gvshp.org/employment.htm). And if you’re in it for the really long haul, consider a career in urban planning: The American Planning Association’s New York Metro Chapter (nyplanning.org) provides information on approved courses and employment opportunities.
article
NoLandGrab: TONY Left out Brooklyn's favorite form of activism...wearing DDDB t-shirts.
Posted by amy at 9:13 AM
July 18, 2008
It came from the Blogosphere...
Here's what they're saying:
ANGRYNYER, Bloomberg’s latest racist rezoning disaster in the making.
One New Yorker detects a pattern with all of the land-grabbin' megaprojects:
Why hasn’t Bloomberg been called on this racist rezoning agenda? Harlem, LES, Atlantic Yards, Willets Point, Dutch Kills… all minority areas.
NoLandGrab: Wonder how these projects have actually affected diversity in the city overall. Unfortunately, if it has, it will be too late by the time someone has some real figures.
The View from the Bleachers, New York Times Weighs in on Yankee Stadium
Hey, we aren't the only ones not holding our breath waiting for the day that the NY Times "asks a few more serious questions about the Atlantic Yards project before it’s too late."
It seems that quite a few of my more recent posts have been along the lines of “I’m a New York sports fan who has serious reservations about new New York sports stadia.” Especially with two projects in particular: Atlantic Yards, and the new Yankee Stadium.
Now, in today’s New York Times, Tommy Craggs has weighed in with a criticism not only the cost of the new stadium in the Bronx, but whether it is necessary at all....
The irritating irony of this, as with many other building schemes in New York, is that the Times only pays lip service to the opposing voices to these projects, usually when the deal is done and dusted and it’s too late to turn back.
Culture of Congestion [The NY Sun], Battery Park City on a Weekday Evening
Among New York's mega-projects-in-progress, I'd thought that Brooklyn Bridge Park on Brooklyn's East River waterfront was doing okay financially. Unfortunately, though not surprisingly, all is not so well, according to a Daily News article that appeared recently:
But rising costs, bureaucratic delays and ongoing legal battles have caused the price tag to double — sparking fears that not all the amenities will be built. Some 1,200 luxury condo units are still in the works along the park and will make payments in lieu of taxes to pay for the park's upkeep.
(I've blogged about the pros and cons of BBP here.) I just hope it doesn't go the way of Hudson Yards, the World Trade Center, Moynihan Station, and Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 AM
July 13, 2008
In Marty's Brooklyn!!, Kanye but not Bruce at the Brooklyn Ball
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, the latest issue of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's promotional Brooklyn!! newspaper is out and, as in the past, Atlantic Yards gets short shrift: I couldn't find a mention. (It's not online yet, but here are past issues.)However, as the snapshot at right suggests, there was an opportunity. According to the caption, hip-hop star Kanye West "performed at the Brooklyn Museum's Brooklyn Ball, celebrating the opening of artist Takashi Murakami's retrospective." Unmentioned: the guest of honor was Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, and the event provoked a forceful protest.
Posted by amy at 3:57 PM
July 9, 2008
It came from the Blogosphere...
Center Hold, Your Friendly Neighborhood
NYC makes one blogger's list of candidates of Best Planned Cities, with a few caveats, gratis the New York Department of Shitty Planning:
[T]he truth is that New York’s planning department has been heading down hill since the 70’s and 80’s saw development of government housing projects in all 5 boroughs. Schools have attempted to improve by segmenting themselves into smaller, more focused institutions but are facing the same problems their behemoth predecessors endured. And the biggest building project New York has seen in decades, Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards Project, is an ostensible humanist project at best.
In the wake of this weekend's column by Michael O'Keeffe in the Daily News, two different blogs note that sportswriters seem to have the sharpest eye for political commentary:
Washington Square Park, NY Daily News: “Kiss my grass, Mayor Bloomberg” by Michael O’Keefe
I’m impressed by sports writers. They inject passion and reflect on history in a way that, for the most part, political writers and media covering City Hall don’t. If politics was covered the way sports is, perhaps more people would know what was going on and the world … our City … would be a different place.
DDDB.net, The Sportswriter Gets it Right
It's interesting that among mainstream New York newspapers, it's often the sports writers who have most pithily summed up the Atlantic Yards and Yankees deals for the corporate welfare exercises they are. As noted below, city columnist Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News deftly skewered the Yankees job promises last week. And then in the Sunday Daily News, sportswriter Michael O'Keeffe followed up with this observation about the state of big-money sports in the City of New York.
Note: Juan Gonzalez covers local issues for the Daily News, not sports.
Posted by lumi at 4:25 AM
July 5, 2008
A true-crime tale in "Atlantic Yards"? Not quite
Atlantic Yards Report
The "noir" we're most familiar with would have thugs with fedoras hanging around the footprint for the proposed Atlantic Yards project, but Norman Oder, who is apparently catching up with his summer reading, has encountered "Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth". This is a noir of a much more recent vintage.
The crime fiction collection Brooklyn Noir was the first in Akashic Books' highly-successful "Noir" series, which now extends to dozens of anthologies. Now Brooklyn Noir 3: Nothing but the Truth has been published, the first true-crime collection in the series.
The Table of Contents lists not just the chapters but the neighborhoods they're set in, so I was intrigued to see that the collection includes a memoir titled "The Ghetto Never Sleeps, Mister Policeman," by Robert Leuci and set in a neighborhood designated as Atlantic Yards.
Is Atlantic Yards a place? Nope; it's a project. (If you want an AY crime story, check the statistics.)
NoLandGrab: One might think of Norman Oder as the Barton Keyes (check the Pacific All-Risk Insurance Company) of the Atlantic Yards beat. (It's the July 4th weekend, you might have time to Google it.)
Posted by steve at 9:17 AM
July 3, 2008
Writing the New Newspaper
Politics as Puppetry
Atlantic Yards Report gets a nod, and The New York Times a tweak, in this critique of "traditional" newspapers.
Yes, in the future, we may not have full time reporters. That does not mean we won’t have real journalism - it just means the people writing will have to be something other than merely reporters (who, despite “rubbing shoulders with a cop, a defense attorney or a distressed family in a Red Cross shelter” often fall into their own absurd or asinine habits that keep them from being effective). More likely we will have savants and celebrity, either people working, living then writing about it from the grounded perspective of an area-specific Savant (see Atlantic Yards Report or Brownstoner for New York examples), or folks who capitalize on their name or style to build readership....
NoLandGrab: Though Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report may diplay savant-like charachteristics, it should be noted that he is a journalist by profession.
Posted by eric at 9:14 PM
June 30, 2008
So, would Brooklyn be 2010 or 2011?
Atlantic Yards Report
In articles this weekend, The NY Times "offered that not-so-credible 2010 date for the Nets' assumed Brooklyn move," while the Boston Globe had it, "probably in 2011."
Norman Oder bets on the Globe:
I think 2011 is a more likely best-case scenario. Remember, the Nets are promising only "calendar year 2010," which might just be New Year's Eve.
NoLandGrab: The New York Times Company owns both The Times and The Globe, so someone in Boston apparently didn't get the memo.
Posted by lumi at 4:15 AM
Popular Fulton Mall plans expansion
NY Daily News
In this article about plans for the Fulton Mall, reporter Allison Colter has rebranded the Atlantic Terminal Mall as "the Atlantic Yards complex."
Target is said to be considering taking space as an anchor tenant - even though it already has a megastore further along Flatbush Ave., in the Atlantic Yards complex.
NoLandGrab: Even Ratner's branding efforts haven't taken it that far.
Posted by lumi at 3:59 AM
June 28, 2008
The Post's Brooklyn Tomorrow advertorial is back
Atlantic Yards Report
Here's an assessment of the latest advertorial featuring thoughtless rah-rah promotion of the proposed Atlantic Yards development.
As I wrote last June, Brooklyn Tomorrow, the promotional magazine inserted in the New York Post and the Post-owned Courier-Life chain, is not labeled advertorial though it certainly reads as such. But the latest edition of the annual publication, featuring enthusiastic articles from bylined Courier-Life staffers, certainly helps explain why, despite considerable reason for skepticism, the Post editorial page last week twisted its way to an Atlantic Yards hooray.
NoLandGrab: With a cover featuring an artist's rendition of an office building that has no anchor tenant, tomorrow could be much further away than Forest City Ratner cares to admit.
Posted by steve at 9:20 AM
June 27, 2008
Meet 'The 100'
At Four Seasons Awards Ceremony, New York Observer Fetes New York's Real-Estate Power Circuit
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report hobnobbed with the who's-who in NYC real estate.
Posted by lumi at 4:08 AM
June 24, 2008
City approval for Atlantic Yards? The Daily News rewrites history
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder corrects some of the factual irregularities in today's Daily News editorial:
From a Daily News editorial today, headlined Yes, in their backyards:
No, these were all about snarling an extraordinarily beneficial project, approved up and down by the city and state....Approval by the unelected Empire State Development Corporation and the "three-men-in-a-room" Public Authorities Control Board, with no official role for the city at all, is hardly "up and down."
Also, the editorial refers to "22 down-at-the-heels acres in the heart of Brooklyn," as if Forest City Ratner were doing some kind of favor to the public. Rather, developer Chuck Ratner calls it "a great piece of real estate."
Posted by eric at 4:17 PM
NY Post editorial twists its way to an AY hooray
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder pokes some holes in the logic in today's pro-Atlantic Yards New York Post editorial.
The New York Post editorial board goes through some interesting gyrations in its editorial today, headlined A WIN FOR ATLANTIC YARDS. The newspaper opines:
Atlantic Yards, to be sure, has never been a perfect project. For starters, Ratner has relied heavily on special subsidies and tax breaks.The Post itself has estimated the tab at $2 billion. Doesn't that imply some effort at a cost-benefit analysis?
Posted by eric at 9:11 AM
Adventures in obscurity, via the New York Times
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times article yesterday on holding protests and press conferences at City Hall, headlined To Make a Stir at City Hall, Make an Appointment, contained, in the print edition, a photo with a very curious caption.
Um, that "Brooklyn real estate project" would be Atlantic Yards, and that was a press conference regarding the Atlantic Yards Development Trust--an event not reported on in the newspaper.
NoLandGrab: To call "Atlantic Yards" a "Brooklyn real estate project" is sorta like calling President Bush a "Washington DC-based politician." That's aside from the similarity between approval ratings of both.
Posted by lumi at 4:34 AM
June 22, 2008
When architects meet autocratic clients, when's time to walk?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times architecture column today, headlined I’m the Designer. My Client’s the Autocrat., takes on the question--raised by Daniel Libeskind--about working for repressive regimes:
Some architects argue that it is unrealistic and self-serving for them to presume that they can transform a society or distance themselves from a patron’s conduct.
“Sometimes architects like to think they’re above the political fray,” said Frederic M. Bell, the executive director of the New York chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “I think that’s a little bit disingenuous. Sometimes it’s very difficult to take commissions from countries with positions with which one disagrees.”While Forest City Ratner is not Communist China, that still reminds me of a couple of AY-related quotes. Frank Gehry in January 2006 said, "If I think it got out of whack with my own principles, I’d walk away."
Asked if previous projects involved the use of eminent domain or eminent domain abuse, and whether that be enough to make him walk away from Atlantic Yards, he responded, "No comment."
Posted by amy at 10:43 AM
June 21, 2008
From the Carpenters Union, a video of the "Brooklyn Day" rally
Atlantic Yards Report
The Brooklyn Carpenters Union, Local 926, has produced a video with excerpts from the "Brooklyn Day" rally on June 5. I suggested the rally showed speakers embattled and a not-too-enthusiastic audience, but you can check it out yourself. Among the speakers: Sal Zarzana, president Local 926, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, and radio host Curtis Sliwa. Note the criticism of local elected officials who've criticized the project.Let me point out that 15,000 construction jobs is actually 1500 jobs over ten years, or 15,000 job-years. (More likely the project would stretch over decades, thus employing fewer people at one time.) Also note that there's mention of how "Brooklyn" needs the project, but no mention of developer Forest City Ratner.
article
NoLandGrab: This video is crying out for pop-up corrections...somebody call streamgazer!
Posted by amy at 11:58 AM
June 20, 2008
Are Downtowns in Danger of Going Downhill Again?
Business Week
The myth of the Atlantic Yards scaleback, which had been in the cards for years, makes it into an article about stalled construction in downtowns across the nation.
[S]ince the end of last year, as property values across the country continue to soften and credit markets tighten, downtown development is slowing. "There is no more 'build it and they will come' mentality. Retail development follows population growth," said Scott McIntosh, senior economist with the National Association of Realtors.
Already this year many of the more prominent development deals, such as Bruce Ratner's $4 billion Brooklyn Atlantic Yards project, anchored by a new stadium for the New Jersey Nets and 8 million square feet of apartments, are being scaled back.
NoLandGrab: Initially the "scaleback" was announced to great fanfare, since it was a pr move to satisfy criticism that the project was too big. Politicians who support the project could point to the "scaleback" and tell voters that developer Forest City Ratner was addressing community concerns.
This pr manuever could backfire, if reporters continue to cite the economic downturn as the reason for the "scaleback."
Posted by lumi at 4:17 AM
June 18, 2008
Times corrects arena site caption
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder notches a small victory in his ongoing struggle to make The New York Times a better newspaper.
Was this the Atlantic Yards arena site, as 6/13/08 New York Times suggested?
No. Today's Times published a correction:
A picture caption on Friday with an article about an Internal Revenue Service proposal that would make the construction of three expensive sports arenas in New York even more costly referred incompletely to the site of the planned Barclays Center arena, the centerpiece of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The arena site is in the upper left quadrant of the photograph; it does not extend to the area in the center of the frame.
Posted by eric at 12:08 PM
June 15, 2008
Bagli and Brodsky: two of the most powerful people in NY real estate (this week)
Atlantic Yards Report
When the New York Observer last month released its list of the 100 most powerful people in New York real estate, the choices were quite debatable and, in hindsight, even more so.For example, Charles Bagli, the veteran real estate/development reporter for the New York Times--and formerly at the Observer--did not appear on the list and he's the most powerful journalist covering New York real estate and development. It was his coverage on the Metro front page Friday that clarified the issue surrounding tax-exempt bonds for sports facilities: it's more about the Nets arena than Yankee Stadium.
And Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, listed at #89 (behind me!), showed that he can make news and put officials under the spotlight, both criticizing "Soviet-style" tactics regarding the negotiations for such bonds, and scheduling an Assembly hearing within three weeks.
In the past week, I'd say, Bagli and Brodsky deserve a place in the Observer's top ten.
Posted by amy at 11:49 AM
June 13, 2008
Arena site in the Times? Nah
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder does some free photo editing for The Times.
Is this the Atlantic Yards arena site, as today's New York Times suggests?
Nah. Rather than stretch solely along the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard, as in the picture, the arena site would end at the Sixth Avenue Bridge in the upper left quadrant of the photo and stretch south below the Pacific Street boundary, at the far left of the photo.
Below is the arena site outlined, more or less, in a photo by Jonathan Barkey.
Posted by eric at 12:28 PM
The Times says Ratner was optimistic about AY timetable--well, so was the state
Atlantic Yards Report "oderizes" a subtle, though rather important, detail from today's NY Times:
From an article in today's New York Times, headlined A Question Mark Looms Over 3 Expensive Projects:
When the project was approved in December 2006, Mr. [Bruce] Ratner optimistically indicated that its first phase — the arena, an office tower, a retail complex and three residential buildings — would be completed by 2010. But under a financing agreement completed nine months later, he was given 12 years to complete the first phase.
Actually, it wasn't just Atlantic Yards developer Ratner who indicated that the first phase--five towers rather than the current four--would be completed by 2010. That was the foundation of the Empire State Development Corporation's environmental impact statement and General Project Plan.
The State Funding Agreement gives the developer 12 years after the close of litigation and the delivery of property via eminent domain to build Phase 1--and the City Funding Agreement allows it to be smaller than planned, without penalty.
Posted by lumi at 6:06 AM
June 11, 2008
"The Battle for the World's Skyline" sounded better in the original German
Atlantic Yards Report
Portfolio.com's Felix Salmon points to a Business Week article--well, an article on the magazine's web site--called The Battle for the World's Skyline, which is translated from and apparently written from a German perspective.
Salmon observes:
And it would be very hard indeed to find many New Yorkers who agree with the Business Week article that the scaling-back of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn is "a tough blow for New York". (I suspect the authors will have lost most Brooklynites when they describe the area as "an industrial wasteland".)
Rather than try to build on that critique, I'll just translate the passage about AY from English back to German, then back to English, courtesy of Babelfish.
Click here to see how "Herr Oder" occupies himself in his spare time, when he's feelin' dank.
Posted by lumi at 4:32 AM
June 8, 2008
Times Public Editor says Op-Ed page must respect facts (but what about AY?)
Atlantic Yards Report
New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt last Sunday pointed out that the Times's op-ed page should pay attention to verifiable facts--a deficit, as I've pointed out, that applies to coverage of Atlantic Yards.
AYR cites some of these deficits, most of which involve where the site is actually located:
In that same Op-Ed, Manbeck described Forest City Ratner Companies' plan to build a sports arena surrounded by 17 imposing high-rise buildings on the Atlantic Avenue railyards.Of course, the railyards would represent less than 40% of the project site, and the Times corrected similar errors in its news pages. Shipley wrote to me with a rather evasive explanation:
I'm afraid I disagree with you regarding the railyards -- for Mr. Manbeck to say that the project was on the railyards does not exclude the possibility that it could overflow them.I asked how that could square with other corrections the Times wrote. He responded:
Real estate and Op-Ed are different departments. They do their corrections and we do ours. The phrase in question, as I explained earlier, seems to me to be a question of interpretation: for Mr. Manbeck to state that the project was on the railyards does not exclude the possibility that it could overflow them.That true, but that's like saying that someone who is five feet tall could also be six feet tall.
Posted by amy at 5:20 PM
No, they're not removing rail lines for Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The criticism of Atlantic Yards has stretched far and wide enough to get garbled along the way. Note this discussion with James Howard Kunstler and Nikos Salingaros, published in the City of the Future blog and in EnergyBulletin.(The Atlantic Yards reference was among the sections cut in the interview as published in the magazine The Next American City. Photo by Tracy Collins.)
Salingaros states:
In New York now there’s a new project, the Atlantic Yards project, where a world famous architect is proposing to tear up all the rail lines, and they’re going to do that, and someone is going to make billions of dollars. And in 30 years, people will say, “My God! We had rail lines here! They were entering New York City! Now we can’t possibly afford to put rail lines in. Where are we going to put them? We have to put them on the water.” Catastrophic short-sightedness to dig up existing rail lines.Actually, the rail lines servicing Brooklyn's Atlantic Terminal remain unscathed. The project would relocate the railyard used to store and service the trains.
Posted by amy at 11:25 AM
June 4, 2008
Embrace the Urban Ennui
What we’re looking at on the Web today…
City Room [The New York Times]
From the department of better late than never...
A slide show by the Municipal Art Society shows the gigantic footprint of the Atlantic Yards project and calls on Gov. David A. Paterson to take action. [Atlantic Lots]
NoLandGrab: WHA? WHO? HEY! We're sleepin' here!
Posted by eric at 4:39 PM
June 1, 2008
The "close reading" on AY projections that the Times didn't do
Atlantic Yards Report
Along with the failure to show the scale of the Atlantic Yards project, another major media lapse has been the unwillingness to challenge the $6 billion lie attributed to sports economist Andrew Zimbalist, Forest City Ratner's paid consultant. Eeconomist Brad Humphreys told Congress last year, as I noted on Wednesday, that academically rigorous economic impact studies of merit are peer-reviewed, while "promotional" studies are not.Zimbalist's "promotional" study got a pass, though, as I note below, the Times was considerably more skeptical of economic projections regarding the controversial West Side Stadium.
Posted by amy at 8:37 AM
May 31, 2008
Ouroussoff Can Still Join Fight Against Atlantic Yards
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
The Times's architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote a scathing attack against Bruce Ratner's and Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards proposal back in March. In that attack he included this odd phrase:...No development at all would be preferable to building the design that is now on the table. What’s maddening is how few options opponents seem to have.We could wage a public campaign to stop it...
...
Today, Ouroussoff comes back with a review of another Gehry-Ratner production—the new Beekman tower design in Downtown Manhattan. We're not particularly interested in what he has to say about that building but we found this sentence interesting, especially in light of his March comment "we could wage a public campaign to stop it."...His [Gehry's] plan for the colossal Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn remains a pet target of grass-roots activists...Isn't that cute? Nicci O. recognized that there actually is a campaign against Atlantic Yards, which pre-existed his March article about his pet architect by about 4 years.
Posted by amy at 10:01 AM
May 28, 2008
"Voodoo" actuary provokes firestorm, but "voodoo" economist for AY gets a pass
Atlantic Yards Report
"Voodoo economics" in Albany are causing an outcry, but when it comes to Atlantic Yards, they do do that voodoo that they do so well.
The New York Times and others have rightly made a big deal out of the scandal that an actuary paid by unions was relied on by the State Legislature in its estimate that a bill that would offer early retirement to city workers would not cost a cent. But a not too dissimilar reliance on a partisan source regarding Atlantic Yards raised nary an eyebrow.
Posted by lumi at 5:37 AM
May 25, 2008
The FCE annual report looks like the NYT Magazine
The cover of the Forest City Enterprises (FCE) annual report, featuring the highly-successful New York Times Tower, jointly developed by FCE subsidiary Forest City Ratner with the New York Times Company, not only uses the typeface from the New York Times Magazine but also is printed on paper of similar dimensions and heft, as opposed to the narrower dimensions of previous reports.
If anyone else did this, there might be some grumbling, but I bet Forest City can get away with it.
NoLandGrab: Fortunately, this cozy relationship hasn't kept the New York Times from doing its very best job in covering the Atlantic Yards story. Oh, wait...
Posted by steve at 8:56 AM
May 24, 2008
MetroTech: A Vibrant Brooklyn Neighborhood?
An article in the most recent edition of The Brooklyn Paper is about new signs displayed near the pedestrian entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge. Much of the display concerns a map and accompanying description of nearby Brooklyn Neighborhoods.
Surprisingly, a close look at the map reveals that, apparently, Forest City's MetroTech development, located in Downtown Brooklyn, has become its own neighborhood.
The map's description of MetroTech includes the word "vibrant", but it is neither vibrant nor a neighborhood. It's really just an office park, and an unfortunate example of a Forest City project: Built with the help of large public subsidies and the use of eminent domain, the area is completely out of character with the surrounding neighborhoods and is never very lively, particularly after 6 p.m. when the office workers go home and the area goes dead. It's likely that the main point of interest of MetroTech to a Brooklyn visitor is just how uninteresting a place it is.
Posted by steve at 4:45 AM
May 21, 2008
A REAL SCORECARD
FCR PR: Lie frequently and often!!
Atlantic Yards critics have been scratching their heads about developer Forest City Ratner's [FCR] claim of having swept the opposition in the courts (that's court of law, not b-ball), and their frequent trumpeting of their alleged 18-0 record.
Since there haven't been 18 court cases filed, we're assuming that FCR is counting court decisions.
Ratner may have "the math," but we asked Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn for the actual running tally of decisions, and found that the real math tells a somewhat different story, which leads us to the question, why don't reporters ask Forest City Ratner for proof of the company's outstanding record?
[The "journalism of verification" is supposed to mean more than just verifying that Ratner said what he said.]
Here's the tally, which comes out to 11-3 in favor of FCR, by our count:
CASE |
Plaintiff |
Defendant |
DDDB et al v. ESDC et al, |
 |
|
DDDB et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
DDDB et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
DDDB et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
Goldstein et al. v. Pataki et al, |
|
|
Goldstein et al. v. Patakii et al, |
|
|
Anderson et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
Anderson et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
Anderson et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
Anderson et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
Anderson et al v. ESDC et al, |
|
|
DDDB et al v. ESDC et al, |
 |
|
752 Pacific LLC v. Pacific Carlton Development Corp., |
|
|
Williams v. FCRC, |
|
|
TOTAL |
3 |
11 |
Two Forest City executives who have been spreading the 18-0 lie:
Bruce Ratner
Joanne Minieri
Here are two reporters and one government official who have been lied to by FCR and should ask for their money back:
Charles V. Bagli, The NY Times
Simon Houpt, Toronto Globe and Mail
Avi Schick, Empire State Development Corporation
Maybe the reporters can get a correction printed, and hopefully both of them have learned their lesson about FCR PR.
In the end, who won what court decisions is of little consequence, when either side needs only to win at the finish line. Compiling this scorecard is practically a waste of time, except for the fact that Bruce Ratner and his troops are making a big deal of it and have proliferated this lie.
Posted by lumi at 6:38 AM
May 20, 2008
Decoding the Daily News's belated story about Brooklyn Tech and AY
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder scolds the Daily News, which just caught on — sort of — that Brooklyn Tech is not going to be relocating to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards.
Seventeen months ago, after approval of the Atlantic Yards project in December 2006, the Daily News massively overhyped--with the headline "Nets go High Tech: Ratner throws in new home for elite Brooklyn HS in arena deal"--a vague plan by Forest City Ratner to "work with the City, State and the United Federation of Teachers on the creation of a new 21st Century Brooklyn Tech High School, at a yet to be determined location in the borough."
There was no promised new home, and it certainly wasn't guaranteed to be Atlantic Yards. In April 2007, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle shot down any such plans, saying that influential alumni were opposed to the idea of leaving the largest high school in the country--prime potential real estate--and that the Department of Education had no plans to move.
Now they tell us
The Daily News should've responded immediately. Instead, more than a year later, we get a story today, disingenuously headlined Brooklyn Tech building not slated for Atlantic Yards. The article states:
A new building for Brooklyn Technical High School won't be part of the controversial Atlantic Yards project, city officials said."There's no such plan," said Mike Weiss, chairman of the Fort Greene school's alumni foundation. "Nobody's working on anything like that."
Developer Bruce Ratner had agreed to work with the city, state and teachers union officials, after the project won key state approval in December 2006, to include a new building for the specialized high school.
That's false. The plan was for a "yet to be determined location."
Click on the link to read about the silence of UFT President Randi Weingarten, and how the News buys into yet another tall tale from Forest City Ratner's spinmeister.
NY Daily News, Brooklyn Tech building not slated for Atlantic Yards
Posted by eric at 8:55 AM
May 19, 2008
Launch of Nets' suite sales met with partial shrug
Atlantic Yards Report
While the New Jersey Nets and Forest City Ratner put a lot of effort (Tiffany key chain!) into launching the sale of suites in the yet-unbuilt (heck, ground has not been broken) Barclays Center last Thursday, the media responded with what must be considered a partial shrug. The Barclays Center web site (right) touts articles from the Bergen Record, the Newark Star-Ledger, and the New York Times, but that Times article--as I failed to point out in commentary last week--appeared only online.
The media roundup includes several blog posts and coverage on WNYC radio, but the tabloids--which previewed the announcement in March--didn't cover the event. I think that's a recognition that the story, for now, didn't deserve more attention.
NoLandGrab: Interestingly, the dearth of fawning articles forced the folks at barclayscenter.com to post articles from the two big New Jersey dailies that were not altogether flattering.
Posted by eric at 8:36 AM
May 18, 2008
ESDC in disarray, says NYT; AY "not a done deal," says Barron
Atlantic Yards Report covers both today's New York Times article about the ESDC and yesterday's FUREE rally in Fort Greene:
In response to "State Development Agency Buffeted by Slowing Economy and Internal Rifts":
What does that mean for Atlantic Yards? It's unclear. Paterson has expressed his support for the project, which likely requires less state funding than some of the other projects, and he left it out of a major speech on development last month.The Assembly on Friday will hold a major hearing on the progress of several development projects on Manhattan's West Side. Perhaps some clues about AY will emerge then.
From the FUREE rally:
City Council Member Charles Barron, a candidate for Brooklyn Borough President and a champion of the poor, got his own slot on the dais, preceding a panel featuring four elected officials who represent the immediate neighborhood. The one-time Black Panther began with a call and response, first “Black Power,” then “Latino Power.”Then he declared, “Atlantic Yards is not a done deal.” The statement generated a moderate amount of applause, even though AY was not on the agenda. “We’ve got a whole new [city] administration coming in 2009." Some 150-200 people were in the audience at the time.
...
Barron suggested there were better uses for city money than “$100 million to [Atlantic Yards developer Bruce] Ratner” or “$100 million to the Yankees.” (Actually, both figures would be greater, with $205 million in direct city spending for AY.)Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Barron said, “says we have to do 'more with less.' Tell [Yankees owner George] Steinbrenner to do more with less. Tell Ratner to do more with less.”
Posted by amy at 9:44 AM
May 17, 2008
AY's "modern blueprint" and today's reality
Atlantic Yards Report looks back in time at Nicholas Confessore's NY Times article from October 2005, "To Build Arena in Brooklyn, Developer First Builds Bridges:"
Yes, Forest City Ratner was successful in gaining approval for the project. However, the expected results, and benefits, seem to be out of the control of those who approved it. And we know a little more about how to "nourish" and "harvest" community backing.It doesn't look like as much of a modern blueprint now, especially since Forest City Ratner, post-approval, wants supporters to "reach out" to public officials.
Posted by amy at 10:00 AM
May 15, 2008
The Dolans’ Conflict of Coverage
The Deal Book [The NY Times]
Now that the Dolan family is lined up to purchase NY Newsday, will the paper have to disclose conflict of interest in stories covering the family's other ventures? The Times says it does (emphasis added):
When the sale was announced, she said, “I asked if we have to drop a line into stories that says, ‘The Knicks, who are owned by Cablevision, which also owns Newsday.’ ”
When reporting on Bruce Ratner, the owner of the Nets, The Times often says that he was a development partner in The Times’ new headquarters building. The newspaper also notes that The New York Times Company owns 17 percent of New England Sports Ventures, the parent company of the Boston Red Sox.
NoLandGrab: Thank goodness the Times had the likes of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, NoLandGrab and Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report to harass them into "often" (though not consistently) including conflict-of-interest disclosures in articles covering Forest City Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 5:23 AM
May 14, 2008
An open letter to NYT Public Editor Clark Hoyt about the paper's curious AY silence
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder publishes an open letter to the NY Times Public Editor, which maybe really hopefully just might actually be more effective than the other calls for comprehensive coverage over the past four and a half years. [Not that we're counting.]
Dear Mr. Hoyt,
If you read other newspapers in New York, you would’ve noticed that there was a lot of Atlantic Yards-related news last week. If you followed the story online, you would’ve learned even more.
That’s why any consumer of media in New York should be disappointed by the New York Times’s failure to publish a word about Atlantic Yards in the past week. Not only is it a major story for the city and region, the Times, given the parent New York Times Company’s business relationship with developer Forest City Ratner, developing the new Times Tower, has a special obligation to be exacting in its coverage.
Norman Oder outlines the litany of news missed by the greying lady, such as:
- more public subsidies needed,
- the release of the State funding agreement,
- the release of the City funding agreement,
- tenant lawsuit development,
- rumors of Nets to Newark talks,
- a protest,
- a counter protest,
- shiny new renderings,
- gigantic parking lot renderings,
- green roof gone,
and more!
Posted by lumi at 5:27 AM
May 12, 2008
AYR briefly on BCAT tonight
Atlantic Yards Report
For those of you who can't get enough of Atlantic Yards Report, you can see Norman Oder tonight on BCAT:
I will make a very brief appearance on BCAT's Brooklyn Review show tonight, in the second segment mentioned below. (Online clips will be available later.) The blurb:
Brooklyn Review (Brooklyn's Only News Magazine)
Premiere: Monday, May 12 at at 9pm (Time Warner 56/Cablevision 69)
Encore Presentations: Thursday, May 15 at 1pm & 9pm; Friday, May 16 at 3pm & 11pmOn this episode, Brooklyn Review’s team of reporters explores tension between the African American and Jewish communities in Crown Heights; looks at the role real estate and watchdog blogs are playing in Brooklyn development; visits a Bensonhurst high school where students are examining the ethics of war through live interviews with survivors; checks out the Sakura Matsuri cherry blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden; and samples the borough’s tastiest foods at the Chamber of Commerce’s annual Brooklyn Eats event.
Posted by eric at 12:20 PM
May 11, 2008
Are AY foes 'real land-grabbers'? The Courier-Life gets "brutally weird"
Atlantic Yards Report apparently had time for the pain of reading Stephen Witt's articles in the Courier. AYR sorts out the "brutally weird" numbers, such as crowd size estimates at the rally, and looks at who the real land-grabbers are...
The real land grabbers?The next paragraph in the Courier-Life article amps up the claim:
"They are the real land grabbers, because they took the property first and turned back what was jobs into condos," chimed in Charlene Nimmons, sitting nearby and a signatory to the Atlantic Yards community benefits agreement (CBA) with developer Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC).Nimmons is not a neutral observer and, in this case, not a coherent one.
It's not unusual to repurpose former industrial properties as housing. Forest City Enterprises, the parent company of Forest City Ratner, does it all the time; it's called historic preservation and saving embodied energy.
In the Brooklyn, the "they" who "took" property includes Boymelgreen, an ally of Forest City Ratner in a lease dispute with Henry Weinstein, who owns a building in the footprint. Should counter-protestors have be protesting Ratner and Boymelgreen?
Posted by amy at 10:35 AM
May 10, 2008
Courier News Round-Up
Did the Courier stop publishing news online because it was too easy for us to criticize its horrific reporting? Stephen Witt's trifecta of crap really takes the cake today. Although his article on last week's rally, "Yards Foes Called 'Real Land-Grabbers,'" does cover both rallies, eventually, the heading and the first 3/4 of the article could have been written by Ratner. Witt's second diatribe against DDDB, "Dissension Erupts within DDDB's Ranks," is about one member being removed from the steering committee. The article also repeats a quote which was included in the rally article from CBA signer Charlene Nimmons accusing opponents of being land grabbers. If your blood pressure is not yet high enough, continue on to Witt's third installment, "Miss Brooklyn Reinvented," which is a reprint of FCR's press release on the subject.
Posted by amy at 10:33 AM
May 8, 2008
FCR, at least, says there's $205 million from NYC for AY
Atlantic Yards Report
Is a mouth organ for Atlantic Yards making a finer distinction than the house organ?
Remember that Crain's New York Business article this week quoting anonymous sources (presumably city officials) who said that critics mischaracterized the $105 million in infrastructure funding added to the city's initial $100 million subsidy:
Though listed under Atlantic Yards in the city budget, the work is not part of the development.
Well, Forest City Ratner's recently updated official Atlantic Yards FAQ doesn't make such fine distinctions, adding the city's $205 million to the state's $100 million subsidy.
Posted by lumi at 6:28 AM
May 6, 2008
Atlantic Lots and today's media roundup
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder ponders the new renderings from the Municipal Art Society, looks at news coverage of the very recent developments in the battle over Atlantic Yards, and asks what's becoming a predictable question:
Where's the Times?
The New York Times ignored the AY story completely. Baffling.
Posted by eric at 11:07 AM
Not ‘Miss Brooklyn’ Anymore; Now, It’s Just ‘Building One’
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle basically ran the Forest City Ratner press release (PDF) with a few minor changes (in italics):
During the approval process, as the Eagle has previously reported, Forest City agreed to reduce the height of B1 to ensure it was not taller than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank (now One Hanson Place), the tallest building in Brooklyn, across the street. “Building One” will now stand 511 feet and 34 stories tall.
Posted by lumi at 6:03 AM
May 5, 2008
Crain's defends the funding agreements, takes aim at "opponents"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes a more in-depth look at today's Crain's scolding of "Atlantic Yards opponents," and fixes the article's fractured "facts."
A brief article in Crain's New York Business this week, headlined "Fine distinctions on Atlantic Yards," takes dubious aim at criticisms of state and city funding agreements raised first by AYR and later amplified by groups like Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.
The article begins:
Atlantic Yards opponents omit key details when criticizing the project’s city subsidies, supporters say.Well, maybe if state and city agencies had released the funding agreements with some explanation, we'd have a more enlightening discussion. Instead, the state agreement was released quietly by the Empire State Development Corporation and the city agreement was made available only after a Freedom of Information Law request, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation was hardly expansive in answering questions.
Posted by eric at 10:47 AM
Has Bruce Ratner adjusted the official location of AY?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder notes that Bruce Ratner's Sunday Daily News Op-Ed locates the Atlantic Yards project "near downtown Brooklyn," while the project's official web site still calls it "Vision for Downtown Brooklyn."
Why care?
Prospect Heights is not Downtown Brooklyn, as the New York Times finally acknowledged.
Posted by lumi at 5:47 AM
May 4, 2008
In Daily News Ratner asserts AY by 2018, ignores countervailing evidence
Atlantic Yards Report does the dirty work of dissecting the, how you say, truthiness, in the Daily News today:
Without explaining where the financing would come from, including scarce affordable housing subsidies, Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner today declares that the project would be complete in 2018, promising a 10-year timetable little different from that announced when the project was approved in 2006, albeit after a pause for delay.Ratner, in a Daily News op-ed headlined Atlantic Yards dead? Dream on, does not mention the recently-revealed news that the State Funding Agreement gives him 6+ years to build the arena and 12+ years to build the five towers of Phase 1, both after the close of litigation and the delivery of property by eminent domain. Nor did he mention that the City Funding Agreement allows him to build a much smaller Phase 1 than that anticipated in the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) General Project Plan.
...
The announcement puts yesterday's counter-protest in greater perspective, as part of a coordinated effort to show support for the project.
article
NoLandGrab: Click through for a point by point rebuttal of the op-ed...
Posted by amy at 11:10 AM
April 30, 2008
Revisiting that May 2004 Daily News scoop about Ratner's generous buyouts
Atlantic Yards Report
BONANZA! Back in May 2004, the NY Daily News gave Ratner front-page props for his generous offers to homeowners in the footprint of his Atlantic Yards proposal.
Guess where Ratner got the money for the generous above-market buyouts — yup, taxpayers!
Norman Oder rewrites the article with the assitance of facts and hindsight:
Real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner is showing Brooklyn homeowners the money.
Revised: Real estate tycoon Bruce Ratner is showing Brooklyn homeowners taxpayers’ money.
He's turning residents of one building into instant millionaires so they'll go quietly - letting him knock down their homes to make way for his controversial $2.5 billion Nets arena and housing complex.
Revised: Taxpayer funds are turning residents of one building into instant millionaires so they'll go quietly - letting him knock down their homes to make way for his controversial $2.5 billion Nets arena and housing complex.
Read on...
NoLandGrab: The irony is that condo-owner Daniel Goldstein didn't take the taxpayers' money to sign a gag order and fade away. As a consequence, the building featured in the article is still standing.
Posted by lumi at 6:22 AM
April 27, 2008
Flashback: in 2005, the Times reported project completion by 2011
Atlantic Yards Report
Remember this front-page New York Times article?
The article was flawed for all sorts of reasons, notably the claim that the arena was instantly gaining a skyline. (See the skyline announced in December 2003 here.) Instead, revised designs were being released, exclusively to the Times.But a second look shows the real whopper below.
Well, 2008-9 for the arena is of course way off. At the time, it was highly unlikely though not completely implausible, assuming a smooth environmental review process and no lawsuits.2011: a fantasy
But could the the entire project have been completed by 2011? That's ridiculous, given that the developer claimed when Atlantic Yards was announced in 2003 that it would take ten years to build.
Posted by amy at 9:30 AM
April 23, 2008
The Brooklyn Literary 100
The NY Observer
By Doree Shafrir
NYO outs the authors most responsible for Brooklyn's epidemic of writers, some of whom, as if writing isn't hard enough, have taken up "the cause."
But making the jump across the East River, and onto Carroll Street and Clinton Avenue—along with the assistants and junior staffers and newly minted MFAs—are now the likes of (No. 1 New York Times best-selling author!) Jhumpa Lahiri; Jonathan Safran Foer and Nicole Krauss, who famously bought a Park Slope townhouse for $3.5 million in 2005; and the veritable Renaissance man Kurt Andersen, who makes his home in Carroll Gardens. And so they clack away on their MacBooks at Ozzie’s or the Tea Lounge in Park Slope or the Central branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza, and do readings at Pete’s Candy Store in Williamsburg or the Brooklyn Lyceum, and contribute to A Public Space or One Story or n+1, and meet their editor for drinks at Union Hall, and play football in Prospect Park on the weekends and tutor kids at 826NYC and buy their friends’ books at the Community Bookstore or Book Court and raise money to fight the Atlantic Yards project by contributing essays to a book called Brooklyn Was Mine, published by Riverhead in January.
Posted by lumi at 5:32 AM
Brooklyn People
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Sam Howe
Louise Crawford, the woman behind OnlyTheBlogKnowsBrooklyn.typepad.com, wants them to meet offline for the third annual Brooklyn Blogfest at Brooklyn Lyceum on May 8 at 8 p.m. Several of last year’s presenters were popular local bloggers who spoke about the impact blogging has on the community, including Lumi Michelle Rolley of noLandGrab.org, dedicated to Atlantic Yards coverage, Robert Guskind of GowanusLounge.blogspot.com, Jonathan Butler of real estate and architecture blog Brownstoner.com, and Norman Oder of AtlanticYardsReport.blogspot.com.
NoLandGrab: The Blogfest seems to have outgrown the original digs at the Old Stone House as well as the dominance of the blogs covering Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 5:11 AM
April 21, 2008
In Courier-Life, ACORN vs. de Blasio and some media conspiracy theories
Atlantic Yards Report
So what’s the news behind the Courier-Life chain’s odd article this week about housing advocacy group ACORN's confidence in Atlantic Yards? After all, we know--from a statement issued March 21 in the wake of the Atlantic Yards stall--that Forest City Ratner’s affordable housing partner ACORN had “every confidence” in the developer.
One piece of news involves NY ACORN Executive Director Bertha Lewis’s clash with Council Member Bill de Blasio, an ostensible ally who has emerged as a critic of the project. "I'm sure Mr. de Blasio is only reflecting the concerns from a very small portion of constituents,” Lewis told the newspaper, with great but unproven certainty. “However, he also has a constituency that is very supportive of Atlantic Yards."
The other involves the rather bizarre sequence posited by Courier-Life reporter Stephen Witt, in which critical media coverage is blamed on “opponents,” rather than a recognition that maybe a lead story in the New York Times has some fallout.
The article fails to convey two important pieces of news. First, the developer has flexible time, according to the State Funding Agreement: 6+ years to build the arena, 12+ years to build Phase 1, and an unspecified time to build the rest of the public. Second, the president of parent Forest City Enterprises has publicly stated that “we still need more” subsidies. Beyond that, there’s a huge backlog of projects seeking housing bonds.
(Oddly enough, the article at issue appears in the Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill edition of the weekly newspaper, above, but not in the Park Slope edition, below, which circulates in Prospect Heights, where the project would be located. The front-page stories in the latter issue regarded Public Place, in Gowanus, and the Kahlil Gibran School, in Fort Greene. Go figure.)
Read the rest of the article, for tantilizing hints that Forest City Ratner might get special treatment for the affordable housing bonds and reporter Steven Witt's brutally weird parallel universe, where a beleagured Bruce Ratner is getting beaten up by a mighty anti-Atlantic Yards pr campaign, Councilman de Blasio is meeting with "the opponent bloggers" (um, WE were busy that night), and Ratner hopes to enlist the support of ultimate fighting fans in NYC.
NoLandGrab: You can't make this stuff up, though someone already did.
If Brownstoner and Gowanus Lounge are "the opponent bloggers," then what the frig is NoLandGrab supposed to be?
Note: We've carried the Courier-Life Atlantic Yards coverage in the past, but for some reason, the publication no longer posts these articles online, making the stories a little more difficult to access.
Posted by lumi at 5:25 AM
Now he tells us: NYT's Ouroussoff criticizes "distorted reality" of project renderings
Atlantic Yards Report
In an essay in yesterday's New York Times, headlined Now You See It, Now You Don’t, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff finally took aim at the obvious, pointing out that architectural renderings are part of the marketing scheme for a major development, and that misleading and incomplete renderings produce a "distorted picture of reality" that "stifles what is supposed to be an open, democratic process."
Now he tells us.
Ouroussoff chooses for his example Tishman Speyer's Hudson Yards plan which he acknowledges "represents the norm," no worse and no better than its counterparts. Unmentioned, but implicitly in the same ballpark, is the Frank Gehry rendering of AY that the Times published on the front page 7/5/05, accompanying the article misleadingly headlined Instant Skyline Added to Brooklyn Arena Plan.
...
Another distorted rendering released in May 2006 (right) showed the Williamsburgh Savings Bank building looming over the flagship Miss Brooklyn tower, even though at that time Miss Brooklyn was 108 feet taller and three times the bulk. As I wrote, when the plans were released, only the New York Observer's Matthew Schuerman pointed out the deceptive renderings.
NoLandGrab: One of the more egregious examples is this familiar Atlantic Yards skyline rendering, which, once again, used perspective to trick the viewer into thinking that the Billyburg building was larger than it really was in relation to Frank Gehry's hedgerow of highrises.
Posted by lumi at 5:06 AM
April 20, 2008
Reading Metropolis on infrastructure, preservation, and localism
Atlantic Yards Report
The March issue of Metropolis magazine had three essays, under the rubric Local Flavors, that resonate with issues raised by Atlantic Yards and waterfront development. Collectively, they suggest a concern with infrastructure, preservation, and sustainable building that hasn't yet acquired criticial mass.
...
Roberta Brandes Gratz, in an essay headlined Urban Virtues: The values of historic preservation go far beyond the clichéd notions of nostalgia and NIMBYism, uses the example of the restoration of the Eldridge Street Synagogue on the Lower East Side:
Restoring landmarks and renovating existing buildings provide all of the economic benefits inherent to localism; these strategies are also far more sustainable (in the truest sense) than most new construction. As architect Carl Elefante has said, “The greenest building is one that is already built.”(This has already been said about the Ward Bakery, undergoing demolition for the AY project.)
Posted by amy at 10:24 AM
April 19, 2008
Documentary City of Water screens today; a provocative look at NYC's waterfront dilemmas
Atlantic Yards Report has in-depth coverage of "The half-hour documentary City of Water (video trailer and more here), produced by the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance (MWA) and the Municipal Art Society (MAS), will be screened on Channel 13 today at 1:30 p.m." Here's an interesting bit about sewage (when is sewage NOT interesting??):
Rohit Aggarwala, director of the Mayor's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, talks about how we need a better transportation system and to beef up our capacity to handle CSOs, the combined sewer overflows that release untreated sewage after heavy rains. He suggests that the city's shellfish resources could also play a part in cleaning up the water.Drew asserts: "New development should be linked to the capacity of our infrastructure to support it. And all of our treatment plants are already over capacity. As a society, we would want more sewage treatment plants, but no one wants it in their backyard."
(Note that a report prepared for Forest City Ratner and part of the Final Environmental Impact Statement asserts that, thanks to stormwater detention and water conservation/reuse, AY "would result in a net decrease in CSO volumes to the Gowanus Canal and a minimal increase in CSOs to the East River." The state review finds "no significant impacts;" community critics disagreed.)
article
NoLandGrab: Anyone who has read the essays in "Brooklyn Was Mine" knows that Brooklyn's sewage system was once world renowned...
Posted by amy at 1:22 PM
April 18, 2008
On Second Thought...
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
DDDB learns the hard lesson of "be careful what you wish for."
A couple of days ago we made an argument as to why numerous recent events and the 21 month lag since the last NY Times editorial on the Atlantic Yards proposal warranted a new editorial considering all of the new facts on the ground.
We take it back.
NetsDaily offers its two cents, too.
Posted by eric at 10:19 AM
Reading between the lines of the Times editorial
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder parses today's Times editorial.
It's not exactly what Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn was advocating, but a round-up editorial in the New York Times today, headlined Construction and Hard Times, asserts
Work is slowing, stalling or stopped altogether on too many of the projects we hoped would transform some of the bleakest sections of the city.
(Emphasis added)I'm not sure that the Atlantic Yards site (or even Penn Station) would qualify as "the bleakest," but the Times editorialist apparently hasn't been checking the un-bleak real estate market in Prospect Heights.
The AY mention
The editorial states:
Atlantic Yards The Nets arena appears to be moving ahead, but the centerpiece Miss Brooklyn building designed by Frank Gehry is likely to be delayed. A strong state hand could ensure that the project — with adequate lower-income housing — survives hard times.Does "strong state hand" mean that the state should supply the mystery anchor tenant for Miss Brooklyn? Does it mean that the state should prioritize subsidies for the affordable housing (most of which would be "lower-income" than market but certainly not low-income) promised at Atlantic Yards? Do the flexible deadlines already established--6+ years to build the arena, 12+ years for Phase 1--suggest a strong hand?
NoLandGrab: There are plenty, including some elected officials, who think a "strong state hand" should be giving Bruce Ratner a slap upside the head.
Posted by eric at 10:06 AM
April 17, 2008
"Street Fight," Sharpe James, and some Newark echoes in Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Even before the fraud conviction yesterday of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James, Marshall Curry's riveting 2005 documentary Street Fight, about Council Member Cory Booker's 2002 challenge to longtime mayoral incumbent James, was essential viewing--and with some implications for Atlantic Yards watchers, especially regarding the performance of the press.
Now that Booker was elected in 2006 and James convicted, Curry's non-neutral but essentially honest investigation reminds us of the inability of the mainstream press, too often wedded to "he said, she said" modes of reporting, to convey the sleaziness of the James administration.
...
Asked in an interview posted on Alternet about how candidates get away with such bad behavior, Curry responded:One thing that frustrated me so much in both the Newark election and the last presidential election is the mainstream media tries to cover elections in a way that they consider to be fair but that in fact is a distortion of reality. They try to say, "Well, George Bush said this, John Kerry said this" or "Cory Booker said this, Sharpe James said this." And they don't analyze whether one side is telling the truth. They just allow themselves to be mouthpieces for the two campaigns. And I think that they do that because that is what the audience assumes is fair. In fact, I think the media needs to be like a referee. A good referee doesn't call the same number of fouls on both sides; a good referee calls fouls when there are fouls.
If you thought that Atlantic Yards politics were hardball, check out the rest of the article: a camera is barred from a mayoral debate that gets physical, Reverend Al Sharpton struts his stuff and Newark, like Brooklyn, remains in the shadows of the largest media market in the world.
Posted by lumi at 5:17 AM
Time for a Times Editorial on Atlantic Yards
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) lays out the case for a very belated Section-A editorial on Atlantic Yards:
The paper editorialized on the project three times, always in the "City" section....
Looking at what has occurred just in the past month, the past 21 months surely must have changed opinionmakers' minds, particularly on the concerns expressed in the three previous editorials, and the information in the two pieces in the paper's own pages on March 21.
Click here to read the incredible litany of revelations from merely the past 27 days.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report agrees with DDDB, but notes that the paper has also been leaving some important news reporting on the cutting-room floor.
However, given that several of the stories cited (by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn) --including the desire for more public subsidies, criticism from a City Council Member, and an attempt to assess the public cost and subsidies--haven't appeared in the Times at all, I'd suggest that more reporting is the first order of business.
Also, how about reporting on the long leash the developer has to build the project, according to the State Funding Agreement? How about a rigorous attempt to assess the public costs and subsidies for the project, taking off from the New York Post article that got a lot of tongues wagging?
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
April 16, 2008
Answers About Brooklyn Architecture
City Room (The New York Times Blog)
Diana Lind, author of "Brooklyn Modern: Architecture, Interiors & Design," answers questions from readers. She most definitely has not drunk The Times's Kool-Aid when it comes to Atlantic Yards.
Q: Speaking of Atlantic Yards, what does Ms. Lind think of this megadevelopment, and its potential effects on Brooklyn life?
— Posted by matt
A: Living in Fort Greene half a block from Atlantic Avenue, I’ve thought a lot about the Atlantic Yards project and its potential impact on life in Brooklyn. Certainly the site merits some kind of development, but I’m opposed to the Ratner plan as it stands now for a few reasons. I take umbrage at the project’s vast, uninterrupted scale; its street closings; its miserable sense of public space (when was the last time you threw a Frisbee on a private building’s lawn?); and most recently, revelations of its more than $2 billion worth of tax write-offs and subsidies from the government, according to the New York Post. Though the project has promoted the fact that it’s going to create jobs and housing, the scheme of using public money to finance this endeavor sounds like robbing Peter and Paul to pay Mary (sorry, the pope’s coming to town).
But I also have aesthetic qualms with the project. I don’t think any one architect should be in charge of designing 22 acres of any city. In a March 21 article by the New York Times critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, the project’s uncertain status is lamented. Mr. Ourousoff points to the importance of great planning projects like Rockefeller Center (roughly the same size as Atlantic Yards). But Rockefeller Center was developed by a team of architects; Atlantic Yards will not be. Gehry is good at what he does, and as others have noted his voluptuous style would nicely contrast with the phallic bank building, but more than seven million square feet of his outlandish style (of any architect’s style) starts to look pretty tacky and boring, no matter the context.
So, if the project goes ahead as it’s planned now, how this will affect life in Brooklyn? A lot. Irreversibly. It will complete Brooklyn’s transformation from a post-industrial residential borough to a city unto itself and will extend Downtown Brooklyn to Fort Greene, Prospect Heights and Boerum Hill.
Spending time in Brooklyn now, one senses the borough’s promise and mutability. When and if Atlantic Yards is completed, I think many people will feel an enormous opportunity was lost on a not particularly innovative project. If I were in charge of the development site, I’d scrap the plan, build a platform over the railyards, and auction off small parcels of the site to varied developers, cultural organizations and schools. The diversity of approaches to the parcels would mimic the city’s naturally haphazard development process and allow for more community involvement.
NoLandGrab: Better hurry up and take a screen shot of this piece, since we don't think we'll be seeing such unvarnished criticism of Atlantic Yards in the pages of the Times's print edition any time soon.
Atlantic Yards Report, Answers About Brooklyn Architecture, criticism of AY
Norman Oder must must have been rendered speechless, since he posted the passage we cited above sans comment.
Posted by eric at 12:21 PM
Nets Are Moving, but Their Direction Remains Unclear
The New York Times
by Howard Beck
More wishful thinking — and lack of credulity — on the timing of a new arena in Brooklyn.
In the renamed arena next to the construction zone near the turnpike, the Nets played their final home game — a nondescript team in a nondescript parking lot, in search of a new identity and a new home.
They are no longer the Nets of Jason Kidd and are only nominally, temporarily, the team of New Jersey. They are not going to the playoffs for the first time since 2001. Like the half-built entertainment complex next to the Izod Center, the Nets are in a messy state of transition.
In two years, they hope to be playing in a sparkling new building near downtown Brooklyn. By then, they also hope to be back among the elite teams in the Eastern Conference.
NoLandGrab: In two years, it will be 2010, and the only sparkling new building in which the Nets might be playing will be in Newark.
Posted by eric at 12:00 PM
April 15, 2008
For public discussion of development, Brooklyn needs a venue
Atlantic Yards Report
On top of the fact that Norman Oder must be getting tired of schlepping to Manhattan to attend panel discussions about Brooklyn, the Mad Over-Attender of such panels makes a good point that this level of public discourse should be fostered locally.
Brooklyn needs a place where controversial issues can be ventilated publicly. After all, the frequent discourse that has Brooklyn neighborhoods designated the nation's "bloggiest" deserves to surface in real time.
There are places for discourse, among them the Brooklyn Historical Society, the Brooklyn Public Library, the Center for the Study of Brooklyn at Brooklyn College (and other academic institutions), and events sponsored by community boards, the Borough President, civic groups, and neighborhood groups like the Fort Greene Association and the Park Slope Civic Council. And Brooklyn Community Access Television (BCAT) produces a good number of public affairs shows.
However, Brooklyn, given its population of more than 2.5 million, would be the country's fourth-largest city if independent. It deserves its own equivalent of MAS or MCNY, just as it deserves much more press coverage.
NoLandGrab: it's hard to argue with Oder's point of view, but something tells us that many of the obvious venues in Brooklyn feel they must kowtow to the politicans and developers who seem to be setting the agenda in Brooklyn these days.
Posted by lumi at 4:59 AM
April 13, 2008
The end of the Times's City section editorial and op-ed page
Atlantic Yards Report is happy that at least one media outlet (the New York Sun) finally noticed that the New York Times editorial and op-ed pages of its Sunday city section are gone. What are the implications for Atlantic Yards Coverage?
I was critical of the Times for relegating the first Atlantic Yards op-ed (and the only one before two state bodies voted on the project) to the City section.And I was critical of the Times for running editorials about AY in the City section, noting:
I'll repeat for the record that limiting the editorial's audience to readers in the five boroughs is a disservice to the public. Not only would state subsidies be part of the public support, the project would have an impact in the tristate region and also nationally. It deserves broader scrutiny.My comments assumed the presence of the City section. However, the net loss in space for editorials and commentary means that it's even harder to shoehorn in coverage of issues like Atlantic Yards.
I'll repeat Brooklyn College professor Paul Moses's observation about Brooklyn's place in the local mediascape: Nowhere in the country do so many people get so little local coverage.
Posted by amy at 9:42 AM
April 10, 2008
Ouroussoff on Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards: The Gray Lady's Guide to Contemporary Civics
CultureGrrl [ArtsJournal.com]
by Martin Filler
Cultural and architectural critic Martin Filler takes a guest turn at Lee Rosenbaum's CultureGrrl blog, and takes The New York Times to task for the way it dances around its Atlantic Yards conflict of interest.
A large part of the blame for the electorate's cynicism about this and other related issues lies squarely with the establishment press, which is not immune to the corruptions of cronyism. Although there are worse things to worry about now, The NY Times' coverage--or non-coverage--of the controversial redevelopment of Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards is symptomatic of how conflicts of interest have undermined once-respected institutions.
On Mar. 21, the Times ran two pieces about cutbacks to the Atlantic Yards scheme due to the weakening economy, by architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, and by Metropolitan Desk reporter Charles V. Bagli. Ouroussoff's critique made no mention of the somewhat pertinent fact that the project's prime mover, Bruce Ratner, was also developer of the new New York Times Building. To learn that, you needed to read Bagli, who, in a classic example of "bury the lede," got around to that disclosure only near the end of his 1,400-word piece.
Since he succeeded Herbert Muschamp in 2003, nothing Ouroussoff has written (with the possible exception of his calling Yoshio Taniguchi's MoMA expansion "exquisite") has incensed me more than his claim that anticipated contraction of the monstrously overloaded Atlantic Yards complex "feels like a betrayal of the public trust." I could hardly stop sputtering "Betrayal!...Public Trust!"
Let's talk for a moment about public trust and the Times, forgetting Judith Miller's compromised WMD reportage and a few other postmillennial lapses. Ratner's ties to the Times's majority shareholders, the Sulzberger dynasty, long predate their recent collaboration. In 1996 Ratner was made a trustee of the Metropolitan Museum of Art at the behest of its then board chairman, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, father of the current Times publisher. Can it be mere coincidence that the Newspaper of Record has done its best to ignore the considerable public resistance to Ratner's Atlantic Yards?
Posted by eric at 1:01 PM
Errol Louis and the "Atlantic Yards pork pool"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder examines two recent Errol Louis columns and finds some inconsistencies.
Daily News columnist Errol Louis cares about politicians giving away the public's money, but not when it comes to Atlantic Yards.
In a 4/6/08 column headlined Speaker Quinn and her pork pool, Louis wrote:
It seems there is no limit to how much of the public's money politicians will steal, waste and abuse if we don't keep a close and skeptical eye on them. The piggies have been busy lately, and it's going to cost us plenty.What we know so far about the budget scandal engulfing the City Council is that the Council has, since 2001, allocated $17 million by giving grants to nonexistent organizations.
"Local selfishness"
Remember Louis's exchange about subsidies with Assemblyman Richard Brodsky in September 2006. The “local selfishness” regarding subsidies, Louis said, is something “I accept as the lay of the land… If they’re going to get a billion-dollar TIF [tax-increment financing] deal in Rensselaer County, I think where I live, in Kings County, if somebody wants to bring a billion-dollar deal there, with way too much paid per job, in my neighborhood, where there’s a lot of unemployment, personally, I would say, ‘You know what? I’ll take that.’”
Brodsky was unimpressed. “That is a prescription for a bigger disaster. ‘My pork is good. Your pork is bad.’ is not a principled response to the pissing away of billions of dollars.”
AY subsidies
A day after Louis's column about Quinn, I reported that, despite $305 million in pledged direct public subsidies for Atlantic Yards, a top executive told investment analysts that "we still need more” subsidies.
Will Louis address that? Nah. A column last month about Atlantic Yards suggested that "those who want prosperity and progress in Brooklyn" project should, among other things, "negotiate improvements to the plan with Ratner."
And today, rather than criticize the "Atlantic Yards pork pool," Louis, in a column headlined Building a better economic outlook, writes a valentine to Avi Schick, acting CEO of the Empire State Development Corporation, an "unsung hero" who keeps "the machinery of growth humming in good times and bad."
NoLandGrab: Be sure to check the comments appended to Oder's story, in which Errol Louis tries to overkill the "Mad Overkiller," who then overkills the overkilling. Or something like that.
Posted by eric at 11:38 AM
April 5, 2008
Atlantic Yards Report Digest: Saturday Edition
Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report features four brief posts today.
Times Style writer arches eyebrows at "obligatory chorus" of protesters
To those on one side of the museum’s new glass-walled addition, Mr. Ratner is a deep-pocketed patron and, as the museum’s director, Arnold Lehman, said, “a nice boychick from Cleveland, Ohio.” To those at curbside on Eastern Parkway, he was viewed less benignly, as Satan. Most developers are.
“Atlantic Yards is truly going to make a lot of people miserable,” said one protester, Eleanor Price, referring to Mr. Ratner’s $4 billion plan to refashion downtown Brooklyn into a commercial wonderland of shops, a basketball arena and fanciful buildings by Frank Gehry.
Let's just say that if he's calling the site "downtown Brooklyn," an error the Times has corrected in more than a dozen articles, and that this was merely an "obligatory" protest, he's not doing his reading. The Times's CityRoom blog, maybe, thought it was news. Maybe the news side should've sent a reporter.
NoLandGrab: One Times error that even Oder didn't catch was the writer's listing of "Kristen Davis" among the celebrities attending the Museum event. Were pretty sure The Times means "Kristin Davis," former star of "Sex and the City" — not the recently busted East Side Madam.
AY web site talks of suites but not stall
Anyone looking at the In The News page at the official Atlantic Yards web site is getting a rather skewed sense of the news.
At the top of the page are links to tabloid articles about the luxury suites planned for the Atlantic Yards arena. Then comes a link to a Daily News column by Errol Louis (whose last name is misspelled) decrying delays in the project.
There's no link, however, to real coverage of the Atlantic Yards stall, much less news that the developer has 6+ years to build the arena.
NoLandGrab: How clever of the FCRC webmaster to spell Errol Louis's name L-e-w-i-s, in order to confuse those who might otherwise think the Daily News columnist is doing the developer's bidding.
Stoler: Outer-borough office market in trouble
From an article headlined Office Space Glut Talk of the Industry, by Michael Stoler in Thursday's New York Sun:
At least 4 million square feet of office buildings are in the planning stages in Brooklyn and Queens, not including Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development.Construction has not yet commenced on Tishman Speyer's planned office development on the site of the Queens Plaza Municipal garage. The developer has announced plans to build the Gotham Center: four towers, some more than 40 stories tall, totaling 3.5 million square feet of mixed-use space on the two parcels in Queens Plaza. Real estate sources said the first phase of the project will be a 20-story, 750,000-square-foot office tower, with the city committed to leasing about half of the space.
Industry leaders are voicing skepticism about new office development in Brooklyn and Queens, however. As one real estate banking officer put it: "If these projects did not happen when the market was hot as a pistol, I don't see this going to happen over the next couple of years. Who is going to pay the rents for the new construction in these locations?"
"Brooklyn Views": the ironies of "The Moment"
From "The Moment" blog of the New York Times's "T" Magazine. under the headline Now Screening | ‘Brooklyn Views: The Home of Arnold Lehman
This Saturday, the Brooklyn Museum opens its new Takashi Murakami show, “(c) Murakami.” This morning, the museum’s director, Arnold Lehman, invites T Magazine into his Brooklyn Heights apartment to view his personal collection of contemporary art. In our film, Lehman walks through his apartment, giving his perspective on collecting, curating and the Brooklyn cityscape, of which his apartment has a 360-degree view.Of course Brooklyn Views is also the name of a once-active blog written by architect Jonathan Cohn critiquing the Atlantic Yards project, and Lehman's museum has just been slammed for honoring Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner. And one criticism of the museum is that it has not been willing to screen the AY documentary Brooklyn Matters.
NoLandGrab: Is the prolific Oder really in need of more material? This one seems like a bit of a stretch.
Posted by eric at 10:00 AM
April 2, 2008
The Times publishes one of two needed corrections
Atlantic Yards Report
Some folks pick up the Times and immediately turn to the crossword puzzle. Guess what Norman Oder reads first:
A correction in today's New York Times:
The architecture column on Thursday, about the choice of a developer for the West Side railyards, referred incorrectly to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn in citing major developments that have been delayed or altered. The Atlantic Yards plan has been approved by New York State, not New York City.
However, that same error about "city approval" also occurred in an architecture column March 21, and has not yet been corrected. Odd.
NoLandGrab: You'd think that the Gray Lady would correct all the outstanding errors just to get rid of the "Mad Overkiller."
Posted by lumi at 6:07 AM
April 1, 2008
IT'S NOT A MOVEMENT WITHOUT A MOVIE
New York City's activist and advocacy communities are putting themselves and their interests on video like never before.
City Limits
By Karen Loew
We thought that all you needed was a blog or two to become an official movement, but to make it to the big time, you gotta have a movie!
Videos made by grassroots documentarians – who often are not professional filmmakers – about local issues and aimed at raising consciousness have risen to a more prominent, even ubiquitous, place in city movements for social change.
Name a cause, and you'll find an advocacy video on the subject – or you'll find a few, or at least be told there’s one in the works. With the tools of video production more affordable and accessible than ever before, and more people reflexively turning to video for expression, New York City finds itself awash in a sea of video by the people, about their concerns, for the purpose of affecting the discourse. Some exhibit the craft and polish to earn the title “documentary,” or at least to be called a film. Others are rawer videos with lower production and editing values. Some is really just “footage.”
Hey, WE have a movie!
Isabel Hill, director of the acclaimed documentary “Brooklyn Matters,” which critiques Forest City Ratner’s mega-development plan for Atlantic Yards, considers herself a historian and urban planner first and a filmmaker second – but says she simply had to jump into the Atlantic Yards debate with a movie.
“I had to get cracking because I knew time was running out” in the second half of 2006, leading up to the city’s key decisions on the property, Hill said recently. “I wanted to have something out there for people to respond to – and it has been good.”
In a previous job as a film reviewer for an arts organization, “I realized [film] was a great way to present something – ideas and concepts,” she said.
Brooklyn Matters will be screening TONIGHT at:
Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School
357 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn
Posted by lumi at 5:30 AM
March 30, 2008
Miss Brooklyn: dead, not dead, or simply not animatronic just yet?
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, is Atlantic Yards dead? What about the Miss Brooklyn tower? Let's try to sort through the coverage, given that the two major Brooklyn weeklies, the Brooklyn Paper and the Courier-Life chain, are providing diametrically different coverage.The short answer: Atlantic Yards, at the timetable envisioned, is obviously dead, but a major project somewhat like it might arrive on a much attenuated schedule. As for Miss Brooklyn, it's not "killed," but rather delayed, though developer Forest City Ratner seems to be seriously spinning its chances.
Posted by amy at 12:39 PM
BROOKLYN MATTERS
The trailer for Brooklyn Matters is now online.
No single event will have a more drastic and long-lasting impact on Brooklyn that the Atlantic Yards Project, proposed by nationally-known developer Bruce Ratner and designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry. If built, it would be the densest development in the United States. And yet, this project has circumvented customary financial disclosures, escaped community input, and leapfrogged environmental protections. The public has been misled to believe that the Atlantic Yards proposal was a done deal since the day it was announced. Isabel Hill's documentary, BROOKLYN MATTERS, reveals the fuller truth about the project and highlights how a few powerful men have disregarded planning principles and manipulated a desperate need for jobs and affordable housing in the community to push their interests forward.
The next screening will take place Tuesday, April 1, 7pm
Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School
357 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn (btwn. Greene & Lafayette Aves.).
Co-sponsors: Society for Clinton Hill, Fort Greene Association, and DDDB
Posted by amy at 12:30 PM
March 28, 2008
If you read only the dailies, you're missing Atlantic Yards news
Atlantic Yards Report
The headline for this item is hardly news for regular readers of NoLandGrab and the Atlantic Yards Report.
New Yorkers who limit themselves to newspapers--as opposed to, say, online compendiums and coverage at No Land Grab and AYR--might wind up with a very skewed view of the current status of the Atlantic Yards project, since they sure haven't read about the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) generous deadlines, 6+ years to build the arena, then 12+ years to build the first five towers.
Think about it. The New York Times broke the big news last Friday about the Atlantic Yards stall, but hasn't followed up with reporting about the ESDC's willingness to give developer Forest City Ratner a very long leash (though reporter Charles Bagli mentioned it on the Leonard Lopate show yesterday), nor the developer's plan to sell luxury suites.
The New York Post followed up Saturday with a brief article but Monday offered a much longer article about the suite deal. Nothing about the deadlines.
The New York Daily News offered no news article on the stall but ran two sympathetic columns, then a short article Monday about the suites. Nothing about the deadlines.
Norman Oder goes on to show how coverage from on-line sources and newspapers provide the facts you would otherwise miss when you only consult The New York Times, New York Post and Daily News.
Read this post and see what you've been missing.
Posted by steve at 6:43 AM
News analysis: The Times gives the ESDC a bye
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder oderizes The Times's coverage of the Hudson Yards deal:
A New York Times News Analysis today of the West Side Yards deal, headlined :For Railyards, the Hard Part Is Still Ahead, leaves out some important Atlantic Yards context:
In the end, the project could take well over a decade to complete, and its look could change significantly from the current designs by Helmut Jahn and Peter Walker.
In Brooklyn, the developer Bruce Ratner has already acknowledged that his $4 billion Atlantic Yards project will take longer than the 10 years originally envisioned.
First, the Times should have pointed out that, not only has Ratner acknowledged that the project would take longer than ten years, others in his firm and outside observers had been making the same observation, and that the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) has given some generous deadlines: 6+ years to build the arena, 12+ years to build the first five towers, and an unspecified amount of time to build the rest.
Also, whatever Yaro says applies equally well to Atlantic Yards. If built, it will change significantly from Frank Gehry's renderings.
Posted by lumi at 4:48 AM
Brooklyn historian befuddled by Brooklyn blogs
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder corrects the record in a rambling essay by historian John Manbeck on the historical value of new media (blogs and web sites) in Brooklyn.
Here's an excerpt from a Brooklyn Daily Eagle essay headlined Historically Speaking: Researching Brooklyn — Online, by former Brooklyn Borough Historian John Manbeck:
The Gowanus Lounge has a blog with its slogan: “Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn.” The Atlantic Yards Report has news about the Nets.
Adventures in Brooklyn and BK 11201 recount personal tales with pictures. Brooklyn Enthusiast deals with food and recipes as does Bread, Coffee, Chocolate, Yoga and All in Brooklyn. Frisket of Hicks Street recently became Frisket of Main Street: it’s about this dog. Two others have Brooklyn Bridge pix: Never Sleepist and Sam I Am.
To me, most of the material I encountered in blogs has been gossipy and unreliable. While the Web sites are more substantial, information there must be further researched in, say, a book.
Further research shows
Um, The Gowanus Lounge, which includes firsthand reporting often critical of the Brooklyn real estate firmament, is different from the eclectic but homier Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn. Suffice it to say that Borough President Marty Markowitz is unlikely to hail GL's Bob Guskind at his final "State of the Borough" address, as he did OTBKB's Louise Crawford, founder of the annual Brooklyn Blogfest (the third annual event will be May 8).
While AYR obviously touches on the Nets, Atlantic Yards is about much more than basketball, as any casual reader would know. For news about the Nets, go to NetsDaily.
NoLandGrab: For a chuckle, check out the beginning of Manbeck's piece, as he brilliantly starts his online research by searching for "Brooklyn, N.Y." on his computer.
Stay tuned for next week's trick when Manbeck attempts text messaging.
Posted by lumi at 4:33 AM
March 27, 2008
News analysis: The Times gives the ESDC a bye
Atlantic Yards Report
When will The New York Times learn?
A New York Times News Analysis today of the West Side Yards deal, headlined For Railyards, the Hard Part Is Still Ahead, leaves out some important Atlantic Yards context.
Posted by eric at 1:39 PM
March 24, 2008
Nets go carbon neutral; Times Sports section doesn't check News section
Atlantic Yards Report
A New Jersey Nets press release about going carbon neutral got play in yesterday's New York Times Sports section, though a not dissimilar story in another section of Saturday's Times generated much more skepticism about what actually was being accomplished, calling the tactic "sleight-of-hand accounting."
NoLandGrab: Basically, the Nets can improve the efficiency of their own recycling operations, but they get the most mileage by purchasing "carbon offsets."
Posted by lumi at 5:31 AM
Oops! Unfortunate timing on AY for the Courier-Life chain
Atlantic Yards Report
Whoopsie, despite the cozy relationship between Forest City Ratner and Courier-Life Publications, the development company kept the local weekly paper in the dark when it came to bad news about New York's most controversial project.
Norman Oder explains:
The article is dated March 21, the same day the New York Times reported that the project, except for the arena, was essentially stalled.
Now, given that the deadline for the Courier-Life article was before the Times's report, the Courier-Life can't be completely blamed for accepting Riegelhaupt's spin. Then again, given the copious statements about delays facing the project, the Courier-Life (and the Times) should've been more skeptical.
NoLandGrab: "The Courier-Life can't be completely blamed for accepting Riegelhaupt's spin" — is Norman Oder going soft? Just because another paper falls for the same thing, doesn't absolve the first.
We're not journalists, but we're under the impression that just because a spokesperson says something, doesn't mean that a paper has to report it. Aren't reporters supposed to check things out, or something? [At least that's what Norman Oder has taught us!]
Posted by lumi at 5:16 AM
March 23, 2008
Daily News Goes to Bat for Bruce, Again.
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
In today's Daily News, two opinion columnists, Errol Louis and Michael Daly, express their opinions about Friday's "Atlantic Yards Stall" Times article, but leave out...facts, understanding and honesty. It's understandable that reporters can get things wrong when they buy Bruce Ratner's talking points wholesale and their own paper doesn't report on the economic problems facing Ratner's megaproject. It's amusing to observe the two columnists follow up Bruce Ratner's attempt, in that Times article, to blame project opponents for Ratner's financial woes, considering, amongst other things, that Bruce Ratner once famously said, "I have never, ever seen a project get less protest than this."Uh, right.
You know how Bruce Ratner could have avoided the mess he finds himself in now? A few suggestions: He could have proposed a project that was feasible from day one in scale, density, and cost. He could have refrained from overstating his job and housing promises. He could have admitted, when the project was facing approval by the Empire State Development Corporation and the Public Authorities Control Board that the bonding he wanted for his "affordable" units was not available. He could have avoided the abuse of eminent domain by just proposing a project over the rail yards. He could have budged an inch on demands by project opponents and critics.
What's the best way he could have avoided the mess he is in? He could have consulted with the community and gone through a democratic process.
Posted by amy at 1:50 PM
Daily News columnists Louis, Daly lament AY setbacks, blame NIMBYs, avoid facts
Atlantic Yards Report offers a take-down of today's not-so-fact-filled articles in the Daily News. Following is the Errol Louis version of the Atlantic Yards job situation followed by Atlantic Yards Report's corrections:
That's just fine with the anti-development brigade. Here are the words of one of their number, a man named Joe Boms, who sent a note to me last month that he said reflected the thoughts of his Park Slope neighbors."I'm afraid 100 jobs - or 10,000 jobs - are not reason enough. A monster of such scope and complexity simply does not belong in the downtown area," wrote Boms. "We do indeed wish that financiers, insurers, investors and its plethora of assorted cheerleaders will pull out, and let this white elephant die in a spectacular way so as to serve as a lesson to future megalomaniacs."
That kind of smug willingness to condemn others to joblessness is infuriating.
Louis's smug willingness to ignore facts is more infuriating. Remember, Ratner initially promised 10,000 office jobs, as likely as the Easter Bunny. The claimed 15,000 construction jobs would be 1500 jobs a year over ten years.
As for condemning others to joblessness, note that most of the office jobs--however many there might be--would likely be relocated rather than new. Yes, a good chunk of the demolition and construction jobs would go to locals under the CBA--35% Minority and 10% women construction workers, with efforts (though not guarantees) to hire locally.
Posted by amy at 1:34 PM
March 18, 2008
Former Bear Stearns’ Offices Seen Staying in Brooklyn
Beleagured Company Was an Original Tenant of Metrotech Development
El Diario, HeartShare Sign New Leases at the Downtown Complex
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Raanan Geberer
By now, everyone who follows the news on a regular basis knows that the huge investment bank Bear Stearns was sold to JPMorgan Chase for a mere $2 a share, in a deal brokered by the Federal Reserve Bank.
What they may not know, however, is that the company has a big presence in Downtown Brooklyn, with 1,500 employees from various “back office” departments at One MetroTech. The gray-brick highrise has the Bear Stearns logo on its lobby windows — and ironically is a stone’s throw from JPMorgan Chase’s own MetroTech buildings.
...
Loren Riegelhaupt, a spokesman for Forest City Ratner, which owns MetroTech, and a Bear Stearns spokeswoman both said it was “too soon to know” about the company’s continued presence at MetroTech.However, a legal analyst, speaking on condition of anonymity, says Bear Stearns’ new parent company must assume the responsibility to finish the lease at the Brooklyn location.
...
In the meantime, Forest City Ratner Monday announced that El Diario La Presna, the oldest Spanish-language newspaper in America, has signed a lease for office space at One MetroTech. El Diario is relocating its headquarters from SoHo to Brooklyn. The company, which also provides online news, is leasing 23,400 square feet on the 18th floor.Bruce Ratner, chairman and CEO of Forest City Ratner said, “We are very pleased that El Diario, one of New York’s great, venerable newspapers has chosen Downtown Brooklyn and MetroTech Center for the location of its new headquarters.”
NoLandGrab: Ironically, El Diario is one of two daily papers (the other being The NY Sun) that has taken any editorial position critical of Forest City Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project.
More on the state of real estate in the fallout of the Bear Stearns deal at Bloomberg.com.
Posted by lumi at 4:30 AM
March 16, 2008
Spitzer Tales
A noteworthy aspect of last week's political flameout of Democratic Boy Wonder Eliot Spitzer (aside from how much he paid for sex) was the total lack of die-hard supporters vouching for the Governor's character.
On Thursday, NY Post columnist Fred Dicker published a laundry list of eye-witness accounts of Eliot Spitzer's exhibitions of arrogance, which should have tipped off reporters and Albany watchers that Spitzer wasn't the "agent of reform" he claimed to be. In Dicker's eyes, the Governor lost his credibility during the cover-up of the smear campaign against State Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno. Dicker's intense questioning in the wake of the scandal earned him his own spot on the Spitzer hit list.
Dicker's I-told-you-so column and the gigantic cone of silence hovering over Spitzer's quickly disappearing allies prompted a recollection of the one Spitzer story that has been circulating for years amongst Atlantic Yards critics.
The very next day, with Spitzer's political career in shambles, Runnin' Scared, the Village Voice's news blog ran this account of the meeting where Elliot Spitzer went off on Atlantic Yards critics:
“Despite the horror this week for New York,” said Candace Carponter, the DDDB legal chair, “It’s a breath of fresh air for us because Spitzer wouldn’t listen to us. He has always either turned a deaf ear to us, or has been abusive to us.” She recalled a particularly rancorous meeting over two years ago, when Atlantic Yards opponents including herself, Goldstein and James met with the then-Attorney General and gubernatorial contender to present their community’s opposition to the project. Although Spitzer had not yet publicly expressed his support for Atlantic Yards, she says the son of a real estate developer belittled their concerns in a shouting match that ran over 20 minutes.
“I have never been berated the way we were in that room,” remembers Carponter. “He was so condescending and so dismissive – I think dismissive is probably the best word –but in an incredibly rude way.”
Political junkies can probably expect more Spitzer as-hysterical-jerk tales in the coming weeks, as it becomes apparent that "The Steamroller" was feared more than he was respected.
Posted by lumi at 3:28 PM
March 14, 2008
The Domain of the Sun
The Neighborhood Retail Alliance
Lipskian Logic, a condition exacerbated by a kind of temporary blindness brought on by the source of one's paychecks, makes another appearance in lobbyist Richard Lipsky's analysis of this morning's NY Sun story:
In this morning's NY Sun, the paper focuses on the new governor's position on eminent domain; and sees problems ahead for developers: "If David Paterson as governor displays the opposition to eminent domain that he showed as a state senator, several high-profile development projects in New York City could be derailed or delayed, including a Columbia University expansion, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, and the transformation of Willets Point in Queens."
Of course the Sun has taken a special interest in the issue and its speculation here could be seen to some extent as wishful thinking-particularly for Atlantic Yards where the development is already a way down the road. The Columbia and the Willets Point situations may, however, be something else altogether.
Posted by eric at 11:20 AM
March 11, 2008
FOREST CITY LOVERS: New Album Released Today!
Starting today, you can buy the latest release from Forest City Lovers, the laid-back Canadian indy-pop quartet with a notable name.
Listen to and purchase trax at the band's myspace page.
Posted by lumi at 5:14 AM
March 6, 2008
Exclusive?
Brooklyn Daily Eagle's Henrik Krogius rather politely tells Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman, exclusive my ass:
When you are the fourth one to report a piece of news, it is a neat trick to claim exclusivity. Both the Brooklyn Daily Eagle and the Brooklyn Courier newspapers, following the Daily News, were already out with the story that Bruce Ratner had pulled out of a deal with CUNY City Tech to build Brooklyn’s tallest tower at Tillary and Jay Streets, when, late on Friday, the Brooklyn Paper hit the streets with its “exclusive” account. Maybe the paper just meant that its headline, “Ratner Kills Mr. Brooklyn,” was exclusive, or maybe it was that its editor, Gersh Kuntzman, had been away for a week when no issue had been published and assumed that what was news to him was news to the world. Every reader may not watch, but there are readers who do.
Posted by lumi at 5:03 AM
March 2, 2008
NYT editorials: "best thinking" vs. "the spirit of the Times"
Atlantic Yards Report
New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, through a spokesperson, offered this explanation to the New Republic about political endorsements: "Our endorsements represent the best thinking of the editorial board and we do not comment on them beyond what we say to our readers."Well, maybe. But it's just possible that the Times's editorial position on Atlantic Yards was more clearly articulated by editorial board member Carolyn Curiel when she said, "Our goal is to reflect the spirit of the Times and the opinion of the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr."
Posted by amy at 10:44 AM
February 27, 2008
Boulevard of Broken Cars
Review of: Chop Shop
New York Sun
by Nicolas Rapold
Is it just that it's Academy Awards season, or could it be that eminent domain is rearing its ugly specter more frequently on the silver screen? Is it time we start a regular movie-review feature here at NoLandGrab?
Five years from now, if Mayor Bloomberg has his way, the area may well be a hotel and convention complex, but in the new film "Chop Shop," which beings a two-week engagement today at Film Forum, the auto-repair alleys and drab lots that make up Willets Point are the world for 12-year-old Alejandro. Rahmin Bahrani's follow-up to 2005's "Man Push Cart" could be the object of preservation efforts as a historical document, but his neorealist record wobbles as filmed drama, with direction and scripting that's at once shaky and insistent.
Posted by eric at 2:06 PM
February 25, 2008
"Bulldozed": on the Kelo eminent domain case and beyond
Atlantic Yards Report
Despite the title, Carla T. Main’s recent book Bulldozed: “Kelo,” Eminent Domain, and the American Lust for Land tells the story of eminent domain by focusing on a particularly heavy-handed (but little-known) case in Freeport, TX (population approx. 13,000), a Gulf Coast city some 50 miles south of Houston. Freeport officials wanted to take waterfront property from the salt-of-the-earth Gore family operating a longtime shrimp business to create a low-risk deal for a wealthy developer to build a private marina. The Gores fought back, fiercely, with more resources than the typical eminent domain plaintiff, and the story includes numerous twists and turns.
NoLandGrab: We posted The Wall Street Journal's review of Bulldozed last December.
Posted by eric at 9:43 AM
B'klyn finds it takes an online village
Crain's NY Business
By Andrew Buck
NoLandGrab gets some ink in this Crain's article about blogactivism.
It's available online to subscribers only (link):
“We used to have to beg papers for coverage on local issues, and if we published anything ourselves it would be waved off as a rumor,” says Lumi Michelle Rolley, founder of No Land Grab, a four-year-old, Atlantic Yards-centric blog. “Blogs are now a natural fit for activists.”
NoLandGrab: Correction, Lumi Michelle Rolley was a late addition to NoLandGrab, which was already active for three months by the time she joined in May, 2004.
We contend that blogactivism, though it is a relatively new phenomenon, has been a natural development since the tools for blogging became available. In an age when kids are doing their homework with friends via IM and are keeping tabs on one another on social networking sites, online activism is really a no-brainer.
Read the full article after the jump for more details.
THE COMPLETE ARTICLE APPEARS BELOW AND IS BEING PROVIDED FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES AS ALLOWED UNDER SECTION 107 OF THE US COPYRIGHT LAW.
It didn't seem like a big deal when Bob Guskind posted a rendering of a building for a site on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens several months ago. But within days, other bloggers in the Brooklyn neighborhood had zeroed in on the property. They uncovered fresh details, including the developer's name and the luxury residential project's height, 70 feet, which would dwarf the surrounding brownstones.
Dubbed “the heavy metal building” by Carroll Gardens bloggers, the development quickly became a magnet for local groups and officials determined to preserve the neighborhood's low-rise charm. In response to the opposition, developer Bill Stein has replaced the original architect and modified the design.
“It is amazing how a small community was galvanized after reading one post,” says Mr. Guskind, whose blog, The Gowanus Lounge, was the first to carry an image of the building. “Three years ago, this wouldn't have happened.”
It's a new day for online community activism. According to Katia Kelly, a longtime Carroll Gardens resident and the sole blogger on Pardon Me for Asking, the movement's strength lies in networking. Cross-linking posts lets one person's message spread almost instantly. Blogs are also gaining power as their content makes it into mainstream media.
“We used to have to beg papers for coverage on local issues, and if we published anything ourselves it would be waved off as a rumor,” says Lumi Michelle Rolley, founder of No Land Grab, a four-year-old, Atlantic Yards-centric blog. “Blogs are now a natural fit for activists.”
Politicians are also in listening mode. Democratic Councilman Bill de Blasio, who represents Carroll Gardens, recently began holding monthly “teas” to meet with bloggers and other locals. Late last month, he proposed an immediate study to possibly downzone the area.
That was good news for Triada Samaras. Within days of seeing the picture of the development at 360 Smith St., she and half a dozen other fiftysomething neighbors formed the Carroll Gardens Coalition to Respectfully Develop. Among the details the group has uncovered is that the project will benefit from a zoning rule quirk that allows it to be larger than normal.
CORD has gathered more than 3,000 signatures online calling for city officials to recognize that a sizable number of residents want a moratorium on construction in the neighborhood.
“The land-use and development process has not been transparent,” Mr. Guskind says. “Blogging has changed that.”
Posted by lumi at 4:19 AM
February 23, 2008
The "spirit of the Times," or why there's no editorial criticism of Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
Maybe you were wondering why the New York Times editorial board, despite being capable of skepticism about development puffery, has produced confused and lame editorials supporting Atlantic Yards and remained (I speculate) in the gridlock of silence, failing to take a stand pro or con when a questionable process finally reached the Public Authorities Control Board at the end of 2006.Well, the parent New York Times Company partnered with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner on the new Times Tower headquarters on Eighth Avenue, and the Times even agreed to guarantee a loan, as Editor and Publisher reported last year.
While that doesn't mean the business relationship influences coverage--though I've long argued that obligates the Times to do a better job--the editorial page is not so insulated. The Times itself has acknowledged publicly that its publisher influences the editorials.
article
NoLandGrab: Read the whole article for an interview with Editorial Board Member Carolyn Curiel from CUNY-TV.
Posted by amy at 11:53 AM
February 22, 2008
The Dreamer as Tapehead
The New York Times
by A.O. Scott
What does a New York Times review of the new Michel Gondry film "Be Kind Rewind" have to do with Atlantic Yards? It just may be that the project has inspired a bit of the story line.
Mike (Mos Def) works in a shabby video store whose owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), has not yet made the leap to DVD. His business threatened by the dubious improvements of a city-backed redevelopment scheme, Mr. Fletcher sneaks away on a mysterious trip, leaving the blundering, well-intentioned Mike in charge of his stock of battered VHS cassettes. Jerry (Jack Black), an avant-garde auto mechanic and tireless tinkerer, suffers an accident that magnetizes his body, causing him to accidentally erase all the tapes.
So when a loyal customer named Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) shows up for her daily rental, Mike and Jerry must improvise. They do what anyone would: hurriedly reshoot famous movies using a camcorder, various local characters and some common household objects.
NoLandGrab: And the Oscar for eminent domain-abusing poster project goes too...
Posted by eric at 4:05 PM
February 18, 2008
Not an error but a "minor imprecision"
Atlantic Yards Report takes on his third day of New York Times "Atlantic Yards corrections fatigue." Today's edition: Somewhere Over the Railyards. The Times has consistently referred to the Atlantic Yards proposal as being built "on rail yards." Will they correct their error from January 31?
The article, headlined Scaffold Falls, Killing Worker in Brooklyn, concerned an accident at a site in Clinton Hill and offered this context:
It is in a section of Brooklyn that is being swept up in new development, with the huge Atlantic Yards entertainment, residential and commercial complex planned on rail yards a few blocks to the west.
(Emphasis added)Of course, only 8.5 acres of the 22-acre project would be rail yards, so the distinction is important. If all of Atlantic Yards were to built on public land, there would've been no battle over blight and eminent domain.
...
On January 31, I emailed Karin Roberts, Assistant to the Metropolitan Editor, with a link to my blog post pointing out the error. I didn't hear back, so on February 9, I wrote to another Times editor.On February 11, I got this reply from Roberts:
We are not publishing a correction. It was a fleeting reference in an article that had nothing to do with Atlantic Yards, and it was at worst a minor imprecision, not an error. And before you cite chapter and verse of the Times ethics guidelines to me, please be aware that Times editors are trusted to use their best judgment. In mine, no correction is warranted. Thank you for writing.
...
While the Atlantic Yards error was not directly related to the subject of the article, it was a major imprecision. Why major? Because unlike many other errors and not-minor imprecisions the Times corrects regularly, it has public policy implications.
Posted by amy at 7:28 AM
February 17, 2008
Will the Times correct the "same site" error? Not quite
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman oder continues his Presidents' Day weekend special on "Atlantic Yards corrections fatigue."
The New York Times on multiple occasions has suggested that Atlantic Yards would be built on the "same site" Walter O'Malley wanted for a new Brooklyn Dodgers stadium.
That's not true, as I pointed out in an extensive analysis last May. And, while the Times last December made the same error online, apparently because of a reliance on the existing and erroneous clip file, it will not publish a correction for the previous articles.
Why? It's a judgment call, Times editors told me, given that they can't publish corrections for all the "old articles" that deserve them. However, as I argue below, if there is a hierarchy for such corrections, "old articles" that are part of current controversies should be the priority. Indeed, the error gets repeated periodically by project supporters like Mayor Mike Bloomberg.
Moreover, the Times does periodically correct older articles than the ones I cited, including articles that have no relevance to any controversy.
Conclusion: it's another case of "Atlantic Yards corrections fatigue," which I defined as "the disturbing realization that we too often make errors in covering Atlantic Yards."
NoLandGrab: We take it that by "we," Oder means "The New York Times."
Posted by eric at 7:11 PM
February 16, 2008
The Times resists correcting the arena setbacks error
Atlantic Yards Report
When, last November 24, the New York Times published the scoop (first online November 21) that the Atlantic Yards arena would be only 20 feet from the street, it essentially corrected a previous article in which it had estimated--and seemed to declare more definitively--that the arena would be at least 75 feet from the street.No official correction was published, however. Given the Times's policy, a correction should be in order, I thought. I requested one of the Times on January 2 and soon got a response saying no, given that the Times used "the best available data."
However, as my response below indicates, the Times misinterpreted available plans, thus failing to use "best available data."
My response was ignored. It's another example of "Atlantic Yards corrections fatigue," which I defined as "the disturbing realization that we too often make errors in covering Atlantic Yards."
Posted by amy at 11:47 AM
February 15, 2008
Mum's the word on FCR's gift to Democratic "slush fund"
Atlantic Yards Report
Since Norman Oder broke the story of ther $58,000 contribution to a Democratic State Assembly slush fund on his blog Atlantic Yards Report, only The Brooklyn Paper and WNYC News Radio have picked it up. Both media outlets have received the cold shoulder from developer Forest City Ratner and Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver's office.
WNYC reported:
A spokesman for the company wouldn't comment on the reason for the gift...
The top Democrat in the Assembly, Sheldon Silver, has supported Atlantic Yards in the past, and his continued backing could play a role in securing tax-exempt financing for the apartments and the basketball arena. His office would not return phone calls or an e-mail.
The Brooklyn Paper tried both sides of the deal:
The executive director of the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, Kathleen Joyce, said she could not comment for this story, but promised to find someone who could. That person never called The Brooklyn Paper.
A spokesman for Forest City Ratner said only, “No comment.”
Additionally, Norman Oder wonders if The NY Times, which maintains a business relationship with the developer, and the other dailies, will even "acknowledge this story."
Posted by lumi at 6:50 AM
February 9, 2008
‘Oh, No He Didn’t’ Says DDDB
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
New York Daily News columnist Errol Louis has really gotten under the skin of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s blogger. In yesterday’s blog, DDDB responds to Louis’ recent Daily News column, headlined “Foes Stickin’ It to the Lil’ Guys.”The DDDB blogger writes:
“Yup, Errol’s got it right: it’s the BIG COMMUNITY special interest lobby that is ‘stickin’ it to the lil’ guys,’ not the multi-billion dollar, publicly traded Forest City Enterprises (FCEA), and their multiples lobbying, pr and legal firms.”
Posted by amy at 12:33 PM
February 6, 2008
Photographers have rights too (at least they are supposed to)
Atlantic Yards Report's account of videographer Katherin McInnis being stopped by the MTA cops in the footprint of Atlantic Yards is not the first incident of its kind. The Ratner rent-a-cops are known to do the same.
The story was picked up by The Gowanus Lounge, which had some action in the comments section:
Gowanus Lounge: We wonder how many other photographers have had incidents where MTA officers or others tried to stop them from taking photos or in other ways harassed them or tried to get them away from the property.
threecee: i've been told on several occasions that i could not photograph buildings or demolition sites, never by the MTA nor police (which surprises me), but by people i assume were either security or demolition foremen.
Anonymous (referencing a comment he/she had posted on Atlantic Yards Report): I'll repeat here what I posted at AYR...
[Quoting Norman Oder's report] "Finally, she said, he asked if she was part of any organization "opposing these Yards." She said no. He said "You know the project is probably going to go through."
That was a very, very stupid thing for the MTA cop to say, because worse than his illegal attempt to confiscate the camera, this makes it clear that his intent was arbitrary in hindering the exercise of her legal rights.
His intent did not seem to be block photographers, but to block opponents of the project.
That's a very big legal no-no.
Last we checked, Ratnerville was still in America — so what are your rights when you're taking a photo tour of the footprint of Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project?
Local photographer Adrian Kinloch explains on his blog, Brit in Brooklyn:
If you are taking photographs or videotaping in the footprint -- or, for that matter, on a public street or sidewalk and not on private property -- you can point your camera anywhere you want and take pictures. How far you stand your ground with cops (regular or rent-a varieties) is down to you. Obviously, it is always best to resolve a situation amicably.
In the U.S., the general rule is that anyone can take pictures of whatever they want as long as they are in a public space, or if they have permission in a private space. Some exceptions to this rule are military installations, nuclear plants, and some bridges. If you are photographing people, continuing to take an individual's picture after they have asked you to stop could be construed as harassment.
It is legal to take photos of infrastructure and transport facilities. And cops.
No private individual can lawfully confiscate your camera, memory card, or film. Cops need a court order or to arrest you to do this.
Kinloch goes further to explain the steps you should take when a cop, or Ratner rent-a-cop for that matter, tells you to stop taking pictures.
Posted by lumi at 5:35 AM
February 1, 2008
Book Report
Brit in Brooklyn, A Person of Interest
Last month, local author Susan Choi was published in "Brooklyn Was Mine," an anthology of essays from which proceeds are going to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn. Yesterday, graphic designer and Atlantic Yards shutterbug Adrian Kinloch launched the website for Choi's new book, "A Person of Interest."
The Brooklyn Paper, ‘Fan’ empowerment
Reporter Jeff Cretan sits down with local sportswriter Will Leitch to talk about his new book and, the topic on everyone's mind these days, Atlantic Yards.
Leitch, who grew up in the small town of Mattoon, Ill., shies away from the kind of excess seen on TV. When asked about Brooklyn’s own sports controversy, the Atlantic Yards, he took an even-handed approach.
“Where I’m from, New York might as well be China. So it would make Brooklyn more national. You live in Brooklyn? That’s where the Nets play.” But personally, he is not in favor of “the Manhattanization of Brooklyn.”
Posted by lumi at 5:46 AM
January 31, 2008
AY "on rail yards"? Error recurs in the Times
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times, which appears to suffer from some rare learning disability, yet again repeats one of Norman Oder's (and our) pet peeves:
From an article in today's New York Times, headlined Scaffold Falls, Killing Worker in Brooklyn:
It is in a section of Brooklyn that is being swept up in new development, with the huge Atlantic Yards entertainment, residential and commercial complex planned on rail yards a few blocks to the west.
(Emphasis added)I thought we'd resolved that the 22-acre project would be built only in part over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's 8.5-acre Vanderbilt Yard. After all, when the Times had a beat reporter assigned to Atlantic Yards, he wrote that the project "would rise over a railyard and adjacent land...."
Posted by eric at 9:04 AM
January 26, 2008
Heath in Brooklyn
NY Magazine's Daily Intelligencer blog characterized Andrea Peyser's practically whiny NY Post column on the passing of actor Heath Ledger best:
Andrea Peyser, shockingly, is the first person to push the "Is it too soon?" boundary.
"Until the end, we had a love-hate thing for Heath," Peyser begins today's column. "In a neighborhood that previously was best known for its churches and Italian block-watchers, an area we loved for its anonymity, safety and fresh mozzarella, we suddenly had royalty." The cranky columnist goes on to complain that after the actor, his child, and girlfriend Michelle Williams (who is back in Brooklyn today) arrived, everything quickly became all about
"Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!""Heath, Heath, Heath!" "Brooklyn grew expensive, but also generic," she gripes. "We loved it. We hated it. We dealt with it. Brooklyn was turning into Manhattan." Peyser, who admits she was grateful for the wealth that followed them into the neighborhood, also had a problem with Ledger and Williams's efforts to stop Bruce Ratner's development at the Atlantic Yards.
The Brooklyn Paper wrapped up its article about Heath Ledger, who took time to pitch in on the fight against Atlantic Yards, with a statement of condolence from Marty All-Things-Brooklyn Markowitz.
Posted by lumi at 3:58 AM
January 9, 2008
Daily News Gives Brooklyn Some Love
Brooklyn Daily Eagle
The Daily News reported something Brooklynites already know: “Nothing Beats Brooklyn.”
The News described an assortment of businesses, activities, food and people that make Brooklyn the best borough there is.
Making the cut are Brooklyn's activists, like those opposing Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 4:42 AM
January 8, 2008
The Press Catches On...Ground Has Not Broken
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn notes that the press got one thing right, "the fact that Forest City Ratner has not broken ground on its arena."
The Associated Press, WNYC-radio, the NY Times, the Daily News, the Bergen Record, the Newark Star-Ledger and others "reported" that no ground has been broken for the arena. As we've been saying for the past year, the only activity that has been going on at the project's footprint has been some demolition activity, because until the eminent domain lawsuits are resolved, the arena and superblocks cannot be constructed. The fact that ground has not been broken was reported because according to Forest City Rartner's latest projections, the earliest they think they can open the arena would be for the 2010-2011 basketball season. First they said 2006-07, then 2009-10, now 2010-2011. There is ample evidence that in reality 2011-2012 would be the earliest.
Posted by lumi at 5:58 AM
January 2, 2008
Brooklyn's Literary Community Supports Fight Against Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project
[Press Release]
Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Project
Proceeds From Anthology of Original Work to Benefit
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
JANUARY 2, 2008—In a selfless show of support for the forces allied against Forest City Ratner's proposed Atlantic Yards development, celebrated local authors have contributed original essays to a new anthology that pays tribute to the borough they love. The twenty novelists, memoirists, poets and journalists donating their work to Brooklyn Was Mine (Riverhead Trade Paperback Original; January 2, 2008; $15), were motivated by their commitment to Brooklyn and its future--a future threatened by a development that is overwhelmingly dense, grossly out-of-scale with its surrounding neighborhood and will divide and dislocate area residents.
"Brooklyn has given birth to some of America's greatest literary voices," note the anthology's co-editors, Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker. "Today, a new generation of authors has grown up or resettled here, a testament to Brooklyn's unique quality of life. These writers simply want to protect a community that has provided them with so much. Fortunately, the passion they feel for the place has yielded a vibrant collection of essays—and we are delighted that, with each book sold, something will be given back to Brooklyn." All of the proceeds from Brooklyn Was Mine will benefit Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB).
"Brooklyn is a raucous amalgam of communities and neighborhoods, of new and old, of questions and attempts at answers," said DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein. "Brooklyn Was Mine represents that glorious mishmash. Our organization works tirelessly to promote and protect this fragile miracle, and the authors' generous donation of their work to this anthology will go a long way in helping us achieve our goals."
Of the anthology's twenty authors, four (Jonathan Lethem, Jennifer Egan, Robert Sullivan, and Phillip Lopate) are members of DDDB's Advisory Board; all of the contributors, however, are passionate about the cause they have chosen to support. "We should all be grateful," says Lethem, "that the brave handful of folks who refused to be bought out of their homes put the brakes on this process before it was too late."
Taken together, the essays provide a deeply personal view of the borough's rich history, as well as intimate takes on contemporary life. In "Reading Lucy," Jennifer Egan introduces readers to Lucy--a woman who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II and wrote almost daily letters to her husband overseas. Jonathan Lethem's "Ruckus Flatbush" is a wild, dystopian ride into Brooklyn's future, meant to serve as a warning shot to the barbarians at the horizon. In "A Coney Island of the Mind," Katie Roiphe remembers the thrill of riding the famous Cyclone rollercoaster while on a date with her future husband. Colin Harrison's "Diamonds" details Brooklyn's, and his own, ongoing love affair with baseball. And in "You Can't Go Home Again," John Burnham Schwartz writes about the changing face of the borough his father left––only to return when his son took up residence there. With humor and insight these essays draw on the past and present to create a compelling collection––one that is as colorful and diverse as the borough that inspired it, and as generous of spirit as the cause it supports.
"Who is to say what will become of the place, or whether Brooklyn will retain its soul?" asks Phillip Lopate in his poignant introduction. "Whatever happens to Brooklyn," he answers, "its literary soul is sound and robust, and its writers fiercely loyal."
With essays by:
Emily Barton, Susan Choi, Rachel Cline, Philip Dray, Jennifer Egan, Colin Harrison, Joanna Hershon, Jonathan Lethem, Dinaw Mengestu, Elizabeth Gaffney, Lara Vapnyar, Lawrence Osborne, Katie Roiphe, John Burnham Schwartz, Vijay Seshadri, Darcey Steinke, Darin Strauss, Alexandra Styron, and Robert Sullivan.
And an introduction by Phillip Lopate.
About the Editors:
Chris Knutsen is a senior editor at Vogue. Formerly he worked
as an editor at GQ, The New Yorker, and Riverhead Books. He is the co-editor of
the literary anthology Committed: Men Tell Stories of Love, Commitment, and Marriage.
He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughters.
Valerie Steiker is the author of a memoir, The Leopard Hat: A Daughter's Story, and a senior editor at Vogue. She previously worked at Artforum and The New Yorker. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and son.
About Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
DDDB, a volunteer-run and community-funded 501c3 non-profit corporation, leads a diverse community coalition advocating for responsible, democratic, community-based development that will unite Brooklyn's communities instead of dividing and destroying them. For four years now DDDB has led the ongoing opposition to Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards development proposal in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn. That struggle is still to be resolved. For more information, visit: www.dddb.net/php/aboutdddb.php
"Brooklyn Was Mine" Book Readings:
Wednesday, January 9, 7:30pm.
Park Slope Barnes and Noble (267 7th Avenue at 6th Street). Brooklyn.
Authors contributing to the new anthology "Brooklyn Was Mine" will be reading from their work. The authors for this night's reading are:
Jennifer Egan
Susan Choi
Darin Strauss
Tuesday, January 15, 7pm.
BookCourt (163 Court Street near Pacific Street). Brooklyn.
Authors contributing to the new anthology "Brooklyn Was Mine" will be reading from their work. The authors for this night's reading are:
Emily Barton
Darcey Steinke
Alexandra Styron
BROOKLYN WAS MINE
Edited by Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker
Riverhead Trade Paperback Original; January 2, 2008
$15.00
Posted by steve at 9:37 AM
December 31, 2007
The NYT on AY, 2007: fit to blog, fit to print?
Atlantic Yards Report
How's the "Paper of Record" and Forest City Ratner business partner doing in regard to its coverage of Atlantic Yards?
Some important news about Atlantic Yards this year has appeared only in the online version of the New York Times, not the print edition of the Paper of Record, and some has been ignored completely, some has been distorted, and some has been delayed. (And, yes, some important news appeared in the Times first.)
The other daily newspapers have been quite variable, too, in their coverage of AY; the dailies can't even keep up with the daily flow of news, much less advance the story with enterprise reporting and investigations.
While the advance of the Times's City Room blog holds some promise for more comprehensive local coverage, the dailies can't keep up with AY; readers have to keep consulting blogs, the Brooklyn media, and the New York Observer. The Times
In 2007, The New York Times had one story about security concerns at the proposed Nets arena, which started in its City Room blog and later made it to the print edition.
There were some stories that appeared online, but never made it to a print edition:
-The departure of disgraced City Planning Commissioner Dolly Williams.
-The much-delayed appointment of an Atlantic Yards ombudsman by the ESDC.
Some stories just never appeared on The Times's radar at all:
-The Ward Bakery violations.
-Arguments heard in the Atlantic Yards environmental lawsuit.
-Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff's misgivings on theAtlantic Yards approval process.
There were stories delayed or distorted:
-A delay in reporting the additional $105 million in the city's budget for Atlantic Yards.
-A distortion on a magistrate judge's recommendation that the federal eminent domain suit be dismissed.
-Repeating that the proposed Net arena would open in 2009.
The Times does earn good marks for one story:
The Times did have a scoop regarding documents unearthed in a lawsuit filed by Assemblyman Jim Brennan and State Senator Velmanette Montgomery. I found the report murky, but the documents did (and still could) provide fodder for more analysis, such as the projected rental rate of apartments.
This was the only example of enterprise reporting--driven by journalistic curiosity rather than a reaction to events or press releases--regarding AY that appeared in the Times. And it's fairly clear that the story was generated by Brennan's calculation that the best way to release the documents was via the Times.
Otherwise, the Times (and the dailies, in general) are having enough trouble just keeping up with the news.
Posted by steve at 7:25 AM
December 29, 2007
"Sane extension" of Downtown Brooklyn? AY in some more context
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder takes note of two articles that look back at Brooklyn development stories of 2007. First up is the "GL's 15 Top Brooklyn Stories of 2007" story in Gowanus Lounge.
Next is an editorial in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle by Henrik Krogius Getting Going (With One Loss).
The context argument is taken further in an essay headlined Getting Going (With One Loss) by Henrik Krogius of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. He makes some reasonable points, but they often deserve another dash of skepticism.
Oder adds dashes of skepticism to Krogius's approach to issues such as appropriate scale for Prospect Heights, open space in Atlantic Yards, and the desire by proponents of the UNITY plan to use development to knit together communities that would otherwise be divided by Atlantic Yards.
The issue of the privately negotiated affordable housing component of Atlantic Yards is used to point out the lack of democratic process in approving this publicly subsidized development.
Krogius points out that any new construction would raise questions about gentrification, and that AY would contain 2250 subsidized rentals, "a good percentage by today’s standards."
Yes, but the affordable housing was essentially a privately-negotiated zoning bonus, and that brings us back to the fundamental issue of process, the criticisms of which have led even Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff to reconsider the city's avoidance of ULURP.
Finally, Oder disputes the classification of Atlantic Yards as sane development.
Krogius concludes: Atlantic Yards is no longer the colossus it may at first have seemed to be. It is, rather, an entirely sane extension of Brooklyn’s growing downtown.
Yes, it is no longer as much of a colussus as at first, but that doesn't necessarily make it sane.
Posted by steve at 8:34 AM
December 27, 2007
The borough standings-2007 in review
Time Out NY
Picketing Saturday Night Live writer Bryan Tucker ranks the Boroughs and guess who is #1! OK, that's easy, but who would've guessed why (emphasis added):
- Brooklyn
Reason: Big renovations happened this year: hotels in Brooklyn Heights, luxury apartments in Fort Greene and a new stadium in Atlantic Yards. Even Coney Island agreed to a makeover, and promises 20 percent fewer lip piercings and carnival dudes who smell like Jack Daniel’s and Astroglide.
NoLandGrab: Oh no — there's gonna be a STADIUM too???
Posted by lumi at 4:39 AM
December 26, 2007
Proponents: Give Ratner a break - Say press coverage is too negative
Courier-Life Publications
By Stephen Witt
Here's the link to the article featured this morning on Atlantic Yards Report, in which two signatories of the Community Benefits Agreement agree that too many column inches are being devoted to opponents of Bruce Ratner's highly controversial, historically dense, publicly funded land-grabbing megaproject:
It's not enough that Bruce Ratner has to pay people to say nice things about him, but now they're worried that they're not getting enough press.
Charlene Nimmons (middle) says she held a successful job fair and all she got was a lousy article:
“We hear more about the opposition, but we don’t hear anything about the groups that are working to bring forth positive action in the community,” she added.
Nimmons said a case in point is the FCRC-sponsored Economic Resource Fair that her organization hosted last week at the Atlantic Terminal Community Center, 501 Carlton Avenue.
“Our event was successful. We know there’s a need for people to receive services. There’s a need for job training and employment. So we set up the event for the local public housing communities,” said Nimmons.
Rev. Herbert R. Daughtry says we can trust in Bruce, but don't ask him to be specific about where the money is going:
“We made it very clear that whatever amount of money is raised, a percentage will go to people in the community having the severest crises and a another percentage to people doing prison work,” said Daughtry.
“We have had no problems with them (FCRC) at this point and don’t anticipate we will have any,” said Daughtry.
NoLandGrab: With the official approval of the Atlantic Yards in hand for over a year, and every newspaper editorial board's blanket approval (with the exception of The Brooklyn Paper and El Diario/La Prenza), it's bizarre that Ratner supporters would cap off a relatively fruitful year by protesting in the media to the media. Seriously, except for some recent bad press, 2007 marked the year in which developer Bruce Ratner managed to secure another $105-million direct cash subsidy from NYC and a special clause in the State's affordable housing reform legislation (worth approx. $150 million).
Based on their comments, one might assume that supporters are worried that the project is in danger of failing and that their primary source of funding will dry up.
Posted by lumi at 4:15 PM
Groups receiving FCR aid say more positive stories should be written about FCR's project
Atlantic Yards Report
You know supporters are getting squeamish when they can't stand criticism about their favorite project, especially when they're still ahead of the game:
The article, headlined "Yards proponents: Leave Bruce alone" (not online yet), began by casting Forest City Ratner and its partners as the underdog:
Local supporters of the Atlantic Yards project charged last week that the community is being choked out of any positive coverage occurring between developer Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) and the local community.
Well, "the community" isn't being choked, because it's hard to define what exactly "the community" is. Yes, most of the coverage lately has been critical, but that could be attributed to the understanding that, while many arguments have been made in favor of jobs and housing, elected officials have become more concerned about arena security and even Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff acknowledges that the process was inadequate.
NoLandGrab: Note to CBA supporters — send us the press releases, and we'll publish 'em!
Posted by lumi at 5:00 AM
December 24, 2007
Agreed: We Need to "Stop Force-feeding Huge Ideas"
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn responds to Errol Louis's Sunday column, in which the Atlantic Yards supporter makes the case against the lack of "explanation" on "wildly expensive solutions to thorny matters" like the "physical development of our city." [Finally, something on which we all can agree!]"
Newspaper editorialists and columnists can only expect their readers to take them seriously when there is consistency in and a principled foundation to their opinions. Without those necessities their opinions really do not mean much. We raise this because today NY Daily News columnist and editorial board member Errol Louis writes a column with which we have no argument. We applaud it.
...
The shame is that Louis, an unconditional Atlantic Yards supporter, has failed in this column and in his years of writing about Atlantic Yards to critique the big idea known as Atlantic Yards, and its democratic failings; though he has managed to criticize those many who have opposed Atlantic Yards starting from the rotten core of the process.
Posted by lumi at 4:26 AM
December 16, 2007
Times critic Ouroussoff offers starchitect defense, but what about public review?
Atlantic Yards Report
A New York Times Week in Review lead article headlined Let the ‘Starchitects’ Work All the Angles is summarized as "A big name on the blueprint doesn’t mean sellout at play. It may mean visionary at work."Though Atlantic Yards is not mentioned, architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff continues his implicit defense of AY architect Frank Gehry, declaring that 1) it's good that starchitects are working on major projects; 2) the architects have no power over a development's scale or density; and 3) it's up to the public to do the hard work to discern the difference between cynical and sincere agendas.
Those are not unreasonable arguments, but Ourousoff fails to acknowledge that starchitects, by virtue of their fame, may in fact have some power, and that the public's capacity for discernment is aided or hindered by the effort by the starchitect's clients to survive what he calls "an often tricky public review process."
Posted by amy at 10:30 AM
December 14, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Curbed.com, Hey, Hudson Yards: The High Line is Watching You
Advocates for the High Line, have "launched the Rail Yards Blog to cover all things Hudson-related and to keep a close eye on the proceedings. It's kind of like another big urban planning blog, Atlantic Yards Report, except not nearly as critical. Until they get fucked, that is."
Norman "oderizes" Curbed.com on Atlantic Yards Report (AYR) by explaining that Rail Yards Blog (RYB) hues more closely to NoLandGrab (NLG) and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's (DDDB) web site. Also, the AYR and NLG are fully supported by its own contributors (sad, but true) and DDDB's funding primarily goes to legal fees, while RYB receives foundation support.
The Gowanus Lounge, GL Analysis: What is a Fair Price for History?
The report that was delivered to a public meeting about Officer's Row at the Brooklyn Navy Yard on Tuesday night said that the buildings can be saved and put the cost at about $20 million. In a city where the cost of projects now reach into the billions of dollars and public subsidies to corporations and developers run into the hundreds of millions, it is rather hard to keep a straight face when public officials protest that $20 million is simply too much money.
...
Frankly, $20 million is a tiny sum for a city willing to put out hundreds of millions of dollars to subsidize Atlantic Yards.
The Real Estate Observer, Atlantic Yards Blogs Ask: Will Amanda Burden Eat Crow Next?
Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report blog... faults the Times for greeting Forest City Ratner's admission as news when the project's start-date has "been in jeopardy for a long time."
The blog questions whether Amanda Burden, chair of the city Planning Commission and a staunch defender of Atlantic Yards, would follow Mr. Doctoroff's mea culpa with one of her own and admit the project "could have been handled better."
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, PARK SLOPE 100: 100 STORIES OF PARK SLOPE
ISABEL HILL because you got it all on film and made everyone see how much the future of Brooklyn matters.
The Gowanus Lounge, Bklink: Atlantic Yards Memories
Go back four years in the Atlantic Yards time machine, to a time when Borough President Marty Markowitz said the city had "no money to provide" to the big project and said that neighborhood opponents would "be involved."--Atlantic Yards Report
Posted by lumi at 3:40 AM
December 8, 2007
On the Doctoroff legacy: praise, a grudging admission, and some AY debate
Atlantic Yards Report reports on Soterios Johnson's interview with Doctoroff on WNYC:
The announced departure of Dan Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development, spurred debate and discussion yesterday on his legacy and comparisons with Robert Moses—and a dogged Brooklynite wouldn’t let a Doctoroff defender get away with diminishing the city’s role in the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by amy at 9:53 AM
December 7, 2007
Brian Berger, New York Calling
Gothamist
Brian Berger, co-editor of the collection "New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg," sits down with Gothamist's Jen Carlson for an interview.
Berger takes note of eminent domain abuse and the Atlantic Yards project:
I'm deeply concerned about city's abuse of Eminent Domain and the maltreatment of working industry in favor of shifty real estate schemes. Also, while neither averse to change nor a nostalgic, the prevarication and governmental abuses marking the so-called Atlantic Yards project ought to be an insult to every sentient New Yorker.
Posted by steve at 7:44 AM
December 5, 2007
Special Report: Commercial Property Developers Reveal Market Trends in the Big Apple
Multi-Housing News
By Matthew Marin, Associate Editor
Commercial real-estate industry folks like to tell each other that Atlantic Yards is in "Downtown Brooklyn," because a development of that scale might be appropriate in a place called "downtown" somewhere. Alas, Bruce Ratner's 22-acre megaproject is planned for Prospect Heights, which would bring a 19,000-seat arena to some residents' front doors.
Dubbed a "cool market," by Beninati, Brooklyn has attracted the attention of numerous high-profile celebrities. Before their split, actors Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams, who met while filming "Brokeback Mountain," lived in Boerum Hill. Married actors Paul Bettany and Jennifer Connelly, who worked on "A Beautiful Mind," currently reside in the area. And, Adrian Grenier, star of the hit TV show "Entourage" recently moved into a three-floor townhouse in Clinton Hill.
Downtown Brooklyn, in particular, will become home to Forest City Ratner Co.'s more than $3-billion Atlantic Yards, considered the region's most ambitious--and controversial--master-planned development project. It is scheduled to become the new home for the Nets basketball team and several mixed-use buildings.
The Atlantic Yards development intends to add 6,430 units of mixed-income housing; 1,930 will be market-rate condos, and 4,500 will be rental units. Fifty percent of the rentals will be set aside for middle- and low-income families. Additionally, at least 200 ownership units on-site will be dedicated for ownership by low-, moderate- and middle-income individuals and families.
NoLandGrab: We're not sure if Forest City Ratner has actually guaranteed that the 200 units would be on-site. It's possible that they could be built on another site, even in another neighborhood.
Posted by lumi at 5:05 AM
December 2, 2007
If the Times covered Atlantic Yards like a political race
Atlantic Yards Report
What if the Times applied the same level of scrutiny [that they apply to political candidates] toward the claims of Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner and project backers in city and state government?Take the developer's claim, on the Atlantic Yards web site, about jobs and revenue:
The development will produce tremendous economic growth for the borough and city, creating more than 15,000 union construction jobs plus between 1,500 and 6,400 permanent jobs, as well as generating over $5.6 billion in tax revenue for the city and state over 30 years.The jobs are 1500 jobs a year over ten years, and the tax revenue--well, it certainly doesn't come from any official source.
Or consider this claim, also on the web site, about the Community Benefits Agreement:
In addition, over 200 community leaders and organizations have affirmed their support for the landmark agreement.However, those entities, as the New York Observer reported, included elected officials, restaurants, and real-estate agencies.
Posted by amy at 12:01 PM
Develop Don't Destroy Superpost
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn has been hard at work delving into security, eminent domain, and political oversight:
Ratner Sound Bite Adds No Comfort
Forest City Ratner spokesman Bruce Bender's response (right) just continues the stonewalling and lack of transparency while adding a new twist with name-calling. The politicians and the community groups want, and deserve, answers from the Empire State Development Corporation (the project's sponsor), the NYPD, and Governor Spitzer's Homeland Security Deputy Michael Balboni.
The Silence Tells Us that Trust Would be Foolish
Common sense is exactly what we and so many others are using when we ask the question (which still has not been answered by anyone and certainly not in Bruce Bender's prepared statement): How is Brooklyn's arena, setback only 20 feet from the street, different than Newark's arena which, setback 25 feet from the street, has required street closings?
Confluence of Eminent Domain Abuse
Yesterday, November 29th, was a City Hall Land Grab trifecta: an Atlantic Yards related press conference, a West Harlem/Columbia University Expansion press conference, and a Willets Point redevelopment City Council Committee hearing. What do those three projects all share in common?
Eminent domain abuse, and fake blight determinations.
More Leadership, Please
On Christine Quinn's assertion that "there’s not a lot that’s left to be done" on Atlantic Yards:
First, there is plenty to be done, including two pending lawsuits and her colleague Councilman Bill de Blasio just yesterday said [as reported on the Atlantic Yards Report]: “The ball game’s not over,” noting that subsidies and other issues must be resolved for the project to move forward. If the developer doesn’t behave more transparently, “then the future of their project is in danger,” he warned.
Posted by amy at 10:54 AM
December 1, 2007
Ratner Answers Pols, Public With Affidavit
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
So, they want to discuss affidavits? The affidavit Ratner's spokesman refers to, in the [Daily News article quoted below], is inconsequential when it comes to legal charges and public criticism regarding Atlantic Yards and security planning.Forest City Ratner spokesman Joe DePlasco declined to comment on security, citing the sensitive nature of the issue - even as opponents called on officials to fully explain how the arena would be protected from terrorism.DePlasco, however, directed the Daily News to an affidavit by security expert Jeffrey Venter, the president of Ducibella Venter & Santore, the firm tapped by Forest City Ratner to consult on security matters at the project site.
The plan "considers in detail the ability of the structures to resist progressive collapse or to otherwise fail in a manner that could compromise life or interrupt facility operations," Venter said in the affidavit.
Well, that's fine if Joe DePlasco wants to discuss affidavits filed in the pending DDDB et al v. ESDC et al lawsuit over the lack of a security/terrorism study in the Atlantic Yards Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), amongst other things. (Venter's affidavit is here.)
Neither the Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) nor any other state agency was a party to Venter's supposed study and never requested or saw his supposed study and were not part of any alleged discussions with NYPD. Venter's affidavit is of interest, but it doesn't respond to the lawsuit's charge that the EIS failed to follow state environmental laws by not analyzing the impacts of terrorism security planning.
Posted by amy at 10:34 AM
November 29, 2007
In the news
Two online news wrap-ups carried Atlantic Yards items from other media outlets today:
An architectural rendering, disseminated online, shows a new skyscraper — which would be Brooklyn’s tallest building — looming over Jay Street. The project was proposed by the developer Bruce C. Ratner, but separate from his Atlantic Yards project. Both Mr. Ratner’s company and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership said the rendering was outdated and did not reflect Mr. Ratner’s current plans. [Daily News]
[From The NY Sun]
Ben Sarlin reports: “The New York City Conflicts of Interest Board is fining the city planning commissioner, Dolly Williams, $4,000 for failing to recuse herself from decisions regarding the giant Atlantic Yards development near downtown Brooklyn, the board announced yesterday. Despite her critical role in approving the project, Ms. Williams in 2004 invested $250,000 in the New Jersey Nets, which is owned by the developer of Atlantic Yards, Forest City Ratner Companies. The Nets are scheduled to move into a new arena as part of the $4 billion development, which will also add thousands of units of housing and office and retail space to the low-rise neighborhood.”
Posted by lumi at 5:49 AM
November 26, 2007
A short history of Atlantic Yards "rowback" in the New York Times
Atlantic Yards Report
AYR gets back to its roots — pointing out flaws in coverage by The New York Times — with this item about The Times' surreptitious acknowledgment on Saturday that the New Jersey Nets won't be tipping off in Brooklyn in 2009:
On Saturday, when the New York Times reported that the Atlantic Yards arena "is scheduled to open after 2009," (emphases added), the Times didn't say it was correcting a previous report that the arena would open in 2009.
That was a variant of "rowback," which former Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent described in his 3/14/04 column as "a way that a newspaper can cover its butt without admitting it was ever exposed." In other words, a correction without formally acknowledging a correction--even though the Times publishes the most minute factual corrections daily.
The Times has done this periodically, publishing updated correct information but without (in most cases) publishing corrections.
Posted by lumi at 10:39 AM
November 25, 2007
Critic Ouroussoff is much tougher on MTA´s role in West Side plan than in Brooklyn
Atlantic Yards Report
Nicolai Ourousoff, architecture critic for The New York Times, reviewed the five plans for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's West Side yards and found them all lacking. Norman Oder contrasts the critical review with the one Ourousoff produced for the Atlantic Yards in 2005.
Here is Norman quoting yesterday's review:
Ouroussoff's tough on the emphasis on the bottom line: "But what is really at issue here is putting the importance of profit margins above architecture and planning. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority could have pushed for more ambitious proposals. For decades now cities like Barcelona have insisted on a high level of design in large-scale urban-planning projects, and they have done so without economic ruin. "
NoLandGrab: Ourousoff wants the MTA to push for high-quality planning in a competitive environment. Here in Brooklyn, we're stuck with an anti-competitive process that produces a development based on the outmoded superblock concept.
Posted by steve at 9:48 AM
A "few million square feet of commercial space"? Not quite
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder points out how yesterday's article in The New York Times, "A Brooklyn Arena and the Street: What’s the Right Distance?", is incorrect regarding how much commercial and residential space would be built.
From today´s Times article on the arena setbacks: Atlantic Yards is slated to include more than 6,000 apartments and a few million square feet of commercial space...
Actually, no. At this point, it would be 336,000 square feet in the residential mixed-use variation, which is the variation currently under discussion.
Posted by steve at 5:24 AM
November 24, 2007
Ok, now the setbacks story makes the print Times, but
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder notes that today's print edition of The New York Times carries a new version of its story about security issues surrounding the planned Nets arena, adapted from its Wednesday "City Room" blog post.
From today´s New York Times, in an article headlined A Brooklyn Arena and the Street: What’s the Right Distance?, the news comes in paragraph five (which is better than the original blog post, where the point wasn´t quite made): "For weeks, the project’s developer, Forest City Ratner, and its state sponsor, the Empire State Development Corporation, had deflected questions from bloggers about the arena’s location, saying that they could not divulge information related to security."
AYR points out that bloggers haven't been alone in seeking answers about the actual planned siting of the arena, and seeks a little credit for having pointed out the discrepancy between earlier Times coverage that estimated the setback for the arena at "...about 75 feet back from Atlantic Avenue and about 150 feet from Flatbush Avenue," and the actual setback — a scant 20 feet.
And, finally, Oder describes how The Times has corrected yet another error in its original November 8th article, and now correctly writes that the arena isn't scheduled to open until after 2009.
Posted by steve at 8:41 AM
November 22, 2007
The 87% discrepancy in arena setbacks doesn't make the print Times
Atlantic Yards Report
AYR decries The New York Times's failure to print the truth in today's edition about just how close the planned Nets arena would be to two of Brooklyn's busiest thoroughfares, and points out how the newspaper considered a much smaller "cutback" worthy of front-page treatment:
Consider that, on 9/6/05, the Times published a front-page lead story (in the New York editions) that overhyped a rumored "six to eight percent" cut in the bulk of the Atlantic Yards project. It took a few weeks for the Times to say definitively that the cut would bring the project back to the original square footage announced.
Earlier this month, the Times in print estimated that the arena would be set back 75 feet from Flatbush Avenue and 150 feet from Atlantic Avenue. Actually, segments of the arena would be as close as 20 feet.
A reduction from 75 feet to 20 feet represents a difference of 73%.
A reduction from 150 feet to 20 feet represents a difference of 87%.
That's news.
NoLandGrab: News, perhaps, to everyone but the arena developer's development partner.
Posted by lumi at 8:36 AM
November 20, 2007
The Times review of Times Tower and the review of the review
The NY Times, Pride and Nostalgia Mix in The Times’s New Home
Nicky O's filed a mixed review of his own employer's new headquarters.
I enjoy gazing up at the building’s sharp edges and clean lines when I emerge from the subway exit at 40th Street and Seventh Avenue in the morning. I love being greeted by the cluster of silvery birch trees in the lobby atrium, their crooked trunks sprouting from a soft blanket of moss. I even like my fourth-floor cubicle, an oasis of calm overlooking the third-floor newsroom.
...
The tower’s crown is also disappointing. To hide the rooftop’s mechanical equipment and create the impression that the tower is dissolving into the sky, Mr. Piano extended the screens a full six stories past the top of the building’s frame. Yet the effect is ragged and unfinished. Rather than gathering momentum as it rises, the tower seems to fizzle.
...
Architecturally, however, The New York Times Building owes its greatest debt to postwar landmarks like Skidmore, Owings & Merrill’s Lever House or Mies van der Rohe’s Seagram Building — designs that came to embody the progressive values and industrial power of a triumphant America. Their streamlined glass-and-steel forms proclaimed a faith in machine-age efficiency and an open, honest, democratic society.
Atlantic Yards Report, Ouroussoff on the Times Tower and "a franker reading of contemporary life"
In his mostly approving review of the new Times Tower designed by Renzo Piano and built by the New York Times Company and Forest City Ratner, headlined Pride and Nostalgia Mix in the Times’s New Home, Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff suggests that the building's style reflects some tensions in the evolving practice of journalism.
Ouroussoff writes:
Newspaper journalism, too, is part of that history. Transparency, independence, the free flow of information, moral clarity, objective truth — these notions took hold and flourished in the last century at papers like The Times. To many this idealism reached its pinnacle in the period stretching from the civil rights movement to the Vietnam War to Watergate...
This longing for an idealistic time permeates the main newsroom...
Oder posits:
Might someone inspired by working in the building come to the conclusion that the contrast between railyard developments in Manhattan and Brooklyn deserves a bit more transparency?
Posted by lumi at 6:53 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brooklyn is Bitchin'
mcbrooklyn, Icky Really, Really, Really Doesn't Like the Brooklyn Paper
We respect the Brooklyn Paper's stance vis-à-vis Atlantic Yards but -- a rather hilarious diatribe against the paper, by Icky in Windsor Terrace here.
Daily Intelligencer, And speaking of cranky bloggers....
...this Atlantic Yards watchdog takes issue with nymag.com's calling him a member of Brooklyn's "brownstone bourgeois" last week. He'd rather have been called a "policy wonk." Get that!
Posted by lumi at 5:50 AM
November 18, 2007
A Times editorial skewers some development puffery, on Long Island
Atlantic Yards Report
An editorial in the Long Island section of today's New York Times has critical words for the proposed Lighthouse development in Uniondale. Norman Oder wonders why the Times couldn't see fit to be more critical in its evaluation of Atlantic Yards as he revisits the Times's 2006 endorsement of its development partner's megaproject:
Beyond my criticisms of that endorsement, consider also the Times's failure to analyze developer Forest City Ratner's series of promotional fliers.
To borrow some phrases from today's editorial, if you pore over the glossy images, you may be forgiven for thinking that Mr. Ratner is proposing the mildest, most inoffensive 8 million-square-foot development imaginable.
Posted by steve at 8:46 AM
November 16, 2007
On an East Side megaproject, the Times doesn't give the developer a pass
Atlantic Yards Report
In November, 2007, The New York Times seems able to understand when a developer sometimes uses a strategy wherein a building is planned for more height than will ever be built. This helps gives the appearance that the developer is "compromising" when later plans reveal a smaller building.
If only The Times could have been that critical of Atlantic Yards in September, 2006.
Norman Oder covers The Times's apparent evolution in coverage of real estate development.
Posted by steve at 6:57 AM
November 15, 2007
Lexicon Alert
"sprawling Atlantic Yards"
NoLandGrab essentially scours the Internet for any mention of anything that might be remotely relevant to the public discussion on Atlantic Yards. When "Atlantic Yards" makes a cameo in articles for related issues and developments, we use it to take the pulse of the public's and media's attitude towards the project.
Today, in the NY Times, the "sprawling Atlantic Yards" partners with "Columbia University’s plunge northward" to headline NYC's A-list of mammoth projects that have sparked controversy.
From Webster's:
Main Entry: sprawl
Pronunciation: \ˈspról\
Function: verb
3: to spread or develop irregularly or without restraint
That's 22 acres of sprawl, both horizontal and vertical, in addition to Ratner's two malls and 16-acre MetroTech high-rise office park — are there any problems with Ratner amassing a gargantuan, highly concentrated real estate monopoly?
Posted by lumi at 4:36 AM
November 10, 2007
BREAKING: Bloggers Like Writing About Buildings, Bridges
Silicon Alley Insider
What do bloggers blog about, when they're not blogging about each other? Brooklyn-based "placeblog" Outside.in contends that web writers are fascinated by big public works projects.Outside.In's list of "Bloggiest Places" in the U.S., compiled by surveying posts made over the past two months, is dominated by construction projects which are either planned or underway. Not surprisingly, given New York's high blog-per-capita ratio, two local projects show up on the top 10: Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards, and the Hudson Yards project on the West Side.
Posted by amy at 11:38 AM
November 9, 2007
Bad art from good drunks
The Brooklyn Paper
Editor Gersh Kuntzman gets drunk in the footprint of Atlantic Yards in the name of art:
To better appreciate the fine works hanging on Freddy’s walls, I got pretty damn drunk the other night and pulled out a pen and my reporter’s notebook. Through the foggy haze of a pint of Blue Point Toasted Lager (I wasn’t so drunk that I forgot that they don’t sell Brooklyn Lager at this anti-Atlantic Yards bar), I remembered Teraberry’s words — “Drunken art often goes to the dark place of one’s soul” — and went to the darkest place I know: home plate when I was a kid in Little League (pictured).
NoLandGrab: Lucky for Brooklyn, Gersh is a better editor than artist or ball player.
Posted by lumi at 5:46 AM
November 3, 2007
The bonsai Bryant Park and other fudges from the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership's video
Atlantic Yards Report also enjoyed the accents and accidents of the Brooklyn 2012 video, with Sir Ian's repetitive reference to the tree-lined "boo-levard" Flatbush Avenue, and the comparison of the proposed 1.25 acre Willoughby Square park to the 8 acre Bryant Park:
Near the beginning of the video, we're told Atlantic Yards "will transform acres of railyards" into an arena, office towers, and housing, a common fudge about which the New York Times, at least, has confessed error, since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard would less than 40% of the site. Also note that in the video we only see two of the 16 towers.Atlantic Yards is described as having "signature office buildings," though likely just one (or maybe two) of the towers would include office space. And that statement in the script obscures how the project morphed from including 2 million square feet of office space to just 336,000 square feet (and perhaps 375 new jobs), less than one new building in Downtown Washington.
Posted by amy at 7:45 AM
Fool of a luvie!
Gumby Fresh watches Brooklyn 2012 on the NY Post website, a video produced by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, narrated by Ian McKellen.
I won't dwell for too long on Mr. McKellen's reference to the Atlantic Yards imbroglio, since it was rushed and fleeting, reminiscent of the way Jeremy Irons delivered some of his sillier lines in Die Hard With A Vengeance. He sounded, to be honest, rather subdued, although the boosters at the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership no doubt are pretty pleased with themselves. Marty Markowitz, whose very raison de'etre is to facilitate such inane audio-visual puffery, is probably still curled up and quivering in post-coital delight. Unless he neglected to get his picture taken with Gandalf during McKellen's visit, in which case he's probably weeping and cuddling the comfort blanket Bruce Ratner gave him.
link
NoLandGrab: The video is an interesting piece - watch homes and businesses be crushed silently by skyscrapers! Learn how Brooklyn is nothing but "a college town!" Those of you who thought Brooklyn was the borough of churches are wrong, so wrong. Just ask the fancy talking bloke from the UK!
Posted by amy at 7:43 AM
October 28, 2007
The Times's Public Editor publishes (sort of) an AY letter
Atlantic Yards Report
Two weeks ago, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt wrote a tough column about Deborah Solomon's heavily massaged "Questions For" Q&A column in the New York Times Magazine, headlining his critique "Questions and Answers, in No Particular Order.”My letter was among 20 letters published online yesterday:
You paint a dismaying portrait of the care with which the Times Magazine’s “Questions For” column is produced.Add to the criticisms the failure of the questioner Deborah Solomon or the Magazine’s editors to disclose, in a June 26, 2005, interview with Bruce Ratner, the Atlantic Yards developer and New Jersey Nets principal owner, that Mr. Ratner’s company was a development partner of The New York Times Company in building its new headquarters.
...
Byron Calame, the public editor at the time, chastised The Times in his Web journal for the failure to disclose such ties, but no letter or disclosure was ever printed.
Posted by amy at 10:50 AM
Richard Ford: I love NBA hoops, hate going to NBA games
Atlantic Yards Report
In today's New York Times Sports Magazine, Play, novelist Richard Ford has an essay titled The Noise Is Killing Me, subtitled "Sports-as-game has become sports-as-babble, and I refuse to play."He writes:
I don’t want to be sappy about all this and wish for a time that’ll never come back and that maybe never existed, anyway. But the truth is I love N.B.A. basketball, but I hate going to an N.B.A. game — because of all the dancing girls and the acrobats and the P.A. guy’s tumescent, Michael Buffer-ish voice wounding my ears while some citizen in a pink mascot suit does flying dunks off a trampoline every time the timeout whistle blows. (Don’t we all hate mascots?)Last year, I described some of the nonstop babble and tumult at a Nets game--which is probably pretty typical for the league.
Posted by amy at 10:46 AM
October 27, 2007
Errol Louis suggests AY poll results represent democracy
Atlantic Yards Report
In his 10/16/07 Our Time Press "Commerce & Community" column, Errol Louis asks, "Who Speaks for Brooklyn?" and takes us on a peculiar ride, in which he seemingly concludes that poll results represent democracy. (This column's not online, and may never be.)He begins:
It would be a disaster if a person who had just moved into a neighborhood could exercise a kind of veto power of development in that area for all time, even if a majority of his neighbors want something different. That is one of the little-discussed aspects of the lawsuits brought to stop the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project.Actually, we don't know what the neighbors really want, since they haven't been asked about alternatives. What if the city had followed the guidelines it later issued in PlaNYC 2030:
Building communities requires a carefully tailored approach to local conditions and needs that can only be developed with local input. We will begin the process of working with communities, the agencies that operate these facilities, and other stakeholders to sort through these complicated issues.
Posted by amy at 10:04 AM
October 22, 2007
Security concerns "a new low" or a question of parallelism?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder examines the Brooklyn weekly media coverage of security questions for Atlantic Yards.
One Brooklyn weekly gets a "no comment" from the development company, and the other carries the boilerplate response. Can you guess which one?
But FCRC Executive Vice President Bruce Bender countered that "opponents are reaching a new low in their misguided attempts to delay a publicly approved and supported development."
One thing's for sure: the company has a plan, but they can't tell you what it is because it would no longer be a secret. The Empire State Development Corporation has stated, "that state officials would be happy to meet with community representatives. So maybe it all will be ventilated."
Posted by lumi at 8:25 AM
October 21, 2007
David Simon of "The Wire" on the press & reality
Atlantic Yards Report
A New Yorker profile this week of journalist and TV scriptwriter David Simon, headlined Stealing Life: The crusader behind “The Wire", offers this observation about the press:
This final season of the show, Simon told me, will be about “perception versus reality”—in particular, what kind of reality newspapers can capture and what they can’t. Newspapers across the country are shrinking, laying off beat reporters who understood their turf. More important, Simon believes, newspapers are fundamentally not equipped to convey certain kinds of complex truths. Instead, they focus on scandals—stories that have a clean moral. “It’s like, Find the eight-hundred-dollar toilet seat, find the contractor who’s double-billing,” Simon said at one point. “That’s their bread and butter. Systemic societal failure that has multiple problems—newspapers are not designed to understand it.”
(Emphasis added)Is that why the New York Times could suggest, in October 2005, that Mr. Ratner is creating a new and finely detailed modern blueprint for how to nourish - and then harvest - public and community backing?
Note that New York magazine's Chris Smith, instead, concluded in August 2006: What at first seemed to me impressive on a clinical level—a developer’s savvy use of state-of-the-art political tactics—ends up being, on closer inspection, positively chilling.
Posted by amy at 10:44 AM
October 20, 2007
Village Voice Best of NYC Super-Post!
Best Neighborhood Bar Slated for Destruction by Frank Gehry Freddy's
Gehry's pact with developer Bruce Ratner to design the megalithic Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn torpedoed whatever remained of his alterna-rep. [...] It's the kind of true Brooklyn community that Gehry and Ratner, sitting in L.A. and Cleveland, will likely never understand.
Best Noble Failure It's Still Not a Done Deal
Recently, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn hosted a literary soiree and fundraiser. The title of the afternoon: It's Still Not a Done Deal. [...] DDDB's motto is hard to argue with: "Fighting for development that will unite our communities instead of dividing and destroying them." They've distinguished themselves by their intelligent analysis, delightful events, reasonable goals, and maybe the coolest advisory board ever (Jo Andres, Nelson George, John Wesley Harding, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Lethem, and Rosie Perez are just a few members).
Best Manhattan Neighborhood in Brooklyn Dumbo
Atlantic Yards may yet turn downtown Brooklyn into a soulless new Herald Square, but as of now, the borough's most Manhattanized neighborhood is the 15-square-block area that for several decades has boasted the acronym DUMBO (as in "Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass").
Best Brooklyn Assemblyman Who Never Quits Jim Brennan
When the state refused to provide details of its agreements with Forest City Ratner for the huge Atlantic Yards project, Brennan took it to court. There, he won the release of hundreds of pages of previously secret records that showed what the government and the developer hadn't told the public: that their pledge to provide affordable housing was based on a shaky financial premise.
Michael Bloomberg's Last Meal Birdbath
He didn't stop the Atlantic Yards, and he never made the city a better place to bicycle, but he certainly is ferreting out trans fats! Accordingly, the playboy mayor's last meal will be a very dry vegan scone from City Bakery's Birdbath, an eco-conscious bakery in the West Village that buys wind power from Con Ed and uses green materials for construction.
Posted by amy at 12:30 PM
October 13, 2007
From "Brian Lehrer Live": criticism and context
Atlantic Yards Report
Lehrer asked about the lawsuits against the project and suggested that they were a last-ditch effort, given that opponents had lost at every level: "They've lost at the legislative level...""What legislative level, Brian?" I responded, clarifying that the City Council did not have a vote.
And Guskind offered the money quote, suggesting that the lawsuits were the only hope, given that the political and approval process was "rigged to produce this outcome. In a few decades of covering urban affairs and covering public policy all over the country, I've rarely seen a process this anti-democratic."
And it's not exactly radical to think the process behind AY was deeply flawed; that's pretty much what PlaNYC 2030 implies.
Posted by amy at 8:00 AM
October 12, 2007
Brian Lehrer Live: Online Battles: Atlantic Yards, Apartment Hunting, and Net Neutrality
Brian Lehrer Live
In case you missed it, Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report and Gowanus Lounge blogger and Curbed Editor Robert Guskind were guests on Brian Lehrer Live this week to talk about the the latest with Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards megaproject. [Start at 21 mins, 20 sec.]
Posted by lumi at 5:22 AM
Panel Discussion: New Media, Old Media and Advocacy
CityRoom [NY Times Blog] By Sewell Chan
The discussion, “New Media, New Politics? Jane Jacobs and an Activist Press,” at the Housing Works Used Book Cafe in SoHo, was wide-ranging. Topics that came up included the quality of coverage provided by traditional newspapers, including The Times, affordable housing, immigration and the Atlantic Yards development in Downtown Brooklyn.
...
Norman Oder, who runs the blog Atlantic Yards Report, has often criticized newspapers, specifically The Times, for inadequacies and inaccuracies he sees in their coverage of the huge $4 billion, 22-acre commercial and residential project in Brooklyn. (He wrote his own account of the discussion.)“The Atlantic Yards narrative was created by the developer, backed by the political establishment and too often aided by unskeptical or cheer-leading media coverage,” Mr. Oder said, adding: “My job is to challenge that narrative and to help build a more credible one. That does not necessarily involve activist journalism. Much of that is just responsible journalism, filling in the gaps, covering the meetings and court hearings, delving into documents, and filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act.”
Posted by lumi at 4:25 AM
October 11, 2007
The "activist press" and the "Atlantic Yards Narrative"
Atlantic Yards Report
Last night's panel on "New Media, New Politics? Jane Jacobs and an Activist Press" began with an introduction by the Municipal Art Society's Kent Barwick, who described how Jacobs once wore white gloves to a protest and later took them off for another--and how it was now time to "take off the white gloves." About 130 people attended the event at the Housing Works Used Bookstore on Crosby Street.
It was an interesting discussion, if not always focused on urbanism, given the diversity of the panel--along with me, panelists included Alberto Vourvoulias-Bush of El Diario, author Gay Talese, Jane Hamsher of firedoglake, a nationally influential political blog, along with moderator Sewell Chan of the New York Times's CityRoom blog.
I'll describe some of the back and forth below, but first the text of my main presentation. The images below were part of an annotated handout I distributed.
Posted by lumi at 8:10 AM
October 6, 2007
Gay Talese, fellow panelist, on journalistic objectivity and skepticism
Atlantic Yards Report
In preparation for the panel discussion Tuesday on New Media, New Politics? Jane Jacobs and an Activist Press, I decided to seek out relevant tidbits written by fellow panelist Gay Talese, author of The Kingdom and the Power (1969), a history of the New York Times.Said to be an early practioner of "New Journalism" (a term he disdains), Talese in his career has relied on saturation reporting to set scenes and deploy dialogue. He naturally felt confined by a newspaper's conventions and, in his book on the Times, raised questions about the pursuit of objectivity. (I think fairness and integrity are better goals.)
...
Leaving things outIn the 1960s, the newspaper changed, and so did the Times's posture toward its once-sacred cow. The challenges today are more subtle and the problems less blatant, but they still exist. Why, exactly, has the Times failed to report on numerous issues, such as a close look at the costs and benefits of Atlantic Yards, or shown the project's astounding scale?
Posted by amy at 11:55 AM
October 5, 2007
RIP, Mr. Muschamp (AY="Garden of Eden")
Atlantic Yards Report
Atlantic Yards watchdogs will remember the quote by the late Herbert Muschamp, from the project's media debut in The New York Times, "A garden of eden grows in Brooklyn," which made a great tag line for Forest City Ratner's first flier (click to enlarge) and gave project critics their first reason to cancel their subscriptions.
Former New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, who died Tuesday, "was governed by passion," wrote Times colleague Verlyn Klinkenborg in an affectionate editorial appraisal, citing "a passion for passion itself... I think he also had a passion for equity — moral, social and aesthetic."
Ok, but there's more. He seemed most of all concerned with the esthetic experience of a building, often decontextualized. By ignoring “the experience most people have,” Muschamp “helped create the world of starchitects,” commented the Boston Globe's Robert Campbell at a May 2006 panel.
Indeed, as I wrote, Muschamp's 12/10/03 review of Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards design was an unqualified--and unreflective--rave, offering no reflection on the impact of development.
Posted by lumi at 11:56 AM
P.S. I Love You: Met life is the only life for him
The Brooklyn Paper
By Gersh Kuntzman
We can really relate to Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman's manifesto on the character-building attributes of another disappointing NY Mets season. Save-Brooklyn-from-Bruce-Ratner's-Atlantic-Yards activists have been "building characters" for nearly four years now, but, unlike Mets fans, local activists only have to actually win once.
After you get past Gersh's whining, there's this little tidbit that makes the Brucester seem like a sort-of-OK guy afterall:
You may know Bruce Ratner as the man who wants to fill Prospect Heights with 16 skyscrapers, but we know him as the guy who’s letting our Park Slope pal Ben Rubin install his beloved multi-media installation, Listening Post, in the lobby of the gorgeous new Times building in Gaphattan. What can we say, the man showed real taste this time.
There has been no word on whether or not arts patron Bruce Ratner has tried to acquire Future Perfect for his "permanent collection."
Posted by lumi at 7:56 AM
September 29, 2007
Exorcising the Dodgers, redux
Atlantic Yards Report
A good backdrop to that recent New York magazine article on "Exorcising the Dodgers" would be The Glory Days: New York Baseball 1947-1957, a bang-up exhibit about the rivalry and cultural presence of the Yankees, Dodgers, and Giants, running through December 31 at the Museum of the City of New York.Both the Dodgers and Giants have left and, of course, it was a different era a half-century ago. One exhibit panel states:
Why do the Glory Days continue to exert such a hold on the fans who experienced them? In part, is is because baseball was the big game in town, not yet truly challenged by the other league sports such as football or basketball. But while it was the big time, it was not yet the big business it is today--players lived among the fans and there was a sense of shared identity...
Posted by amy at 9:43 AM
September 25, 2007
NAY! (Not in Atlantic Yards)
Here's just the type of column that the Post never wrote about the astroturf coalition that Bruce Ratner assembled in support of Atlantic Yards. Can you blame Columbia University for taking a page out of Ratner's tried-and-true landgrabber playbook?
NY Post, COLUMBIA'S ASTROTURF
FAKING GRASSROOTS SUPPORT FOR EXPANSION PLAN
COLUMBIA University is making great efforts to pre vent community objections from derailing its plan for a massive expansion in West Harlem. But its methods seem to rely more on big-money power politics than on listening to the folks who live and work where the school wants to build.
At a meeting held last month by West Harlem's Community Board 9, for example, a good chunk of the school's "local supporters" looked to be patients from an East Harlem drug-rehab clinic.
Several people were outside handing out pamphlets castigating area business owner Nick Sprayregen, the expansion's most vocal critic. Visnja Vujica - a recent Barnard grad and member of the anti-expansion Student Coalition on Expansion & Gentrification - says she discovered that the pamphleteers were patients from East Harlem's Addicts Rehabilitation Center (ARC).
Posted by lumi at 10:49 AM
September 23, 2007
"The Landlord," til Tuesday, takes us to 1969 Park Slope
Atlantic Yards Report
Um, remember Park Slope in the late 1960s, the time of redlining, trash-strewn empty lots, and battered buildings? I don't, though I've heard tell, so the next best thing is to get to the Film Forum (through Tuesday only), to see Hal Ashby's 1970 movie "The Landlord," an entertaining and jolting portrait of a neighborhood and an era.The New York Times, in feature headlined Before Gentrification Was Cool, It Was a Movie, describes it as "an experimental, satirical film, from a script by an unknown black screenwriter, about a wealthy young white man who decides to buy a Brooklyn tenement and ease out the black tenants so he can gut it and move in."
Posted by amy at 9:19 AM
September 22, 2007
Paper wins — again!
The Brooklyn Paper wins an editorial award from The Independent Free Papers of America. They were not competing against rock and scissors, but against the many media outlets that failed to adequately cover Atlantic Yards issues.
The editorial criticized Borough President Markowitz for complaining about the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s $300-million deficit after he cheered the same agency when it sold the lucrative air rights to the Atlantic Yards for tens, if not hundreds of millions, below their market value.
Posted by amy at 10:01 AM
September 20, 2007
A Tower Fight, but Just What Borough Is This?
The NY Times
By Elisabeth Malkin
You can start rolling your eyes now, because in a surreal parallel universe, the NY Times reports on an influential developer who hires a global starchitect and, with the help of the Mayor, gets around local zoning restrictions to advance his plan to raze a historic building, at one of the city's worst traffic bottlenecks, to build a skyscraper that will putatively put Mexico City on the map. [And you thought we were special.]
An influential developer plans an enormous skyscraper at the edge of the city’s giant central park. A celebrity architect is commissioned, and the ambitious mayor unveils the proposal at city hall.
Instantly, the prospective tower’s largely genteel neighbors rise up in arms. They vow to tie the plan up in lawsuits and procedural reviews. There is also a reclusive investor, a much-questioned relationship between the mayor and the developer and a building on the site that, though it has long been ignored, preservationists now want saved.
...
The developers and their allies in city hall say the tower will catapult Mexico City into the ranks of the world’s great cities, alongside emergent Asian capitals where skyscrapers grow ever taller. For Mexico City to compete globally, “we will need dozens of projects like this,” said Jorge Gamboa de Buen, the chief executive of the project’s developer, Grupo Danhos. “The city will have to learn to deal with the issue of these projects.”Opponents say the tower is simply illegal. “They are twisting the law around like a pretzel to get their objectives through,” said Denise Dresser, an academic and commentator who is helping organize opponents. She said the city’s support for the tower recalled the days when authoritarian governments built big public works projects whether anybody wanted them or not.
NoLandGrab: Desarrolle, No Destruya Ciudad de México???
Posted by lumi at 9:55 PM
September 9, 2007
AY phase one redesign coming, says Times critic
Atlantic Yards Report explores the errors in today's Times big reveal of phase one plans:
First, it's hardly certain that Atlantic Yards will actually get under way; that depends on the resolution of a federal lawsuit, now in the appeals stage, and a state lawsuit, awaiting a trial court decision, as well as other delays.Like the Rock?
Second, it's doubtful that Gehry can redesign the first phase, which is four towers wrapped around an arena, plus one tower to the west across Flatbush Avenue, to make Atlantic Yards echo Rockefeller Center.
The latter notably added rather than subtracted streets. The first phase of Atlantic Yards would close Fifth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, and Pacific Street between Flatbush and Sixth avenues.
...
Third, Atlantic Yards would not be a retail-entertainment-sports complex. More than three-quarters of its square footage (nearly 6.4 million sf out of nearly 8 million sf) would be occupied by housing (see p. 18 of this PDF), and at 292 units/acre, the project would be far more dense than any other major project in the city.
Posted by amy at 10:51 AM
September 8, 2007
Atlantic Yards Mention on "Damages"
NoLandGrabber Steve made an impressive find while watching the show "Damages" on Wednesday. The dramatic tv playing in the background? A Develop Don't Destroy rally.
From Wikipedia: Damages is an American legal drama television program. The story revolves around a ruthless lawyer, (Glenn Close), attempting to win a class-action lawsuit against the former CEO of a corporation, (Ted Danson), on behalf of his former workers, by any means necessary (see plot). The show debuted on FX in the U.S. on July 24, 2007, without commercial interruption,[1] and is scheduled to run for 13 episodes.
Posted by amy at 10:22 AM
September 4, 2007
How Eminent Should Domain Be?
The NY Times
By Joseph Berger
Hold the presses: The Times ran a story this Sunday which was largely sympathetic to critics of eminent domain, with a disclosure that "Some of the property for the new headquarters of The New York Times was acquired through eminent domain."
As Atlantic Yards Report recounts, on July 29 the Sunday Times ran an article about regional eminent domain controversies, but did not run it in the City section, "and this past Sunday, the Times did it again, running an article sympathetic to the "little guy" in the Westchester section but not elsewhere."
Interestingly, the Times describes one Yorktown Town Councilmember's work against eminent domain abuse thusly:
Last January, he went further and engineered passage of a law barring the town from condemning private property for commercial purposes, while allowing it for traditional public uses, like the building of roads, sewers and schools. A vague declaration that a neighborhood is blighted or dangling a promise of jobs and taxes could not be used to expropriate a home or shop for a developer’s benefit.
Norman Oder notes that these same issues bear examination by The Times in New York City proper:
But when is the Times going to look more broadly and ask how eminent domain reforms in other jurisdictions, if applied in New York City, would affect controversial projects like Atlantic Yards?
After all, vague and contested declarations of blight and shifting promises about jobs and new tax revenues are hallmarks of the Atlantic Yards plan. And were standards recently adopted by New Jersey courts applied in Brooklyn, the exercise of eminent domain for Atlantic Yards might be stalled.
Links:
The NY Times, How Eminent Should Domain Be?
Atlantic Yards Report, The Times's eminent domain blind spot, again
Posted by lumi at 2:01 PM
August 31, 2007
The Times knows how to do better, just not when it comes to Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times is capable of fact-checking dubious or incomplete claims and it's capable of sustained reportorial attention--just not enough when it comes to Atlantic Yards.
Consider the tough analysis of the post-Katrina recovery, as noted in an article published Thursday headlined Commemorations for a City 2 Years After Storm. (Click on graphic to enlarge.)
Imagine if, say, the Times had similarly fact-checked the projection (according to a document by developer Forest City Ratner) that Atlantic Yards would be finished by 2015, given that the official date is 2016 and the the timetable is already behind schedule?
Or if the Times had reminded readers that the claim of 15,000 construction jobs really means 1500 jobs a year over ten years?
Or if the Times corrected the multiple claims, which it reproduced uncritically, that Atlantic Yards would be built on the "same site" as the proposed new Brooklyn Dodgers stadium?
Or if the Times, belatedly but responsibly, corrected the flagrantly inaccurate 12/11/03 claim, by then-architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, that the project site "is now an open railyard."
Maybe it's tougher to correct your own mistakes, but the Times has had a significant impact on framing the Atlantic Yards story.
Norman Oder wonders who's responsible.
Posted by lumi at 8:34 AM
August 25, 2007
The Times corrects some ten-year-old errors; what about the "same site" error?
Atlantic Yards Report
A correction in the New York Times on Thursday:
An article on Aug. 13, 1997, about an investigation into the police beating and torture of Abner Louima while he was in custody at a Brooklyn station house misstated his age at the time. (The same error appeared in at least nine other articles in 1997 and 2002, the year his case came to trial.) He was 30 then, not 33, and is now 40. A reader of The Times’s Web site noticed the error on a Times Topics page that was updated around the 10th anniversary of the attack.The attack was 8/9/97, which means that, for the anniversary, the Times managed to do the research and issue a correction in about two weeks.
So why has it taken so long for the Times to correct the multiple errors, from 8/8/03 to 11/13/05, in which Atlantic Yards was described as potentially occupying the same site Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley wanted for a new stadium? The newspaper was put on notice more than two-and-a-half months ago.
link
Using the 10 year correction waiting time as a barometer, a correction from 2003 should hit the paper in about 6 years. Let the countdown begin!
Posted by amy at 11:13 AM
August 24, 2007
Errol Louis denounces jock spousal abuse, but where's JKidd?
Atlantic Yards Report
Daily News columnist Errol Louis on Thursday took up the case of Michael Vick, the quarterback with an unsavory appetite for dogfighting. In a column headlined It's a dog and pony show: While Vick gets ripped for animal cruelty, the jocks who beat their wives get a pass, Louis made a quite reasonable point:
The same sports execs falling over themselves to sever Vick from the sport have been downright lenient when it comes to other offenders.
His examples:
- Michael Pittman of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a fourth domestic-violence arrest.
- Lionel Gates of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, charged with beating a pregnant woman.
- Lamar Thomas, formerly of the Miami Dolphins, put his pregnant fiancée's head through a window.
- Brett Myers of the Philadelphia Phillies allegedly dragged his wife around by the hair publicly.
- Bobby Chouinard of the Colorado Rockies, doing a year in jail after putting a loaded pistol to his wife's head.
What about JKidd?
I wondered if Louis would cite an example closer to home: New Jersey Nets point guard Jason Kidd, whose wife Joumana, in a recent divorce filing, accused him of serial adultery and regular physical abuse--front-page news in Louis's own newspaper.
Posted by lumi at 7:52 AM
August 22, 2007
NIMBY Love
Fighting Atlantic Yards takes hard work and . . . wedding vows?
The Village Voice
By Chris Thompson
We were just about to make fun of Dan Goldstein, who managed to cast himself in the role of a hand-wringing debutante stressing over whether or not his wedding would make the Vows column of the NY Times Sunday Styles section, when we started stumbling over a number of factual errors that warrant being corrected for the record (our corrections in bold):
It's getting damn close to the end times for opponents of the Atlantic Yards project, the massive basketball, housing, and retail complex slated to rise up on the 8.4-acre rail yards between Fort Greene and Prospect Heights and 14 acres of city streets and private property in Prospect Heights (but who's counting).
With two lawsuits
drawing to a close, one in which a decision is expected and the other to be argued in the appeals court in the next few months, lead anti–Atlantic Yards organizer Daniel Goldstein has been dreaming up every way possible to rally support for his cause. When the development company Forest City Ratner started offering lucrative buyouts to the owners of the condo building where he lives, Goldstein was the lone holdout in his building. He's since spent two years living alone in his 31-unit building, right where the New Jersey Nets will theoretically hit their jumpers. Now, loner Goldstein has found romance with fellow anti–Atlantic Yards activistShabmamShabnam Merchant, and the two plan to get married next month. And they've even cooked up a scheme to use their wedding to advance the anti-Ratner campaign. They've submitted their nuptials to the New York Times Sunday wedding-vows section, in the hope that editors will find the concept of NIMBY love too irresistible to pass up—and give the Atlantic Yards campaign a little free publicity to boot.
[Note: If a couple who have promoted a community-based plan for the railyards is "NIMBY," then by that definition, The Village Voice could probably be described as "NIMBY" as well. Aside from the fact that in this case, the "backyard" is Goldstein's living room.]
"I kinda doubt they would run it," Goldstein says, even as he squirms at the prospect of his personal life bleeding into La Causa. "They get tons of submissions. But I don't think there's a more interesting wedding occurring this month." If they give him a pass, he adds, he wouldn't be surprised. After all, his arch-nemesis Ratner built the Times's new headquarters.
The anti–Atlantic Yards coalition has pinned its hopes of forcing Ratner back to the bargaining table on two major lawsuits, both of which are due to be resolved in the fall. [Note: Once again, depending on how the two lawsuits are decided, they might continue for years to come.] The first suit challenges the Empire State Development Corporation's designation of the site as a "civic project," in which the public would derive so much use from the development that local land-use laws can be overridden, and whether or not environmental impacts of the project were adequately identified and studied.
The second is an appeal of the June 7 decision allowing the state to use eminent domain to clear out Goldstein and the rest of the property owners in the project's footprint. Handicapping court decisions is never wise, and Goldstein and his colleagues may yet live to fight another day. But if they lose these cases, they'll have lost their last chance to stop Atlantic Yards in its tracks, unless plaintiffs choose to continue the fight against the use of eminent domain in NY State court.
Which is why the Yards opponents' dogged insistence on planning the future of Brooklyn without the project seems so quaint at first glance. But that's just what Goldstein and his allies have spent months doing. In February, former city planning commissioner Ron
SchiffmanShiffman and University ofCincinattiCincinnati architecture professor Marshall Brown led a new effort to reimagine the Vanderbilt Yards area as if Ratner had never bought all those private parcels of land and jumped into bed with the state of New York. In a series of community meetings and bull sessions, they began sketching maps where Fort Greene and Prospect Heights were reconnected, where theaters and shopping malls replace the Nets arena. After all, says Brown, you never know. "Our strategy is about preparing for the possibility that the Forest City Ratner project may not continue," says Brown. "The history of that site is very long. Many projects have been proposed for that site, and they've come and gone. . . . Whether it's the success of various lawsuits, changes in financing—the economy's been a little rocky, in case you haven't heard."But Brown has a broader strategy in mind. This may look like a Hail Mary pass at first, but even if Forest City Ratner wins every lawsuit this fall and clears the deck, the project is scheduled to take
2010 years to complete, though many industry experts and observers concede it will take longer, perhaps even as long as 20 years.A lot of things can happen in 20 years, and sooner or later, Ratner will need community support once again. When that happens, Brown says, he and his colleagues will have a draft of options to present Ratner, who might incorporate at least a few of their ideas as part of a future compromise.
"We're not only doing this in the hopes that the Forest City project will not go through," Brown says. "Even if it does, there will be a lot of negotiating over details of the project. We hope that some of these principles we've developed will aid in how it gets resolved in the end. Even if Forest City builds their project, we're still looking at a 20-year process, and during that time, the project will change almost inevitably. And so we hope that these principles will have some effect."
That would come too late for Goldstein, who has dedicated his life to stopping the project. But at least he's found some solace in a partner. Over the course of fighting the Forest City project, Goldstein's engagement fell apart, and he found himself living a surreal life alone in an empty building. Meanwhile, his future bride abandoned her own job and threw her-self into the same campaign. Now they've found each other—and something beyond the specter of Jason Kidd sinking field goals on the spot of Goldstein's old bedroom. [Note: We imagine that Jason Kidd's specter keeps the little love-NIMBYs up at night.]
Posted by lumi at 9:23 AM
August 20, 2007
The Times's deceptive 421-a coverage--and the need for more disclosure
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt examined the paper's coverage of the war and concluded:
But there are special lengths that The Times — or any other news organization — must go to when dealing with an issue so protracted, so complicated, and so politicized.
But what if The NY Times applied that standard to its business partner, who's currently embroiled in a protracted, complicated and politicized issue in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn?
Norman Oder takes a look at the recent coverage of the special Atlantic Yards carveout in the affordable-housing reform bill, and makes the case that the Times could and should do better.
Posted by lumi at 8:33 AM
August 18, 2007
In Coney, development, planning, and the cost of delay
Atlantic Yards Report
Three very different editorial messages regarding Coney Island development appeared in the past week, and from some surprising venues, if not authors.It was the New York Times, often pro-development and steadily supportive of Atlantic Yards, which published an op-ed highly critical of Thor Equities’ plan for a massive beachside project heavily dependent on towers—once condos, now perhaps hotels and time-shares.
The New York Daily News, also pro-AY, published another critical op-ed. (The willingness to publish an op-ed doesn't necessarily signal the newspaper's outlook, but consider that the Times refused op-eds critical of Atlantic Yards before publishing a lukewarm one in November 2005, nearly two years after the project was announced.)
And it was the weekly Brooklyn Paper, which has editorialized against Atlantic yards and provided critical print coverage, that seems far more welcoming to Thor.
Posted by amy at 9:36 AM
The Courier-Life, in print, gets the "carve-out" wrong
Atlantic Yards Report
From this week's Courier-Life chain, an online article headlined Spitzer sent compromise 421-a plan describes the modified Atlantic Yards carve-out" not inaccurately:According to published reports, the deal includes Ratner getting a subsidy for 15 years instead of 25 years as per the 421-a subsidy on 1,930 market-rate condos slated for the Atlantic Yards project.
Oddly enough, the print version of the article, like the New York Times's coverage, omits the special tax break for Forest City Ratner that would remain, worth $150-$200 million. An article in the Park Slope Courier states:
Under the new legislation, FCRC buildings in the project must meet the new affordability requirements in order to qualify for a 25-year tax abatement.Unmentioned is the 15-year subsidy available to no other developer.
Posted by amy at 9:33 AM
Again, Errol Louis misses the point regarding the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning
Atlantic Yards Report looks at Errol Louis' column in the Aug. 16 Our Time Press (not yet online) where he discusses the proposed "cultural project to commemorate Brooklyn's role in the Underground Railroad."
Louis writes:
Call me cynical, but I seriously doubt that the city's money or the top-notch advisory panel named to administer it will quiet the critics of development in downtown Brooklyn. The real goal of the loudest critics is to prevent the new condos, apartments, hotels and retail stores in the area, following the misguided logic that keeping investment, amenities and new residents out of this part of Brooklyn is the best way to keep local housing prices from rising.That battle was fought and lost long ago. The city council voted years ago to rezone downtown Brooklyn so that tall buildings could be built near the foot of the Manhattan Bridge and the mayor signed the bill. The resulting plans to invest billions in the area represent all kinds of business and job opportunities.
Didn't Louis make the same mistake a little more than two months ago? The City Council voted to rezone Downtown Brooklyn to foster office space and increase jobs. Instead, the market changed and housing became more lucrative.
Critics have called for inclusionary zoning--sharing of the wealth offered developers by the increase in their development rights. The organization FUREE argues that public dollars disproportionately favor the wealthy.
Posted by amy at 9:27 AM
August 16, 2007
The ESDC is not "hands-off" nor not "not hands-on"
A clarification from the ESDC press secretary Errol Cockfield in response to yesterday's NY Observer article, which stated ESDC Downstate Chairperson Patrick Foye "has not taken as hands-on an approach with the Brooklyn complex as he has with Javits and Moynihan", and NoLandGrab's lead-in, which quipped that Foye "explains why he's been pretty hands-off:"
ESDC Chairman Pat Foye never told the New York Observer that he was taking a hands-off approach to the Atlantic Yards project. The paper is running a clarification in its next edition.
ESDC has been thoroughly engaged with the community on this project. Our representatives have met with elected officials, community leaders, and even project opponents.
What Foye sought to convey to the Observer is that unlike the government-led projects our agency is shaping right now, Atlantic Yards was approved before this administration and is led by a private developer in partnership with government actors. Despite that distinction, ESDC - under its new leadership - has and is taking steps to closely monitor the project and address community concerns as it gets built.
SNARK ALERT!
In a nutshell: It's not our fault, we're just "government actors." Blame it on Pataki and that "private developer." Nevertheless, our job is to make sure that the project is monitored while it's built.
Posted by lumi at 1:17 PM
Which City Is the Bloggiest of Them All?
readexpress.com
Who's the second most bloggiest and who cares?
SHAW IS NOT the nation's second bloggiest neighborhood, despite prior reports to the contrary. But Washington is the nation's fourth bloggiest metropolitan area, with Boston coming in at No. 1, followed by Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Maybe.
How exactly do you determine the "blogginess" of an area? Well, "[i]t's all empirical science, really," blogging entrepreneur Steven Berlin Johnson said to a room full of giddy Brooklyn bloggers at the blog-heavy borough's second-ever blogfest. (How many times can you use "blog" in a sentence? That many.)
Johnson, whose OutsideIn.com has been trying to make sense of location-centric blogging, recently came out with rankings of the nation's bloggiest cities, following up a similar study of the nation's most blog-heavy neighborhoods.
...
But at the May 10 Brooklyn blogger gathering, Johnson, a Bethesda native and author of "Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way We Create and Communicate" and "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software," admitted that his results weren't always entirely scientific. For example, D.C.'s Shaw neighborhood, ranked as the nation's second-bloggiest neighborhood, really came in behind Brooklyn's blog-heavy neighborhoods of Prospect Heights, Gowanus, Park Slope and Clinton Hill, which ranked No. 1.So why alter the results?
Posted by lumi at 8:02 AM
August 15, 2007
TV LAND: real estate developers don't get no respect
This season, actor Matthew Modine joins the cast of the Showtime series, "Weeds," playing Sullivan Groff, a slimy real estate developer — more evidence that "real estate developers" have joined "lawyers" and "used-car salesmen" on the low end of the ethical scale.
Last season, in two separate episodes of CBS's crime drama "CSI Miami," the sexiest crime lab on TV solved the murders of a greedy real estate developer and a city councilman who was backing a plan to use eminent domain.
While the war in Iraq and the latest Bush administration woes continue to dominate the headlines, one story that is bubbling under is that most Americans think that eminent domain for private gain is unfair and that there is an unseemly relationship between real estate developers and our elected officals.
Posted by lumi at 6:41 AM
August 13, 2007
Dailies fall down on Ward Bakery incident follow-up
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder reviews who covered the Department of Buildings' Ward Bakery Parapet Collapse report and, just as importantly, who didn't:
The news that the Department of Buildings (DoB) had investigated the collapse of the Ward Bakery parapet on April 26 and issued violations was a scoop last Friday for the Daily News; I quickly followed up.
But where's the rest of the press? Why was it news for one publication and not another? After all, the initial incident was covered by the Times, the Daily News, the Post, NY Newsday/AM NY, Metro, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and a gamut of weeklies and blogs. Oddly enough, the New York Sun missed the story.
How does one explain the media's silence when they get scooped (which primarily benefits the developer)?
“News organizations are habitually slow at responding to stories broken elsewhere,” Mr. Keller said.“The easy explanation, and one that contains a good measure of truth, is pride,” he acknowledged. "Reporters (and editors) don’t enjoy being beaten.”
...“But it’s not just pride,” Mr. Keller stressed in his e-mail. There is, I agree, the nagging and legitimate question of how much a competitor’s sensitive scoop can be trusted...
In this case, the competitor's scoop was easily verifiable; while the DOB did not issue its report as a press release--which might have led to a round of simultaneous reportage--it was readily available on request after the publication of the Daily News article.
Posted by lumi at 8:55 AM
August 9, 2007
Brooklyn Paper is ‘Newspaper of the Year’
Suburban Newspapers of America bestowed its top honors to The Brooklyn Paper, citing the weekly paper's "aggressive, readable coverage of" Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project:
The Brooklyn Paper is a Suburban Newspapers of America “Newspaper of the Year,” the group announced on Monday.
Finding that “The Brooklyn Paper was strongly and brightly written throughout,” SNA’s judges heaped special praise on the newspaper for its reporting on the Atlantic Yards mega-development.
“The Brooklyn Paper’s aggressive, readable coverage of local developer Bruce Ratner stood out,” they wrote.
...
Publisher Ed Weintrob said he was particularly pleased that the judges singled out The Paper’s Atlantic Yards coverage for praise.“This story — the biggest Brooklyn story in our lifetimes — is one we’ve stayed with over four years, despite strong commercial pressures to do otherwise, and despite appearing out on a limb, given the determination of other New York newspapers to either ignore it or misreport it.”
NoLandGrab: If not for Publisher Ed Weintraub, Editor Gersh Kuntzman, the paper's staff reporters and their fearless coverage of Atlantic Yards, all of the developing news on Atlantic Yards would pretty much be limited to the Internet. Congrats to Brooklyn Paper — and thanks.
Posted by lumi at 9:08 AM
August 8, 2007
The Brooklyn blogs, AY, and the class issue
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder addresses the simplistic question of race and class of Brooklyn bloggers posed by Brain Lehrer on his WNYC morning talk show:
First, there's a lot more to criticize and analyze about AY than to praise. My critical take on Atlantic Yards emerged not from knee-jerk opposition to the project but from an immersion in the details. A pro-Atlantic Yards blog might simply copy the infrequently updated AtlanticYards.com.
Second, if Forest City Ratner wanted more pro-Atlantic Yards blogs, it could pay to create them, as it paid for the Brooklyn Standard and helped support Brooklyn Tomorrow, both "publications" more than newspapers. Given the large sums spent on by the developer on p.r., much of which gets some media coverage, is the playing field really level?
Third, whether or not those of us using the blog format--both seat-of-the-pants bloggers and veteran journalists--come from a specific class background, we're still democratizing the flow of information compared to the constrained media attention to Brooklyn and its controversies.
And I don't see Lehrer and others who repeat the class criticism doing a head count of the reporters in, say, the New York Times's Brooklyn bureau to make sure they accurately represent the borough's diversity.
NoLandGrab: It's rather simplistic to break down the Brooklyn blogging issue along lines of race and class without first comparing these observations to computer ownership and Internet usage data broken down along these same lines. Since blogs are self-published, the barrier to entry might be more of a usage issue.
Posted by lumi at 7:34 AM
August 3, 2007
The dismantling of the Yankee empire
Fortune CNN Money
The Dolan family's Cablevision is a possible bidder for the YES Network, the television broadcast home of the NJ Nets. The Dolans also own Madison Square Garden, the NY Knicks and Rangers and financed a multi-million-dollar publicity campaign which helped to successfully block the West Side Stadium.
The New York Yankees' cable network, the YES Network, is for sale, Fortune has learned. And some baseball insiders and Yankees limited partners are wondering whether the team itself might be next.
The highest-rated regional sports network in the country and the cable home of the Yankees and the NBA New Jersey Nets, YES is jointly owned by the Yankees, investment bank Goldman Sachs & Co. (Charts, Fortune 500) , and former Nets owner Ray Chambers. Goldman and Chambers would like to cash out, YES and Yankees insiders say, and one source says to expect a deal by summer's end. Some possible bidders: Cablevision, Comcast (Charts), News Corp. (Charts, Fortune 500) and Verizon (Charts, Fortune 500).
Posted by lumi at 9:00 AM
August 2, 2007
Made in Brooklyn
This birth announcement for Brooklyn's latest baby bruiser, who showed up at the weigh-in sporting a whopping 9 lbs. 10 oz., was posted on The Brooklyn Paper web site:
Editor Gersh Kuntzman and photographer Julie Rosenberg welcomed “Big Ben” into the world (with a little help from the docs at New York Methodist Hospital in Park Slope) on Tuesday at 11:57 am. The tot weighed in at 9 pounds, 10 ounces.
“He’s the biggest, densest thing to hit Brooklyn since Atlantic Yards,” quipped Kuntzman. “But he’s far less controversial.”
NoLandGrab: Thankfully extreme density is a good thing when it comes to babies! Welcome Benjamin Henry Kuntzman and congratulations to the family.
Posted by lumi at 8:00 AM
July 29, 2007
The Times’s continued blind spots in its eminent domain coverage
Atlantic Yards Report looks at the missing stories in today's New York Times eminent domain article, and explains why the article only appears in regional sections (Westchester, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut):
Maybe the placement of the article made it easier for the Times to fail to acknowledge that its parent company is a beneficiary of eminent domain, for the new Times Tower in Manhattan. Or to mention the eminent domain donnybrook concerning Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and developer Forest City Ratner, the same developer that has partnered with the Times Company in building the Times Tower.Sure, reporters have to pick and choose, but the Times does point out how, in the wake of legislative inaction in all three states, in New Jersey, the courts have stepped in, assisted by the state’s Public Advocate, overruling the designation that “unproductive” properties—as in, not built out to full zoning rights—are blighted. That’s further stopped a major development plan in Newark. As I’ve written, were Atlantic Yards in New Jersey, the new rules might stymie the project.
And the Times, of course, never covered the May 3 court hearing in the suit challenging the Atlantic Yards environmental review, during which Supreme Court Justice Joan Madden expressed skepticism about the designation of blight.
The pattern is dismaying. In a front-page round-up article on eminent domain in February 2006, the Times similarly failed to mention Atlantic Yards or the Times Tower. However, three months later, when Mayor Mike Bloomberg defended eminent domain as a priority, the Times in its coverage acknowledged the newspaper company's own history.
Posted by amy at 10:59 AM
A window on the Times-Ratner relationship, from the top? Not til 2050
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Times Company announced last week that it will donate its vast archives, which date back to 1851, to The New York Public Library, but the key elements for Atlantic Yards watchers probably won't be available until 2050.
...
The Times and AYHas Sulzberger, concerned about the parent company's relationship with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner, the newspaper company's partner on the new Times Tower, influenced the Times's editorial policy on Atlantic Yards? I suspect so, as in the newspaper's conflicted silence prior to the Atlantic Yards approval last December by the Public Authorities Control Board.
After all, the Times was willing to guarantee a loan to the developer. As I've written before, I don't think the business relationship means Times reporters are in the tank, though I believe the newspaper has an obligation to be exacting in its coverage, and has not fulfilled that obligation.
Posted by amy at 10:55 AM
July 24, 2007
Bklyn Techie "Mau Mau" NoLandGrab!
A columnist for Brooklyn Tech's "The Survey" explains that he has perused NoLandGrab on a number of occasions, but apparently not enough to get the joke that compared him to another columnist who is frequently cited for playing fast and loose with Atlantic Yards facts.
Several readers thought that the call to "Mau Mau the Yuppies" might have been an absurd parody, but apparently not. Yesterday the columnist went on the offensive in his open letter to NoLandGrab:
Having perused your blog on a number of occasions, it’s glaringly obvious that you and your colleagues are not a guileless, altruistic bunch. Remember, Ratner is a businessman looking to make a profit. He is under no obligation to vet your complaints; quite frankly, neither would I if faced with the prospect of addressing a cabal of ad hominem-happy, third-rate Buckleys with too much time on their hands. That you’ve elected to rag on a high school paper is primary evidence of how desperate your situation has become.
[The opinion piece from Tech's high school paper appeared in a Google News Search and thus becomes part of the archived record of opinions on the project.]
The columnist goes on to describe his good fortune of never having run into the Hagan sisters:
In my daily experiences studying and shopping in Fort Greene and its adjacent areas over the past three years, I have yet to meet an individual vehemently opposed to the development.
Ironically, it seems like the piece headlined, "Mau-Mau the Yuppies, Ratner!" wasn't meant to be published, at least not with the vitriol and invective that puzzled many readers:
Thanks to the kind of miscommunication that is unavoidable in any news organization, “Mau Mau the Yuppies, Ratner” – an earlier draft (c. February 2007) of an article that was published last month that was initially planned as an editorial, hence all the vitriol – was archived on our website. Nevertheless, I still stand by most of the opinions espoused in that piece to a large extent.
NoLandGrab: We weren't ragging on the opinions, just the facts, like the one that, "Ratner has expressed interest in constructing new facilities for Tech within the Atlantic Yards complex." Ratner's plan was to build new facilities in his floundering METROTECH and turn Tech's historic building into condos, but thanks for playing and for the laughs.
The most recent "President of BTHSnews.org" posted a response attempting to analyze the quirky column and our inside-joke response, "It's Nice To Be Examined."
We're not sure that Ratner would agree that it is "nice to be examined;" remember, an ex-FCR exec described it as "Orwellian" to the NY Times.
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
July 22, 2007
In the Times: the Public Editor looks at the Times, an affordable housing delay, and no response to "Cracker Barrel 2.0"
Atlantic Yards Report
In today's New York Times, new Public Editor Clark Hoyt, in a column headlined Tiptoeing Around the Family Business, examines how the Times has had trouble covering the challenge by a major outside shareholder to the stock structure that leaves the Ochs-Sulzberger families in control of the company.Hoyt observes:
Amid all this turmoil [in the news industry], aggressively reported and analyzed in The Times, there has been a comparative silence in the paper about its own owners, their challenges and their strategy. From Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to Landon Thomas Jr., a business reporter who has been assigned stories about The Times, everyone acknowledges a fundamental truth: It’s hard to write about yourself.He could have gone even further to discuss the Times's sketchy coverage of its own real estate deals, in selling its old building and acquiring land for the new Times Tower, built by the parent New York Times Company and developer Forest City Ratner. And that might have led to scrutiny of the Times's coverage of Atlantic Yards.
Posted by amy at 9:32 AM
July 19, 2007
Give this man a Pulitzer
David Smith from Affordable Housing Institute makes the case for giving Norman "the Mad Overkiller" Oder the Pulitzer ("hear hear!") for "THE MOST DISINTERESTED AND MERITORIOUS PUBLIC SERVICE:"
Whatever you think of Atlantic Yards — and I still haven’t made up my mind, because so many things are in flux and shifting — what Mr. Oder has done represents investigative journalism of the highest order. He’s done the cause of public-private governance a huge service, all on a shoestring, fired (as far as I can tell) by nothing but altruistic motives.
NoLandGrab: And all along we thought that the Pulitzer motto was, "boldly going where no journalist has gone before."
Posted by lumi at 8:16 AM
July 9, 2007
Errol Louis gloats about AY eminent domain case, but take another look
Atlantic Yards Report
Not only does Errol Louis gloat about Judge Garaufis's decision on in the federal eminent domain case, but he takes a pot shot at Norman "The Mad Overkiller" Oder.
The "Mad O" puts the Atlantic Yards ideologue and local pundit through some of that mind-bending analysis and challenges him to a public debate.
The lead segment of Louis’s Commerce and Community column (not online) in the Bed-Stuy-based June 16 Our Time Press is headlined "All the News That’s Fit to Spin," which might describe some of Louis’s own work.
...
As for whether I “ducked” Louis's "published invitation," keep in mind that, a year ago, he refused to answer any direct questions from me. I could play the same game and publicly invite Louis to explain why he hasn't written about numerous questionable aspects of Atlantic Yards (like, say, the $300 million in subsidies even the mayor opposes).But I won't. Instead, I’d be happy to debate him, in public, about our respective coverage of the Atlantic Yards project and the general media coverage of the project. Maybe we could do it in front of his class (and others).
But let’s look closely at Louis’s claimed falsehoods, as well as the judge’s assessment. By my account, only one of the claims is false; the others are matters of dispute, no matter what the judge concluded.
Posted by lumi at 9:17 AM
July 8, 2007
Man Bites Blog
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
The NY Times has a fluffy article today about the blogging boom in Brooklyn. Astoundingly and inexplicably, the article makes no mention of Atlantic Yards, the borough's biggest and most controversial development plan, and the two influential, widely-read blogs it has spawned: Atlantic Yards Report and NoLandGrab.It's not whining to suggest that there is something wrong with this omission; an article on blogging in Brooklyn without mention of these two essential and extraordinary blogs is like an article on Atlantic Yards without mention of Bruce Ratner, or a Times article about Atlantic Yards without disclosure of the company's business relationship with Forest City Ratner.
Posted by amy at 2:03 PM
AY a notable omission in accounts of the Brooklyn blogging boom
Atlantic Yards Report talks about how we got dissed by the Times, Courier-Life and Brooklyn!!!, the tabloid produced by the office of Borough President Marty Markowitz:
But it was curious, though not surprising given the sources, that three recent articles mentioning the Blogfest and the Brooklyn blogging boom, including the cover story in today's New York Times City section, ignored Atlantic Yards, notably this web site and No Land Grab.
...
It's kind of strange that the Times would omit Atlantic Yards; after all, the newspaper ran an article on the front of the Metro section in April 2006, describing AY as "the first large-scale urban real estate venture in New York City where opposition has coalesced most visibly in the blogosphere." (The account of the Blogfest on the Times blog did mention Atlantic Yards.)
Posted by amy at 10:59 AM
Following the Times's architecture critics down the path of concern
Atlantic Yards Report
The first three passages regard Atlantic Yards, the fourth Governors Island. No, the two projects aren't exactly comparable, but the observations are nonetheless interesting. Emphases added.Herbert Muschamp, Courtside Seats to an Urban Garden, 12/11/05:
A Garden of Eden grows in Brooklyn. This one will have its own basketball team. Also, an arena surrounded by office towers; apartment buildings and shops; excellent public transportation; and, above all, a terrific skyline, with six acres of new parkland at its feet. Almost everything the well-equipped urban paradise must have, in fact.Nicolai Ouroussoff, Seeking First to Reinvent the Sports Arena, and Then Brooklyn, 7/5/05:
Even in this early stage of development, the design proves that Mr. Gehry can handle the challenge better than most. His approach is a blow against the formulaic ways of thinking that are evidence of the city's sagging level of cultural ambition. It suggests another development model: locate real talent, encourage it to break the rules, get out of the way.Nicolai Ouroussoff, Skyline for Sale, 6/4/06:
Beyond that, their collaboration points up a major change in the way cities are being built. There was a time when government took an interest in big urban planning projects. Mr. Ratner and Mr. Gehry are operating under a model by which the government plays only a marginal role. Bigger social concerns, like housing for mixed incomes, equal access to parks and transit, and vibrant communal spaces, which were once the public’s purview, now increasingly fall to developers to address or not, as they see fit.
...
Nicolai Ouroussoff, Competing Visions for Governors Island, 6/20/07:
Five proposals for the 40-acre park area at the southern half of the island offer the clearest evidence so far of what the island’s future could hold. The designs, commissioned by the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation, should be regarded as preliminary sketches. After the winning design is selected next month, it will no doubt face significant revisions. Even so, the five proposals hold clues to what’s right and wrong about how public space is designed.
Posted by amy at 10:53 AM
July 7, 2007
New ‘Times’ Tower: ‘It's Like the Dark Ages’
Daily Intelligencer
The soaring new New York Times tower — already known for its weird toilets (when flushed, they apparently sound like a kitten being strangled), its weirder elevators (no buttons, and no indication of what floor they're on), a leak problem (editor Bill Keller's office got soggy in a recent rainstorm), and a mouse problem (reported by Gawker) — still has a few more surprises between the floorboards: maggots. "It's hard to put out a newspaper when you're worried about what might fall on your head," one Times staffer told us this week. "One of the photo editors was sitting at her desk and maggots started falling from the ceiling tile on to her head."That wasn't all. The maggots — Webster's says they're "legless, soft-bodied, wormlike larva of various flies of the order Diptera, often found in decaying matter" — were not alone. They were "followed by a rat," our source said. A dead rat, that is, "that had been eaten by the maggots." You could hear stifled screams ripple through the newsroom as word spread, said the source. "We all scanned our own ceilings for any loose tiles," the source continued. "With maggot-y ceilings and rats falling out of the air, it's like the dark ages in this building that was supposed to bring us into the 21st century."
link
Either way, we now understand the paltry Times' Atlantic Yards coverage - too busy ducking their own rats.
NoLandGrab:Blight, or Biblical prophecy? "Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you." Isaiah 14:11
Posted by amy at 9:08 AM
July 3, 2007
More Thoughts on Expansion Of the Atlantic Avenue Jail
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Editorial
By Dennis Holt
In an article about the prospects and concerns over reopening the Brooklyn House of Detention on Atlantic Ave, Dennis Holt takes a personal jab at Dan Goldstein of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.
What if Bruce Ratner had not gotten to the rail yards first? Would that empty space, on top of mass transit, be a target for a jail? Maybe, and I can see Daniel Goldstein starting a group called “Develop, Don’t Jail Brooklyn.”
Posted by lumi at 8:00 AM
July 2, 2007
Brennan: risky rentals point to need for smaller project, guarantees
Atlantic Yards Report notes that one key point from State Assemblyman Jim Brennan's press release didn't make it into this Sunday's NY Times article:
A press release from Assemblyman Jim Brennan fills in some of the blanks left out of yesterday's murky New York Times article. For one thing, Brennan thinks the project's questionable financials point to a downsizing, as well as a requirement that the affordable housing be guaranteed.
Posted by lumi at 1:26 PM
July 1, 2007
The "Delicate Beast" Unravels
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn takes on today's Times article:
There are some errors and oddities in the article that strain credulity. One error is that the huge Frank Gehry ego-trip, aka "Miss Brooklyn," will open in 2009. That is pure fantasy, considering the developer is terribly behind schedule due to lawsuits. One oddity straining credulity is that the article claims Ratner plans on making his money from the office space rather than the lucrative 6,430 residential units. That can't be. If it were the case, why did the developer propose more residential units by reducing the office space to around 360,000 square feet down from the orginal proposal's 2.1 million squre feet? Not to make less money, one would presume.Additionally, since Forest City Ratner has not put up the $4 billion the project is said to cost, but rather likely something significantly less, the 5% developer's fee the article says Ratner will claim becomes a much higher return on investment when one considers, well, Ratner's investment.
Posted by amy at 12:09 PM
Murky Times article on AY financials leaves impression Ratner deserves a long leash
Atlantic Yards Report
A Metro front New York Times article today, headlined (online) as Official Sees Possible Risk in Big Project in Brooklyn and featuring contributions from four (! ) reporters, is rather murky, but the main message seems to be this: because developer Forest City Ratner may be optimistically projecting condo revenues and construction costs, that jeopardizes the affordable housing promised as the main public benefit, and that should have been disclosed earlier. (The headline in print is "Documents Show Risk In Big Project In Brooklyn.")It almost reads like a backhanded argument for the $300 million in special subsidies that the state's 421-a reform would provide to FCR, though that issue is not mentioned and, given that this article was likely weeks in preparation, could not have been the trigger.
Though the Times article breaks some news, notably about the condo market and construction costs, it also muddies the waters, failing to sufficiently analyze the developer's potential profit and failing to calculate the public subsidies for the project. Also, it fails to acknowledge that the developer's announced ten-year buildout may be a fantasy.
Thus the article doesn't squarely address the question posed by Assemblyman Jim Brennan, who sued to get the documents he passed on to the Times, asking "whether the Project’s size and density could be reduced without endangering its economic viability.” Instead, it leaves the impression that Forest City Ratner needs as long a leash as possible, even though it has essentially received a private rezoning for prime property.
article
NoLandGrab: As always, Atlantic Yards Report is the best place to go to read a complete breakdown of all the fact and figures described in the Times article.
Posted by amy at 12:05 PM
The Times's disconnect on "sewer money" and Forest City Ratner
Atlantic Yards Report
In today's Times, an editorial lambastes New York’s Sewer Money, "the millions of dollars used by lobbyists to buy New York laws and New York lawmakers."It's an editorial about the need for systemic campaign reforms, and no names are named. Still, it puts in glaring relief the Times's failure to report in print (rather than a blog mention) about the companies and entities that spent the most on lobbying last year.
Forest City Ratner, developer of the Atlantic Yards project, came in third. Among real estate developers, FCR was first. And lobbying, as with the "Atlantic Yards carve-out" in the reform of the 421-a tax break, seems to be paying off, and the Times has not yet urged a veto.
Posted by amy at 11:18 AM
June 24, 2007
Will the Times advise Spitzer to veto 421-a?
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder sees that Governor Spitzer should, for now, veto the 421-a revision just passed by the New York Legislature.
A veto shouldn't kill the measure for good. If there's to be a summer session to deal with outstanding legislation, there's no reason the legislature couldn't revisit 421-a.
Will The New York Times encourage Governor Spitzer to take a stand against the 421-a Ratner clause?
The New York Times has taken some strong stands against pork-barrel legislation--but not regarding legislation that would help its parent company's business partner, Forest City Ratner, even though the "Atlantic Yards carve-out" that is so egregious that Ratner and Assemblyman Vito Lopez are unwilling to defend it.
Posted by steve at 8:25 AM
June 23, 2007
A p.r. man's fate: fighting the West Side Stadium, flacking for the Brooklyn Arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder provides some history for us about Forest City Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt. While he did p.r. work for Madison Square Garden, he seemed to know a waste of taxpayer money when he saw it:
"Whether it is the most expensive football stadium ever or the most expensive protest area ever, the West Side Stadium is a colossal waste of $600 million in taxpayer resources and that's what the vast majority of New Yorkers are really protesting against."
With a different employer, perhaps he's now in favor of colossal wastes of taxpayer resources.
Posted by steve at 10:00 AM
June 22, 2007
Art for Yards sake? Man sleeps in window and makes a larger point
The Brooklyn Paper
Reporter Ariella Cohen picked up on our commentary about Travis Clarke's "Sleeping Man":
Little did Clarke know just how the statement, the dead tree limb in the window and his somnolent, halogen-lit body next to it would resonate with neighborhood residents, many of whom have learned a whole lot about trying do something that indeed has proven to be (so far) impossible.
“Could the tree also be representing the possibility of a future dead neighborhood?” asked one area resident, Lumi Rolley, on her anti–Atlantic Yards blog, No Land Grab.
NoLandGrab: Only "Lumi" didn't say it. The rhetorical question was posed by "Amy," who is commonly known as the "funny one," and, behind the scenes, as the one who can speel (sic!).
Incidentally, NLG isn't Lumi's blog either; she's just allowed to work here for free.
As for The Brooklyn Paper, if you're gonna act like amateurs, can you at least get a blog?
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
June 19, 2007
Remember the Brooklyn Standard? The permanent campaign adjusts
Atlantic Yards Report remembers "The Brooklyn Standard," which was, like, so-o-o yesterday.
The press release offered a prediction of publication “every few months”: “We want The Brooklyn Standard to be informative and to the point on issues related to the Atlantic Yards project,” Bruce Bender, the FCRC executive vice president for government and public affairs. “Every few months we will put out a new issue with updates, summaries of meetings, up-coming events and even other activities throughout the borough that people may find interesting.
Now "Brooklyn Tomorrow" is here today:
Now we have the annual Brooklyn Tomorrow, produced not by Manhattan Media for Forest City Ratner but by the New York Post's Community Newspaper Group (aka Courier-Life) for... well, the advertisers, who most prominently include Forest City Ratner and Barclays Capital.
The tabloid appears in each edition of this week's Courier-Life issues, as well. Consider it another adjustment in the "Atlantic Yards permanent campaign."
Posted by lumi at 9:54 AM
Coney Island Condo Plan Killed, Hotels Proposed Instead
Commercial Property News
By Eugene Gilligan, Senior Editor
An article about Thor Equities's change of plans for its Coney Island redevelopment proposal includes this bit about hotels in Brooklyn, with an interesting characterization of Atlantic Yards:
In fact, hotel development in Coney Island is in keeping with the increased level of hotel construction in Brooklyn, as the borough has seen an increased level of hotel development in recent years, McConnell said. He predicted that Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn, near the gigantic Atlantic Yards mixed-use development, should see more hotel development in the future.
NoLandGrab: A year ago, it would have been unthinkable that any reporter would characterize "Atlantic Yards" as "gigantic," even though it is the largest single-source private development in NYC history, and would be the densest residential community in the nation by a long shot.
Posted by lumi at 8:44 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Duffled Street Underground, PRESS CONFERENCE TODAY: EXPERTS TO DISPUTE CITY REPORT DENYING EXISTENCE OF UNDERGROUND RAILROAD SITE
On Juneteenth – a national celebration that commemorates the end of slavery – elected officials, historic preservationists, and local residents will rally at Duffield Houses to challenge the conclusions of the City's Economic Development Corporation report, which denies the existence of a historic Underground Railroad site at this location. Many of the nationally-renowned expert witnesses who worked on this report will directly repudiate the City's conclusions – which will now allow a private developer to demolish the Duffield Houses and build a parking lot at the site.
WHEN:
Tuesday, June 19, 2007 from 1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.WHERE:
227 Duffield Street (between Fulton & Willoughby)
McBrooklyn, Lawsuit to Save 'Duffield Seven' from Downtown Brooklyn Plan
A lawsuit has been filed against the city which aims to save the seven houses on and near Duffield Street that may have been part of the Underground Railroad, amNewYork reports.
These houses are in the footprint of parts of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan, and slated for demolition.
"There is no debate at this point that prominent abolitionists lived at 227 Duffield St.," said Jennifer Levy, a lawyer with South Brooklyn Legal Services, which filed the suit Friday.
I'm Seeing Green, Ted Kennedy Blows off Wind (Farm)
There's NIMBY and then there's NIMBY:
Not in my backyard is a well-known phenomenon where an activist group gets together to stop projects that they consider will have negative consequences for their immediate environs. This can be good or bad, depending on your viewpoint:
If it's the Atlantic Yards monstrosity, those of us against the destruction of the neighborhood feel we are on the side of the angels. That's another story, well discussed on the blogosphere.
If it's wind turbines a few miles off the coast, it's harder to understand the opposition.
We're thinking of wind turbines to make use of some of that hot air coming out of Borough Hall these days.
Leaning Cantonese, Local Action
A local blogger turns into a "long hair" to start a signature campaign and notes that a group in Hong Kong is making noise on the web, like some folks we know:
Like the Brooklyn-based blogs and groups that have been fighting the Atlantic Yards mega-development, Local Action has been using the Internet to move popular opinion and to organize the public to attend all the little and obscure town planning meetings where these projects get rubber stamped. Publicity, and noisy informed people may not be able to completely stop the deals and the giveaways, but it will force the big guys to work harder. And that will slow things down, maybe until the bubble finally bursts.
Posted by lumi at 7:41 AM
June 15, 2007
Brooklyn Tomorrow: synergy and puffery
Atlantic Yards Report check's out yesterday's four-color glossy 48-page insert in the NY Post.
Atlantic Yards and the Barclay's Center inhabit all four inside and outside cover pages, while a "cheery" "article" by Courier-Life reporter Steve Witt looks more like "journalizement" (or is it "advertorialism?").
It's a document for our times, a promotional magazine inserted in yesterday’s New York Post, not labeled advertorial though it certainly reads as such. Brooklyn Tomorrow is subtitled “The changing face of the bustling borough’s dynamic communities,” and features advertising and cheery articles mainly about major development projects.
Produced by the Post’s Community Newspaper Group, and written by staffers from the Courier-Life chain the Post purchased, Brooklyn Tomorrow reads like the return of Forest City Ratner's promotional Brooklyn Standard, but under the imprimatur of an actual newspaper rather than as a “publication.”
And, of course, FCR's Atlantic Yards project gets royal treatment. The cover boasts a full-frontal close-up of Frank Gehry’s Miss Brooklyn, which could be described as "massive" or perhaps "striking," rather than “elegant," as stated. On the back cover, another view of Miss Brooklyn, in the Barclays Center advertisement that first appeared in January.
On the inside back cover, another advertisement for the Barclays Center. On the inside front cover, a Forest City Ratner advertisement, stating, “What will Atlantic Yards bring to Brooklyn?” The lead article declares Atlantic Yards “the crown jewel of Brooklyn’s renaissance.”
NoLandGrab: Who needs a fake tabloid when the Post will do it for you?
Posted by lumi at 7:08 AM
June 13, 2007
[De]Construction of The Neighborhood
By Tracy Collins
Hardcover, $40; Softcover, $25
Purchase: AtlanticYardsPhotoBook.com
Photographer Tracy Collins has been posting his dramatic images of his neighborhood-in-flux on flickr, as Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project is not only transforming the footprint of the project, but looms over the surrounding blocks.
Now, Collins has organized these images into a book that provides a snapshot of a neighborhood on the precipice of dramatic change.
With a simple neighborhood map outlining the footprint and showing the location of all of the images, the photos speak for historic buildings set to be demolished and their neighbors, which will remain to endure and bear witness.
In the Epilogue, Collins shares his feelings about the project, which seem to reflect the sentiment of the entire neighborhood:
As my home would be less than a block from the nearest hi-rise building on the corner of Dean St. and Carlton Avenue, I'm anxious, to say the least.
...
My neighbors and I will have to live with decades of construction and the consequences of whatever gets built. I'd love to have a reasonable, rational and attractive development built over the rail yards. Who doesn't? But if Atlantic Yards in its current form is what is actually built, I fear that the neighborhood in which I chose to make my home will not be merely transformed, but will be replaced.
Is Collins's book a rallying cry or a requiem? It would depend on your own thoughts and feelings about the project.
Posted by lumi at 10:16 AM
June 12, 2007
Weird things at Atlantic Yards
After reading Gotham Gazette's latest on Atlantic Yards, I figured I'd see what Google's new Street Views offers in the way of imagery for the area. What I found is a bit odd:
 |
Is this perhaps a sly commentary on the Frank Gehry-designed development? Or just a glitch in the software centered on Atlantic Yards? Or a veil over construction/demolition? Or even a Christo installation that somehow escaped the news?
Posted by lumi at 7:48 AM
June 11, 2007
The Borough of Writers: Mid-Year Book Report
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Brad Lockwood
When Marty starts touting local authors, "literary Brooklyn" becomes a brand, not an incubator of talent, especially when the borough's most prominent writers are highly critical of his stance on Atlantic Yards:
The annual BookExpo America (BEA) was held in New York City last week, with the Brooklyn brand front and center. Borough President Marty Markowitz hosted an event on Wednesday, May 30th for booksellers and local authors; tours of the former homes of famous scribes were staggered throughout; Junior’s served its sumptuous cheesecake; Borough Hall buzzed with literary banter. Welcoming visitors from afar — and writers prompted by publishers to attend and mingle —Markowitz said, "Obviously you've got class, and you're hip to what we've known all along: That the epicenter of the literary life of this nation is right here in Brooklyn, it really is."
Or is it? Not at that exact moment, in Borough Hall on Wednesday night, at least. What Marty Markowitz didn't mention is that some of Brooklyn's most popular writers won't be seen at his side.
Jonathan Lethem and Darcey Steinke (just to name a few) are actually donating the proceeds of select works to fund the opposition to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project. This major development has received Markowitz's undivided support, underscored by his recent move to not reappoint several members of Community Board 6 who formally objected to the project. So, as Marty lauded books from the borough he represents, many of the writers that give Brooklyn its literary credibility were nowhere near.
Posted by lumi at 9:49 AM
June 10, 2007
Welcome to the ‘bloggiest’ part of town - Development spurs on Bklyn bloggers
Courier-Life coverage of the May 10 Brooklyn Blogfest is a month late and two bloggers short. (NoLandGrab and Atlantic Yards Report to be precise.) This is a feat since the focus of the article is development.
Like a virtual Copernicus mapping a universe of words and thoughts, Outside.in, which is based – where else? – in the borough of Kings, recently determined that Clinton Hill was the bloggiest neighborhood in the country over the past six months, based on the number of posts on websites in 3,250 communities in 59 cities nationwide.Part of the reason for the high level of blogging activity in Clinton Hill, according to Outside.in, is the intense level of real estate development in the neighborhood, which is adjacent to the controversial Atlantic Yards development.
article
As Atlantic Yards Report has pointed out, "of 30 posts on Outside.in's Clinton Hill page earlier in the day Thursday, only five were about that neighborhood, while 13 were about Prospect Heights and Atlantic Yards."
(And nearly all were from NoLandGrab)
Posted by amy at 11:00 AM
June 9, 2007
Two years later, rechecking a Times article
Atlantic Yards Report
Two years ago, on 6/9/05, the New York Times published a Metro front article headlined Unlike Stadium on West Side, an Arena in Brooklyn Is Still a Go. It's worth a second look.A geographic conundrum:
In announcing the plan, Mr. Ratner described a $2.5 billion project designed by Frank Gehry atop the Atlantic Terminal railway hub.A stunning understatement:
Others noted important differences between the West Side stadium and the Brooklyn arena. For example, the Brooklyn arena would require a $200 million public investment as opposed to the $600 million investment the West Side plan was calling for.A Markowitzian generalization:
Brooklyn, still smarting from the loss of the Dodgers nearly 50 years ago, is generally more welcoming to projects that could help put it on the national map.
Posted by amy at 8:26 AM
June 8, 2007
And the "Lovie" goes to...
Atlantic Yards Report
Last night, Norman Oder was given the Lovgren Volunteer Award for outstanding community service by the Park Slope Civic Council for his essential work on Atlantic Yards Report. Without him, several significant revelations would probably still remain behind the curtain. In addition, his readers are getting their own primer on a wide range of topics as the veteran journalist pursues a self-education in urban planning, transportation issues, local politics and affordable housing.
The Gowanus Lounge (which definitely deserves its own award for neighborhood coverage) was there to cover the event:
The Park Slope Civic Council honored blogger and journalist Norman Oder last night with a Lovgren Volunteer Award. Mr. Oder is the founder and writer of Atlantic Yards Report, which he has developed as New York City's most authoritative source of Atlantic Yards reporting, information and analysis. Just this week, Mr. Oder combed through documents and found that the project is getting nearly $1.4 billion in tax-free bonds and that the level of bonding is so large that parts of the project will create intense competition for tax-free financing resources in the city and could be delayed.
The award was presented by Lumi Rolley of No Land Grab and by outgoing PSCC President Lydia Denworth. Ms. Denworth praised Mr. Oder for "the thoroughness and conscientiousness with which he took to the task" of doing the city's only in-depth Atlantic Yards reporting. "Very few individuals have had such an impact on the public debate," Ms. Rolley noted.
Mr. Oder said that he viewed his work as "challenging some complacency" and described his reporting as "watchdog journalism that the market is not providing." He said that Atlantic Yards Report offers "the skepticism and persistence that's needed to keep government accountable."
Norman Oder reflects on what he might have in common with the late George Lovgren (link):
I didn't know much about George Lovgren until I learned about this award and went to a panel at Borough Hall--about Brooklyn in the 1970s and 80s--and heard [activist and former Assemblyman] Joe Ferris talk about how he and Lovgren and some others challenged the conventional wisdom and helped save Park Slope.
My work may not be in the direct tradition of George Lovgren. I'm not trying to save a firehouse. And I'm not trying to 'save' a neighborhood.
But I am challenging some complacency and conventional wisdom. My service is in-depth watchdog journalism that the market is not providing.
Posted by lumi at 8:42 AM
May 30, 2007
The NY Times correction on Marty Purge story
An article last Wednesday about a decision by the Brooklyn borough president, Marty Markowitz, to remove at least five members of Community Board 6 who oppose the Atlantic Yards development project — which Mr. Markowitz supports — misstated the reason for the absence of a response by Mr. Markowitz. At the time the article was being reported, Mr. Markowitz could not be reached by his aides because he was on a ship at sea, had no telephone access and was not regularly checking his e-mail messages. He did not “refuse” to comment. (Go to Article)
NoLandGrab: The Times calls for a comment, but they couldn't get hold of the Borough President because he was on a cruise? Is that supposed to be code for "Marty is unable to tear himself away from the buffet table?"
Posted by lumi at 11:25 AM
May 26, 2007
Fact-checking Brooklyn Brewery's Hindy on Ratner's jobs
Atlantic Yards Report
In a New York Observer article this week headlined Unlikely Power Broker Bullish on Brooklyn, Brooklyn Brewery CEO Steve Hindy opines on the future of Brooklyn, disses development on Fourth Avenue, and offers much praise for Forest City Ratner, expected to be serving his beer at the planned Brooklyn Arena.Except his numbers are off.
...
As for Atlantic Yards, the Observer quotes Hindy:
“Brooklyn has a serious need for jobs,” he said. “Pfizer just closed their plant over in Bed-Stuy. Domino Sugar closed last year down on the waterfront here. Those big industrial plants just aren’t feasible here anymore. So something’s gotta replace it. Things like the development at Coney Island and things like Atlantic Yards—that’s what we have to work with, and we have to make the best of it.”Remember, Forest City Ratner once promoted space for 10,000 office jobs at Atlantic Yards. Now there would be space for 1340 jobs, with perhaps 375 new jobs.
Posted by amy at 11:25 AM
May 23, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Date Hole, Smart Move: Local Documentaries
"Brooklyn Matters" as part of your classic NYC date, dinner and a movie (NLG corrections added):
So normally, a movie would be out of the question. Movies are uninspiring and more generally not a particularly original idea for a date. But when it’s a movie about something that’s happening right now in the city that you live in and you could actually affect change, it can be played as a pretty creative date idea.
This particular documentary is titled “Brooklyn Matters” and is about the pending redevelopment of the Atlantic train yards in
downtown BrooklynProspect Heights, Brooklyn. If you haven’t been paying attention to this at all, Bruce Ratner (a prominent developer) bought up a lot of space indowntown BrooklynProspect Heights (and by a lot of space, we’re talkinghundreds of22 acres) and requested that thecityState use eminent domain to appropriate the property (read: residences) that he couldn’t buy.What: Brooklyn Matters
When: June 3rd, 7pm
How Much: FREE! Donate, you greedy prick.
Where: Union Docs: Take the G or the L to Lorimer/Metropolitan and walk south on Union Street.So, after you go and get your indignation on, there’s really nothing better than to wash your misery down with the some delicious pulled pork and a delicious glass of beer. And I know that this place is the perinial favorite, but Fette Sau is, in fact, good.
Mitchell Langbert's Blog, Bloomberg--Left Wing Independent
The conservative argument against Bloomberg for President includes a large dose of welfare for sports team owners, eminent domain abuse and boondoggles for rapacious "liberal do-gooders" (Atlantic Yards issues in bold):
Bloomberg has avoided reducing government, avoided reducing taxes, presented plans for a wide range of big government boondoggles like a football stadium that no one wanted and a Robert Moses-style master plan, favored gun control, and has supported his fellow billionaires the Ochs-Sulzbergers in their goal of looting small private landlords through private-use eminent domain. At the same time that he has been supporting the ultra-rich, like Bruce Ratner and the Ochs-Sulzbergers, Bloomberg has viciously and repeatedly harassed small businesses in a dozen different ways, insisting on one regulation after another in synch with his left-wing public health compulsions.
Brownstoner, Ratner: 'Fort Greene, I've Got You Surrounded'
Man, it's getting hard to keep up with all the towers that are sprouting up in Downtown Brooklyn. Yesterday, Curbed ran some renderings of Bruce Ratner's latest project at 80 Dekalb Avenue aka 625 Fulton Street.
I Am A Child Of Television, Be Sure To Watch
Be sure to watch... On The Lot on FOX tonight.
Not because it looks like an interesting variation of the American Idol concept, with aspiring film makers being judged by a group of industry people (Carrie Fisher, Bruce Ratner, Gary Marshall, Jon Avnet) with the prize of a million dollar development deal with Dreamworks.
NoLandGrab: Um, that's supposed to be "Brett" Ratner, but it's nice to know that our community's campaign to make "Bruce" some sort of household name seems to be getting some traction.
So let's get it straight:
BRETT = filmmaker
BRUCE = national figurehead for developers-gone-wild
The Knickerblogger, Lies Have Consequences
What is curious is that is seems to be easier to get a lie known [than] the truth. We, opposition to Atlantic Yards have always felt that 'if the people knew' they would be outraged at the massive public outlays, the eminent domain abuse that Ratner is palming off as a 'civic' project. Likewise, leading up to Iraq war, i was bewildered that people actually believed there were "WMD" and Saddam was another 'Hitler'. Why is it so many people are willing to accept a lie instead of the truth?
Posted by lumi at 7:09 AM
May 22, 2007
Illustrate — Don't Destroy
Daily Intelligencer caught wind of MissBrooklyn.net, which features variations on the theme of "Miss Brooklyn," the insipid name given to Atlantic Yards's signature tower, by the designer, Frank Gehry.
Intelligencer alerts their readers that the site features, "Disturbing, disturbing cartoons." It also noted that the "strong-arm Ratner" cartoon, "depicts Bruce Ratner as a sort of Evil Jew."
Since all of the images originally ran on NoLandGrab (each from a different artist), we feel compelled to ask, what the hell is an "Evil Jew?" We've never heard that term — maybe Intelligencer can explain.
Posted by lumi at 7:10 AM
May 20, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Knickerblogger Non Democratic Government- First Atlantic Yards..now..
It is utterly impossible for the United States Senate to exercise the due diligence commensurate with the importance of major immigration legislation without extensive hearings.[like rushing through 5000+ page documents and giving laymen only 66 days to review them a la Atlantic Yards]
The Daily Gotham When Clowns Go Bad Part II: THE PURGE OF COMMUNITY BOARD 6
When I first heard about the purge, as I wrote before, more than a month ago, it was in the context of several public scenes made by Marty in which he yelled at people, in public, for their "disloyalty" on Atlantic Yards and threatened to drop them from the board. One person relating such stories questioned Marty's actual sanity, so embarassing were these scenes.
Palaver The Silent Ruins
In Brooklyn the Atlantic Yards project will soon by making temporary ruins in preparation for some kind of sports complex. People will think the ruins of old brownstones are sad, an eyesore perhaps, but only because other buildings will still exist intact around the ruins. The ruins will not be total. Ruins are only sad when people continue to live normally around them. The sacked cities of Palestine, Lebanon, Baghdad, the Axis holocaust of Berlin--ruins in these places sadden us because we look towards them with an eye to rebuild everything as it was, to get back to normal life.
Posted by amy at 7:51 AM
Media Meltdown's Misinformation Miffs Many
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Yesterday every news outlet that reported on a State Supreme Court eminent domain case unrelated to the federal eminent domain lawsuit, Goldstein v. Pataki, got the story wrong to varying degrees (except for The Brooklyn Eagle which got it right, which shows that only local news outlets are truly covering the "Atlantic Yards" story enabling them to avoid easily avoidable mistakes.)
Posted by amy at 7:34 AM
May 19, 2007
CORRECTED. NY Press Corps Gets It Wrong.
Develop Don't Destroy, Brooklyn
Lawsuits Are Alive and Well. There was much confusion (read: underinformed mistakes made) this morning regarding some legal news related to "Atlantic Yards." Each news outlet covering the story got a little piece of it wrong, but the Daily Intelligencer blog of New York Magazine got the story lavishly wrong (they have since corrected their errors and NoLandGrab has covered their fiction fixed for reality).Before we go any further we'll state it simply: There was no decision today on the federal legal challenge to New York State's and Forest City Ratner's abuse of eminent domain. Any news reports saying so or implying otherwise are misleading.
Posted by amy at 10:18 AM
We're Focused on the Big Picture, Not the Bagel Hole
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn saved some of their red ink for The Brooklyn Paper's article about the new bagel shop, Arena Bagels:
In the article Mr. Aggarwal admits that he knew basically nothing about the "Atlantic Yards" project and did not know the sentiment of the neighboring communities. He meant no harm, and once he did hear enough complaints he decided to change the name.That's the story.
But the article states that the "Atlantic Yards" opposition "planned to protest outside Aggarwal's store if it remained 'Arena Bagels.'"
To be clear, DDDB did not organize (or threaten to organize) any "protest" aginst Mr. Aggarwal's shop. Any concern or anger expressed towards the shop's namesake was spontaneously brought by individuals.
While having absolutely no position on Arena Bagels, we understand that people were turned off by the name, and might have complained about the arena and associated megadevelopment tie-in—a development that is a bad deal for Brooklyn.
Posted by amy at 9:35 AM
May 18, 2007
Reporter Report
The triple bogey scored by Daily Intelligencer — yesterday, the online column/blog reported the wrong plaintiffs, wrong court and wondered if that meant the demise of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn — made us wonder, how did the rest of the press corps do?
We assembled a star-studded panel of media noodges watchdogs, Daniel Goldstein from Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report, and asked them if anyone in the media got it right (boo-boos in bold, expert watchdogs in bold-italic).
 |
NY1, Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Filed By Atlantic Yards Development Opponents
A State Supreme Court Judge dismissed a lawsuit Thursday that challenged the state's use of eminent domain in obtaining land for the project.
The judge ruled the suit should have been filed in the State Court of Appeals instead.
The suit was filed by tenants in danger of being kicked out of their homes.
Tenants say they now plan to file in the Appeals Court as suggested.
Daniel Goldstein: Wrong, it's the "Appellate Division."
[The online version has been corrected to read "Appellate Division" instead of "Appeals Court."]
 |
NY Times (Metro Briefs), Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards Suit Filed in Wrong Court
A judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by tenants challenging the Atlantic Yards construction project, saying they had filed their suit in the wrong court. The suit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, accused the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that shepherded the project to approval, of offering an unfair package of provisions to relocate tenants at two buildings in Brooklyn, 473 Dean Street and 634 Pacific Street. Justice Walter B. Tolub said the suit should have been filed directly in the Appellate Division of Supreme Court. A. J. Carter, a spokesman for the development corporation, said the agency was pleased with the decision. George Locker, a lawyer for the tenants, said he would file his suit in the appellate court even though he believed the Supreme Court had jurisdiction.
Norman Oder: Unfair relocation/comparable housing is subject of pending suit already in Appellate Division, as I wrote.
[Word from the attorney for the plaintiffs is that the Times will run a correction.]
 |
NY Post, ATLANTIC YDS. SUIT REJECTED
A lawsuit challenging the state's use of eminent domain to make way for Bruce Ratner's $4 billion Atlantic Yards project was dismissed by a state Supreme Court Judge yesterday.
A Manhattan judge ruled on a technicality against rent-stabilized tenants in danger of being booted out of their homes in Brooklyn to help make way for an NBA arena and 16 skyscrapers, saying the Appellate Division has jurisdiction over condemnation matters.
The plaintiffs, who live in buildings on Dean and Pacific streets in Prospect Heights, felt they weren't offered comparable housing by the state. An Empire State Development Corp. spokesman said the agency was "pleased" by the decision. Ratner's firm declined comment.
[See Norman Oder's comments above.]
So that's 0-for-4 (Intelligencer included). Project critics have been on the media's case to at least send reporters to cover the legal procedings in this historic and controversial project. The daily press has resisted on the grounds that nothing actually gets decided during oral arguments.
Today's articles are evidence that by not paying attention to legal proceedings, they have no clue what's going on.
Word to the media: there have been several lawsuits filed, more than your readers realize. You should feel free to use Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report as a crib sheet to catch up; we all do.
We do thank you for playing, though, and have some wonderful consolation prizes in the back.
Posted by lumi at 6:12 PM
Historically Speaking: May 17
Brooklyn’s LIRR
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By John Manbeck
A must-read for Brooklynites who are train buffs contains an interesting turn of the phrase:
But the LIRR has been an important cog in our rail system. It is the longest and the oldest railroad operating under its original name as well as the nation’s busiest commuter railroad. Now the Atlantic Avenue Terminal is undergoing a $93 million renovation and reconstruction due for completion in 2008, making it an important hub in the inevitable Atlantic Yards project.
NoLandGrab: Interesting how democracy wasn't "inevitable" — many lost their lives for the cause, many still do — but Atlantic Yards IS.
Posted by lumi at 6:56 AM
May 17, 2007
‘BKLYN DESIGN’ Show: The Reasons for Its Success
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle
By Dennis Holt
Wondering why attendees at the Brooklyn Design Show are now familiar with "Brooklyn?" The Daily Eagle has got it figured out:
After all, DUMBO has become a household word, everyone knows about the Williamsburg scene and its waterfront, and lots of people have seen the design of the Frank Gehry building for Atlantic Yards.
Posted by lumi at 7:23 AM
May 16, 2007
MissBrooklyn.net
Will you miss Brooklyn if Miss Brooklyn does Brooklyn?
There's a new web site that hopes to post "your depictions of that new gal in town."
Posted by lumi at 8:52 AM
Livable neighborhoods, community planning, and community media 2.0
Today's installment on Atlantic Yards Report covers the Municipal Art Society's workshop for the "Livable Neighborhoods Program: Resources and Training for Community-Based Planners."
The next workshop is this Saturday. Community leaders and activists will want to read Norman Oder's account of the previous workshop to see if this is something that they might be interested in attending.
As Eve Baron, director of the MAS Planning Center, points out, the average New York City community district is the size of Connecticut cities like Bridgeport, New Haven, or Waterbury, all of which have “hundreds of employees and multi-million dollar budgets to provide services.” By contrast, the city’s community boards, with budgets of $200,000, can’t fulfill the demands placed on them.
Participants at the seminar get a planning “toolkit” with chapters on planning topics like community organizing and visioning, data collection, zoning, 197-a planning, “brownfield” planning, historic and cultural resources preservation, electronic mapping and the budget process.
The training component, using the toolkit as a textbook, is hosted by the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development (CCPD). I found the sessions I attended May 5 useful in some ways, basic in others, but, then again, I’ve been immersed in certain land use issues for a while.
Oder also offers additional advice on community media:
Interestingly, the community outreach advice during the Livable Neighborhoods program was rather traditional, advising community groups to make sure they sent press releases to media outlets, including web sites.
Unmentioned was how people and organizations can now create their own media via the web. Consider the ecosystem around Atlantic Yards. Community groups like Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, and BrooklynSpeaks all have their own web sites.
Posted by lumi at 8:41 AM
The Future of New York’s Past
The NY Times
By Sewell Chan
Coverage of a recent panel discussion on the future of NYC contained this celebrity sighting, which spills into the comments section:
...and Norman Oder, the Atlantic Yards critic, were among the faces in the crowd.
If you've been following Norman Oder's accounts of recent panel discussions on the past and future of New York City and its neighborhoods, you may be interested in reading excerpts of the panelists' remarks from “Does New York’s Past Have a Future? A Report on the Preservation Movement’s History; Some Prescriptions for Its Next Century,” posted on the NY Times Empire Zone blog.
Posted by lumi at 7:33 AM
May 12, 2007
As Seen On TV - New York Now
thirteen/WNET and WLIW
This week's New York Now features a story about the proposed Atlantic Yards project. Airing 1 p.m. on Saturday (today) on thirteen/WNET and Sunday (tomorrow), at 7:00am on WLIW Channel 21.
This Week on New York Now
On this week’s NY NOW, Karen DeWitt of New York State Public Radio and Jay Gallagher of Gannett News Service join Susan to talk about end-of-session priorities, and the continued rancor between the Governor & Majority Leader.
Then we travel to Brooklyn where some residents of the Prospect Heights and Fort Green neighborhoods are angry over a planned mega-development spearheaded by Bruce Ratner. Ratner and the state could use eminent domain to displace these residents.
But this isn’t your typical David & Goliath story: Bertha Lewis of the social justice organization ACORN supports Ratner’s plan because he’s committing a percentage of his Atlantic Yards development to below-market-rate housing.
NoLandGrab: A high of 71 degrees is predicted in Brooklyn today. Maybe it's a good idea to keep informed by recording this one and watching it tonight. And yes, the link below is to WMHT in Troy, New York. They were nice enough to post a description of the program.
Posted by steve at 11:08 AM
May 11, 2007
It came from the Bloggiestsphere?
The Empire Zone, Out of Brooklyn, Endlessly Blogging
The Times sent a couple reporters to last night's Brooklyn Blogfest and posted an account on its own political blog — along with a defense of the paper's coverage of Atlantic Yards.
Ms. Rolley credited several other bloggers for diligently poring over the plans for Atlantic Yards and said that the news media had failed to report the “unprecedented sale [sic] and historic scale of this project.”
(She was particularly critical of The New York Times. Forest City Ratner is the development partner building the new Midtown headquarters of The New York Times Company. Business executives involved with that effort have played no role in the news coverage of Atlantic Yards, which a recent article about new legal challenges noted was “one of the biggest construction projects in the city’s history.”)
NoLandGrab: If by reporting the "unprecedented scale, the historic scale" of Atlantic Yards, you mean calling it "one of the biggest construction projects in the city's history," then readers can just give up on the Times.
By all accounts, Atlantic Yards is THE LARGEST PRIVATE SINGLE-SOURCE PROJECT IN THE CITY'S HISTORY and, if built, will become THE DENSEST RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY IN THE NATION.
Perhaps the Times doesn't think that distinction is fit to print.
Some other bloggers are hoping for more diversity next year. Hear, hear — if only Bruce Ratner would give in, then all the Atlantic Yards static could go away, and we all could talk about stuff we like!
Clinton Hill Blog, Blogfest Recap
Last night, Clinton Hill Blog stepped up to the open mic and pointed out that she has managed to help local merchants increase their business.
The speakers were largely tipped towards development, politics and Atlantic Yards. These are all very crucial issues, of course, but I hope the Third Annual BlogFest will feature one of each type of blog: a neighborhood blog, a real estate blog, a personal blog, an environmental blog, a design blog, etc.
runs brooklyn/brooklyn runs, Notes on the Brooklyn Blogfest
First, at several points during the first half, the proceedings threatened to devolve into a rally against local developer/bogeyman Bruce Ratner. (To be sure, Ratner's Atlantic Yards project is one of the biggest and most controversial stories unfolding in Brooklyn right now, and I'm certainly no fan of zillionaire developers getting even wealthier through tax subsidies and incentives and the propagandistic manipulation of public opinion, but still.) Moreover, and on a somewhat related note, the invited speakers seemed to represent a relatively narrow cross-section of the local blogging community.
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, BLOGFEST: A GREAT EVENT
Here's the account from the tireless blogger who put it all together.
Dope on the Slope, Brooklyn Blog Fest 2007: Top 10 Observations
Check out the "'morning after' impressions of last night's event in no particular order."
Dopey Slopey posted yearbook photos here.
Posted by lumi at 4:58 PM
AY court hearing, added coverage (& Blogfest notes)
Atlantic Yards Report assesses the only coverage, other than his own, of the environmental lawsuit hearing, and quickly segues into reiterating his main point from last night's Brooklyn Blogfest:
This week's Brooklyn Paper, in an article headlined Judge: What is Yards benefit?, offers the only other coverage, with some skepticism from Brooklyn Law School Professor David Reiss about the petitioners' claim that the planned Brooklyn arena is not a "civic project" under state law.
The article, however, doesn't go into the extensive debate about whether the state's definition of blight, as applied to the Atlantic Yards site, is arbitrary and capricious, and the judge's skepticism toward the Empire State Development Corporation's stance.
Posted by lumi at 7:37 AM
May 9, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Queen's Crap, Revenge of the Clown
One comment before quoting "mole 333's" article on Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's threats to clean house at Community Board 6:
Don't like Atlantic Yards? Well then, you're off the community board!
Kinetic Carnival, Ratner & Gehry Eyeing Coney Again?
Recently, the NY Post’s Page Six reported that Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry were spotted eating hot dogs at Nathan’s in Coney Island. Speculation began to resurface as to the possibility of them scoping out Coney for the Nets stadium. ...
Some time ago, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (who made the case for the Nets arena in Coney) submitted a locational analysis of the arena in Coney Island as comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). Despite it probably being an obstruction for the nearby property proposed for residential buildings by Taconic Investments - amusement preservationists would also find it an obstruction that does not fit in with what they wish for in the area. It seems nobody wants the arena. Let’s hope if the Nets are being considered for Coney again – that this does not become a battle between North and South Brooklynytes.
Objectiva 3, A very important post!
No commentary, just a link directly to Norman Oder's "very important" article, "What the Village Voice was to the Washington Square battle, the blogs are to Atlantic Yards."
Brownstoner, House of the Day: 129 South Oxford Street
Two negatives for a house listed for $2.2 million:
First, the backyard basically looks out on Fulton Street and therefore ain't the most private retreat; second, while we think the refrain of "Atlantic Yards Effect" is overused and won't have any real impact on the part of Fort Greene that's north of Fulton, this place is pretty darn close to ground zero.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
May 7, 2007
Atlantic Yards: "Barclays Center" - pix
Brooklynian
Posted by "8thandPrez":
I was reading the premiere issue of Condé Nast Portfolio at lunch today and came upon this veeeery interesting ad:
Apologies for my crappy camera phone. The text at the bottom drones on about the exciting new development and amazing new open space and incredible new concert hall and peformance center and Nets arena.
NoLandGrab: Add the approximately $34,000 one-page four-color ad in the premier issue of Portfolio to the estimated $500,000 Barclays has already spent on promoting the company's deal with Bruce Ratner for the naming rights of the Atlantic Yards arena.
Posted by lumi at 10:05 AM
What the Village Voice was to the Washington Square battle, the blogs are to Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report surveys Atlantic Yards coverage and concludes that the action is in the blogosphere if you want to know what's really going on.
But there are lessons from “the battle of Washington Square,” notably the availability of sympathetic and analytical media, as argued by architectural historian Robert Fishman, in a presentation 3/10/06 and a chapter in the new book, Robert Moses and the Modern City.
The Village Voice was key to the battle. Today, blogs serve an similar function in the Atlantic Yards debate, which has gotten spotty coverage in the mainstream press . (I contend that Prospect Heights, not Clinton Hill, is the "bloggiest" neighborhood, mostly because of AY.)
The “battle of Washington Square" was not merely a key point of Moses's career, it was a watershed in New York City history and American urbanism. It was then that what now seem to be Jacobsian commonplaces--the primacy of diverse neighborhoods, an orientation to pedestrians, a reliance on mass transit, and the importance of public space--were articulated.
...
Without the blogs, the story wouldn't be advanced, the archive wouldn't exist, and reporters and researchers would have trouble exploring the history of Atlantic Yards. We've provided an alternative to reliance on flawed mainstream coverage. (Who covered the epic hearing Thursday in the lawsuit over the Atlantic Yards environmental review? Nobody from a daily.)
Posted by lumi at 9:56 AM
May 6, 2007
The Times pushes peer review of hoops bias claim, but not of AY economics
Atlantic Yards Report compares the Times' different uses of peer review. One article about racial bias in basketball was said to be verified by three independent experts. Meanwhile in "Atlantic Yards"...
By contrast, when the Times in 2004 covered the release of a study critiquing the projections of Andrew Zimbalist, Forest City Ratner's paid consultant on Atlantic Yards, the news was left as "he-said, he-said" and tacked onto another story about Downtown Brooklyn redevelopment.
...
Given Zimbalist's national reputation as a strong critic of public subsidies for sports facilities, and the vastly different conclusions reached by Peebles/Kim, the dispute was of more than temporary local interest.
...
Since then, Forest City Ratner has invoked Zimbalist's work numerous times, and several elected officials last year endorsed the developer's $6 billion lie, based on Zimbalist's flawed analysis.
Posted by amy at 12:16 PM
May 5, 2007
Tabloid Times
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Norman Oder ponders the lack of attention paid to the 4 hour May 3rd court hearing on "Atlantic Yards" from the Times and the dailies. Issues at the very foundation of the project were argued in a court room for the very first time and it was riveting; ample ground was covered to choose from for story making. Each one of the dailies could have scooped each other, instead, too focused on sensationalism, they pooped out.
Posted by amy at 10:56 AM
Times covers window into suspect's mind, but not ESDC's mind
Atlantic Yards Report
Judged by the allotment of column-inches, a reader of the New York Times would have to conclude that the trial of Peter Braunstein, a former writer for Women’s Wear Daily charged with the sex-abuse and kidnapping of a former colleague, is much bigger news than the legal battle over the Atlantic Yards project.The Braunstein case, which has been huge in the tabloids, got extensive coverage in the Times this week, including a preview Monday, followed by trial coverage Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
The Friday headline was "Suspect’s Purchases Are Cast as Window Into Dark Mind." However, the window into the mind of the Empire State Development Corporation, whose Atlantic Yards blight designations were questioned sharply in court Thursday, went unexplored.
Neither the Times nor any other daily sent a reporter to Thursday's epic hearing in the lawsuit over the Atlantic Yards environmental review. Brutally weird.
Posted by amy at 9:38 AM
May 2, 2007
How real estate spins the press (and that's not our headline)
Atlantic Yards Report
An article in this month's Real Deal offers some hints about how those in the real estate world "are becoming more adept at working with, and sometimes spinning, the press. The headline: How real estate spins the press: Leaking information for a better deal or to attract other suitors.
I'll take that as a clue to how the New York Times got its misguided 9/5/06 front-page story about Forest City Ratner's rumored (and highly strategic) 8% scaleback in the size of the Atlantic Yards project.
Norman Oder outlines how it's all there in the developers' playbook:
- release the info to a developer-friendly reporters
- who don't do questions,
- in time for a slow news weekend.
Et voilà insta-scaleback!
Posted by lumi at 11:13 AM
ESSENTIAL REFERENCE BOOK ON HEAVY WEATHER, GALES, AND STORMS
From Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn:
Have you ever visited DDDB.com thinking it was the URL of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB). Develop Don't Destroy is DDDB.net.
NoLandGrab: Have you ever visited AtlanticYards.com thinking you'd find information about Atlantic Yards?
Posted by lumi at 10:09 AM
May 1, 2007
A clear voice on Atlantic Yards
BROOKLYN PAPER TELLS IT LIKE IT IS
Crain's NY Business, LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Crain's slamming of editor Gersh Kuntzman's coverage of the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn ("Neighborhood Journal," April 2) ignores one simple fact: The Brooklyn Paper tells it like it is because most other newpapers won't. Developer Forest City Ratner has consistently sidestepped rules, shut the public out of crucial meetings and leveraged its influence with politicians to ram this boondoggle down the throats of Brooklynites (and taxpayers).
CAROL WIERZBICKI
Posted by lumi at 10:53 PM
April 30, 2007
Tune in...
WNYC, Brian Lehrer Show
93.9FM, 820 AM
TODAY, 10:00AM
Ron Shiffman will be a guest on Brian Lehrer's show to talk about the film that has Brooklyn talking, Isabel Hill's "Brooklyn Matters."
Posted by lumi at 9:21 AM
April 29, 2007
Clinton Hill the "bloggiest" neighborhood? Nah, it's Prospect Heights
Atlantic Yards Report analyzes the recent report from Outside.in that names Clinton Hill as the bloggiest hood.
While Brownstoner is an interesting and popular blog, especially because of the robust comments section, it is hardly a blog focused exclusively on Clinton Hill. (Butler's based there.) Rather, it's a blog about Brooklyn real estate and neighborhoods faced with development.And Atlantic Yards is hardly the "local obsession" that distinguishes Clinton Hill from other nearby neighborhoods. NoLandGrab is clearly the comprehensive source for Atlantic Yards-related information, with far more posts per day than Brownstoner's total on all topics.
I originally thought that Outside.in didn't consider NLG as bloggy because it doesn't accept comments. Actually, one of the two people behind NLG--the weekend person--lives in Clinton Hill and registered the blog on Outside.in as "Clinton Hill." (The weekday person lives in Park Slope.)
Outside.in relies most heavily on NoLandGrab in its Atlantic Yards section. Its press release didn't mention NLG.
Posted by amy at 11:22 AM
April 25, 2007
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brownstoner, Gowanus / Atlantic
From time to time, a prospective home buyer solicits opinions about moving near the Atlantic Yards footprint. Today, it's on 3rd Ave.
We're considering making an offer on a sweet new-construction condo on 3rd Ave. near Pacific. What do y'all think of the property values there over the next few years? Wise decision? Will Gowanus boom? Or will the Atlantic Yards prove problematic?
The Daily Pube, Sickening
One blogger's lamentation casts Atlantic Yards as the posterchild for bulldozing the Lost City:
Today I found out my favorite neighborhood watering hole is also going the way of the Dodo. There is really nothing any of us can do. Just look at all the groups trying to stop Forest City Ratner from building the Atlantic Yards project.
Kristina sent me the link to a brilliant blog called The Lost City. This guy talks about all that is wrong with the direction in which New York City is going. Visit this site. Comment. Do your part to try to save NYC, or to at least make some noise about it.
Web Metrics Guru, America's Top 10 Neighborhoods for Bloggers
Blogger Marshall Sponder checks out Oustide.in's list of America's Top 10 Bloggiest Neighborhoods.
OK, I did not realize that someone was keeping track of the best neighborhood to live in if your blogging - I guess some one is .... Outside.in.
...
But what is really interesting is that 2 of the top 10 neighborhoods for blogging are actually in New York City, 1. Clinton Hill, Brooklyn and 8. Harlem, NY. You can also drill down further.For example, the top tags for my zip code in Brooklyn are: atlantic yards atlantic yards fight brooklyn brooklyn paper development environment events music news postcard from the slope real estate
It would be nice if the tag changed for every neighborhood - it does not change much or at all for mine and Park Slope. Not a big deal for the tags to be that different but it might be important down the line.
Posted by lumi at 8:44 AM
April 24, 2007
No Street honor for him
NY Newsday
Yesterday, in a column about the defeat of a campaign to name a street after Sonny Carson, Sheryl McCarthy erroneously reported:
Before his death in 2002, Carson, who supported the development of the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn because he thought it would bring jobs for black men, bullied people who opposed the project...
This correction was appended today:
[CORRECTION: Sheryl McCarthy's column yesterday reported incorrectly that the late activist Sonny Carson had bullied opponents of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Supporters of Carson had allegedly intimidated the opponents, and according to a City Council member, also had intimidated a school principal. PG. A15 ALL 4/24/07].
NoLandGrab: To clear the record: Sonny Carson didn't bully Atlantic Yards opponents, his pals did.
Unfortunately, depending on your point of view, in the fight over Atlantic Yards, to paraphrase Darnell Canada [aka Darnell Kennedy], we're all "the victim."
Posted by lumi at 9:45 AM
Atlantic Yards Demolition Begins
MyFox.com ran the Associated Press story with this image of ACORN demonstrators outside last August's public hearing.
The caption mistakenly identifies the "Vanderbilt Railyards as the "Atlantic Railyards." "Atlantic Yards" is Bruce Ratner's name for the entire development, a third of which includes the railyards. The rest of the land is comprised of private property and city streets.
Crews are expected to start tearing down nine buildings in Brooklyn today to make way for the massive Atlantic Yards project, and some opponents of the project are planning a protest.
There is nothing in the article or caption that would lead the reader to believe that the ACORN demonstration wasn't recent or has nothing to do with the opposition protest.
Posted by lumi at 8:42 AM
April 22, 2007
Anatomy of a New York Times AY error
Atlantic Yards Report
1. In an April 5 round-up article on Atlantic Yards, an underinformed Times reporter, abetted by underinformed editors, describes Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB) as an organization "which opposes the scale of the plan."2. The Times does not publish a correction, which would be attached to the previous article in the archive, but instead, on April 12, publishes a letter from DDDB's Dan Goldstein explaining "Our organization does not merely oppose the scale of the plan, we oppose Forest City Ratner’s project itself on many principled grounds."
3. Another even more underinformed reporter, who has no experience covering AY but (likely) just happens to be available on a late Friday afternoon, is handed the assignment of describing, in a paragraph, the decision by Justice Joan A. Madden to reject a temporary restraining order regarding demolitions. In Saturday's paper, abetted by underinformed editors, he writes that the TRO "had been requested by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which opposes the scale of the 22-acre project."
Not only had the TRO not been requested solely by DDDB, because it's part of a coalition of groups in the suit, but the organization does not simply oppose the project's scale. And the headline, "Atlantic Yards Can Proceed," is not correct, either, because only the demolitions can proceed; the project itself depends on the dismissal or resolution of three lawsuits.
Posted by amy at 11:40 AM
April 17, 2007
Groups unite to demand arena benefits
Alliance will push for investment, jobs for Hill District
Pittsburgh-Gazette
By Rich Lord
Here's more evidence that Ratner's mighty PR tentacles still have a hold on the media.
In an article about community stakeholders in the Hill District of Pittburgh, a reporter is either insinuating that groups could be handpicked and receive financial support from the developer, or he has no clue that the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) has a reputation amongst good-government groups as what you SHOULD NOT DO in a CBA:
In the New York City Borough of Brooklyn, a similar pact related to the Atlantic Yards development stipulates the percentages of construction jobs and contracts that must go to minorities and women. It calls for affordable housing and neighborhood amenities as part of the mix, and guarantees tickets for neighborhood residents at arena events.
NoLandGrab: Then again, we shouldn't paint the media in broad strokes just because one reporter has no clue. Post-Gazette reporter Rich Lord published an article a week ago, making the same claims.
You can practically hear them laughing their asses off around the water cooler at 1 MetroTech.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
April 13, 2007
Questions Ratner still hasn’t answered
The Brooklyn Paper, Editorial
20 QUESTIONS (this is the short list) posed by Brookliyn Papers that Bruce Ratner finds questionable:
1. Explain how the Nets arena will be financed so there is no confusion.
Explain why the 30-year public revenue projections for Atlantic Yards dropped from $1.5 billion to $943 million over the summer.
Explain how a company plan to close part of Fourth Avenue and divert Flatbush Avenue–bound traffic onto Pacific Street will help solve gridlock.
Disclose how many people are currently employed at Metrotech and the Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls? [The figures were vital to a story about why Ratner’s jobs projections have historically fallen short.]
Please give us the same company statement that FCR sent to Metro, a free daily, regarding stories about a possible delay in the Atlantic Yards construction timeline.
Explain why FCR ranked third on the list of biggest state lobbyists last year.
Explain how much money FCR has spent on local philanthropy in Brooklyn.
Disclose how much money Ratner’s partners in the “Community Benefits Agreement” have received so far.
Please comment on reports that FCR’s arena partner, Barclays Bank, profited from slavery, the Holocaust and apartheid.
Explain how Bruce Ratner felt after being hugged by Courier-Life Publications reporter Steve Witt.
Explain why virtually none of the investors in the Nets are based in Brooklyn.
Comment on the negotiations that took place between the city and FCR regarding a possible downsizing of the project.
Comment on a report that Atlantic Yards would be the densest Census tract in the country.
Tell us how many gallons of sewage the project will send to the frequently over-capacity Red Hook treatment plant.
Comment on the latest lawsuit filed against FCR [repeatedly asked].
Explain the public subsidies that are underwriting the 2,250 units of below-markeet-rate rentals that are part of Atlantic Yards.
Explain whether those units will be side-by-side with the market-rate units or in other buildings.
Comment on a judge’s decision that a deal between FCR and developer Shaya Boymelgreen was “improper.”
Comment on a court victory by a resident of the Atlantic Yards footprint who claims he was arrested at FCR’s behest.
Explain why a full business plan was never provided to state authorities.
Posted by lumi at 10:11 AM
April 11, 2007
Photograph, Then Destroy
Daily Intelligencer
We're not sure if NY Mag's Daily Intelligencer has a point, or they're just being snarky. When DDDB released a statement calling upon Forest City Ratner to hold off demolition of one building until wall paintings by the recently deceased Sol LeWitt could be photographed before they disappear into rubble, Intelligencer replied:
Photographed?! That's it? Either they're crappy Lewitts, or Daniel Goldstein is going soft.
NoLandGrab: If Dan Goldstein had "gone tough" then Intelligencer, or someone else, would probably have something to say about exploiting someone's death in hopes of stopping a project. Sometimes Dan Goldstein can't win, but that doesn't seem to stop him from trying.
Posted by lumi at 6:11 AM
April 9, 2007
Lexicon: "Pulling" vs. "Doing" a Ratner
"Pulling a Ratner" appeared in the headline of a column in this weekend's Brooklyn Paper by Matt Lysiak about a local battle over the fate of the building owned by Bay Ridge United Methodist Church.
Lysiak's obsession with Ratner is nothing compared to the hard-core addiction of the bevy of Atlantic Yards bloggers (ahem), but he goes for it again in an article about smuggling raw milk across state lines:
Turns out the process of smuggling contraband milk into Brooklyn is more complicated than the spider-web of tax-dollar subsidies channeled to Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project.
This weekend we stumbled across another reference to "Mr. Ratner" in a story about eminent domain in The NY Times:
And like Mr. Ratner, the library’s representatives have raised the possibility of using eminent domain...
We've noticed that while the Atlantic Yards controversy keeps simmering, the name Ratner is becoming synonymous with: * eminent domain abuse, * greedy overdevelopers, * public-private partnerships gone wild, * co-opting of "community" "benefits" agreements, * heavy-handed abuse of state power, and * sixties-style super-duper-block city "planning."
Before the emerging lexicon of "Ratner" gets out of hand, we must emphasize that "pulling a Ratner" should not be confused with "doing a Ratner."
According to Wikipedia:
Doing a Ratner is a British business phrase referring to a chief executive or a senior person of a company who criticises the company's products or disparages the customers, frequently with disastrous results for both the person and the company.
An example of "doing a Ratner" is Chuck Ratner's startling admission last month:
We’re very good at estimating markets, we’re very good at estimating rents, at estimating lease-ups, and estimating costs. We are terrible, and we’ve been a developer for 50 years, on these big multi-use, public private urban developments to be able to predict when it will go from idea to reality.
Chuck Ratner's "Ratner" resulted in a press release strenuously disavowing everything Chuck said that might explain why everyone is saying that Atlantic Yards will take decades to build, that is, everyone except for Bruce Ratner.
Posted by lumi at 8:52 AM
April 5, 2007
Times plays catchup on AY, bobbles several balls (and forgets disclosure)
Atlantic Yards Report goes back to it roots and critiques today's coverage in the Times.
In a roundup article today headline Clearing of Atlantic Yards’ Site Proceeds as Legal Thicket Grows Denser, the New York Times catches up on some of the Atlantic Yards news it has missed, but the article also offers some mischaracterizations and fails to ask some hard questions.
First, Oder points out that reporter Andy Newman mischaracterized the lawsuits as aiming to "substantially scale back" Atlantic Yards.
Well, neither the pending eminent domain lawsuit nor the challenge to the environmental review scheduled to be filed today by a coalition organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn aim to scale back the project; they aim to kill it or alter it drastically.
Doh! The NY Times forgot to mention that they are partners with developer Forest City Ratner in the Times Tower.
NolandGrab: Maybe the paper only publishes a disclosure when reprinting FCRC press releases.
Click here for more.
Posted by lumi at 10:45 AM
April 3, 2007
"...every last detail and development has been fought over bitterly."
In today's Times, Metropolitan Editor Joe Sexton asserts that "every last detail and development has been fought over bitterly" in regards to the Atlantic Yards project (link).
If that is true, then: * Why did NY approve the project without reviewing a real financial plan? * Why does no one know the real cost to the taxpayers? * Why has the Times never reported that Atlantic Yards would be the densest residential community in the nation? * Why hasn't the Times shown a scale image of the project in relation to the existing neighborhood? * And why does the Times repeatedly make mistakes like reporting on the "city and state approved" "rezoning" and "reconstruction of Atlantic Yards," which includes a "rooftop park." [These errors are only from the last 4 1/2 months, including March, 2007 when there was only one significant Times story covering Atlantic Yards.]
Just because the Times lacks the wherewithal to cover the largest single-source private project in the history of NYC, doesn't mean that the public is done.
Anyway, who's feeling bitter? We're laughing our asses off, watching revenues drop at "The Paper of Record," while the graying institution is wringing its hands over the effect of the blogosphere and side-stepping a story that is shaping up to be the poster-child for reform in Albany. Besides, the paper might not be responsible for their terrible track record — for all we know, the editors and reporters might not have been dealt with fairly by developer Bruce Ratner.
BTW: We're just sounding off here, credit should go to Norman Oder at Atlantic Yards Report for staying on top of the issue.
Posted by lumi at 9:49 AM
"I had not seen the reports"
The NY Times Metropolitan Editor Joe Sexton, a native Brooklynite, gets an earful from someone not named Norman Oder, who wants to know more about the Gray Lady's silence on recent breaking news about Atlantic Yards.
Sexton responds by claiming to take the little papers seriously, "irrespective of their size or circulation" and then admits to having no clue.
Neighborhood Papers
Q. It is always puzzling to see breakthrough stories in neighborhood papers that never make it to the big leagues. But the one I refer to now is a daily -- The Sun -- along with the Brooklyn Paper, a weekly. They reported last week that the financials relied upon by the E.S.D.C. and Public Authorities Control Board in approving Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project was incomplete and even deceptive. Especially given The Times's connection to F.C.R, it would seem incumbent on you to check it out and follow it up. Only a story in the mainstream press can engender the kind of review (of a deal that has generated so much opposition) that a Governor Spitzer might otherwise fail to make. Thanks in advance for taking a look.
— Joseph Mohbat (an A.Y. opponent)
A. Dear Mr. Mohbat: We on the paper's Metro desk take all of our competitors seriously, irrespective of their size or circulation. I had not seen the reports you refer to, and the Atlantic Yards issue is one in which every last detail and development has been fought over bitterly. Rest assured we'll take a look now.
NoLandGrab: The NY Sun's circulation might be small, but does that make them a "neighborhood paper" as the subhead would suggest?
Posted by lumi at 7:27 AM
April 2, 2007
City Papers At Peace With Developer
From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (dddb.net), in response to the Crain's NY Business article headlined "Brooklyn paper at war with developer":
The Brooklyn Paper is one of only two papers that have covered the largest single-source development in the history of New York City on a week-in-and-week-out, comprehensive basis while never publishing Ratner's press releases in full (the other one is the Brooklyn Downtown Star, edited by Nik Kovac). Put simply, any paper or journalist covering "Atlantic Yards" day after day, and writing about it with weekly continuity, would find the project and its orbit of outrages so full of holes it would be good on a sandwich; and the coverage would be bound to peeve Bruce Ratner, Bruce Bender and crew, who are used to media kowtowing and having it their way.
Posted by lumi at 9:38 AM
Brooklyn paper at war with developer
Atlantic Yards plan pilloried by weekly
Crain's NY Business
By Erik Engquist
Just because The Brooklyn Paper covers the largest single-source private development in NY City history, while most other papers pretty much have given developer Bruce Ratner a bye, they are "at war with [the] developer???" On the other hand, as Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman explains, "The role of the headline is to get the story read."
Read on, and don't miss the quotes at the end, in which Forest City Ratner Executive VP Bruce Bender manages to avoid any "Benderisms," and James Caldwell complains about the paper twisting their story around:
After a long struggle for state approval, Forest City Ratner Cos. is proceeding with its giant Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. But that won't stop Gersh Kuntzman, editor of The Brooklyn Paper, from continuing his relentless front-page assaults on the project.
Mr. Kuntzman may be just warming up. Even the government's go-ahead for Atlantic Yards in December silenced him for only two weeks. Then the onslaught resumed.
Nine of the weekly paper's next 10 editions blasted the $4 billion project on Page 1. The exception was the March 3 issue, following a major court victory by the developer. The Brooklyn Paper dutifully published a story headlined "Yards opponents suffer huge setback" but buried it on Page 15.
"It came in late," explains Mr. Kuntzman.
He makes no apologies for his harsh coverage of Atlantic Yards and of Forest City's chief executive, Bruce Ratner. Not even for his headline "Ratner picks your pocket ˜ again" atop a story about the city budgeting $100 million more than previously disclosed for project-related work.
"The role of the headline is to get the story read," says Mr. Kuntzman, who was a New York Post Brooklyn bureau chief before taking the reins of the free broadsheet in October 2005. "Everybody knows that."
He adds that the headline was fair because "when the mayor tells us we haven't put a ceiling on [public expenditures], that tells us someone is picking our pocket."
Mighty Forest City is not amused. "They call you names, attack your friends, accuse you of being dishonest and mean, and then, when the teacher is looking, they claim to be an upright student," says Bruce Bender, a company vice president. "They can write whatever they want, attacking your motives at their leisure, and then say, 'Wait, we're legitimate journalists looking for the truth.'"
Mr. Kuntzman says Forest City ignores his pleas for Comments, which makes it difficult to represent the developer's side. He says Forest City even stopped sending him press releases for a while — a charge the developer denies. Nonetheless, Forest City has given up on the paper.
"Best to just keep your mouth closed," explains James Caldwell, a project supporter who now runs a Forest City-funded program to help residents get Atlantic Yards jobs. "The Brooklyn Paper has not been fair. Hell, no. When we talk with them, they twist our story around."
NOTICE ON FAIR USE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Material from diverse and sometimes temporary sources is being made available in a permanent unified manner, as part of an effort to advance understanding of the social justice issues associated with eminent domain. It is believed that this is a 'fair use' of the information as allowed under section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 USC Section 107, the site is maintained without profit for those who access it for research and educational purposes. For more information, see: www.law.cornell.edu/ uscode/17/107.shtml.
Posted by lumi at 9:13 AM
Courier-Life, Extended: "Extended basketball clinics"
This week, Courier-Life Publications is rerunning, on its website, under a different headline, a March 16 article, which in turn is a rewrite of a Forest City press release.
Who needs a phony tabloid when a "neighborhood" weekly takes care of it for you?
Extended basketball clinics, March 29, 2007
Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) will be extending its free Nets basketball clinic series in Brooklyn and added an all-Brooklyn tournament in June.
Each month for the next five months, FCRC and the Nets will be offering two free “Bringing it to Brooklyn” basketball clinics per month to elementary and junior high school students throughout Brooklyn.
FCRC expands Nets b-ball clinic, March 16, 2007
Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) will be extending its free Nets basketball clinic series in Brooklyn and adding an all-Brooklyn tournament in June.
Each month for the next five months, FCRC and the Nets will be offering two free “Bringing it to Brooklyn” basketball clinics per month to elementary and junior high school students throughout Brooklyn.
Forest City Ratner press release, March 8, 2007 (PDF)
Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) today announced that it is extending its free Nets basketball clinic series in Brooklyn and added an all–Brooklyn tournament in June. Each month for the next five months, FCRC and the Nets will be offering two free “Bringing It to Brooklyn” basketball clinics per month to elementary and junior high school students throughout Brooklyn. The clinics will culminate with an all-borough 1,000 kid tournament in June, featuring some of the next basketball stars of Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: We've heard that Courier-Life is now owned by the NY Post, which supports Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, so don't expect any improvements soon.
Posted by lumi at 7:24 AM
April 1, 2007
Two Quick Items From Atlantic Yards Report
At the Forest City Enterprises web site, sustainability is front and center
Norman Oder finds that, for Forest City, "Sustainability is an integral part of Forest City's core values" means just what it says -- except for Atlantic Yards.
AY a project or a place? The Times still whiffs
Also, the Times still doesn't get that Atlantic Yards is only a marketing brand, not a place.
Posted by steve at 9:49 AM
Courier Life: Brooklyn Through Ratner-Colored Glasses
Courier Life Publications takes great care to let you know they support Atlantic Yards by confusing the entire project with just the 10% part of it that involves an arena.
Discover the entire length and breadth of your borough, just by taking a walk
In a listing of a tour presented by the Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment (BCUE):
April 15 from 1-3 p.m., there is A Meet and Greet Tour of Fort Greene. Long before there was a Central Park or a Prospect Park, there was Fort Greene Park (the vision of Walt Whitman). The area around the park is a neighborhood in stark contrast: a house that goes back to 1812, a church that was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the proposed new Atlantic Yards Stadium.
(see, BCUE's own listing shows understanding that Atlantic Yards isn't merely a stadium:
Long before there was a Central Park or a Prospect Park, there was Fort Greene Park (the brainchild of Walt Whitman). We’ll see a house that dates back to 1812, a church that was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the site for the proposed Atlantic Yards Project. No other Brooklyn community can claim writers, musicians, designers, film makers and visual artists with such a rich and varied history. Visit an artist studio and the MOCADA museum, the historic district surrounding the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and end at Dekalb Avenue’s Restaurant.
- Meet at Fulton Street and Greene Avenue in front of Cuyler Gore Park. Take the C to Lafayette Avenue or Q/2/3/4 to Atlantic Avenue. Walk east towards Hanson Place to Cuyler Gore Park.
Posted by steve at 7:05 AM
March 31, 2007
What more can be said?
The KnickerBlogger
The KnickerBlogger can't see why the press is ignoring recent Atlantic Yards revelations and their impact on the financial future of New York City:
I am amazed by the lack of interest by most of the mainstream press about the latest Atlantic Yards revelation - the state and city is prepared to hand over billions of dollars in subsidies and loans without even seeing a business plan (hey where do i sign up!) .
NoLandGrab: Sorry, KnickerBlogger, no free $$$ for you.
Posted by steve at 8:49 AM
March 27, 2007
Homeowner Stares Down Wreckers, at Least for a While
News from Chongqing about taking of private property for a private project has been all over the papers and Internet during the past two weeks.
Since The NY Times is practically allergic to covering eminent domain, they're pretty much the last at the table. What's left to say that hasn't already been said? In today's article, the Times covers the coverage:
CHONGQING, China, March 23 — For weeks the confrontation drew attention from people all across China, as a simple homeowner stared down the forces of large-scale redevelopment that are sweeping this country, blocking the preparation of a gigantic construction site by an act of sheer will.
At a site in Chongqing, all of the households but one have left.
Chinese bloggers were the first to spread the news, of a house perched atop a tall, thimble-shaped piece of land like Mont-Saint-Michel in northern France, in the middle of a vast excavation.
Newspapers dived in next, followed by national television. Then, in a way that is common in China whenever an event begins to take on hints of political overtones, the story virtually disappeared from the news media after the government, bloggers here said, decreed that the subject was suddenly out of bounds.
Still, the “nail house,” as many here have called it because of the homeowner’s tenacity, like a nail that cannot be pulled out, remains the most popular current topic among bloggers in China.
NoLandGrab: As structures in the Atlantic Yards footprint are being demolished by Bruce Ratner around property owned by those who are still fighting in the courts, we hardly expect the Times to cover it, at least not before bloggers in China pick it up first.
Posted by lumi at 8:14 AM
March 26, 2007
GROUNDHOG DAY: Three press releases for work at Atlantic Yards
Is it ironic, or just a crying shame, that Forest City Ratner put out three press releases between February 20th and last week to announce the preliminary work/demolitions for their Atlantic Yards development project?
February 20, 2007
March 1, 2007
March 22, 2007
This is the same company that doesn't provide any information to the community through the know-nothing Community Liaison Office, though the office is mentioned in the first press release.
The slow drip of press releases is a pretty smart way to keep the demolitions in the news. Every few weeks it's Groundhog Day all over again.
BTW: There are indeed workers at the Ward Bakery building today. It looks like Forest City Ratner sometimes does keep its word.
Posted by lumi at 12:01 PM
March 23, 2007
Lost in translation: Top Chinese editors visit Paper office
The Brooklyn Paper, Editorial
We’re still scratching our heads about it, but this week, four of China’s top newspaper editors journeyed to our DUMBO offices to talk politics, media and, yes, Bruce Ratner.
The editors, from the 300,000-circulation Shanghai Youth Daily, peppered the hard-working scribes of Brooklyn’s real newspaper with questions about how free papers stay in the black (don’t ask us!), what we think of our competition (what competition?), and how we cover powerful people like Ratner (we ask a lot of questions, and Ratner ignores us).
The trip was part of a cultural exchange set up by the State Department, which naturally sees The Brooklyn Paper as a leading voice in the struggle for Truth, Justice and the American Way.
The Chinese editors were concerned with all three, especially how American local governments can condemn private property and turn it over to another private developer via eminent domain.
NoLandGrab: Bruce Ratner could even become the International Posterboy for Eminent Domain Abuse.
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
March 21, 2007
Brownstoner: It’s Me!
He quit his Wall Street gig to blog on Brooklyn real estate; now, the Brownstoner reveals his secret identity: Jonathan Butler
The NY Observer
By Tom Acitelli
And how does the recently unmasked blogger feel about Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan?
So, for Atlantic Yards, for instance, forget the density, which Mr. Butler believes largely takes a backseat to the sheer aesthetic blight the project might loose upon central Brooklyn.
“My concern is more aesthetic, in that I can’t think of a single example where you have one developer making such a large imprint in an area—especially when you have only one architect,” he said. “I don’t think it’s going to engage the existing surrounding communities very well.”
Should Forest City Ratner—the Atlantic Yards’ developer—shudder? Is being on the bad side of a Brownstoner now unencumbered by a day job dangerous?
Posted by lumi at 8:26 AM
March 18, 2007
Crime trumps traffic: the Post-tabloidization of the Courier-Life tabloid
Atlantic Yards Report
Yesterday, I picked up my copy of the Park Slope Courier, part of the Courier-Life chain, and looked for any mention of the proposed traffic changes that have the neighborhood up in arms. There was no coverage of concerns or a preview of the Community Board Transportation Committee meeting Thursday (which occurred past the paper's deadline). So much for the "Your Neighborhood -- Your News" slogan.The front page stories concerned a Park Slope man stabbed in Manhattan last weekend, a local teen who needs a transplant, and a local man convicted of molestation. Crime--and human interest--but not "our news." Oh, let's not forget--a banner advertising "The Boro's ultimate classifieds" and "16 pages of SmartSource coupons."
...
The Brooklyn Paper has its flaws, including its own tabloid tendencies, but it's been on top of the traffic story, offering front-page coverage two straight weeks on the traffic plan. The Brooklyn Paper even covered the Thursday hearing online.
...
On Thursday, I did see a photographer who contributes to the Courier-Life at the meeting, so maybe we'll see some coverage next week. Still, anyone who thinks that "GUNNING FOR KELLY" and "SHOCK OVER SLAYING" are the big news headlines in Park Slope has been spending too much time in tabloid-land.
NoLandGrab: Maybe Norman would have been more excited about the coupon section if he had clipped out this one: "MTA Properties, Half Price with This Coupon!" Of course, the small print was disappointing: "Selected developers only, not to be combined with community oriented principles."
Posted by amy at 9:41 AM
March 12, 2007
BCAT Reporters Roundtable: The Battle Over "Blood Money"
This week BrooklynPaper.com is featuring BCAT's Reporters Roundtable with host The Brooklyn Paper editor Gersh Kuntzman, discussing the Barclay's naming-rights deal with reporters Rich Calder (NY Post), Jotham Sederstrom (NY Daily News) and Tom Tracy (Courier-Life Publications).
Click on the image to view the broadcast from the BCAT web site:
Posted by lumi at 11:50 AM
Clarification
The Brooklyn Paper ran this retraction of last week's hyperbolic and misleading headline:
A headline in last week’s edition, “Federal judge: Suit is hot air,” suggested that federal magistrate Robert Levy had recommended that a suit against Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project be dismissed because it lacked merit.
In fact, as the article pointed out, Levy said, “The complaint raises serious and difficult questions regarding the exercise of eminent domain under emerging Supreme Court jurisprudence.”
Levy did recommend that the suit be dismissed — because he believes it should be heard in state, not federal, court.
Our headline should have better reflected what the story reported, namely that Levy was ruling on jurisdictional grounds, not on the merits of the case
Posted by lumi at 11:41 AM
March 11, 2007
This Week in NoLandGrab History
This week in 2004 saw a meeting in Park Slope that lit a fire under two soon-to-be Atlantic Yards bloggers.
Arena Controversy Comes to Slope As Crowd Jeers Atlantic Yards Plan
Forest City, Gehry Reps Appear At Public Forum for First Time
Brooklyn Daily Eagle By John Doyle
The forum, she said, proves there is a strong and growing opposition to Ratner’s development plan. “It showed people are going to fight against this bypass of the democratic process and win.”
If memory serves, this is also the forum where an audience member asked how all the trees in the renderings would live with all of the pollution the traffic would cause if Atlantic Yards was built. Ratner folk responded that they were working on a new kind of tree that is resistant to pollution, which brought on the quick audience response, "What about the people?"
Posted by amy at 12:44 PM
March 10, 2007
Daily News in the tank? (redux)
Atlantic Yards Report
The Daily News had a scoop yesterday--the explanation that the city would spend $100 million on land for the Atlantic Yards project as part of a $205 million contribution--far more than the originally contemplated $100 million in a 2/18/05 Memorandum of Understanding.That story appeared only in the Brooklyn section. Don't they think it's news to any of their readers outside the borough?
Unfortunately, it's part of a pattern--as I detailed in December, the Daily News overhyped a story on a proposed new Brooklyn Tech High School, running it on page 2, while it relegated to the Brooklyn section important articles about the decline in projected tax revenues and the filing of the Atlantic Yards eminent domain lawsuit.
Posted by amy at 12:10 PM
March 6, 2007
Audio and Images: Bloggers Deconstruct Atlantic Yards Media Messages
Brooklyn bloggers explore grassroots media responses to the massive Atlantic Yards development
The NYC Independent Media Center
By Jonathan Barkey
On Saturday, February 24, 2007, at New School University, a panel of four Brooklynites examined grassroots media responses to Atlantic Yards, the largest single-developer project in the history of New York City. Audio (44MB, MP3) and photo links...
Posted by lumi at 11:33 AM
March 5, 2007
Corrections fatigue: The Times stonewalls on lawsuit story
Yawn... Atlantic Yards Report reports (again) on "corrections fatigue" at The New York Times.
The importance of the New York Times to the historical record was reinforced this past weekend during a symposium on Robert Moses, where several of the presenters, in their accompanying slides, included copies of Times articles.
Then again, one academic, the University of Pennsylvania's Lynne Sagalyn, observed that, to study coverage of Atlantic Yards, you have to look at the blogs, and that's true. Otherwise, historians might be confused, for example, by the Times's 2/24/07 coverage of the federal eminent domain case.
Norman Oder reviews his correspondence with The Times regarding an Associated Press story that was cut down, resulting in the omission of a central point of Judge Levy's ruling on the Federal eminent domain case.
Oder quotes The Times stylebook on corrections...
Seldom should a correction try to place blame or deflect it outside The Times; the effort might appear defensive or insincere. But when an error has occurred under the byline or credit of a blameless staff member or news agency, the correction may cite an editing error or a transmission error.
...and concludes:
The Times, in this case, does not appear to be following that policy, and the Public Editor doesn't seem to care.
NoLandGrab: The Times SHOULD care. Last year, the "Paper of Record" launched several blogs on www.nytimes.com to augment its news coverage. This move acknowledges the importance of the blogosphere, but sadly represents the full extent of the mainstream media's (MSM) response.
What the MSM inexplicably fails to understand is that it is not the FORMAT, but rather the CONTENT, that makes many blogs competitive with the MSM.
As the MSM continues to loses readers to other Internet-based independent media, they are not going to make it up by offering more of the same in a new wrapper.
Oh, and did you know that you can easily add a correction to any item right away on a blog? (Yawn!)
Posted by lumi at 9:25 AM
March 4, 2007
This Week in NoLandGrab History
Have a good laugh at Dennis Holt's predictions in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle from February 27, 2004:
Ratner Arena Plan Separated From Office, Housing ProposalThere are many reasons for the two-tiered approach, not the least of which is that the arena is a given element, and everything else is speculative. The clock is ticking, and the Nets, if all goes well for Ratner, will want to tip off in Brooklyn in 2006.
Wondering about the basis for the eminent domain lawsuit? MTA spokesperson Tom Kelley explained it best in this blast from the past, from February 29, 2004:
Stadia Mania: The View from Prospect HeightsThe Brooklyn Rail By Brian Carreira
An important and yet seemingly overlooked fact is that Forest City Ratner has not yet secured any rights to develop the area. For three of the six blocks included in the development scheme, Ratner would need to secure air rights from the MTA as they would be built over existing railroad track. A much bandied and seemingly unquestioned assertion is that these rights will be "donated" to Forest City upon purchase of the team. But a recent discussion with MTA spokesperson Tom Kelley told a slightly different story: "All this is media crap," he noted. Ratner, Kelley said, "would be given preference" for development since he has already built the Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal in the immediate vicinity. As for the idea that the rights will ultimately be donated by a public authority that is projecting to run a budget deficit as soon as 2005, Kelley said, "hope runs eternal."
Posted by amy at 10:27 AM
March 2, 2007
Times, News still ignore the AY financials
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder points out that Wednesday's release of insufficient financial info and the lack of media coverage has implications that reach beyond Atlantic Yards:
Journalistic neglect of the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) sketchy release of Atlantic Yards financials matters, and here's why: the ESDC needs reform.
Here's Oder's take on the media coverage from the past two days:
That would seem to be news, at least as important as, say, developer Bruce Ratner's pronouncements of affection for Nets stars Jason Kidd and Vince Carter. (Yeah, I know, the Sports desk isn't the Metro desk.)
Indeed, yesterday, the New York Sun covered the bases on the ESDC's release of Forest City's cash flow projections. The New York Post covered it irresponsibly, failing to get a comment from any outside analyst or advocate, much less Brennan, and misleadingly proclaiming an "exclusive." The New York Times and the New York Daily News passed on the story, and do so again today.
Journalists like to be first. Sometimes they think that, if another news outlet already has the story, they're embarrassing themselves by reporting it late. And in the well-linked information universe in which reporters are immersed, it may seem like this topic has gone through much discussion.
However, the public consumes information differently. Many people only read the Times, or the Daily News. So if the story doesn't appear, it doesn't exist.
Posted by lumi at 11:25 AM
On objectivity, neutrality, and integrity in covering the Atlantic Yards
NYC Independent Media Center
Norman Oder participated in a panel at last week's Grassroots Media Conference where he spoke about where he fits in to the media coverage of Atlantic Yards as an experienced journalist and regular blogger.
I’m the most mainstream person sitting on this panel, and I don’t think there’s a contradiction between using mainstream training and experience in the service of grassroots media.
In fact, I think that grassroots media, held to professional standards, can be more intellectually honest and more responsible than the mainstream media.
I try to read everything. I read all the press. I read the documents regarding Atlantic Yards. There's lots of information in documents. That was the lesson from I.F. Stone in the 1950s and that's still true today.
Posted by lumi at 10:31 AM
March 1, 2007
Brooklyn Library Under Fire for Truncating Exhibit—Is it Censorship?
Library Journal
Normally, our superhero lives his life as Norman Oder, a mild-mannered editor and reporter for Library Journal.
Check out the Mad Overkiller in action in his day job, as the bizarro world of Atlantic Yards Report crosses with the Library Journal in today's article covering the controversy surrounding the Footprints exhibit at the Brooklyn Public Library.
All kidding aside, the article leads with this fairly serious new development that has few implications, except to lend credibility to the claims of the library's critics:
The National Coalition Against Censorship, an alliance that includes, among some 50 organizational members, the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Library Association (ALA), and People for the American Way, has criticized the Brooklyn Public Library for censoring an exhibition of art related to a highly controversial local development known as Atlantic Yards. In response, the library acknowledged error in not renaming the exhibit, but staunchly resisted the censorship accusation.
Posted by lumi at 9:29 AM
February 27, 2007
NY Times to blame for what "Brownstoners" don't know about Atlantic Yards?
Commentary, from "Anonymice" on Brownstoner, regarding Jennifer Egan's Op-Ed in the Saturday Times, made us realize that Egan's piece was the very first mention in The NY Times that Atlantic Yards, if built, would be the densest residential community in the nation.
Two commenters posting on Brownstoner found that hard to believe; one even accused Egan of "creating 'facts' out of whole cloth."
This incredulity made us realize that unless these readers were receiving the DDDB newsletter, or were regular readers of NoLandGrab or Atlantic Yards Report, they had no clue. How could they? The New York Times never told them.
Here's how several voices in the public conversation on Atlantic Yards uncovered this amazing fact in the Summer of '06.
STARTS WITH STUCKEY
The questions about density arose when Forest City Ratner (FCR) VP Jim Stuckey was trying to make folks understand that Atlantic Yards wasn't all that big. In a May 15, 2006 interview with Brian Lehrer of WNYC, Stuckey claimed that the FAR (floor area ratio) of Atlantic Yards was around 8, and was close to that of the Downtown Brooklyn Plan.
FACTCHECKING STUCKEY
Stuckey's claims just didn't sound right to Jonathan Cohn from Brooklyn Views, who had been studying the plan and posting commentary from the point of view of an experienced architect. Cohn did a little analysis and calculated what he termed "real FAR" (as opposed to "FCR FAR?") and came up with an estimate more like 9 (see, "How Big Is It Now?"). Cohn also extended an offer to the 
developer to provide more accurate figures in order to nail down the actual figure — he's still waiting by the phone.
ODER UNVEILS STARTLING COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS
This revelation, and a quick lesson in the myriad of ways in which planners measure density, sent Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report sniffing around, comparing Atlantic Yards to other large-scale housing projects in New York City. Oder didn't find any developments in NYC that had nearly the population density of the Atlantic Yards plan (see, "Extreme density: Atlantic Yards plan would dwarf Battery Park City, other projects"). To the Brownstoner/NY Times readers, that includes Battery Park City. Imagine, BPC with, like, twice as many buildings sandwiched into the open space.
A CITY PLANNING EXPERT WEIGHS IN
Then former City Planning Commissioner and Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Advisory Board member Ron Shiffman pointed out Atlantic Yards's dirty little secret, "If Forest City Ratner’s proposal proceeds at the current scale, it would constitute the densest residential community in the United States and, perhaps, Europe, with the exception of some of the suburbs of Paris."
DENSEST RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY? C'MON! SCHUERMAN LOOKS AT THE DATA
Oder's article and Ron Shiffman's pronouncement got New York Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman wondering if that could be true. Schuerman checked out the latest census data ("Prisoner of Atlantic Avenue") and found that the densest census tract in the nation is a single two-block project in West Harlem that has "229,713 inhabitants per square mile." Atlantic Yards, according to the figures released by the developer at the time, clocked in "between 436,363 and 523,636 inhabitants per square mile (based on estimated population of between 15,000 and 18,000 residents over 22 acres)."
Atlantic Yards has been shaved down since then, but the fact remains that it would handily eclipse the residential density of any place in the nation.
Why is residential density important? Because residential areas place a heavier load on city services. Those same city services that the Atlantic Yards Evironmental Impact Statement has amazingly concluded would not be significantly impacted by the project.
So thank you Jim Stuckey, Jonathan Cohn, Norman Oder, Ron Shiffman and Matthew Schuerman for putting your heads together and helping Brooklynites who read blogs written by what Senator Schumer calls "self-appointed people" to understand that Atlantic Yards is an experiment in urban density of historical proportions.
Oh, and thanks to Brownstoner readers for illustrating what happens to inquiring minds when the "Paper of Record" gets its info from developer press releases. We can only apologize for The NY Times for not keeping their readers in the loop, especially those who live in Central Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 10:00 AM
February 26, 2007
A grudging Times correction on "city approval" and another taking more blame than Barclays
Atlantic Yards Report
Getting The NY Times to print a correction in reference to Atlantic Yards feels like pulling teeth, especially when they have printed the same correction in the past:
Why did it take six days for the New York Times to grudgingly correct a basic error in a 2/20/07 Metro Brief about Atlantic Yards, especially since the Times in December published essentially the same correction?
The brief stated:
The city and state approved the project despite heated opposition from residents...The correction today, under the For the Record rubric (where basic errors are corrected), states:
*A report in the Metro Briefing column on Tuesday about the construction work expected to begin at the Atlantic Yards project near downtown Brooklyn referred imprecisely to the development. Although it has been endorsed by the Bloomberg administration and the City Planning Commission, it is a state project that does not require formal city approval. (Emphasis added)That wasn't imprecise but simply incorrect.
Why did The Times take so long? What's the big deal anyway? What about the Barclays correction?
Perhaps The Times is getting sick of being fact-checked by Norman Oder.
"Correction fatigue," anyone?
Click here to get the rest of the story.
Posted by lumi at 8:51 AM
February 25, 2007
Errol Louis on AY negotiation, but not the 20-year affordable housing plan
Atlantic Yards Report
Today, let us give thanks that Norman Oder has the patience to fact check Errol Louis's entire article.
Louis calls the litigation "doomed" and likens Atlantic Yards to other projects with public benefits such as Lincoln Center in Manhattan and Melrose Commons in the Bronx, neither of which have, as the Atlantic Yards plan would have, nearly 2000 luxury condos, 2250 market-rate rentals, and 900 (of 2250 "affordable" rentals) at or over market rate.(In the print edition, there's a big picture of a smiling, benevolent Bruce Ratner.)
...
Louis calls it a "fool's errand" to go to federal court to impinge on state and local exercise of eminent domain. He notes Levy's citation that federal courts generally stay out of these cases. True, but the question here is whether the Atlantic Yards litigation, based on legal theories developed after the Supreme Court's 2005 Kelo vs. New London decision, will break new legal ground.
Posted by amy at 11:35 AM
February 24, 2007
A Times op-ed critical of AY, 38 months later
Atlantic Yards Report
Some 38 months after the Atlantic Yards project was announced, the first-ever national edition op-ed on the topic appears today in the New York Times. (One was published in the City section in November 2005.) Headlined A Developing Story, it makes some valuable points, especially in a venue unwelcoming to the topic, though--and who knows what the imposed boundaries were--it also falls short in some ways.The author, novelist and journalist Jennifer Egan, is a regular contributor to the Times Magazine and an advisory board member of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB). It's understandable that the Times would solicit a piece from a writer it knows rather than others even closer to Atlantic Yards debate, but the latter strategy might have produced an even tougher piece--or maybe one that the Times would've rejected.
...
In a coincidence that can only be described as "brutally weird," the Times today contains a story irresponsibly headlined Judge Urges Dismissal of Atlantic Yards Suit, thus suggesting that the eminent domain suit Egan highlighted is likely dead--but failing to point out that the case would be re-filed in state court.
Posted by amy at 10:37 AM
February 19, 2007
GL on the BPL in the NYT
Last week, Gowanus Lounge went off on the Brooklyn Public Library for the decision to omit controversial artwork from the Footprints exhibit and landed a quote in yesterday's Times article.
From the Times:
After the decision to remove the works was reported on Feb. 8 in The New York Observer real estate Web log, there were complaints. One Web log, the Gowanus Lounge, called the omissions “self-interest and stupidity of the highest order.”
Gowanus Lounge didn't gloat, only stating that he was "happy to be mentioned in the story."
NoLandGrab: Every other blogger that covered the story is probably seething with envy, except us, of course.
Posted by lumi at 7:03 AM
From the AY Saga to Terrorists at the Tea Lounge
Gothamist gives props to The Brooklyn Paper for covering "stories here way before the dailies get to them, if ever."
Their favorite headline, "Fowl play: Fairway ducks foie gras flap."
Links to articles about censorship at the Brooklyn Public Library, Yvette Clarke's sitdown with Ratner over Barclays and terrorists at the Tea Lounge (darn, we're going to have to find another wireless cafe at which to meet sketchy neighborhood activists!).
Posted by lumi at 6:57 AM
February 18, 2007
Shhhush. This is a Library!
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
The Times Sunday City Section has an article, An Exhibition Notable for What’s Not There by Paul Berger on the Brooklyn Public Library's censorship of the art show "Footprints: Portrait of a Brooklyn Neighborhood". The article leaves out an important fact about the censored portrait of DDDB's spokesperson Daniel Goldstein–which is that he is a resident of the proposed footprint for the "Atlantic Yards" project and a plaintiff on the federal lawsuit challenging the use of eminent domain to build the project. The portrait and other works were censored, er "absent," from the Public Library's exhibition.
Posted by amy at 9:17 AM
"Footprints" portrait hagiography or not? You decide
Atlantic Yards Report points out what's missing from the Times article "An Exhibition Notable for What’s Not There":
The Times article summarizes the controversy, but doesn't (because of space?) connect the dots to explain that Atlantic Yards opponents have charged that the library's caution derives from a fear of offending Forest City Ratner, a potential donor.Nor does it delve into the inherent difficulty of separating documentation from advocacy, given the unexplained back story behind many of the works, as I pointed out. Still, it does point out that one piece, by Aisha Cousins, suggests that homes are about to be gobbled up--a bit of a political cartoon in itself.
Posted by amy at 8:54 AM
From the AY Saga to Terrorists at the Tea Lounge
Gothamist enjoys the Brooklyn Paper:
Today, the big story is newly-elected Congresswoman Yvette Clarke's call for congressional hearings on the $400-million naming of the Nets arena after Barclays, the multinational bank that the paper says profited from the slave trade, froze the accounts of Holocaust victims and operated in apartheid South Africa. Last week, black leaders, including Clarke, had a sit-down with Ratner. If AY's past is any indication, the Barclays naming will proceed.Another piece covers accusations of censorship against the Brooklyn Public Library for cutting key parts of an art exhibit about the 22-acre Yards site. The show, called "Footprints: Portrait of a Brooklyn Neighborhood" looks at the area's residents and businesses. Artist Sarah Sagarin says that controversial pieces were left out, namely a portrait of DDDB's Daniel Goldstein and a Donald O'Finn painting (image at left) of the Yards as a toilet bowl. Ratner's in talks with the library to fund the proposed arts branch near BAM.
Posted by amy at 8:40 AM
February 12, 2007
Missing Link: Brooklyn Public Library Drops Anti-AY Art
From the "Record:"
The missing link
NoLandGrab and Gowanus Lounge cited The Real Estate Observer for the scoop. Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn only posted a response AFTER the story broke.
We don't know why the editors at Brooklyn Record didn't give The Observer credit for the scoop or shed light on the full story, but we know that bloggers are pretty sensitive when the mainstream media (msm) doesn't give them credit for their stories. The msm-published blog The Real Estate Observer is sort of a hybrid that probably deserves the same respect.
In the blogosphere, oversights like this tend to propagate, — NY Magazine's blog Daily Intelligencer linked to the DDDB remarks, giving credit for the citing to Brooklyn Record.
Is the distinction important? Well, for once, it wasn't DDDB that issued a strongly worded press release on a wing and a prayer that someone in the mainstream media might give damn about the largest single-source private project in NYC history that is about to turn a strip of Prospect Heights into the densest residential community in the nation (but we digress...).
Posted by lumi at 10:48 AM
"The Gray Lady" eventually gets around to printing correction on AY "reconstruction"
The lead time for extracting a correction from "The Gray Lazy" is about two weeks when the topic is Atlantic Yards.
From this weekend's NY Times:
Correction: Rehabilitating Robert Moses
An article on Jan. 28 about new exhibitions looking at Robert Moses’ impact on New York today, referred imprecisely to the Atlantic Yards real estate project in Brooklyn. It is a new development, not a reconstruction project. (Go to Article)
As important as any one correction is the recognition that Bruce Ratner's PR team has waged a very successful effort to brand "Atlantic Yards."
At this point, it seems that most Brooklynites believe that the Vanderbilt Railyard is actually called "Atlantic Yards," and that "Atlantic Yards" is an actual location, not a development plan.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report explains why two weeks practically constitutes foot-dragging as far as the NY Times is concerned:
And why couldn't the Times have corrected it on the day of publication, given that they had ample advance warning? (The Times prints the Arts & Leisure section days in advance, but typically runs a correction in the main news section if adequately warned.) Was it delayed for research?
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn worded it this way:
Two weeks ago Norman Oder pointed out a substantial mistake in a NY Times article, and that it could have been corrected in a timely and, thus, meaningful manner.
Posted by lumi at 9:23 AM
Brooklyn DAILY Eagle: Atlantic Yards Opponents Fight For Their Right to a Federal Trial
Norman Oder pointed out last week that a reader took him to task for overlooking Brooklyn's daily newpaper, the "Daily Eagle" (published M-F).
Oder noted, "The Eagle did cover the court hearing Wednesday, with a 427-word article. A more substantial Brooklyn daily, I'd imagine, would've given it more space. The New York Sun, by contrast, managed 669 words."
To Oder's point, Brooklyn Daily Eagle posted a 431-word article on their web site on Friday, covering the hearing on the use of eminent domain at Atlantic Yards. The NY Sun published a 670-word article the day after the hearing on Thursday.
From the Eagle article:
Judge Robert Levy questioned lawyers on all sides yesterday. If a development project has a public use, does that make eminent domain constitutional? What if the public use represents only 5 percent of a largely private project? What if, hypothetically, the project has a public use — for example, as a railroad or highway — but was created through an unethical or even corrupt process for the purpose of benefiting a private person?
“It’s not the purposes that count, if you’re doing something permissible,” concluded Douglas Kraus, who represented the ESDC.
“We’re not talking about [Times Square], the crossroads of the world,” said Jeffrey Braun, an attorney for Forest City Ratner. “We’re talking about eliminating this scar on Brooklyn.”
more (registration required)
Posted by lumi at 7:33 AM
February 10, 2007
A Brooklyn daily? Yes, but...
Atlantic Yards Report explains his exclusion of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle when saying that Brooklyn has no dailies:
A reader took me to task for my musing yesterday about the failures to cover the Atlantic Yards eminent domain hearing: "Imagine Brooklyn as a separate city with its own daily newspaper. The Atlantic Yards case would've been front and center."
...
The Eagle did cover the court hearing Wednesday, with a 427-word article. A more substantial Brooklyn daily, I'd imagine, would've given it more space. The New York Sun, by contrast, managed 669 words. I thought it was worth a lot more than that.
Posted by amy at 11:56 AM
February 9, 2007
Barclays Bullies Brooklyn Paper?
Barclays to Brooklyn: No ‘Blood money’ here
Barclays Bank sent a letter to The Brooklyn Paper claiming that allegations of connections to the slave trade were "simply not true" and "asked that the newspapers 'immediately retract'" stories which made the claim. This letter was also sent to other journalists who covered the Barclays Bank naming-rights controversy.
Editor’s note: Our Barclays coverage
So an official letter copied to Barclays Bank's Gobal General Counsel probably would have The Brooklyn Paper running for the hills, right? NOT!
But we are not retracting our stories. Indeed, further research on our part confirmed the central truth of our coverage: Barclays profited handsomely from slavery and its business dealings with the Apartheid government of South Africa.
...
This is not the debate we wanted to have, but it is the debate that Barclays has foisted upon us by sending a letter that tried to absolve itself from what historians say is a clear link to the so-called “Peculiar Institution” of slavery.We would much rather be analyzing the flaws of the Ratner project — the public subsidies that will allow the developer untold profits with very little risk, the huge environmental toll, the steamrolling of the established public review process — than debating the causes and villains of the horrific crime of human bondage.
Besides, our news stories about Barclays were not an examination of whether the bank had profited from slavery — all banks did, so to pretend otherwise is silly. Rather, our initial article — and its follow-up, “Black leaders rip Ratner’s $400M Barclays arena deal” — centered on the outrage that black leaders like Councilwoman Letitia James, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, former Assemblyman Roger Green, and some church pastors — felt after hearing about the Ratner-Barclays contract.
We did not manufacture their outrage; we reported it, leaving our readers to decide for themselves if the bank’s past bothered them.
...
Truell’s letter also took exception to our reference to the bank’s long-documented link to South Africa’s apartheid government, and its role in freezing the accounts of some French Jews during the Holocaust. RicoBut the letter did not substantively dispute the accuracy of our coverage so we stand by those parts of our stories, as well.
Posted by lumi at 9:48 AM
"Mad overkilling" a response to Atlantic Yards neglect
Atlantic Yards Report
So, why didn't the New York Times or the New York Post, both of which sent reporters, publish articles about the federal court hearing Wednesday regarding the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case?
I can only speculate. Maybe space was tight. Maybe the Times was handicapped because the one Times reporter who'd actually gained expertise on Atlantic Yards, during more than a year of reporting, was promoted to Albany. Maybe the Post didn't want to distract from the day's crime-heavy local coverage.
Still, the Sun, the Daily News, Metro, and amNY, among others, managed to find news in the hearing.
Norman Oder scours "all the print that fits the news" for courtroom coverage that the papers deemed more important or relevant to their readers.
NoLandGrab: We still contend that backstage celebrity cat fights at Fashion Week are probably more important than the "little people" who ought to be "picketing Henry Ford" rather than standing in the way of progress.
Posted by lumi at 9:33 AM
February 7, 2007
Q&A: Norman "The Mad Overkiller" Oder
The Real Estate Observer
Is it a short Q&A with everyone's favorite journalistic superhero, The Mad Overkiller, or Norman Oder's long-winded dating profile?
Norman Oder, the blogger behind the Atlantic Yards Report, recently had two scoops that were widely picked up by the dailies. In December, he reported that the state had reduced its estimate for net tax revenues from the project by $465 million. In January, he discovered that the Mayor's proposed 2008 budget directs an additional $105 million toward the Brooklyn arena.
The Real Estate's Matthew Schuerman recently had coffee with the guy who is showing how this project is costing the public more and giving it less.
How does Oder feel about being called "The Mad Overkiller?" How old is the Mad O? Why did he start Atlantic Yards Report? Is a book in the works?
Click here to learn the answers to these burning questions and more.
NoLandGrab: They forgot to ask Norman Oder who he thinks will play him in the movie about Bruce Ratner's bid to use eminent domain to build a mini-Manhattan in the heart of Brownstone Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 7:35 PM
February 5, 2007
Barclays Denies Alleged Ties To Slave Trade
NY Sun reporter Eliot Brown covers the Barclays brouhaha in Brooklyn:
Amid criticism by black leaders in Brooklyn over the naming rights deal for the Nets stadium, Barclays Bank late last week issued a letter denying allegations that it had links to slave trading in the 18th century.
After staying relatively mum on the issue for two weeks, Barclays failed to pacify many outspoken critics with its letter, though it prompted a correction from the Brooklyn Paper.
Posted by lumi at 10:00 AM
Looking at the Daily News editorial on Barclays, affordable housing, and apartheid
Atlantic Yards Report
The New York Daily News, in an editorial today (Taking it to the bank) taking Barclays' defensive letter on faith, goes beyond the bank's statement to distort the issues.
Consider the Daily News statement:
The bank's payments - the largest ever for arena naming rights - will help finance thousands of units of affordable housing while fattening Ratner's wallet.
That's a distortion. Yes, any revenue that Forest City Ratner would gain would help the overall enterprise, but the developer has not yet claimed that the Barclays deal was supposed to build subsidized housing. Rather, the affordable housing would be financed significantly by government funds--and the city has been unwilling to reveal the amount.
The Daily News continues:
But some howl that the money is unfit for Brooklyn. They accuse Barclays, founded in the 17th century, of having profited from the slave trade and reprising that bad behavior by doing business in South Africa during apartheid. This amounts to what one historian calls a "game of gotcha."
Actually, the historian quoted in the New York Times confined his "gotcha" comment to the slavery issue, not the more contemporary (and less murky) apartheid issue.
But wait, there's more.
Posted by lumi at 8:21 AM
Times, Daily News pass on $205M story; Doctoroff says construction costs could up city contribution
Atlantic Yards Report sums up the media coverage of the Bloomberg administration's more-than-doubling of the direct cash subsidy for Atlantic Yards, and follows up with Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff:
On the media:
The New York Sun and New York Post thought it was news. So did the online components of New York magazine, the New York Observer, and the Village Voice, as well as the online Gotham Gazette. The three Brooklyn weeklies--the Brooklyn Paper, the Courier-Life chain, and the Downtown Star (my story)--have covered it.
The New York Times and the New York Daily News have ignored the story so far. That's inconsistent, given their willingness to prominently play stories that were merely speculative. For example, a 9/5/06 Times article on a rumored six to eight percent cut in the size of the Atlantic Yards project ran on the front page--the lead story in the local edition. And a 12/22/06 Daily News story on the still sketchy possibility of a new Brooklyn Technical High School ran on page 2.
The Doctoroff is in:
...after the symposium on Robert Moses last Thursday, I asked Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Dan Doctoroff a couple of Atlantic Yards questions. I already covered the discussion of public dialogue and Community Benefits Agreements, but I also raised the funding issue: "You probably know there's a $205 billion capital plan for Atlantic Yards--
"Much of that," he intervened, "was stuff that was going to be done in the area regardless."
"Then why is it under the rubric of Atlantic Yards?" I asked.
"Because it happens to be in the area surrounding Atlantic Yards," he responded.
Posted by lumi at 8:13 AM
February 3, 2007
The Barclays backlash; call for retractions met with resistance, questions
Atlantic Yards Report
Barclays Capital is fighting back, sending strongly-worded letters to journalists who've written about the reported links between the company and slavery, and asking us to "immediately retract and cease making any further misrepresentations of this sort." Barclays two weeks ago announced a more than $300 million deal for naming rights to the Atlantic Yards arena, to be known as the Barclays Center.I received a copy of the letter emailed to two different email addresses as well as hand-delivered to my workplace. The latter was delivered some five hours after I emailed several pointed questions to Barclays, asking for backup information. No response was forthcoming by the end of the day.
...
I haven't written much about the slavery controversy, but here's what Barclays apparently objected to: in my 1/23/07 piece, headlined Barclays and slavery: the Times muddies the issue, I took the New York Times to task for not correcting or clarifying a passage that stated:
They also said Barclays profited from the slave trade yet is aligned with Ratner, who is marketing his team to African-American fans. A company spokesman said Barclays had not been involved in slavery."While Barclays may not have been directly involved in the slave trade, there's evidence that profits from the slave trade were foundational to the bank," I wrote, citing an article from London's Independent about a television series that "tells us that even banks like HSBC and Barclays relied on slaving profits for their foundation."
Posted by amy at 10:31 AM
And where exactly is our cease and desist?
The Daily Gotham is a little jealous of everyone else's threatening letters (none for NoLandGrab either!):
There's an opportunity in this that shouldn't be missed. Clearly, Barclay's could use this as an occasion to engage the community in a dialogue. I'd wager a guess that the bank finds itself surprised and slightly out of its depth in what must have been an unexpected discussion of its past; one suspects that they perhaps, cough, Ratner, cough, weren't told that the project they want to involve themselves with is in itself controversial.Thing is, that controversy isn't going to go away with a cease and desist. If Barclay's wants a dialogue, we're willing to have it.
Posted by amy at 9:57 AM
From the editor: Our Barclays coverage
Brooklyn Paper's Editor insists they checked their facts before publishing their story, and found everything on the up and up. Read the full editorial for a full disclosure of source material.
Barclays has requested a retraction from this newspaper (and others) for stories about the bank’s link to slavery and other dark moments in human history (see the bank’s letter, written by spokesman Peter Truell, by clicking here).Our stories regarding Barclays were based on information acquired from respected sources and, as a whole, do not merit a retraction.
...
Our news stories were not an examination of whether Barclays had profited from slavery — all banks did, so to pretend otherwise is silly. Rather, our initial article — and its follow-up, “Black leaders rip Ratner’s $400M Barclays arena deal” — centered on the outrage that black leaders like Councilwoman Letitia James, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, former Assemblyman Roger Green, and some church pastors — felt after hearing about the Ratner-Barclays contract.We didn’t manufacture their outrage; we reported it, leaving our readers to decide for themselves if the bank’s past bothered them.
Posted by amy at 9:57 AM
January 28, 2007
Brooklyn Matters: The Website
Brooklyn Matters has debuted a website that includes updated information about where the documentary will be playing as well as an online trailer:
No single event will have a more drastic and long-lasting impact on Brooklyn than the proposed Atlantic Yards development. This uncommon proposal, however, is mostly misunderstood. Brooklyn Matters is an insightful documentary that reveals the fuller truth about the Atlantic Yards proposal and highlights how a few powerful men are circumventing community participation and planning principles to try to push their own interests forward.
Posted by amy at 5:34 PM
Times fails to correct Moses story, despite ample warning
Atlantic Yards Report
On Wednesday, after I posted my critique of the New York Times's story to be published today (and already online) on Robert Moses, I sent a request for corrections to the Times. I pointed out that the article, Rehabilitating Robert Moses, misleadingly cited "the reconstruction of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn," an impossibility, given that Atlantic Yards is the name of a 22-acre project rather than an 8.5-acre railyard.articleAnd I pointed out that, while the article--which today is the lead article in the Arts & Leisure section--suggests that post-Moses projects must go through a gauntlet of approval, it avoids mentioning the Empire State Development Corporation fast track process to which Mayor Mike Bloomberg agreed regarding Atlantic Yards.
Develop Don't Destroy points out that the Times did make some corrections this week:
The NY Times, the paper of record, is supposed to strive for accuracy. When it's inaccurate it is supposed to correct those inaccuracies. It did so on January 24th with a bean counting error correction:Correction: An Italian Spot, Larded With Drive A review last Wednesday of the restaurant Porchetta in Brooklyn misstated an ingredient in a chicken dish. They are cannellini beans, not cannelloni beans. (Go to Article)Surely this correction will save many home cooks from embarrassment and Porchetta from misled customers.
Posted by amy at 4:17 PM
January 26, 2007
Vox UnPop
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn unloads the questions of Brooklyn Paper's man on the street interview:
We think a fairer question might have included the point that the $300 million naming-rights' payday for the publicly-funded arena goes directly to the developer, Forest City Ratner, who doesn't even own the arena and would rent it with a $1.00 99-year lease, if it is ever built. We readily admit that there is not much good for the public coming out of this private naming-rights deal. We also think that were the questions less leading, and solely about those financial issues, the men on the street would have given similar answers.
Posted by amy at 10:54 PM
Atlantic Yards documentary: A review
A lukewarm review from The Brooklyn Papers of "Brooklyn Matters" by Baker Hollingsworth:
To call Isabel Hill’s “Brooklyn Matters” a documentary would be akin to calling Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9-11” fair and balanced.
Like Moore’s film, “Brooklyn Matters” is a clever invective that will preach to the converted — the Atlantic Yards opponents who are its likely audience — a sermon they already believe: Atlantic Yards is bad.
But once any expectation of objectivity is set aside, the film delivers an engaging head-butt to developer Bruce Ratner, the Empire State Development Corporation, Mayor Bloomberg and former Gov. Pataki.
Posted by lumi at 2:23 PM
Predictable outrage over Atlantic Yards
Daily Gotham
The newest spat over Atlantic Yards features some of the usual suspects; on the one hand, there's Errol Louis, on the other, the Brooklyn Papers. This is Kabuki. If you, for example, should ever find yourself needing to know just what Louis' position is on a given issue, do this: imagine the most stereotypical black liberal you can, drawing heavily on all relevant clichés. Imagine what position this liberal phantom would take on the issue you're trying to divine; Louis will take exactly the inverse position to that. Try it; it's a parlor game of sorts in some circles, with an astonishing degree of accuracy.
The Brooklyn Papers, meanwhile, can be counted on to give column inches to every Yards controversy; the paper, perhaps, is seeing the need to expiate its endorsement of David Yassky some time ago.
...
Barclay's is an especially unfortunate choice, needless to say. It's worth pointing out that a parking lot to be created nearby, peripheral to Atlantic Yards, would require the destruction of the historic Duffield Houses, an Underground Railroad site. There's a deep irony that people parking their cars en route to a game in Barclay's Stadium would be parking on the ruins of yet another legacy of slavery.Hence, the outrage. It is somewhat difficult to see insincerity in that. Some people, of course, are invested in finding it. Which could of course, if one were thusly inclined, be termed, well, insincere.
NoLandGrab: No one has invested more than "Caring Bruce," who has sincerely played the race card at every turn.
Posted by lumi at 2:12 PM
Ratner’s ‘Blood Money’ fills the mailbag
The Brooklyn Papers publishes several letters addressing their article about "Blood Money" and the Barclays Bank naming-rights deal.
Two say the Papers has gone too far, one blames Ratner, another appreciates local weekly for sticking their neck out when other papers won't and two letters attempt to extrapolate the argument against Barclays:
"I have noticed that your paper has taken a very non-journalistic stance towards the Atlantic Yards development, but this was too much." — Terrence J. Allen, Prospect Heights
"I bet that in Brooklyn, there are more Jewish folks than any other ethnic group who own Adolf Hitler’s beloved Benz. Just look in the driveways of the mansions on and off Ocean Parkway around the Avenue R neighborhood. Almost every driveway has a Benz or BMW in it! And, these folks are observant Jewish people." — Vigor Eriksson, Bay Ridge
"People who thought that Bruce Ratner had their best interests in mind were fooled by him and by their own ignorance. "— Brian Schnabel, Bay Ridge
"The Brooklyn Paper’s disclosure to the public of relevant facts puts The Paper in a minority media position. In fact, so few media outlets are even covering the opposition to the project.
"The New York Times, the supposed media steward for the city, has only given lip service to the issues, and the New York Post’s harsh op-ed tone is outrageously mean-spirited. The opponents to this project are essentially fighting this battle alone, dismissed by the general news media, borough president, mayor, former governor, and many fellow New Yorkers." — Charles W. McMellon Jr., Park Slope
Here's an interesting point about Citibank, though the Wilpon family, owners of the Mets, haven't courted or even financially supported a largely African-American constituency to stump for their project:
"Citibank was founded on money from the slave trade, too, you know. In November 2002, a lawsuit was filed against Citigroup and 19 other companies for reparations because of alleged support to the apartheid regime that ruled South Africa. Citibank also trafficked in Nazi gold.
"Where was your indignation when the naming rights to the new Shea Stadium was sold to Citibank?" — Mark Phillips, Carroll Gardens
"Following your logic, we should banish Thomas Jefferson from all history books because he actively supported slavery. Following your logic, we should condemn him and ignore the fact that he was the author of the Constitution, who wrote those memorable words, 'We the people.'" — Suzy Hsia, Park Slope
The Papers added, "Thomas Jefferson did not write the Constitution," and rebuts several points from this Sloper's letter.
Posted by lumi at 9:00 AM
January 25, 2007
AY's Stuckey spins on WFAN; opponent Turner attempts brief rebuttal
Atlantic Yards Report "Oderizes" "Mike and the Dog" and the smooth sounds of Ratner exec Jim Stuckey:
I finally got a chance to listen to the 1/18/07 “Mike and the Mad Dog” show on WFAN radio, in which hosts Mike Francesa and Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, rather uninformed about Atlantic Yards, interviewed the smooth-talking Jim Stuckey, president of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Development Group.
Notably, Stuckey downplayed the number of people filing suit to block/stall the project (ten rather than 26), hinted that the unfunded day care and health care facilities in the project would serve all new residents, and claimed that property owners who signed deals to sell to Forest City had "come forth" to praise the developer.
While the same day the Barclays Center deal had been announced, the hosts, who began their discussion before Stuckey got on the line, focused more on the legal issues.
Posted by lumi at 7:23 AM
January 24, 2007
Robert Moses revisionism, Atlantic Yards "reconstruction," and the Times
Picketing Henry Ford's Stuart Schrader remarked this week, "At times this blog nearly writes itself."
One could say the same about Atlantic Yards Report where journalist/blogger Norman Oder had to put another hurtin' on The New York Times for their reference to "the reconstruction of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn," in this weekend's article about Robert Moses.
NoLandGrab: It remains to be seen if the Times will run a correction. "Atlantic Yards," the name of Bruce Ratner's redevelopment plan, currently does not exist and certainly cannot be "reconstructed" as you can see in the image below. Click here to see the footprint of the "Atlantic Yards" project with the railyard portion highlighted.
Author Robert Caro also gets in on the action in his 1,269-page biography of Moses entitled, "The Power Broker," which goes to show that history really does repeat itself:
From The Power Broker (p. 460):
Mrs. Sulzberger [wife of the publisher] believed that Moses came "close to our ideal of what a Park Commissioner should be"; the Times evidently believed so, too. Its reporters and editors may never have been directly ordered to give Moses special treatment but, during the Thirties as during the Twenties, they were not so insensitive as not to know what was expected of them. Moses' press releases were treated with respect, being given prominent treatment and often being printed in full. There was no investigating of the "facts" presented in those press releases, no attempt at detailed analysis of his theories of recreation and transportation, no probing of the assumptions on which the city was building and maintining recreational facilities and roads. The Times ran more than one hundred editorials on Moses and his programs during the twelve-year La Guardia administration--overwhelmingly favorable editorials.
Oder goes on to explain to anyone who will listen at the New York Times why "Atlantic Yards" is a poor example for current large-scale redevelopment projects in NYC, due to the special use of the State (instead of City) review process.
Posted by lumi at 9:31 AM
January 23, 2007
Barclays and slavery: the Times muddies the issue
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times reacts to criticism that "a clarification or correction is in order."
Here's what the Times ran:
Several demonstrators protested outside the museum, accusing Barclays of participating in the state's attempt to use eminent domain to condemn property for the project. They also said Barclays profited from the slave trade yet is aligned with Ratner, who is marketing his team to African-American fans. A company spokesman said Barclays had not been involved in slavery.
Here's an editor's explanation:
Because we accurately conveyed what each group said and because we made no further claims ourselves, we see no reason for a clarification or correction. Thanks again.
NoLandGrab: The Times is clearly no longer interested in "journalism of verification."
Is it enough to run a quote from both sides (i.e. "we've looked, and can find no evidence of weapons of mass distruction" or "we must stop the madman from using weapons of mass distruction")? Remember, it was just this kind of journalism that led The NY Times to drive news coverage and public opinion down the road toward Iraq.
Posted by lumi at 6:42 AM
January 21, 2007
The Times shows us the AY scale... in an ad
Atlantic Yards Report
Two months ago, I pointed out that the most crucial piece of information missing from the local press was a sense of the Atlantic Yards project scale. (Remember how the New York Times showed a picture of the empty railyard?)A reader reminds me that we finally got a sense of the scale--in the Barclays Center ad that ran on Friday in the Times, Daily News, Post, and Wall Street Journal.
Posted by amy at 12:43 PM
The Barclays extravaganza and the Atlantic Yards "permanent campaign"
Atlantic Yards Report
Closer to home, consider the extravaganza held Thursday at the Brooklyn Museum. There was news, to be sure, though much of it had apparently been strategically leaked. Forest City Ratner's deal with Barclays for naming rights for the planned Atlantic Yards arena, plus Barclays' commitment to improve some Brooklyn athletic fields, was worth coverage.But what exactly did Coney Island and Ebbets Field have to do with it? Why was Frank Gehry there? And Jay-Z? Nets stars Vince Carter and Jason Kidd? Why did the promotional video--not to mention the many speeches--last longer than the amount of time Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Forest City CEO Bruce Ratner deigned to answer questions?
It's the permanent campaign.
And it works, more or less. Compare the "straight" news story by the Associated Press, a version of which was published in dozens of papers, with the sardonic and analytical columns of the Daily News's Bob Raissman and the Bergen Record's Ian O'Connor, published in a total of two papers.
Posted by amy at 12:02 PM
January 20, 2007
New York Times Makes Correction
New York Times
Correction: January 20, 2007
A sports article on Thursday about the sale of naming rights for the Nets’ planned home in Brooklyn referred imprecisely to the arena’s anticipated cost. Although the price will indeed exceed $550 million, the latest cost projection has raised it to about $637 million. The article also referred incompletely to a park planned atop the arena. It will be a private open space for the complex; it will not be a public park.
article with correction appended
Posted by amy at 2:39 PM
January 16, 2007
Diane doesn't do documents
Online commentary about NY Times reporter Diane Cardwell's profile of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden jumped on the fact that Cardwell continues to support the myth that NYC Planning convinced developer Bruce Ratner to scale back Atlantic Yards, even though documents reveal that the "scaleback" to the plan's original size was developer-driven, perhaps even a carefully planned PR maneuver.
Links: Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, Knowing the Community
OnNYTurf, The Subtle Process of Rewriting the History of Atlantic Yards
An update to OnNYTurf's post reveals one possible reason for Cardwell's tone deafness, despite actual documentary evidence. In a 2006 interview with NYU's webzine, Bullpen, Cardwell makes an astonishing admission:
While her reporting has won the respect of editors and readers alike, Cardwell’s journalistic methods are unorthodox. “I don’t look at documents,” she said. Instead, she prefers talking to sources, listening to the tone of their voices and content of their explanations.
NoLandGrab: Fact-based journalism of verification, like fact-based foreign policy, seems old-fashioned these days.
Does Cardwell's brand of journalism remind anyone of Bush's assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin?
I looked the man in the eye. I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul...
Posted by lumi at 9:38 AM
January 15, 2007
Once at Cotillions, Now Reshaping the Cityscape
The NY Times
By Diane Cardwell
In a profile of City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden, City Hall bureau chief Diane Cardwell holds to the Times's myth that City Planning had a hand in "limiting the size" of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.
Since her appointment in 2002 by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, Ms. Burden has played a powerful behind-the-scenes role in shaping plans at ground zero, in limiting the size of the Atlantic Yards development near Downtown Brooklyn, and in helping push through the High Line project, which will transform a disused rail bed into a linear park linking the West Village to the Far West Side.
NoLandGrab: The truth is that Ratner increased the size of Atlantic Yards on the drawing board and offered the City a couple of scaleback options in January, 2006. This was discovered by Atlantic Yards Report, via Freedom of Information request (click here and scroll down for more info). In September, 2006 the City announced a scaledown that brought the project back to nearly the original size.
The Times has not only been loathe to admit its role in creating the myth in a front-page exclusive last September, but now a reporter who not only ought to know better but also shared a byline in that article is continuing to create the false impression that the city saved Brooklyn from Ratner's excesses.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report provides his analysis in today's post, "Times profile of planning chair Burden maintains AY myth, suffers curious cut."
Posted by lumi at 8:03 AM
January 7, 2007
A Herd of Trojan Horses
Brooklyn Views reappears with a review of the documentary Brooklyn Matters.
What is not addressed in the film is how there has been no outreach on design issues; the architecture of the project is also a Trojan Horse. The promise of a major project in New York City by Frank Gehry has been enormously successful in muting potential opposition by the cultural elite. But the project only looks like a gift because it’s wrapped by Frank Gehry; the architecture masks a slew of problems. As the panel discussion after the film made clear, architects and planners know this project is not being pursued correctly. Comments that Mr. Gehry himself has made (here and here: he was uncomfortable with this scale…thought others should be involved…it felt better to leave some of the existing buildings) indicate that he knows what all the other architects and planners who have followed this process know: the design of any project of this scale on this site should follow a publicly transparent, iterative process, a process in which planning comes before urban design, and urban design comes before architecture.
Posted by amy at 12:23 PM
January 6, 2007
Brooklyn Matters: New Film Skewers Ratner, Albany, Gehry
Gothamist
The hard-hitting polemical film, Brooklyn Matters, lucidly articulates and amplifies the movement to stop Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan. Directed and produced by Isabel Hill, the film portrays the AY project as an outrageous scam to be perpetrated upon hoodwinked Brooklynites. Numerous interviews with critical residents, planners, critics, and elected officials portray a scenario in which a cynical developer and corrupt State agencies have hired gullible community allies and a star architect to conceal their true motives. The politics of the Brooklyn-based coalition, Develop Don't Destroy (DDD), are clearly imprinted on the film, although the work is presented as an independent documentary.Over two hundred people packed the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place for the public debut of the film last night. Released barely two weeks after the AY project received final approval from the State, the film may not be too late to catalyze a new wave of opposition. Several speakers in a post-screening discussion vowed that the AY project is "not a done deal," with two lawsuits currently pending and a host of practical uncertainties facing Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation. Stuart Pertz, former member of the NYC Planning Commission, discussed the possibility that the project could stall before reaching fruition, in the manner of other aborted NYC projects over the past 30 years such as Westway (underground highway) and the West Side Stadium. The audience's largest laugh followed the film's recorded quote from Frank Gehry: "We're trying to understand what is Brooklyn, what is the body language of Brooklyn, and trying to emulate it without copying it." The 500-ft. Miss Brooklyn batted her steel eyelashes for a moment on screen.
Posted by amy at 11:46 AM
Brooklyn Matters: race, class, and the Atlantic Yards debate, on film
Atlantic Yards Report
Those who've heard many of the arguments against the project (and recognize the arguments made by project supporters), might have heard some new perspective from planner Ron Shiffman, who’s now on the Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn advisory board. “I don’t think people have actually been able to visualize what this development will look like, because you can’t do it from the drawings that the developer has put out,” Shiffman says. “If you want to really feel it, I suggest you go up and look at what Trump is doing north and west of Lincoln Center.”Shiffman adds, “In order to really experience what Ratner is proposing, you have to add 15 to 20 stories to those buildings.” That’s no longer true. Those in the photos, shot by Jonathan Barkey, are 40-50 stories and, after some cuts, the tallest AY building would be about 511 feet tall. Still, the point is that the community hasn't been shown AY visuals; indeed, the no-towers brochure the developer sent to 300,000 Brooklyn households last May comes in for some scorn.
Posted by amy at 11:36 AM
January 2, 2007
The "What if" challenge...
What if columnist Errol Louis hadn't called Norman Oder "The Mad Overkiller?" That really set the bar quite high, and Oder has been trying to live up to his new moniker ever since.
Let's take the challenge and imagine, "What if Norman Oder hadn't assigned himself to the Atlantic Yards beat?"
- Maybe The NY Times shoddy coverage would not be so well documented.
- The Times might still be misleading readers by printing that "Atlantic Yards" is being built over a railyard in Downtown Brooklyn.
- The Times might not have run any corrections, including this astounding rowback correction.
- No one might have started comparing Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan with other enormous housing projects, and found that Atlantic Yards is more than twice as dense as any residential housing project in the
CityNATION. - Who would have noticed that around a half-a-billion dollars just disappeared between the draft and final versions of the General Project Plan?
- Though Bruce Ratner no longer contributes to political campaigns, his brother Michael Ratner and sister-in-law Karen Ranucci would still be operating under the radar as the Forest City Ratner political slush fund.
- Perhaps no one would have even noticed that Ratner commissioned a wind study, but didn't release it right away, because... well, because Miss Brooklyn's much-touted front stoop would be wind-swept (uh-oh!).
- Since the mainstream media didn't care to check, the proof that Ratner presented "scaleback" options to the Department of City Planning as early as January, 2006 would probably still be shrouded in secrecy.
- Would anyone have noticed that there were three towers hidden in plain sight over the Atlantic Center Mall in a model of the Atlantic Yards project shown at a press conference in May, 2006?
- OK, we'll come clean... the fact is that if Norman Oder wasn't on the beat, NoLandGrab would have nothing to post on those many days that the mainstream media ignores the biggest boondoggle in Brooklyn, ever (except for our occasional silly photo editorial of Bruce Ratner).
Posted by lumi at 10:01 AM
January 1, 2007
Daily News's Top Ten NYC stories: Page Six shakedown but not AY
Atlantic Yards Report
The Daily News's list of Top Ten New York City stories of 2006, published yesterday, is heavy on crime and scandal...
Missing were several big stories about development, from the sale of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village to the state approval of Atlantic Yards. Are those just business stories, or do they have an important impact on people's lives?
Posted by lumi at 10:17 AM
December 31, 2006
The NY Observer features 29 power families, but not the Ratners
Atlantic Yards Report looks at the Ratner family tree:
The December 18 issue of the New York Observer, the cheeky weekly that specializes in insider coverage of the city’s professions, featured 29 power families in a number of arenas, including sports, the arts, politics, journalism, and law.
...
But Brooklyn's biggest real estate empire, Forest City Ratner, didn’t make the list of 29. Sure, it’s a judgment call. There’s no younger Ratner joining CEO Bruce as his designated heir, as Jed Walentas will succeed his father David.
...
Michael Ratner has a little-used office at Forest City headquarters in Brooklyn’s MetroTech. He and his wife, both based in Greenwich Village, make political contributions from that office to Brooklyn machine pols. He’s an investor in the Nets. And he hasn’t said a word about eminent domain or gag orders associated with the Atlantic Yards plan.
...
However, it would have been pushing it to ask an Observer staffer to profile the family that includes a colleague, the capable Observer reporter Lizzy Ratner, a daughter of Bruce Ratner and also an investor in the Nets.
Posted by amy at 10:58 AM
Forest City Ratner and the Courier-Life chain: payback time?
Atlantic Yards Report explains why Brooklyn Papers got a stocking full of coal for Christmas from Forest City Ratner:
The two weekly chain newspapers in Brooklyn have distinct identities. The broadsheet Brooklyn Papers, family-owned, is based in DUMBO and focuses on the neighborhoods of Brownstone Brooklyn. The tabloid Courier-Life chain, based in Sheepshead Bay, is a major supporter of the Chamber of Commerce (its publisher chairs the group, and the chain publishes the Chamber's newspaper) and was recently purchased by the New York Post.
...
In this week's issues of the Courier-Life, we get an advertisement from the developer, labeled "Thank You New York." That's a bit odd, given that the project web site, which presumably reaches a broader constituency, banners "Thank You Brooklyn."There's no ad in the Brooklyn Papers this week. But there is that revealing interview with Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Posted by amy at 10:52 AM
Cognitive dissonance from the tabs on Albany & AY
Atlantic Yards Report contrasts the editorial viewpoints of the Post, Daily News and the Times in their negative views of Albany vs. the sunshine and daydreams of Atlantic Yards:
In an editorial Friday headlined THE BIG GOV WHO WOULDN'T, the Post editorialized regarding the 12-year stint of Governor George Pataki:
To put it bluntly, Ol' George let New York down.
Ran off, in pursuit of his own interests.
Even as taxes across the state squeezed out residents and businesses.
And political corruption mushroomed.
...
Today's Daily News, in an editorial assessing Pataki's mixed record, headlined By George, it's bye, George, offers these somewhat contradictory sentences:
Pataki's Empire State Development Corp. fostered the city's building boom, notably rejuvenating Times Square.
...Pataki succumbed to back-room dealmaking with legislative leaders and broke a promise to limit himself to two terms.
...
the Times criticized Albany too, stating in a 12/16/06 editorial:
But we always need our legislators to take the time to do their work carefully — and, we hope, more openly.Today, in an editorial, the Times offers a mixed verdict on Pataki's governorship, criticizing his record on governmental reform and budget issues. There's nothing, of course, about Atlantic Yards.
Posted by amy at 10:42 AM
December 29, 2006
2006: The Year in Review
Brooklyn Papers
Gersh Kuntzmen adds his own year in review:
From the first fireworks of New Year’s Day to the state’s end-of-year approval of Bruce Ratner’s plans to transform a rail yard into a mini-Times Square, this year had it all.May
Lookout, Bruce!: Kids rocker (and Cobble Hill resident) Dan Zanes came out against Atlantic Yards, although his tiny fans napped through the news.
June
Rats!: Chuck E. Cheese, which has a cute mouse for a mascot, was closed by the Health Department for — cue the ironic music! — an infestation of mice.
Posted by amy at 8:59 AM
Year in Yards
Brooklyn Papers
Ariella Cohen takes on the best and worst of the year in Ratnerville, by month. Relive the excitement!
JunePoster girl: Model Sahara Meer, whose photo appeared unwittingly in Atlantic Yards promotional material, becomes a poster child for the development’s opposition.
July
Realty check: Ratner invites thousands of New Yorkers to learn about the mostly luxury development’s below-market-rate units. Many in the crowd are confused by the high prices of the project’s “affordable” housing.
Posted by amy at 8:51 AM
Covering Atlantic Yards
Brooklyn Papers
Editorial
In an interview in this week’s Papers, the project’s biggest booster, Borough President Markowitz, calls us “biased” because our coverage revealed the shocking density of the project, the traffic it would cause, and the subsidy-enriched sweetheart deal Gov. Pataki’s cronies cooked up in Albany to make this project work for Ratner. (See the Markowitz interview on page 4 or listen to it at www.BrooklynPapers.com).Given how we’ve been attacked for such coverage — and the overwhelming support the project enjoys among city and state powerbrokers — many of our readers have wondered why we even bothered. Indeed, it would have been far easier for us to blow off Atlantic Yards, as did the daily papers, and our weekly competitor, the New York Post-owned, Sheepshead Bay-based, Courier-Life chain.
...
So why did we persist in our aggressive reporting? Markowitz contends in the interview that we did it because we simply hate Bruce Ratner. We actually do not hate Bruce Ratner. This isn’t personal.Our obsession with the project’s taxpayer-supported financing, its outright lies about job creation, and its preposterous density is a reflection of exactly what journalists are supposed to do: question authority and ensure that elected officials are doing their jobs.
Posted by amy at 8:47 AM
December 26, 2006
The Times defends the front-page scaleback story, but then practices "rowback"
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder has been trying to get the NY Times to acknowledge that the paper made a mistake, falling hook, line and sinker for Bruce Ratner's story about the 6%-8% scaleback.
This has led to a copious amount of correspondence with numerous editors, including the Public Editor Byron Calame.
Though the Gray Lady won't cry uncle, many of Oder's points have been added to subsequent coverage, without the paper admitting error.
NoLandGrab: Though the Times has made a fool of itself with its Atlantic Yards coverage, the real losers are Times readers in Central Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 11:35 AM
December 24, 2006
The Times Magazine correction comes too late
Atlantic Yards Report
An item in the Year in Ideas issue on Dec. 10 about the increasing size and scale of urban planning referred imprecisely to the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. The New York City Planning Commission endorsed it but did not approve it; approval can be given only by state officials.
Now they tell us.
As I wrote the day the item was published, a correction was required in the daily paper, since it might be too late to correct it in the Magazine before the scheduled vote December 20 by the Public Authorities Control Board.
Posted by lumi at 8:39 AM
December 23, 2006
Is the Daily News in the tank when it comes to AY?
Atlantic Yards Report
But the Daily News has a problem, and it goes way beyond the practice of a tabloid editorializing on its front page.Inside the news pages, the newspaper has truly embarrassed itself, in both overhyping and underplaying stories. Take yesterday's slight and speculative story, following up on news announced Wednesday, headlined Nets go High Tech: Ratner throws in new home for elite Brooklyn HS in arena deal.
First, Ratner has made no such promises stated in the headline. As the article stated:
Ratner agreed in a statement to "work with the city, state and the United Federation of Teachers on the creation of a new, 21st century Brooklyn Tech High School, at a yet to be determined location in the borough." Ratner spokeswoman Joyce Baumgarten said yesterday plans were "still in the formative stages."What does "work with" mean? Contribute space in a new Ratner development? Sell space at a certain rate? I couldn't get any answers this week. There's no story beyond the vague statement. If the developer had pledged to build a new school, we would've been told. Similarly, the developer has allocated space in one planned Atlantic Yards building for a school, but the city is paying.
Posted by amy at 11:44 AM
December 22, 2006
Why can't the Times say AY might take 15-20 years?
Atlantic Yards Report
With The Times already reeling from a fierce hit by New York Magazine's Chris Smith, Norman Oder risks being flagged for piling on, citing the Paper of Record's failure to acknowledge that construction of Atlantic Yards may take as long as two decades.
Unmentioned, however, is that even supporters and cordial critics doubt the announced project timetable. Earlier this month, Kathryn Wylde of the Partnership for NYC predicted that it would take 15 to 20 years. Kent Barwick of the Municipal Art Society spoke similarly on Monday.
Posted by lumi at 11:07 AM
NYMag’s Chris Smith Skewers NYTimes’ Coverage of Real Estate Mega-Deal
mediachannel.org
By D.J. Waletzky
The author, a life-long Prospect Heights resident and former Times employee, uses Chris Smith's harsh criticism of the Times as a starting point for his own assessment of the Greying Lady:
Chris Smith rails against the New York Times’ reporting on the proposed 22 acre development in Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights neighborhood as “three years of irresponsible, lazy coverage by the Times” and faults them for ignoring the corruption and scandal involved in the project’s shepherding through the political process.
...
The New York Times’ most recently profitable year was the result of a real estate deal with Forest City Ratner Companies, the publicly-traded real estate developers behind the Atlantic Yards project. Through Bruce Ratner’s political connections, the Times and FCRC had a swath of prime midtown real estate condemned by New York State and cleared to make way for a new 52-story headquarters for the Times, while selling their old Times Square HQ at a massive profit.The NY Times has often been criticized for its coverage of and involvement with Ratner, and as FCRC’s latest and largest deal has received final approval from the state (just before Bruce Ratner’s law-school roommate, George Pataki leaves the Governor’s office), the Times declared yesterday that the three-year struggle between community activists and the company had been “capped.”
...
The Times article doesn’t even mention Prospect Heights, the residential brownstone neighborhood many residents feel will be destroyed in the process.
NoLandGrab: Norman Oder, of course, also noticed Smith's appraisal of The Times's coverage.
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
Regifting coverage?
The Courier-Life Publications re-gifts two of last week's articles under new headlines.
Gift-Wrapped Yards Plan Heads to Albany ran last week as Atlantic Yards Heads For Final Lap In Albany and Opponents Push to Delay Atlantic Yds. Vote got repackaged as Atlantic Yards Foes Resolute In Fight to Defeat Plan.
It's not often we come across re-gift wrapping.
Posted by lumi at 7:01 AM
Chris Smith on Atlantic Yards: The ‘Times’ Screwed Up
New York Magazine, Daily Intelligencer
A must-read for a glimpse into how corrupt many feel the political process to approve Atlantic Yards and the local media's coverage has been — political reporter Chris Smith lays it into The NY Times:
So there it is on today's front page: "State Approves Major Complex For Brooklyn; Vote on Atlantic Yards Caps 3-Year Conflict." And it is correct that the Public Authority Control Board — really George Pataki, Joe Bruno, and Sheldon Silver — yesterday signed off on Bruce Ratner's $4 billion stadium-and-skyscraper project. But what was truly "capped" was a farcical, corrupt political process and three years of irresponsible, lazy coverage by the Times.
Individual Times reporters have written significant stories along the way. But the Times, collectively, has never demonstrated the will or interest to examine Atlantic Yards in anything close to the proportion demanded by one of the biggest real-estate schemes in the history of the city. Maybe it's because Ratner is the Times' partner in building the paper's new Eighth Avenue headquarters. Maybe it's because Times editors think Atlantic Yards is an objectively good idea. Maybe it's because the Times, along with the rest of the city's mainstream media, does a lousy job of covering anything outside our midtown backyard. Whatever the reasons, the effect has been an abdication of the Times' civic and journalistic responsibility.
NoLandGrab: Reporter and blogger Norman Oder has carefully documented the Times's shoddy — and often lacking — coverage of Atlantic Yards during the past year and a half, first on his blog Times Ratner Report and then on Atlantic Yards Report.
Posted by lumi at 6:33 AM
December 20, 2006
MIA: the New York Times editorial page on PACB vote
Atlantic Yards Report
The blog that started off life as Times Ratner Report speculates why the NY Times has been silent on Atlantic Yards while all the other dailies have recently posted editorials:
You’d think that, in the run-up to an expected Atlantic Yards vote today by the state Public Authorities Control Board (PACB), the city’s newspapers would have weighed in. Indeed, most have done so.
...
The city’s leading daily, the New York Times, has been silent.I can only speculate about the reasons, but the Times may have been in a deadlock of sorts. The editorial page has generally supported the Atlantic Yards project, though it called, ineffectively and inconsistently, for the city and state not to provide direct subsidies for the project.
Most recently, in August, the page gently advised a possible 15 percent reduction in the project size and called for a longer period in review.
But it hasn’t questioned eminent domain—indeed, the Times is a beneficiary of eminent domain for the new headquarters the parent Times Company is building in partnership with Atlantic Yards developer Forest City Ratner.
The publisher offers both explicit and indirect influence on the editorial page (though not to the newsroom) . So, given that the Times Company agreed to guarantee a loan to the developer, it's not unreasonable to think that the publisher Arthur Sulzberger is rooting for Forest City Ratner’s general success, and that has filtered through to the editorial writers.
Posted by lumi at 7:07 AM
December 19, 2006
Whither the Yards?
Gothamist
While the Assembly speaker generally has supported the project, he has questioned the project’s financing. As the Times points out, Albany can be tricky for pols like Silver, with their obscure motivations. First, he has sparred publicly with Empire State Development Corporation head Charles Gargano, who has boosted the project from the get-go (Gargano hinted that Silver was crooked and Silver called Gargano’s tenure “a dismal failure.”). Second, Silver may want to deny Pataki a legacy project. Third, Silver has to deal with special interests.
We think most of the above theories are a stretch. Silver would lose face if he killed a project for petty reasons – he needs numbers to back up a no vote. So we wonder whether last week’s Atlantic Yards Report revelation that the project’s projected sales and income tax revenues have dropped by almost one-third (from $1.4 billion to $944 million) will influence his vote.
Also featured in the Gothamist article is coverage on the gigantic animated signage and the eminent domain fight.
Posted by lumi at 10:49 AM
NY Sun Makes Some Conservative Sense
Brownstoner makes a point that we've noticed, too: no matter what your politics, you can respect the NY Sun for sticking to its "ideological guns" on its Op-Ed page.
If you're going to be a conservative publication, at least get your principles right. Unlike the NY Post, The Sun has the good sense to stick to its ideological guns in the Atlantic Yards debate. And while we don't share the paper's lack of concern about the density of the project, it's refreshing to see an editorial position shaped more by ideals than political pettiness.
Brownstoner was referring to yesterday's Sun editorial. Today the paper posted another piece on its Op-Ed page, still representing the conservative ideological position.
Links:
Eminent Danger
A Bit of Everything Wrong
Posted by lumi at 10:18 AM
December 17, 2006
'You' named Time's person of 2006
Congratulations to "you and you and you!"
BBC.com
"You" have been named as Time magazine's Person of the Year for the growth and influence of user-generated content on the internet.
The US magazine praised the public for "seizing the reins of the global media" and filling the web's virtual world.
Posted by lumi at 9:30 AM
December 15, 2006
Stepford editorialists repeat the $5.6 billion lie
Atlantic Yards Report
Call them the Stepford editorialists, quoting the same new, unverifiable, and outlandish Atlantic Yards statistic, undoubtedly supplied by developer Forest City Ratner: $5.6 billion in new tax revenue.
The Daily News, in a 12/10/06 editorial:
The benefits of the Atlantic Yards are manifest, among them 2,500 apartments geared for the middle and working classes, $5.6 billion in tax revenues over the next 30 years, 15,000 construction jobs, a couple of thousand permanent jobs and a great entertainment venue for Brooklyn. It's a win-win-win.The Post, in a 12/14/06 editorial:
Imagine: a $4 billion shot in the arm for Brooklyn - bringing 22,000 new jobs over the next decade, another 5,000 permanent jobs and $5.6 billion in tax revenues over 30 years.Assemblyman Steven Cymbrowitz, in a 12/14/06 op-ed in the Courier-Life chain:
Atlantic Yards will be a huge tax revenue generator providing New York City and New York State with over $5.6 billion in much needed new tax income over the next 30 years, and creating a net positive fiscal impact of more then $1.3 billion.
...
It's too bad none of those editorialists noticed the Empire State Development Corporation's (ESDC) figure of $944 million, which is drastically lower than the numbers used in the Daily News and Post, and even a good deal lower than the figure Cymbrowitz chose.
Posted by lumi at 8:20 AM
December 14, 2006
A billion here, a billion there
Field of Schemes picks on today's Post editorial:
Rupert Murdoch's monkeys are at it again.
Atlantic Yards Report theorizes that the $5.6 billion figure just adds up future tax receipts instead of figuring their present value - by my calculations, though, even the present value of $5.6 billion spread over 30 years would be at least $2.6 billion. More likely is that someone in the Post editorial offices has been sampling the funny meatballs.
FOS also reports that the Empire State Development Corporation "hopes to have a new [& improved] memo available soon that will spell out the revised costs and benefits" of the Atlantic Yards proposal.
Posted by lumi at 6:59 PM
Times follows up on ESDC revenue revision; Post editorial page ignores it
Atlantic Yards Report
In an article headlined Agency Cuts Atlantic Yards Revenue Estimate the Times followed up on the Empire State Development Corporation's revenue cut, a story broken yesterday on this blog.
...
In the online coverage, but not the print edition (page B4), the Times added some skepticism from an outside observer.
Then Norman Oder compares editions and notes that the late edition coverage of the drop in tax revenue for the Atlantic Yards project was pared down, while the coverage of the scandal over the attempted extortion of Yoko Ono got more print. Oder finds it "brutally weird," but we're pretty sure that Oder isn't really in the Times's target demographic.
Norman Oder then continues to analyze the coverage by the Post and Post editorial board.
Posted by lumi at 9:35 AM
Repeat: "ON AND AROUND a railyard in PROSPECT HEIGHTS"
You have to give it up to Bruce Ratner, whose spin machine will keep dishing it out as long as someone is listening.
Accompanying the Associated Press report posted on WCBS.com was this description of the project in the sidebar:
The project, designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry, would rise above a downtown Brooklyn railyard.
The sidebar should read:
The project... would rise "on and around" a "Prospect Heights" railyard.
There's no way to scrub the trail left by the Ratner spin cycle, but maybe new reporters could check the facts, instead of relying upon the press release from a developer/state agency that will do or say anything to get final approval for Atlantic Yards.
No sense in blaming Bruce Ratner, he seems to need all the help he can get to slip this boondoggle through the back door.
Posted by lumi at 8:29 AM
December 11, 2006
The Brian Lehrer Show: Yard Work
Today at 10AM, FM 93.9, AM 820 or www.wnyc.org.
Matthew Schuerman, commercial real estate and economic development reporter for the New York Observer tells us about developments in the Atlantic Yards project
Matthew Schuerman is one of the few mainstream media reporters who has produced original investigative reporting on Atlantic Yards. Here's a sample:
Ratner Meets With Burden
In Big Slow Brooklyn Build, Is It Affordable Housing Last?
Prisoner of Atlantic Avenue
After “Race” Battle, Dan Goldstein Charges On
BUILDing Blocks
Posted by lumi at 9:01 AM
December 6, 2006
Three years later, a look at the changing Atlantic Yards narrative, from hoops to housing
Atlantic Yards Report looks back to the official unveiling of the project and documents how much has changed, especially the myths that have been busted during the past three(!) years.
Nearly three years ago, when the Atlantic Yards plan was announced at a 12/10/03 press conference, the project was, more than anything else, about basketball. The web site for the project was Bball.net. The slogan became “Jobs, Housing and Hoops.”
Now, if you listen to Forest City Ratner, the project is mostly about affordable housing—an issue cited but not prioritized at the outset. And, according to the Empire State Development Corporation, it’s about the elimination of blight, an affliction unmentioned at the start.
Along the way, the jobs issue receded, likely because the number of office jobs plummeted. The developer backed off pledges to make the roof of the arena public park space, to make sure the tallest building didn’t block the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, and to respect the scale of the surrounding neighborhoods.
Perhaps most importantly, the amount of known public subsidy—downplayed from the start—has ballooned, even as major components, such as the support for affordable housing, remain unknown.
Posted by lumi at 8:29 AM
December 4, 2006
The Times, journalism ethics, and the AY Final EIS
Atlantic Yards Report illuminates several layers of irony in this little item posted today:
Number of articles the New York Times has run concerning the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement, which was certified November 15, reissued (after comments were found missing) November 27, and is headed for a December 8 vote by the Empire State Development Corporation: 0
Number of articles the New York Times has run since Friday, December 1 about allegations of cheating in a journalism ethics course at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism: 2
If a tree falls on your business partner and no one is there to cover it, did it make a sound?
Posted by lumi at 6:07 AM
November 29, 2006
To the NY Times Public Editor: examine the 8% AY cutback
Atlantic Yards Report
At this point, we're not sure why the Public Editor of The New York Times doesn't set his spam filter to block Norman Oder's email. If the Times isn't going to do anything about their anemic coverage of the Atlantic Yards issue, then why bother taking his calls.
On November 15, 2006 Norman Oder released a document he uncovered via Freedom of Information Request from the NYC Department of City Planning. The document reveals that the alleged scaleback (the project was "scaled back" to nearly its original size), which was heralded on the front page of the Times in early September, 2006, was actually "precooked" by the developer.
Norman Oder posted his entire Letter to the Public Editor with links and supporting documents.
Oder is more polite than we are when he essentially makes this point:
The New York Times shouldn't be seen as being led around by the nose by their business partner Bruce Ratner, certainly not on the front page of the paper and definitely not while the paper's reputation as a bastion of journalistic values is sagging. Also, when the Times does get it wrong, as it did with the story about the developer's "Response to Criticism," the paper should do a follow-up story, or at least go back and correct the record, instead of "enshrining the myth."
Apparently the paper is content to let a freelance journalist/blogger lead the coverage, which makes readers wonder, what other stories are they blowing?
Posted by lumi at 8:31 AM
November 26, 2006
The Times practices "rowback": Atlantic Yards (finally) is not a rezoning
Atlantic Yards Report
As I wrote in March, there's a big difference between the waterfront rezoning, a process that involves the City Council and extensive hearings, and the state process governing the Atlantic Yards project, under which the unelected Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) would override city zoning.In correspondence, I tried fruitlessly to get this erroneous shorthand corrected. A Times editor evasively said that the details of the "bureaucratic processes" were not needed, and Times Public Editor Byron Calame, apparently unwilling to recognize a distinction between city and state oversight, endorsed the error as published.
The new correction-without-a-correction is a variant of "rowback," which former Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent described in his 3/14/04 column as "a way that a newspaper can cover its butt without admitting it was ever exposed."
This isn't the first example of Atlantic Yards rowback by the Times, given "downtown Brooklyn" and "on the railyards"; it probably won't be the last.
Posted by amy at 12:18 PM
November 25, 2006
Atlantic Yards Opponents Make Full-Court Press
The Real Estate
Matthew Schuerman
Blogger Norman Oder has a rundown of the first court appearance on Tuesday for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's eminent domain lawsuit against Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards. Another piece of the project opponents' legal strategy emerged: that government's power to take private property rests with the legislature, not the executive branch. The Atlantic Yards condemnations are being undertaken by the Empire State Development Corporation, which is appointed by the governor.Oder even catches a moment when the E.S.D.C. lawyer cites a federal appeals court decision to support the idea that judges should not be making eminent domain decisions. But since that case said it was the "legislative" and not "administrative" arm that should be in charge instead, the lawyer had to do some on-the-spot editing.
If the legislature-only principle wins the day, the case will have a huge impact on the way New York state does business.
Meanwhile, City Council Member Letitia James, an Atlantic Yards opponent, met with a Dolan family lobbyist this week, The Brooklyn Papers reports.
Posted by amy at 1:14 PM
November 15, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
Brewed Fresh Daily, Don’t you just love that hard-hitting journalism?
On a Cleveland-based message board, criticism of the city's daily paper garnered a response indicating that informed Clevelanders are aware of what the Ratners are up to in Brooklyn:
Yesterday’s offering reminds me of some of the devotional pieces served up in the PD a few months ago on Forest City and the Ratners, just while Bruce Ratner was laying waste to Brooklyn, NY, and the local family was preparing to crank up the issue 3 machine.
Save Our Parks, "We're not going to take it... anymore!" NY Daily News
The grassroots organization "opposed to the taking of Macombs Dam and Mullaly parks by the Yankees for a new stadium" posted this weekend's Michael O'Keeffe column. Though the column covers Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards specifically, it can be read as what New York politicians should be learning from voters in other states before they hand over public resources to billionaire sports team owners.
Gridskipper, Stay Gould Baby! Never Change.
An article on the classical-music bar scene identified Freddy's Bar and Backroom as "an Atlantic Yards neighborhood bar."
In case you've been stuck in a practice room somewhere, here's the scoop: there will be no beer with your opera buffa if Bruce Ratner has his way. Freddy's Bar and Backroom is in the FOOTPRINT of the ATLANTIC YARDS PROPOSAL and will be razed if the project goes forward — hardly un bel di for Freddy's.
I'm Seeing Green, Atlantic Yards Sturm und Drang
A Brooklyn Green shares some thoughts about recent Atlantic Yards news and opinions:
It's obvious that the 'race card' is being played well by Ratner. The mantra about 'jobs' is well calculated to relate to unions, and others like James E. Caldwell, the president of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, a job-training group known as Build, and Bertha Lewis, the New York executive director of Acorn, a national advocacy group for low-income people, both of whom act as if they have been co-opted by FCR.
As if the only issue of building a mega-construction like this is about jobs.
Posted by lumi at 6:10 AM
November 12, 2006
DDDB Spokesman Goldstein on Eminent Domain Lawsuit on Fox News
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
On November 2nd, following the filing of a federal eminent domain lawsuit (Goldstein v. Pataki) by ten plaintiffs against Governor Pataki, Bruce Ratner, Mayor Bloomberg, Charles Gargano and others, DDDB spokesman and lead plaintiff Daniel Goldstein appeared on the Fox News program Your World with Neil Cavuto. It's a four minute interview.
Posted by amy at 11:07 PM
The Times's race story: Caldwell, Lewis careful, Law says DDDB could do more
Atlantic Yards Report on today's NYTimes story on race and Atlantic Yards:
Here's some of what's missing: a fuller acknowledgement of the race-baiting that went on during the August 23 public hearing on the project and an acknowledgement that a recent poll--which the Times found more credible than I did--found blacks actually opposed the project slightly more than whites did. Also worth mentioning would have been the debate as expressed in the black-oriented Our Time Press, in which columnist Errol Louis has regularly endorsed Atlantic Yards (and denounced opponents), but cofounder Bernice Elizabeth Greene has criticized the project.
Read the whole article for a thorough dissection of the delicate issues presented in the story.
Posted by amy at 11:21 AM
A partial correction from the Times
Atlantic Yards Report
There's a correction in the Times's Real Estate section today about AY, but I think it's incomplete.
Posted by amy at 8:05 AM
November 10, 2006
More carelessness from the Times: three mistakes, one sentence
Atlantic Yards Report
The headline is true. In what could be some kind of Atlantic Yards media coverage record, The NY Times managed to make three boo-boos in one sentence.
Here's the sentence from last Saturday's Real Estate section:
The project in Yonkers is almost as large as the development proposed for the Atlantic Yards in downtown Brooklyn, which has been described as the biggest project in that borough’s history and is one of the biggest ever in New York City.
Can you spot the errors? [Hint: The much larger Atlantic Yards project is located in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.]
Posted by lumi at 7:07 AM
November 2, 2006
Times Sports section: Nets move assumed
Atlantic Yards Report catches The NY Times in another slip-of-the-tongue in yesterday's Sports section:
Still, another early playoff exit would be disappointing for this team and its New Jersey fan base, which could be growing antsy given the Nets’ coming move to Brooklyn.
Since the project hasn't even been officially "approved," AYR suggests the Times use "planned," "expected," even "hoped-for."
UPDATE
The Times published this correction in today's edition:
A sports article yesterday about the Nets’ three main attractions — Vince Carter, Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd — referred incorrectly to the team’s plans to move to Brooklyn. The team has announced that it will move to an arena to be built as part of the Atlantic Yards development, but because that project has not yet been approved, the move to that particular venue is not a certainty.
Posted by lumi at 7:42 AM
OnNYTurf Atlantic Yards Map on sabbatical
OnNYTurf has just announced that the Atlantic Yards Map will be on a little vacation while webmaster Will plays catch up with the new version of Google Maps.
ONYT's interactive NYC Subway map (PATH trains included) has first priority, since it has become an indispensable part of daily life for many New Yorkers. The map is hands-down the most useful online subway map. [Of course, the MTA would rather give the development rights of Vanderbilt Yards to Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner for a song than offer a truly useful online map for the entire system.]
When the Atlantic Yards Google map was rolled out in March, 2006, it had a shock-and-awe effect on many who lived near the project proposal's footprint, because it was the first time that Brooklynites had a chance to view a model of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal from the vantage point of the street. The map has become one of the tools that residents have used to come to grips with the historic scale of this hugemungous gianormous plan.
ONYT followed up this effort with a map of the Yankee Stadium plan. While the Atlantic Yards map illustrated the size and scale of the project, the Yankee Stadium plan map was one of the few media resources that clearly demonstrated the convoluted shuffle of ballparks, public parks, parking garages and their proximity to the existing neighborhood.
You have to give it up for the innovative Will from OnNYTurf, who uses the latest tools to distribute independent community news — we're hopin' that the maps won't be gone for too long.
Posted by lumi at 6:27 AM
October 30, 2006
A View from Brooklyn
The Center for Study of Brooklyn
By Paul Moses
Have you been wondering how a $4.2-billion project, on 22 acres, the size of the Empire State Building three times over, using eminent domain, sited at one of the busiest intersections in Brooklyn, near neighborhoods with some of the highest asthma rates in the nation, next to the developers two other malls, and which also happens to be the largest single-source private development in NYC's history, is a mere footnote in the media coverage?
Veteran Brooklyn journalist Paul Moses says it most succinctly:
Nowhere in the country do so many people get so little local coverage.
Though the situation looks bleak, Moses examines how Cablevision's News 12 could make a difference.
Posted by lumi at 8:17 AM
October 27, 2006
Some credulousness, some skepticism: two AY stories in the Times
Atlantic Yards Report
A tale of two articles — Norman Oder compares recent articles from The New York Times:
First up, the 9/5/06 page-one story about Forest City's announcement that the project was scaled back. There was no mention that the the "scaleback" returned the project to approximately the original size that was announced in 2003.
Today's story about Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's eminent domain lawsuit ran on page B4. The Times calls the suit a "legal maneuver," even though this suit might end up being an important property-rights case on the national stage. [The case seeks to challenge the Atlantic Yards project on the grounds that it is unconstitutional and has crossed the line set forth by the US Supreme Court in last year's Kelo decision.]
NoLandGrab: What Norman Oder is too polite to say is that it sure seems like the Times has a thing for Forest City Ratner, or is allergic to news about eminent domain law suits. [Back in 2002 the Empire State Development Corporation seized private property via eminent domain for the Times Tower project, developed by Forest City Ratner and the NY Times Corp.]
Posted by lumi at 11:28 AM
October 24, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
Picketing Henry Ford, On Debord, on Urbanism, on Deception
An esoteric (read, "hyper-intellectual") post from Stuart Schrader for those who are curious about radical/avant-garde architecture theory and how it relates to Atlantic Yards (read, "not Bruce Ratner").
Brownstoner, Atlantic Yards: What The Archetypes Are Thinking
B-stoner's take on the "archetypes" in the Times's City section article from this weekend:
The Times asked nine area residents to discuss their views on the Atlantic Yards project. What struck us in reading the responses was what a war of hyperbole and propaganda this whole thing has been, from the promises of hand-outs and subsidies to the scare renderings showing Fort Greene being cast in a perpetual shadow. What continues to amaze us is how many of the poorer people in favor of the project seem to think they actually have a decent statistical chance of getting anything out of this.
One Hanson Place, Atlantic State Condos on market
As the Atlantic Yards projects barges ahead, more and more buildings are being erected along the Atlantic Avenue corridor. Start with the Boerum Heights complex, which recently changed marketing hands to Brooklyn Properties. Then there's a newer project a few blocks down at 489 Atlantic Avenue.
Posted by lumi at 9:05 PM
Atlantic Yards/NY Times "Voices"
Another DailyHeights food fight has broken out over this weekend's NY Times article, which featured opinions from surrounding neighborhoods on Atlantic Yards.
BrookFetish pointed out:
Not one person from Prospect Heights was interviewed.
Jack Krohn countered:
Lumi Rolley, a major force behind NoLandGrab, doesn't live in Prospect Heights, either, but her views are often taken seriously.
Unlike Ms. Rolley, I DO live in Prospect Heights and I support the Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab; Unlike Mr. Krohn, Ms. Rolley wasn't aware that one had to live in Prospect Heights to be concerned about the taking of people's property for a mammoth private development project. Our apologies.
Posted by lumi at 8:52 AM
October 23, 2006
Instead of the Times's railyard photo, consider some alternatives
Atlantic Yards Report
I wrote yesterday how the photograph (right) the Times used to illustrate its Atlantic Yards City section cover story failed to depict the proposed site. What could the Times have done differently?
...
The Times photo was apparently taken looking west from the Newswalk, the tallest building in the wedge cut out of the footprint, between 6th and Carlton avenues and Pacific and Dean Streets.The building is minuscule compared to the proposed project. Check the Newswalk building at left-center near the top in the graphic (right). The rendering was produced by the Environmental Simulation Center for the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (and subsequently adapted to emphasize Newswalk).
Posted by lumi at 8:58 AM
October 17, 2006
Better Late Than Never? Pol Seeks Answers About Atlantic Yards
Courier-Life Publications just published the weekly update on Atlantic Yards by reporter Stephen Witt. Below are some excerpts with running commentary, or you can click here to go straight to the article.
Opponents and skeptics of Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards project are leaving no stone unturned as the process moves toward a final thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
The latest rub comes as Assemblymember James Brennan last week officially submitted freedom of information law (FOIL) requests to city and state development agencies for all financial information related to the project.
...
Not to be outdone, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods (CBN) submitted their own FOIL of the sign-in sheets, actual speaker order and complete transcripts of the three recent ESDC public meetings on the project.
NoLandGrab: To insinuate that there is competition between groups submitting Freedom of Information requests is just silly, especially when the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods submitted their request before Brennan.
Meanwhile, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), whose spokesperson Daniel Goldstein remains one of the few holdouts living in the footprint of the project, continues to hammer home outrage against the blight study portion of the DEIS and GPP.
...
Meanwhile, a visual walk around the rail yard portion of the footprint reveals homeless people still in the area as well as overgrown weeds, broken glass and litter.
NLG: Meanwhile, Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report pointed out that the broken glass and litter is largely on MTA property, and is the responsibility of the state agency. But we thank Courier-Life for pointing it out — maybe the MTA can do something about that.
Finally, City Councilmember David Yassky showed up at last week’s Community Board 2 meeting to elaborate on his written testimony given to the ESDC about the project.
...
Specifically, Yassky said every ticket sold to a Nets game must come with a MetroCard. ...
The Flatbush/Atlantic Avenues intersection should also be eliminated through either a overpass or underpass, he said.
NLG: Yassky makes a good point about getting serious about traffic, but his idea of rerouting Flatbush and Atlantic over or underground gets an award for bodacity. Can you say, "Big Dig?" Rerouting nearly a dozen subway lines so that you can bury traffic underground would rival the entire project in terms of cost.
Posted by lumi at 9:49 AM
October 15, 2006
Blight and the Courier-Life's "visual walk"
Atlantic Yards Report
It's not online yet, but in this week's Courier-Life chain, Stephen Witt offers a rather, uh, incomplete account of the blight fight regarding Atlantic Yards. He summarizes it as such:
DDDB and opponent bloggers and journalists contend the area is not blighted, citing published reports of how parts of Prospect Heights are being revitalized. Meanwhile, a visual walk around the rail yard portion of the footprint reveals homeless people still in the area as well as overgrown weeds, broken glass and litter.But what if the Courier-Life allowed its readers to actually read more about those issues, linking to some of the writings briefly referenced? (Try here, and here and here. Or a more detailed summary.)
Would readers be less impressed by the conclusions of the "visual walk" if they were reminded that litter and weeds could be cleaned up by the MTA? Or if they learned that Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), which spent a lot more time examining the proposed site footprint than did Witt, comes to different conclusions? Or forced to ponder whether the presence of homeless people should be a trigger for a blight designation? (Don't some homeless people sleep on the steps of churches?)
Posted by amy at 1:21 PM
October 10, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
Gumby Fresh, Street Theatre
An omen? Forest City Ratner sponsors a gigantic traffic jam, as Flatbush Ave. is closed for a fair. This weekend's spectacle got GumbyFresh thinking about Atlantic Yards again.
Don't Worry It's Just Reality: Brooklyn Edition, Two New York projects show how to use Frank Gehry and how not to
Dreadnaught quotes from Paul Goldberger's New Yorker piece and then decides to tell us what he really thinks about Frank Gehry.
Sunset Parker, A child slays his father
What starts as a post about the end to the Dodger's post season...
In the oedipal series of the season, The Mets swept their antecedents like so many cro-mags using their larger brains to extinct the last tribe of neanderthals.
...ends up perpetuating a couple myths about Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal:
One reason for the move to L.A.: The deal to move them to The Atlantic Yards doesn't get off the table, because the right wheels don't get greased. Yes, The Atlantic Yards location has been intended for a sports team for fifty years and has been intended on having sky scrapers since the 1920's. If you were from here, you might know that- the dirty open secret surrounding the Atlantic Yards protesters is that virtually no one associated with them was actually born or even raised in Brooklyn.
NoLandGrab: The myth that the Dodgers wanted to build on Vanderbilt Yards was slayed a long time ago, at least, that's what we thought. Any old-timer could tell you that Walter O'Malley wanted to build his ballpark on what is now Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Center Mall and that Robert Moses nixed the idea because it "would create a China wall of traffic."
As for "virtually no one being born or raised in Brooklyn" amongst the Ratner critics, that's a perception that no one has managed to actually document. Anyway, if Ratner had wanted more white-faced recent-arrivals on his side, he would have put his money where their mouths are. The fact is that Ratner has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his "supporters" and even helped form one of the groups in his own boardroom.
David’s Blog, Journalism blogs
Jounalism student David Chiu gives props to Atlantic Yards Report:
Atlantic Yards Report. This is by a journalist, Norman Oder, who has been keeping up with the media coverage of the Atlantic Yards issue, including the New York Times.’ For the beat that I am covering, this is such a wealth of information. He really analyzes between fact and fiction when it comes to reports and media coverage.
David chose the Atlantic Yards "beat" over "Katie Couric" and "Lebanon Post-War."
dcdomain.release.eight, Commute part 1: The Atlantic Avenue Project
Observations along a daily commute on a project that isn't very Ratner-esque.
Posted by lumi at 8:19 AM
October 9, 2006
Welcome to Daily Intelligencer
New York Magazine
Since January 1973, the Intelligencer section has been New York's weekly home for news, gossip, short takes, and pithy commentary. Starting now, the Daily Intelligencer is nymag.com's home for that same cocktail of the serious and the frivolous — but blended much more quickly. Daily Intel will filter the stories of the day through New York's unique sensibility, all day long, every day of the week. Serious looks at city news will jostle for space with comic riffs on what's going on around town. Party reports will bump up against Atlantic Yards updates. Think of it as a stream of collective unconsciousness from inside the New York brain.
Posted by amy at 8:43 AM
October 8, 2006
PBS Takes on Gargano
The Real Estate
Matthew Schuerman
Charles Gargano, chairman of the Empire State Development Corporation, was asked some tough questions for tonight's Channel 13 special on Atlantic Yards, according to a transcript posted on Norman Oder's blog. In response to one of them--why the public cannot see the financial projections that E.S.D.C. used to calculate the economic impact of the project, Gargano answers that the public will see them--though by that point it will be too late to do anything about them:
Completed documents, once the project is approved, once we have completed the negotiations with the developers, they will all be public record.
Posted by amy at 10:16 PM
October 7, 2006
Gargano Says Of Course it's Blighted and More Nonsense!
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Click to watch this extended PBS interview with Empire State Development Corporation Chairman Charles Gargano. The Chairman has many interesting things to say about the Atlantic Yards proposal, blight, eminent domain, financial transparency, environmental impacts, and process.
Posted by amy at 2:58 PM
October 6, 2006
Clarifying last week’s Atlantic Yards coverage
Brooklyn Papers
When we posted a link to last week's Brooklyn Papers article about the testimony submitted by the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, we stated that the paper "missed the mark."
This week, the weekly neighborhood paper explains:
We went to press Thursday afternoon with a story that conveyed the experts’ concerns about the DEIS, but mostly reflected our mistaken impression that the CBN would let its experts’ analysis suffice and that the group would not comment on the larger question of whether Atlantic Yards should be approved or rejected.
But on Friday morning, well after we could amend our printed story, the CBN did issue a strong denunciation of the DEIS, one that called for Atlantic Yards to be halted unless the document was abandoned and re-written.
Brooklyn Papers also corrected the record regarding Doug Hamilton's Pacific Plan, indicating it would require at least one eminent domain condemnation.
Posted by lumi at 6:47 AM
September 30, 2006
Is the 8% AY scaleback a "concession"?
Atlantic Yards Report
Again, we see evidence that reporters new to the Atlantic Yards story get key details wrong. Yesterday's Times "Public Lives" profile of the Municipal Art Society's Kent Barwick stated:
Now, with the planning commission publicly on board for Atlantic Yards, based on the developer’s acceptance of the commission’s suggestion to reduce its 8.7 million square foot project by 8 percent, a concession Mr. Barwick dismisses as a nonconcession, the society has aligned itself with several community groups and declared Atlantic Yards an unfit addition to the borough.Why does the Times characterize it as a concession rather than a tactic? After all, the Times hadn't used the term before. Also, Brooklyn beat reporter Nicholas Confessore had reported the day before--in the voice of the newspaper, rather than attributing it to a critic, the new reduction only brings the project back to the original size proposed in 2003.
Posted by amy at 11:32 AM
September 28, 2006
Atlantic Yards Reporting
Norman "The Mad Overkiller" Oder is at it again. He's writing faster than we read. In an attempt to try to catch up and for your convenience, we're putting everything in a superpost.
ESDC stonewalls FOI Law request, won't release fiscal impact study
The Empire State Development Corporation claimed it "performed an independent economic impact analysis of the Project." When Norman Oder asked to see it, the agency replied:
ESDC has reviewed your request for additional documentation with respect to the financial analysis performed by ESDC. At this time there are no additional documents that are subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Law. It is possible that additional information will be compiled and made available at a later date. If additional information is prepared for release to the public - ESDC will certainly make the same available to you.
NoLandGrab: So the ESDC is not saying the study doesn't exist, just that it isn't subject to disclosure, but if and when they do make it public, they'll be sure to disclose it to Norman Oder.
The Times gets the scaleback right, but what about the housing commitment?
Norman Oder analyzes today's coverage of the 8% scaleback - you know, the scaleback that gets the project back to square one.
AY Phase I down to 550 affordable units; more criticism from Tish James
This article ties up some loose ends, such as the City Planning Commission's letter, Letitia James' strong criticism of the CPC's inaction (see Brooklyn Downtown Star below), NLG's addendum to the Times and Mary Campbell Gallagher's conjuring of the ghost of Robert Moses.
Posted by lumi at 7:44 AM
September 27, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Gothamist, City Diet for Atlantic Yards: Lose 8% (Except for Miss Brooklyn)
An excerpt from the quickie The Gothamist posted on the City Planning Commission's recommendations for Atlantic Yards:
The City Planning Commission "raved," the Post puts it, about the tallest skyscraper in the group, Frank Gehry's "Miss Brooklyn" structure that would be taller than the Williamsburgh Savings Bank in the Brooklyn skyline. Instead, the CPC asked that another tower's height be reduced so views the bank could still be seen.
The Real Estate Observer, Tuesday: 'Green' Carpets, Yards' Yardage, East Harlem Hotness?
From The Real Estate Observer's quickie on the City Planning Commission's recommendations:
The developers readily admit that the CPC downsize suggestion was "precooked" in order to make the plans "more politically palatable."
The Wisdom of Roger Clark, From swim trunks to gray suit? It just doesn't seem fair...
An esoteric blog tracking NY1's Roger Clark got caught in our net this morning regarding Clark's report on Atlantic Yards:
Roger's in Fort Greene talking about the Atlantic Yards project. Clearly, he worked really hard on his report - he had a pre-cut montage with voice-over and everything, but geez, could he have at least presented it in his Guinness slippers and maybe a light blue terry robe? Sooo boring!
Shouting into the Void, All Eyes on Atlantic Yards
This post is a reminder that half-truths floating in the "public square" are not only a consequence of developer propaganda, but a failure of the media to publish important details concerning the project, and the difficulty project critics face in getting their message across.
The following key points from Shouting into the Void appear to be about some other Atlantic Yards:
"Forest City Ratner won the initial competition for developing this area of Brooklyn."
FACT: There was no "competition" for this site. Forest City Ratner approached the City and State for the opportunity and have had their eye on this site for years."I cannot believe this real estate project is the largest in the US."
FACT: The blogger got this one right — the project is no where near the "largest in the US." Atlantic Yards, if built, would be denser than any census tract in the nation."This project has turned these dispossessed people into millionaires, so they can move to almost anywhere they like."
To call luxury-condo owners who sold to Ratner "dispossessed" is a little hyperbolic. Luxury-condo owners did not become insta-millionaires, though they made a nice return on their investments, and the "dispossessed" have yet to be heard from since they still haven't filed suit.
We could go on, but we figure that someone is going to get out his or her fact-check bible and have a say in the comments section. All we ask is that you be nice. :)
Archinet, Atlantic yards through the wringer of NYC planning
Another CPC quickie is confused about a key fact:
Gehry's monstrosity is forced to shrink by 8% by the city planning commission. But will this appease the pissed off neighbors who think this is still too big and ugly?
CORRECTION:
NYC Planning isn't "forcing" anything on the Gehry "monstro-city." NYC Planning only made RECOMMENDATIONS (most news organizations, including the NY Times, have reported this fact). Atlantic Yards is being approved by a State (not City) process. The CPC role is only advisory in the planning phase and reactive if the project gets built.
Brit in Brooklyn, Walk Don't Destroy
Calling attention to:
A sponsored walk to help pay the legal fees for DDDB and raise awareness of the Atlantic Yards planning fiasco.
Posted by lumi at 8:24 AM
September 24, 2006
Crain's editor offers weak defense of poll
Atlantic Yards Report provides alternate ways the affordable housing question could have been phrased in the Crain's poll, such as "The project would include 2,250 affordable apartments, but more than half would be too expensive for people at Brooklyn's median income." AYR also speculates about the motives of the pollster:
David also offers two perhaps contradictory sentences regarding pollster Charney Research:
Mr. Charney, a professional pollster whose firm had emphasized political work, wanted to raise his company's profile within the business community and thought a joint project with Crain's might help... His company had no ties to developer Forest City Ratner or its opponents and no vested interest in the outcome, except to embellish its reputation for objective polling.So one way of raising the profile might be to produce a poll that businesses would appreciate.
I'm willing to believe that Charney did not slant the questions deliberately to favor the outcome achieved. It could have simply been ignorance. But ignorance is no excuse.
Posted by amy at 7:34 PM
"An objective view of Atlantic Yards"
Crain's defends itself from the widespread accusations that its recent poll was conducted unfairly:
The story behind the story begins with Craig Charney, president of Charney Research. Mr. Charney, a professional pollster whose firm had emphasized political work, wanted to raise his company's profile within the business community and thought a joint project with Crain's might help. I was receptive because it fit my overriding goal to make news every week. Mr. Charney and I then focused on potential topics. A me-too poll on who was ahead in any of the statewide political races had little appeal. The opportunity was to discover public opinion on crucial New York City issues that hadn't been measured by an independent source. Atlantic Yards fit the criterion precisely. Mr. Charney and his staff drew up the questions, which are available on our Web site. His company had no ties to developer Forest City Ratner or its opponents and no vested interest in the outcome, except to embellish its reputation for objective polling.
...
Many have complained that the questions could have been worded to bring about a different result. That would be true if either Atlantic Yards opponents or Forest City had a chance to influence the poll. Opponents of Atlantic Yards are trying to shoot the messenger because the message is unpalatable.
article
While it's great to be 100% confident in the ability to conduct an independent poll, Crain's does not seem to realize that a lot of people get the information they use to answer poll questions from the poll questions themselves (especially the 56% of people who responded that they were not following the issue at all). An independent poll should at minimum brush upon some of the most controversial aspects of the issue at stake, such as, say, eminent domain abuse. Just because no one from DDDB or FCR wrote the questions does not mean they are automatically unbiased.
Full article after the jump.
When Crain's New York Business reported that an overwhelming 60% of New Yorkers supported the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, opponents of the development were sure the fix was in. Many complained that Erik Engquist, the Crain's reporter covering the Atlantic Yards controversy, must have slanted the questions to get the results Crain's reported. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's worthwhile to explain why the poll was commissioned, how the questions were drafted and what the results mean for the debate over the $4.2 billion arena and housing project.
The story behind the story begins with Craig Charney, president of Charney Research. Mr. Charney, a professional pollster whose firm had emphasized political work, wanted to raise his company's profile within the business community and thought a joint project with Crain's might help. I was receptive because it fit my overriding goal to make news every week. Mr. Charney and I then focused on potential topics. A me-too poll on who was ahead in any of the statewide political races had little appeal. The opportunity was to discover public opinion on crucial New York City issues that hadn't been measured by an independent source. Atlantic Yards fit the criterion precisely. Mr. Charney and his staff drew up the questions, which are available on our Web site. His company had no ties to developer Forest City Ratner or its opponents and no vested interest in the outcome, except to embellish its reputation for objective polling. I reviewed the proposed questions, as did a couple of other staffers. We made only one or two minor changes. Charney conducted telephone interviews with 601 New Yorkers in a way that made sure we sampled all economic and ethnic groups spanning all the boroughs. When the findings arrived, managing editor Rich Barbieri and Mr. Engquist reviewed them and discussed how to craft a story reporting the poll's findings. As is typical, I reviewed a final version of the story and made some editing suggestions. Each week we select a story to give to other media in an effort to spotlight our work, and that week we chose the poll. The story received widespread pickup in newspapers and the broadcast media because it did what we intended: It provided an objective look at public opinion on the project. Many have complained that the questions could have been worded to bring about a different result. That would be true if either Atlantic Yards opponents or Forest City had a chance to influence the poll. Opponents of Atlantic Yards are trying to shoot the messenger because the message is unpalatable. The poll shows that an overwhelming number of New Yorkers support the project because they believe the complex will transform an underdeveloped neighborhood and the affordable housing units are desperately needed. The scale of the project doesn't worry them. More broadly, the poll shows a solid majority of voters know the city must grow to be prosperous. There's a message here, too, for those jockeying to succeed Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Antidevelopment rhetoric may play well in local elections dominated by activists, but it will cripple a candidate in a citywide race.
Posted by amy at 10:46 AM
Times's AY Op-Art more questionable than funny
Atlantic Yards Report:
So, was Bruce McCall's Op-Art piece in yesterday's New York Times a backhanded defense of Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards design as presented or a suggestion that a six to eight percent cut would be meaningless and even self-defeating?I've heard both arguments and, actually, am not sure what he was after other than a springboard for some whimsical treatments of imaginary past downsizings.
I still find his premise questionable. First, it assumes the project is a done deal--and Atlantic Yards still must get state approval at two levels, and survive a court challenge. Second, the piece doesn't make sense; there's no real comparison between a finished project (like the Eiffel Tower), and a design, and McCall doesn't acknowledge that a six to eight percent cut would bring Atlantic Yards essentially back to its original proposed size. (Oops, maybe he only read one of the two Times stories.)
Perhaps most importantly, the Times devoted two-thirds of the op-ed page to fanciful drawings but it still hasn't shown the public any images of what the Atlantic Yards project would look like in the context of the neighborhood.
Posted by amy at 10:39 AM
September 18, 2006
Doubts about Atlantic Yards poll
Project poll misses mark
Crain's NY Business, Letter to the Editor
Published on September 18, 2006
The Crain's poll purporting to show that 60% of New Yorkers approve of the Atlantic Yards project is biased (Sept. 4). Crain's doesn't report that 60% of survey respondent have doubts about the cost to the city, 58% question the scale and 72% have problems with the approval process.
The first clue that something's wrong with the poll is the first question: "How closely have you been following news about the Atlantic Yards development project?" Fifty-six percent say they haven't been following it at all. In other words, most respondents will learn what they know about the project from the questionnaire itself.
And the questions are leading. The question that got 60% of respondents saying they're somewhat or very favorable describes the existing site in negative terms. In a seeming attempt at balance, the survey asks three questions focused on criticisms and three about the project's purported benefits. In responses to the criticism, the researchers lump those expressing "some doubts" as being favorable.
The three questions about claimed benefits--affordable housing, construction jobs and bringing professional sports to Brooklyn--questions on which New Yorkers are more likely to have consensus, leave no middle ground for "some doubts," and the results sound more positive.
After hearing about benefits, respondents are asked if they approve of the project; their answers, of course, follow the script.
Daniel Goldstein
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn
Posted by lumi at 9:15 AM
Insider deals
The NY Daily News published a letter to the editor that points out one of the ideological problems plaguing Atlantic Yards supporters:
Brooklyn: Your endorsement of Eliot Spitzer cited the need for "responsive people's government" without "overspending" and control by "insiders." That type of government-by-cronyism gave us Atlantic Yards, a project you can't stop praising. Make up your mind.
Julie Rosenberg
Posted by lumi at 7:42 AM
September 13, 2006
Yardwork: Atlantic Yards Forum Roundup
Gothamist runs an Atlantic Yards roundup for their readers featuring links to The Times, Atlantic Yards Report, Gowanus Lounge, and The NY Sun. We childishly added our post-election analysis to the comments section.
Posted by lumi at 11:12 PM
September 11, 2006
Another AY error from the Times; mayor sanguine about subway crowding
Atlantic Yards Report
NY Times after-the-fact-checker Norman Oder catches another AY mistake:
"...the Atlantic railroad yards in Brooklyn may someday soon house the New Jersey Nets, as well as mixed-income apartments and 600,000 square feet of new office space."
The railroad yards could never house the Nets, the apartments, and office space because they're too small. For the umpteenth time, a reporter has assumed that Atlantic Yards and the railyards are coterminous, even as the latter would be a little more than a third of the AY project.
NoLandGrab: Note to Times reporters, there's a stylebook on Atlantic Yards collecting dust on some desk somewhere in the office.
Posted by lumi at 8:13 AM
September 10, 2006
Brooklyn vs. Bush's Eminent Domain Special
Wondering who the neighborhood artists are who painted the giant anti-Ratner murals? Brooklyn vs. Bush reveals the identities of the hooligans in their most recent episode, which can be viewed online:
Street Painting with Patti and Shelly Hagen featuring Letitia James & Ratner's hecklers
Posted by amy at 11:15 AM
September 8, 2006
Closer look at Crain's poll: those who follow AY project are more critical
Atlantic Yards Report
So, are people who know more about the Atlantic Yards project more likely to oppose it? Yes, though the results from the Crain's poll weren't as dramatic as I'd have thought.
From Wednesday's Crain's Insider:
ATLANTIC YARDS POLL
The Crain’s poll on Atlantic Yards prompted immediate spin yesterday from project detractors, who claim that the survey showed 60% support for the development because most people know little about it. But of respondents who said they are following the Forest City plan closely, 59% were favorable and 38% were negative. Of those not following it closely, 60% were favorable and 22% were not. The poll also showed that savvy advertising and public relations by Forest City could increase support further. After callers were read three negative statements and then three positive statements about the project, support rose to 71% from 60%. The statements moved Brooklynites the most, raising the borough’s favorable portion to 74% from 60% and reducing the unfavorable portion to 24% from 33%. Support went up among all demographic groups, but the biggest jump was among blacks and Hispanics.That contradicts to some extent the assessment I made. Yes, those with close knowledge are more critical, but the difference comes from the undecideds, while the support, at least as expressed in this poll, seems consistent.
Posted by lumi at 7:24 AM
September 7, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
The Brooklyn Record, Atlantic Yards Update
All the Atlantic Yards controversy can be hard to keep up with, so for all you Brooklynites who aren't tuned into the various blogs devoted to it (or devoted to putting the kibosh on it), here's the news in a nutshell.
Community Commentary: Andy Bachman, What He Says, What He Does
An account of last night's 11th District Congressional candidates debate casts Chris Owens and David Yassky as the heavies. The Rabbi contrasts the two candidates' styles as principled rhetoric vs. the effective compromise and gives the following as one example:
One, as distinct from the red-meat line about not standing up to Bush if you can’t stand up to Ratner, Yassky calmly explained how he fought developers as a city councilman and wrought huge concessions on the Brooklyn Waterfront Development as well as introducing hybrid taxis to the city’s fleet (I know, I’m a nerd).
Neighborhood Retail Alliance, Kudos to the NY Daily News
Ratner consultant Richard Lipsky high fives the Daily News for yesterday's editorial supporting the Atlantic Yards project.
There is no compromise with the these folks and any further concessions, as the News points out, will only serve to hurt the project's recognized benefits. Let's just move forward and forget the human shields.
NoLandGrab: Sounds like the "newly minted volunteers" are ready to bulldoze those human shields!
Power Plays (political blog of The Village Voice, Mark Green's Three Questions
In the highlights from Tuesday's Attorney General debate, Maloney took a strong stand against eminent domain in a question about environmental issues:
Green said that getting GE to clean up the Hudson is the biggest environmental issue out there. Maloney said it was the use of eminent domain, which requires "a system that is open, transparent, and fair"—unlike the Atlantic Yards deal. Cuomo believes mercury emissions take the cake.
Posted by lumi at 7:58 AM
September 6, 2006
The Observer warns about AY delay; dailies tell us (duh) scaleback means little
Like, Atlantic Yards Report not only writes faster than we read, but Norman "The Mad Overkiller" Oder also gets it up right away.
Today's first post analyzed today's media coverage:
An online article in today's New York Observer, headlined In Big Slow Brooklyn Build, Is It Affordable Housing Last?, has some real news, while two daily stories tell us what the New York Times should've told us in a lead story yesterday: a six to eight percent cut in the Atlantic Yards plan means little.
Posted by lumi at 10:56 AM
Poll: New Yorkers like Nets arena if not told of cost
Field of Schemes has a look at the Crain's poll results and notices that the poll didn't question respondents about public subsidies.
A Crain's New York poll of 601 New Yorkers found that most supported developer Bruce Ratner's plan for the Atlantic Yards development project, which would include a Brooklyn arena for the New Jersey Nets: 23% says they felt "very favorable" toward the project, 37% "somewhat favorable," 13% "somewhat unfavorable," and 13% "very unfavorable."
Support rose slightly after pollsters listed arguments made by opponents (the city will be forced to spend more on schools and water and sewer services for the project, it's out of scale with the surrounding neighborhood) and proponents (it will provide affordable housing and bring the Nets to Brooklyn) of the plan. But Crain's notably neglected to mention one issue that's proven decisive in prior polls: That the project would require several hundred million dollars in city and state subsidies.
NLG: The poll didn't ask respondents about eminent domain, either. Would that have changed poll results? Not if the public prefers to spend its tax dollars on historically large private projects that use eminent domain to take people's property.
Posted by lumi at 8:33 AM
Polling Atlantic Yards Report
Four out of five posts on Atlantic Yards Report recommend facts and analysis for reporters who chew on Ratner PR.
Crain's poll questions were stunning generalities--and described the CBA as a negotiation
So Crain's New York Business has posted the full results of the poll it commissioned regarding Atlantic Yards.
The conclusion: when asked about the project in stunning generalities, especially deceptive ones about the Community Benefits Agreement, people approve of it. (Yes, polls are by nature general, but we should have gone beyond "jobs, housing, and hoops" by now.)
That's about it, until someone conducts a more specific poll that actually addresses issues of density, public responsibility, facts and promises about affordable housing, and the use of eminent domain.
AYR posted poll details (link to Crain's poll) with some running commentary.
Another set of Pacific Crest Research calls
I'm told that Pacific Crest Research has also been calling Brooklynites about the 57th District Assembly race, involving Atlantic Yards opponent Bill Batson, AY proponent Freddie Hamilton, and Hakeem Jeffries, who has offered a range of criticisms but has said he would choose to support the project. And, as in the brief call I received, callers are asking about Atlantic Yards.
Note that Forest City Ratner has neither confirmed nor denied a relationship with Pacific Crest.
Posted by lumi at 8:10 AM
September 5, 2006
More reaction to the scaleback shavedown
Though a mere 6%-8% shavedown would return the proportions of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards to about the same size as when it was initially unveiled three years ago, most of the blogosphere — and the NY Times — missed that fact.
No worries; the Zelig-like Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report somehow managed to call attention to this fact in the comments section of nearly all of the local blogs.
Brownstoner, Word Leaks of Atlantic Yards Size Reduction
News today of Bruce Ratner's plans to reduce the size of the Atlantic Yards project comes as little surprise; we don't expect that the move will appease many of the projects strongest opponents, as it does nothing to address issues of density, services or environmental impact. In fact, a cynic might be forgiven for thinking that it smacks of well-choreographed political theatre.
Gothamist, Ratner to Put Miss Brooklyn on a Diet?
After the Atlantic Yards public hearing, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz had suggested the project could be scaled down. A revised plan is supposed to be announced later this month. The article notes that architect Frank Gehry has "objected to any changes in his design for Miss Brooklyn." Heh! Frank Gehry, welcome to building in the city (building for Barry Diller doesn't quite count) - you hand over your designs, they will get the city treatment.
Curbed.com, Atlantic Yards Trimmed, Propagandized
And speaking of the Atlantic Yards, the Ratner-produced propaganda for the development is turning up in some very interesting places, like—say—your mailbox, or even a seemingly harmless Brooklyn Cyclones game over on Coney Island. Corrupting the innocence of America's pastime, employees handed out free New Jersey Nets bags loaded with pamphlets explaining the virtues of the Atlantic Yards development. If what we see inside is to be believed, apparently the Atlantic Yards will make fathers reconnect with their sons, and young couples in love will frolic in grassy fields, taking camera-phone pictures of their creepy, gigantoid smiles. Play ball!
OnNYTurf, No Damn Difference In Size At The NYTimes-Ratner Dog and Pony Show
ONYT casts NY Times real estate reporter Charles Bagli as the Ringmaster:
Ah, welcome back from your summer slumber, hope you had a nice time at the beach, we now on your first day back present you with Positive Positve Positve, News News News!!! From the offices of your dear leaders, an all start lineup including Silver, Bloomberg, Markowitz, Quinn, Yassky, in conjunction with our sponsor Bruce Ranter... This is your announcer Charles Bagli, and today we bring you, ATLANTIC YARDS! Smmmmmmmaller.
The Neighborhood Retail Alliance, Less Dense? Not Daniel
Bruce Ratner pays consultant Richard Lipsky to lobby for the arena among the local amateur sports leagues. Lipsky probably scored bonus points with Bruce with his commentary on the NY Times piece, which gets into Daniel Goldstein's face with zingers like, "Dan the destroyer," "Well Daniel, as we have found out over the past twenty five years, it's never just about you!" and, "The attack on the arena underscores the scorched earth nihilism of the DDD agenda."
Lipsky did manage to squeeze this message into his verbal endzone dance:
The arena and the Nets team will be the centerpiece of a resurgent Brooklyn that will link all of its diverse neighborhoods into one unified whole.
Develop Don't Destoy Brooklyn, More Money for Ratner and an Unhappy Architect
While Richard Lipsky high fives himself, the "scorched-earth nihilists" over at DDDB take another close look at the NY Times article and notice two interesting points:
The Times:
Forest City, they say, will continue to set aside 2,250 apartments for low, moderate and middle-income tenants, even as it seeks additional subsidies for that part of the development. (Emphasis added)..
The Times treats those "additional subsidies" as a throwaway line, but for a project whose true public cost is still unknown (though we believe its around $1.9 billion) and whose profit for the developer is also unknown (all we have to go on is an estimate from New York magazine of $1 billion and this unintelligible profit-loss statement form Forest City) the specter of MORE subsidies or corporate welfare for Bruce Ratner is news in itself.
...
Frank Gehry, who has called that building his "ego trip" does not seem happy. We sense some client/architect friction:...But according to executives briefed by the developer, Mr. Gehry has objected to any changes in his design for Miss Brooklyn...
Posted by lumi at 1:33 PM
September 4, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
Gothamist, Grains of Salt and Atlantic Yards Support
It'd be interesting if a poll did ask people if they felt informed about the issues - and then if the pollster gave people some of the pros and cons and asked questions about support all over again.
Don't Worry It's Just Reality: Brooklyn Edition, Some Questions I'd like Crain's Pollsters to Ask....
We don't have a copy of Crain's poll questions, but "Dreadnaught" has a few questions of his own.
Daily Gotham, Bill Batson's Statement on the ESDC's Analysis of Ratner's Plan
Mole333 posted 57th Assembly District candidate Bill Batson's official position on Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.
The Real Estate Observer, Monday: Everybody Loves Ratner (and Harlem)
Today's Crain's reports that 60% of Brooklynites support the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards development. A high number, no? Plus, nearly 9 out of 10 New Yorkers think the project will "be an important benefit to the community," on account of the affordable housing and new jobs. 10 out of 10 Bruce Ratners agree.
Neighborhood Retail Alliance, Arena Foes Poll-Axed
Here's a big surprise, Ratner's consultant Richard Lipsky is declaring that:
In spite of all the publicity generated and policy expertise demonstrated by the DDD folks the group doesn't have the kind of traction needed to stop the project.
Posted by lumi at 7:46 PM
Two errors in nationwide AP story on AY
Atlantic Yards Report
There were two fundamental errors in an otherwise reasonably balanced Associated Press story that appeared in dozens of newspapers nationwide today. The article, headlined Project Divides Brooklyn Residents in most papers, states: The $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project, to be built over a rail yard...
NoLandGrab: If only that were true. The Vanderbilt Railyards only comprises EIGHT acres of the 22-acre Atlantic Yards project.
The article also:
didn't acknowledge that the "extraordinary" coalition [consists] mainly of groups that stand to benefit from the project, and that the Community Benefits Agreement differs significantly from those pioneering agreements negotiated in Los Angeles, where signatories refuse to accept money from the developer.
Links:
Atlantic Yards Report
AP article, via Newsday
Posted by lumi at 7:50 AM
August 29, 2006
The murmurings of a scaleback, but not of a 50% goal
Atlantic Yards Report "Oderizes" today's NY Sun article.
Everyone expected the Atlantic Yards plan to be reduced somewhat as part of the endgame as state approval approached, and that discussion has now reached the press. A New York Sun article today headlined Pressure Mounts to Curb the Size of Atlantic Yards states: State officials have discussed with the developer, Forest City Ratner, a reduction in the size of the project, a source said.
The Sun writes that "opponents contend" that the project was upsized before it was downsized, leading Oder to comment:
Opponents contend? The press shouldn't have to attribute factual information to a partisan side. It makes it sound like proponents and neutrals would disagree about baseline data.
Oder, who has been on the forefront of the density debate, reiterates his opinion that a project half the size of the current proposal would have made a good starting point for discussion with city planners and the community.
Posted by lumi at 9:25 AM
August 25, 2006
Atlantic Yards Report on the Media
Today Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder returns to his original assignment, The NY Times and the media:
The Times on AY: skepticism about construction jobs, but not about revenue
Oder takes a look at yesterday's NY Times article and notices a "rowback," as the Times is suddenly expressing the 15,000-jobs figure as "1500 construction jobs."
What's a "rowback?" What's the difference between the two figures? When will the Times scrutinize the "$1.4 billion tax revenue" prediction? Read the "O-dair Report" to learn more.
Democracy vs. demagoguery, and other AY story lines a columnist might've followed
Gather up the press and blog coverage, maybe add some video, and you can approximate the experience of the seven-hour public hearing Wednesday on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). But it really needed a writer with more "voice,” a columnist like Jimmy Breslin or Murray Kempton (R.I.P.).
Why didn’t a metro columnist, or even a sports columnist, from one of the dailies cross the river? After all, it was the day’s—maybe the summer’s--most striking piece of street theater. There were so many threads to follow, building blocks for 800 compelling words, stories with drama and maybe even a moral.
Oder lists several different threads that would've made great fodder for Gotham's bevy of columnists.
Posted by lumi at 12:03 PM
August 24, 2006
Coincidence or crony?
Lookie who is shilling for the NY Times online.
When Nets minority owner and Bruce Ratner business partner Jay-Z is featured in ads for Ratner's other business partner, The NY Times, some may conclude that there's a media conspiracy afoot.
Most cynical New Yorkers will likely shrug and call it "synergy" or "leveraging combined assets."
Posted by lumi at 7:00 AM
August 23, 2006
First Public Hearing Held On Atlantic Yards Development Project
NY1 is reporting, "Many Brooklyn residents, including Rosie Perez and Heath Ledger, are expected to testify against the project at the hearing."
NoLandGrab: This info is totally erroneous — our sources tell us that Rosie and Heath are not expected to speak this evening.
The purpose of this evening's hearing is to comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, not grandstanding, though someone forgot to tell Forest City Ratner that — we're hearing from press sources that Jason Kidd and Vincent Carter are expected to be at the Ratner press conference at 285 Jay St., 3:30PM.
The local news channel is also misreporting that, "Tonight's hearing is the first of two. The next one is scheduled to be held on Primary Day September 12th from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the New York City College of Technology."
NLG: September 12th's event is a "community forum," not "hearing." No one has a clue about the distinction. However, we are looking forward to the result of some Freedom of Information request to clear this one up.
Posted by lumi at 10:53 AM
August 22, 2006
Yes, we do requests
Thank goodness the Left Behinds are around to spell things out for the political neophytes at NoLandGrab. We couldn't understand why the Times awarded their highly coveted endorsement to Jeffries based on "star power," so we called on the more well seasoned snarks.
1) Bruce Ratner is building the Times's new headquarters on Eighth Avenue.
2) The Times editorial board endorsed the Ratner project.
3) Hakeem Jeffries basically supports the Atlantic Yards project, with some waffling.
4) A good portion of the 57th AD is pretty solidly anti-Yards. If the Times announces it supports Jeffries because he supports the Yards project, it undoes all his careful waffling and sinks him with much of the Times's mid-Brooklyn readership. Another reason must be found, and in the absence of anything substantive to say there's always the option of saying nothing.Even without all that, Jeffries is the closest thing to an incumbent in the race, with the most money and the fanciest website.
NoLandGrab: We went to the LeftBehinds for wit and wisdom (and "snarkasm"), and all we got was "garden-variety backscratching and establishment politics?" Welcome to Ratnerville.
Posted by lumi at 9:42 PM
Curiel's Picks
Daily Politics
The most powerful person in New York politics, and certainly Manhattan politics, [Carolyn Curiel] spoke on Sunday in the Times City Section, and various campaigns are now hard at work clipping and mailing her editorials. ...
The Times also gave Diamondstone a boost, and did Hakeem Jeffries the tremendous favor of not simply endorsing him, but of doing so without making clear where anybody stands on Atlantic Yards.
NoLandGrab: The only reason the Times gave for its endorsement is that Jeffries "has the makings of a political star?" So, basically, the Times gave away its endorsement based on star power?
Posted by lumi at 7:28 AM
August 18, 2006
Sloppy Times says: Brooklyn arena is a done deal
Atlantic Yards Report
Lucky for The New York Times, every time they make even a slip up, Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report is quick to pick up on it.
Lucky for Atlantic Yards critics, the Times hasn't hired Oder as a fact checker — who would do Atlantic Yards Report?
A Times Metro section article today on the fate of the shopping and entertainment complex slated for the Meadowlands, headlined Some Call for New Jersey to Intervene to Save Xanadu Project, states: The Nets basketball team is abandoning the Continental Arena for Brooklyn, and the Devils hockey franchise is moving to Newark.
Reporter Laura Mansnerus may not be a regular reader of AY Report, otherwise she would have known that:
The Nets aim to move to Brooklyn, but the Atlantic Yards project hasn't been approved. In fact, the Nets are hedging their bets and are discussing an extension of their lease through the 2011-2012 season.
Posted by lumi at 9:53 AM
August 17, 2006
Prospect Heights to media, "'Atlantic Yards' is a project proposal, not a place"
From Denis Hamill's Daily News column on next week's Coney Island Beach Volleyball tournament (emphasis added):
So when Armato was approached by Chris Brahe of Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment - a division of Bruce Ratner's Nets organization that plans to build an arena and housing complex at the Atlantic Yards - to erect a temporary 4,000-seat arena on Bay 21 in Coney Island, he, um, jumped at it.
NoLandGrab: Last we checked, "Atlantic Yards" was a project proposed for the Vanderbilt Railyards and 14 acres of Prospect Heights and Park Slope, not an actual place.
In all fairness, Denis Hamill is a columnist and can't be expected to follow current events across the entire city. That's why press kits are so handy.
And while we have your attention, don't forget: the place that "Atlantic Yards" isn't, is not in Downtown Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 7:22 AM
Boom burg
This week's groundbreakings for Yankee Stadium and Gateway Center prompted a Daily News editorial on NYC's building boom which mentioned Atlantic Yards amongst projects on deck:
And there's much more in the pipeline. A new stadium for the Mets, Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn and countless projects large and small in every borough will push 2006 construction spending in the city well past last year's record $19 billion. That money will generate the vital benefits of well-paying jobs, affordable housing and renewed neighborhoods. Silvercup West, planned for Long Island City, is a prime example in that the movie studio is expected to have 4,000 permanent jobs, and residential towers will add 1,000 units to New York's housing stock.
Why is all this happening now? Two reasons. First, the economy is on an upswing. Second, Mayor Bloomberg devised zoning reforms and smart public investments, often in partnership with the state, that served as catalysts to development. This is a city on the move.
NoLandGrab: In some twisted way, the state override of local zoning for Atlantic Yards could be considered one of the Mayor's "zoning reform" initiatives. Lack of transparency and more top-down state control isn't what usually comes to mind when one says "reform."
Posted by lumi at 6:37 AM
August 15, 2006
Slate, in other magazines: Summaries of what's in Time, Newsweek, etc.
Slate.com includes "Ratzilla Attacks Brooklyn" in its line up of summaries major magazine articles for the week.
The cover story analyzes the debate over Bruce Ratner and Frank Gehry's controversial Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn. Ultimately, it comes out against the development, partially out of skepticism of the proposed benefits, which include mixed-income housing and an economic boom, but mainly because of dismay at the strong-armed tactics of its proponents: "It's outrageous to see the absolute absence of democratic process. There's been no point in the past four years at which the public has been given a meaningful chance to decide whether something this big and transformative should be built on public property," the author writes.
Posted by lumi at 8:20 AM
August 11, 2006
Atlantic Yards "Embattled"? AP Thinks So
Gowanus Lounge noticed that an Associated Press story used one little-itty-bitty adjective, and wondered if it could "be a clear sign that the lines in the battle for the hearts and minds of Brooklynites (and reporters) have shifted slightly."
AP wrote:
Together, Cleveland-based Forest City and Mr. Ratner have interests in 30 retail, office and residential properties, certain service companies and numerous developments in the New York metropolitan area, including The New York Times Co.’s new headquarters in Times Square and the embattled Atlantic Yards development in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y.
NoLandGrab: It could be a slight shift, but then again the AP reporter (no byline) locates the project in "downtown Brooklyn," instead of Prospect Heights, so it shows you what he or she knows.
For a bird's-eye view of the difference between DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN and PROSPECT HEIGHTS, click here.
Posted by lumi at 9:11 AM
August 10, 2006
Times in Bruce’s corner
The Brooklyn Papers, Editorial
The New York Times, which is working with Bruce Ratner to build a new Times headquarters in Manhattan, continues to trumpet its enthusiastic view of its partner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development. In a City section editorial that capped a string of upbeat “news” articles and unreported stories, Times writers seemed to be working off a Ratner press release. As a service to our readers, some of whom may also occasionally read the Times, we present a more nuanced view.
Click here to read the Times editorial in support of Atlantic Yards with editorial footnotes from a newspaper that represents Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 9:45 PM
August 7, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
Here's some more reaction from the bitstream to the NY Times editorial supporting Atlantic Yards...
The Wonkster (political blog of The Gotham Gazette), Endorsing Atlantic Yards
The Times looks at the proposed Atlantic Yards project today and likes what it sees: desperately needed housing, the return of major league sports (the NBA Nets) to Brooklyn, Frank Gehry buildings that “would add a sense of excitement to the entire area,” and a boost for city and state revenues. The paper has a few qualms, saying there should be more public review, and that developer Forest City Ratner (which is also working with the Times on building its new headquarters) may be getting more in subsidies than it should. Most of all the Times thinks the project could use a bit of downsizing but by and large, it concludes, “the planners are correct in seeing an opportunity to build something grander and doing it at the one place in the borough that can handle it.” (Have they been at Flatbush and Atlantic recently?)
OnNYTurf, NYTimes Endorses Ratner for Atlantic Yards
Most unfortunately this editorial does make you wonder if the NYTimes did any research about this project before writing their editorial, or if they just read their own back reports.
...one account of last week's Community Board 6 hearing...
Gothamist, Community Calls Atlantic Yards "Mistake" and "Kafka-esque"
Though opponents of Atlantic Yards are usually called shrill and vitriolic, blogger Jill Priluck "sensed an eerie quiet."
Armer and company heard from about 25 public commenters, who bemoaned the proposal for being out of scale, for "Manhattanizing" Brooklyn, for subverting public review, for its indequate relocation plan and for improperly addressing what are sure to be increases in pollution and street, pedestrian and park traffic. Community member Paul Heller accused "some public authorities" of collusion, cronyism and conspiracy and someone else described the plan as "Kafka-esque."
Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Development Group President posted in response to evamn's "concern about the magnitude of the Atlantic Yards project," and made an assurance that the "comments are appreciated, and will be taken into account at the next development board meeting."
...and one soundbyte.
The Left Behinds The Atlantic Yards Footprint
"We’ve got a real community here," Patti Hagan says. "You don’t get a community in a 62-story skyscraper. You don’t even get a neighborhood. You just get a doorman."
Posted by lumi at 4:49 AM
August 6, 2006
A Bad Neighbor Editorial Policy
NLG Commentary
Today, The NY Times does a two-fer on its business partner, Forest City Ratner.
The Westchester regional-section editorial on Forest City Ratner's controversial Ridge Hill project ("A Bad Neighbor Policy") seems the epitome of balance and reason, especially when compared to the same editorial board's position on Ratner's Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn.
The Ridge Hill editorial chastizes Ratner and the City of Yonkers:
As Yonkers officials and the developer, Forest City Ratner (which is also the developer of the Times’s new headquarters in Manhattan), bulldoze forward with their Ridge Hill dream, they need to remain acutely aware of the facts on the ground. They can call it a “village,” but that doesn’t make it one. It’s a $660 million mini-city. If they are honest they will acknowledge that concerns about Ridge Hill have been raised by thoughtful critics from the earliest stages of the proposal, and that these concerns still have not been resolved.
The Times could do well to apply these same concerns to the $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project. Instead, Ratner clearly has the editorial board's ear on the project in Brooklyn.
Though Atlantic Yards would be the densest residential community in the nation, The Times calls for a scale reduction of just 15%, which would still make it a veritable mega "mini-city," and the nation's most dense neighborhood by a long shot.
While calling for all sides to work out traffic concerns in Yonkers, The Times's Atlantic Yards editorial cuts Forest City Ratner a lot of slack as it explains why, ultimately, Ratner isn't responsible for the traffic mess that even Ratner's own Environmental Impact Statement admits will be left in the project's wake:
Traffic will still be an issue when the project is finished, but the developers are not obliged to hold the neighborhood harmless. Their job is to demonstrate that their buildings will not make a bad situation intolerable, and the promises made by Mr. Ratner and his associates seem like reasonable responses to that challenge.
The NY Times editorial board has raised virtually all of the serious and legitimate concerns in the cases of Ridge Hill and the failed West Side Stadium bid. But inexplicably, in the case of Atlantic Yards, there seems to be a pattern of willful disregard for "thoughful criticism" of many aspects of the project, and unwillingness to hold Bruce Ratner accountable for the use of eminent domain to build a basketball arena.
Failure to take into account all impacts of the project, and to accept on blind faith the assurances of Bruce Ratner, only undermines the public's confidence in The Times, as it already has with many of our local politicians.
The duplicity of the NY Times's editorial policy implies that Brooklyn isn't worthy of the same considerations as Manhattan or Westchester. It also does not serve the interest of readers or the public, and is deeply disturbing to those who have spent the past two years trying to bring to light facts about the project, facts not covered by The New York Times or willingly acknowldged by the developer.
Posted by lumi at 2:11 PM
July 30, 2006
A not-quite-correction in the Times
Atlantic Yards Report:
A Times editorial in the Westchester weekly July 16:
At another huge development in Brooklyn that Mr. Ratner proposes to build, an amazing 50 percent of housing units will be sold to low- and middle-income residents.The correction published July 23:
An editorial last week about the Ridge Hill Village project in Yonkers mischaracterized the units earmarked for low and middle-income residents at another project, the proposed Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn. These units will be rented, not sold.While that correction is technically correct--yes, the affordable units would be rented, not sold--it still leaves the impression that 50 percent of the total number of units would be rented to low- and middle-income residents.
Rather, 50 percent of the 4500 rental units would be affordable, while the project would include another 2360 market-rate condos. The affordable housing percentage, announced and pledged at 50 percent, applies only to the rentals.
Posted by amy at 10:43 AM
July 27, 2006
The embeds
Time Out New York
Kudos to what Dope on the Slope fondly calls the "Brooklyn Blogade!"
The following "intrepid bloggers" were cited by TONY for sending "continual dispatches from the front lines:"
Brooklyn Record
Brownstoner
Gowanus Lounge
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn
Planet PLG
Set Speed
Missing from the list was Atlantic Yards Report, which can't seem to get any respect from the mainstream media. Maybe he should try writing more often!
The cover story features controversial development in Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards, Gowanus, Brooklyn Bridge Park, Downtown Brooklyn, Bed-Stuy, Williamsburg/Greenpoint waterfront and Red Hook.
Posted by lumi at 8:15 AM
July 26, 2006
"Near the planned Atlantic Yards"? The Times resists another correction
Atlantic Yards Report
With one word, The NY Times made a very weird error in the caption of yesterday's "blight"-in-the-Atlantic Yards-footprint story. Norman Oder pointed out the discrepancy to an editor, but after one illogical response, the Times blew him off.
Yesterday's caption...
This portion of Dean Street, between Flatbush and Sixth Avenues near the planned Atlantic Yards, is in a part of Brooklyn that a state agency has defined as blighted.
...should read (Oder has a slightly different wording in his commentary),
This portion of Dean Street, between Flatbush and Sixth Avenues in the planned Atlantic Yards, is in a part of Brooklyn that a state agency has defined as blighted.
NoLandGrab: Since the Times's editors probably have no love for Norman Oder, it's a wonder that they haven't blocked his email address yet.
Oder does make a good point though — the fact that those buildings are in the planned Atlantic Yards means you can kiss them goodbye if Ratner gets his way with Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 8:32 AM
July 25, 2006
Daily News Forum on Atlantic Yards
The Wonkster, Political blog of Gotham Gazette
Joshua Brustein notes that the Daily News has published two op-eds and one editorial on Atlantic Yards. The score: two pro-Yards and one against.
Posted by lumi at 7:04 AM
July 24, 2006
New York Times weekend coverage not on Atlantic Yards
The McMansion Wars
In this NY Times editorial, Westchester communities deal with "American giantism" and some of the same issues as Central Brooklynites face: density, size and taste.
Communities around the country are becoming stricter about lot sizes, density and setback requirements to keep neighborhoods from being overwhelmed by residential supersizing.
New York’s Fat Political Budget
$100 million for Ratner, plus other gravy-boatfulls of spending, really add up in this editorial about next year's budget:
Comptroller Alan Hevesi reported last week in his department’s preliminary analysis of this year’s session that the state will spend over $114.7 billion, including federal funds, in the current fiscal year. That is an increase of $10.1 billion over last year’s spending. And the increase in state funds alone is about 13 percent, a full four times the inflation rate.
Admittedly, times are good. And the state suddenly has — make that had — a $2 billion surplus. But New York’s politicians spent the surplus and then some because nobody seems to have thought that this Wall Street boomlet might be temporary. Or that the price of oil might hit three digits.
Debate Rages on Housing at Planned Brooklyn Park
Brooklyn Bridge Park plan is worthy of consideration on a slow Atlantic Yards-news day, because it give us the chance to ponder how our city politicians and planners eagerly bend over backwards to developers.
The debate over the Brooklyn Bridge Park reprises controversies over the West Side of Manhattan and raises fundamental urban planning questions: When is a park not a park? And how far should government go in granting concessions to developers — in this case, allowing profitmaking housing on public land — to subsidize nonessential public services?
Why does a "park" have to be "self-sustaining" while Bruce Ratner is first in line to receive more than a billion dollars in subsidies for Atlantic Yards?
Posted by lumi at 11:25 AM
July 18, 2006
Mayberry, Brooklyn?
NoLandGrab is calling a point of order here to come to Rosie Perez's defense.
It's plain nutty on the part of the Daily News to make an issue of Rosie Perez's "Mayberry" quote, which ran in The NY Times a couple of weeks ago, and just as odd that bloggers Norman Oder and Mole333 would tip their hats to the Daily News's reference.
Rosie Perez was quoted in a NY Times Metro article (archive link for Times Select customers only) about her directorial debut and community work:
"I'm all for progress and I'm all for development, but I'm not for the betterment of the filthy rich. If that eyesore comes to Brooklyn with the Nets, it's over, it's done. But why give in and let Bruce Ratner take over? My nabe was like my private [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayberry] Mayberry.''
Yesterday's News editorial ripped into Perez:
Yo, Rosie. This isn't Mayberry; it's Prospect Heights, and Prospect Heights and all of Brooklyn desperately need affordable housing. Those who would benefit are not the "filthy rich." Indeed, that term more aptly applies to smug celebs who are slamming the project from the comfort of their homes in California and the Hamptons.
Then in defense of transparency and smart and sustainable growth in Brooklyn, Norman Oder and Mole333 left Perez out in the cold. Oder said that the "quote can sound self-serving" and Mole333 wrote that it "may have been a bit silly at times."
HOLD THE PRESSES, BOYS!
Perez's quote implies that her old neighborhood was a "real neighborhood," the kind of place that people would want to live, as opposed to the pseudo-neighborhood, built "from scratch," that Gehry and Ratner have promised to deliver.
Perez loved her 'hood as much as any Tom, Dick or "Andy." If "Mayberry" was white-bread, that isn't her fault (blame the mores of 1960s TV). If her neighborhood was the kind of place where folks could build a life, bring up and educate their kids, and make lasting connections with their neighbors, that is to the credit of all the families that lived there.
As one girlfriend to another, don't pay any attention to those guys. They may be intimidated by the fact that you are a babe with a brain.
Anyone who grew up in rural America can tell you that any town that lays claim to "Mayberry" ain't no "Mayberry."
Perez makes an important point: every inner-city neighborhood isn't some ghetto block that's begging to be swept away by misguided do-gooders and their grand urban-renewal plans.
Posted by lumi at 9:08 AM
Atlantic Yards and Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn: The Daily News is Inaccurate
Yesterday's Daily News editorial, which Forest City loved so much that they sent it to thousands of their dearest friends, struck a dissonant chord with Daily Gotham blogger Mole333.
The mysterious Mr. Mole (is that "mole," like the aminal, or "mo-lay" like the sauce?) usually blogs on the political spasms and intrigue in Central Brooklyn, but has from time to time shared his personal trials with sewage overflow, adding to his concerns over how Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan will overburden Brooklyn's aging sewer system, and the blatant (but is it "technical?") conflict of interest that occurs when Bruce Ratner and NY State use the same lawyer to work on the same project.
Today, Mole333 challenges the Daily News Editorial board (which seems to be totally tone deaf to their own reporters' coverage):
Yo, Daily News. You have no idea what you are talking about. Nor do you recognize that the audience of that rally included a representative slice of Brooklyn. You ignore the extremely legitimate objections that were the focal point of the rally, focusing only on the comments by a single speaker. You portray the opposition as wanting an "empty little underdeveloped oasis" ignoring the very viable alternative that the opposition has offered.
Posted by lumi at 7:48 AM
July 16, 2006
The "sophisticated machine," "ostensible" independence, & Stuckey's spin
Atlantic Yards Report dissects this week's New York Observer article "After “Race” Battle, Dan Goldstein Charges On":
Am I merely "ostensibly independent" of DDDB? It's fair to say that I'm aligned with DDDB--we share similar concerns and critiques--as opposed to aligned with project supporters, but DDDB doesn't speak for me and I don't speak for them. I write a range of pieces, some straight reportage, some commentary. I can point out a DDDB error, question some rhetoric, and note where a DDDB affiliation was missing.I'm a journalist and critic, not an opponent. My goal is to get it right, not some mythical notion of objectivity, if I may quote former New York Times Public Editor Daniel Okrent. So if say that the project represents "extreme density," that's based on research. I'm in regular contact with a few people involved in DDDB or the broader opposition, but I talk or email regularly with a range of people interested in the Atlantic Yards issue.
Posted by amy at 4:01 AM
July 14, 2006
Suffering From Fuzzy Math
Courier-Life
Brooklyn resident Robert Puca proves that you don't have to be a rocket scientist to do math, but you probably shouldn't be a reporter.
I would like to see a correction for the article written by Stephen Witt, “Independent Oversight of Atlantic Yds. Project.”
Mr. Witt writes, “The money committed... toward the project represents a little more than 10 percent of the $200 million the city and state gave to FCRC for infrastructure costs.”
My calculator places that percentage at 0.13%, to be exact.
Looking forward to your reply,
Robert Puca
Brooklyn
NoLandGrab: That makes the Courier-Life figure off by... more than alot.
Posted by lumi at 11:01 PM
Brooklyn Eagle goes underground
Looking to drum up more customers than readers, current articles on The Brooklyn Daily Eagle are now available by subscription only. The 5,000-circulation newspaper and its columnist Dennis Holt have consistently supported Bruce Ratner's plan to build 16 highrise towers and a 19,000-seat arena.
Here are the links to today's articles, if you're into paying the $4.91 for one-week access:
Forest City’s Affordable Housing
Plan: Here’s How It Would Work
Meetings Will Address Yards’
Environmental Impact Statement
Atlantic Yards Report added some comments and analysis of the affordable housing article in this earlier post.
Posted by lumi at 10:50 PM
NoLandGrab gets "A" for effort
The new Market Facts Guide from Crain's New York Business rates NoLandGrab at the top of its class, awarding NLG an "A" among NY-area blogs that tackle an issue.
E-PICKETING: Blogs for causes
Advocacy groups are increasingly turning to blogs to further their causes and rally their supporters. The most effective sites use full-time Webmasters who have the presentation and writing skills to attract and inspire readers. Other blogs seem to talk to themselves, featuring item after item with the lonely tag "0 comments.'' Here's a snapshot of some advocacy blogs that have grabbed New Yorkers' attention-or not:
nolandgrab.org
Aims to stop Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Serves as project opponents' bible and reporters' reference guide. Even Forest City's people visit regularly.
NoLandGrab: Aw, shucks, we don't even have a speech prepared. But we would like to thank the Academy, Forest City Ratner for providing us with such rich material, and of course, all of you, our readers, without whom none of this would be possible.
Just one question, though: did Jim Stuckey not get a vote?
Posted by lumi at 12:15 PM
July 12, 2006
It came from the Blogosphere...
Atlantic Yards run-down
Bird to the North links the Manhattan User's Guide "Atlantic Yards Digest."
Ratnerville affordable housing Roundup
3 Bikini shares her thoughts on yesterday's affordable housing info session, meeting with Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and being on the fence about the project.
Ratner Meeting Draws a Crowd, Opponents Rally Sunday
The Gowanus Lounge summarizes today's Atlantic Yards news: affordable housing info session, additions to Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Advisory Board and the rally on Sunday.
The high turnout was likely a reflection of the awful housing situation in Brooklyn for low- and moderate-income families. And, probably also the result of a mistaken belief that showing up would somehow give them a leg up on snagging an apartment that won't even exist for 4-10 years, assuming the project is built.
Now don't forget.....
A Redbone Speaks blogger Robin "Redbone" Cloud has the mic at Sunday's rally.
Please come out and support our rally against Ratner's Brooklyn. I will be mcing and promise to be entertaining!!
Posted by lumi at 11:54 PM
July 11, 2006
NLG "my bad" on affordable housing meeting graphic
Lumi's taste of crow:
I got a call yesterday from NY Observer reporter Matthew Schuerman, who was doing some fact checking for a coming article.
In an interview with Schuerman, Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards Development Group President Jim Stuckey cited NoLandGrab's post on tonight's FCRC "Affordable Housing Information Session" as evidence that the Atlantic Yards opposition is guilty of "lack of transparency," a charge frequently leveled against the developer.
First of all, it was totally MY BAD.
I was planning on using excerpts of the ad, since the graphic was too big for the NLG format (the FCR designers are big on white space). However, while I was working on cutting and pasting, I had second thoughts and figured that the pubic interest would be better served if I posted the entire ad. Unfortunately, I accidentally output the image with the headline repeated, obscuring the meeting info.
This is what was posted (click images to enlarge)... |
and this is what should have been posted. |
 |
 |
Personally, I'm embarassed that the meeting info was left out. However, the RSVP info and web site (www.atlanticyards.com) still appeared in the image and we listed the event (free of charge) on our Events page, so it's doubtful that it appreciably affected the response rate.
You might be thinking that Stuckey's example of "lack of transparency" is small potatoes next to the fact: * that there will be no legislative oversight of the billion-dollars-plus of subsidies, * that Forest City Ratner still hasn't released its profit projections for the project, so no one knows how much Ratner stands to gain from the taxpayer's investment, or * many of those who sold to Ratner are contractually prohibited from speaking out against the project or the developer.
But a mistake is a mistake, and it deserves to be corrected. It's also shoddy work, even for a bunch of amateurs.
We would have sent out a press release to broadcast my error, but since most of the reporters occasionally check in with NoLandGrab anyway, it would've been redundant.
[See below for another NLG-eats-crow post. Bleechh! For the record, crow does not taste like chicken.]
Posted by lumi at 12:14 PM
July 5, 2006
Columnist Louis resorts to name-calling, still bypasses facts
Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder addresses Daily News columnist Errol Louis's charges of "Swift Boating" the Atlantic Yards proposal, which appeared in Louis's monthly column in Our Time Press:
In his latest Commerce and Community column, in the 7/1/06 issue of the Bed-Stuy-based Our Time Press, Errol Louis devotes the longest segment to an attack on me. Given that Louis doesn't respond to the errors I've found in his and others' writings, it's a journalistic version of an old lawyer joke: "When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, call the other lawyer names."
Louis has coined "Mad Overkiller" to describe Oder, an eerie reference to use just after a short item about a real killer. And he still hasn't debated Oder on his facts.
NoLandGrab: Louis claims Oder's cross-references create a "hall of mirrors," but try this one on for size: Oder analyzes Louis's complaints of Oder's analysis of the mainstream media coverage, to which Louis belongs. (Did we forget anything?)
Seriously folks, if Forest City Ratner put the facts on the table, that would shut up Stormin' Norman Oder, who could go back to his regularly scheduled life.
Posted by lumi at 7:34 AM
June 26, 2006
Crain's poll on Atlantic Yards project misses the point
Atlantic Yards Report
On the heels of Crain's New York Business editor Greg David's misinformed column supporting the Atlantic Yards project, Crain's now offers a stilted poll canvassing readers' opinions: Developer Bruce Ratner's plan for the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn calls for less commercial space than he had originally envisioned, along with 6,800 residential units--nearly a third of which would be affordable housing.THE POLL QUESTION: Do you agree with the Atlantic Yards plan?
Yes, the housing market is already tight, and the city needs more affordable units
No, the huge development would destroy the borough's character
Given that the developer traded office space for more lucrative luxury condos in May 2005, the question is a little late--and it treats "the Atlantic Yards" as a place rather than a project. More importantly, it ignores the fact that the developer originally promised 50 percent affordable housing, but violated the spirit--if not the letter--of the affordable housing agreement by adding the condos.
It treats the scale and density of the project as a matter of opinion, rather than something that could be assessed by (or at least in relation to) zoning, or evaluated in comparison to other projects.
article and Norman Oder's alternative questions
The Poll
Posted by amy at 10:53 PM
June 25, 2006
Crain's editor Greg David gets it wrong: chronology, housing, density, and "status quo"
Atlantic Yards Report
Crain's New York Business editor Greg David, in a column dated 6/26/06 headlined Atlantic Yards is not about sports (subscribers only), repeats some Forest City Ratner talking points, forgets the eminent domain issue that he's previously addressed, and adds some other misreadings.
...
As for the economics of the plan, why does David trust Ratner's claims, given that the developer has been unwilling to produce his economic projections for the project? Is Ratner's claim of $6 billion in revenue from the project credible? Are the subsidies and public costs deserved? And does David remember that, last December, he wrote, regarding eminent domain: What makes the issue so compelling in New York is that eminent domain is exercised here by undemocratic and politically motivated agencies like the Empire State Development Corp.
Posted by amy at 8:52 PM
June 21, 2006
What's missing? Columnist Louis still sloppy on jobs, the CBA, and AY rhetoric
Atlantic Yards Report analyzes commentary by Errol Louis:
In his 6/1/06 "Commerce and Community" column in the Bed-Stuy-based Our Time Press, Daily News columnist Errol Louis offered a "back-of-the-envelope analysis" of the jobs at the Atlantic Yards project. Unfortunately he failed to mention some important context, closing with the ahistorical suggestion that "Brooklyn politicians who have already wasted years opposing the project... should be negotiating the details of exactly how to make sure the coming jobs go to constituents who need it."
Louis neglected to tell readers that some jobs at the project have already been subject to negotiations, under the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), and others simply fall outside any political oversight. (This column is no longer online, as it's been replaced by a more recent column, discussed below.) He also ignored the CBA in a recent Daily News column in which he identified five project supporters without pointing out that two are CBA signatories.
Posted by lumi at 8:04 AM
June 11, 2006
One correction made, more missed regarding Times's Ratner/Gehry piece
Atlantic Yards Report
From today's New York Times:"A picture caption last Sunday with the continuation of a cover article about the developer Bruce Ratner's projects misstated the site of his Atlantic Yards development. It is on rail yards and other land in Prospect Heights and on a block in Park Slope. It is not in Downtown Brooklyn, although it is near that neighborhood."
I'd actually missed that error, but, then again, I'd thought they'd put the "Downtown Brooklyn" mistake to bed, once and for all.
Still uncorrected: Nicolai Ouroussoff's statement that "Mr. [Bruce] Ratner has lopped several stories off the biggest towers in negotiations with the city." Actually, the tallest building, Miss Brooklyn, remains 620 feet, and the second-tallest was increased from 510 feet to 511 feet.
Also uncorrected: the use of a graphic that portrayed the 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank as nearly as tall as Miss Brooklyn and a good bit taller than the 511-foot second-tallest building proposed in the Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by amy at 2:15 PM
June 9, 2006
Wealthy White Masters, Cont'd
Daily Politics is spiraling into the surreal as Ben Smith tries to milk his wealthy-white-masters scoop for all it's worth.
Today Ben Smith wants you to know that Dan Goldstein's dad is a wealthy white master — at least that seemed to be his point when he posted a fundraising email from Goldstein's father, Mr. Goldstein, head of fund management company Santa Monica Partners.
Point of order here:
Project critics and supporters have long known that Daniel Goldstein's dad was a successful businessman. They've also known that Goldstein made the money that enables him to stick around and fight a questionable eminent domain seizure the old fashioned way, he earned it.
Posted by lumi at 6:31 PM
June 8, 2006
Sharp wedge in B'klyn race
2 candidates stay clear of Rev. Al's Yassky, Fat Nick link
Daily News
By Ben Smith
The industrious Norman Oder provides his analysis of how this all got started at Atlantic Yards Report.
NoLandGrab: At this point there is not much more of intelligence to say about this story except that each new development has been generated in the blog and column of Ben Smith, a former NY Observer columnist, who recently moved over to the Daily News.
Posted by lumi at 6:51 AM
June 1, 2006
Rereading Muschamp on AY and Gehry: the "Garden of Eden" wilts
Atlantic Yards Report reviews the coverage of Bruce Ratner's proposal starting with the former architecture critic Herbert Muschamp, noting that "the flaws in [Muschamp's] judgment grow larger in hindsight."
link`
Posted by lumi at 7:31 AM
May 31, 2006
E&P on the Times: loan obligation to Forest City Ratner demands more disclosure
From Atlantic Yards Report:
In the June issue of Editor & Publisher, the monthly trade journal of the newspaper industry, "Ethics Corner" columnist Allan Wolper takes a look at the New York Times's dicey relationship with ["Atlantic Yards" developer] Forest City Ratner. The headline: 'NY Times' Coverage Hits Close To Home, with the subhead: Reporters challenged to objectively cover dealings of a real estate company directly involved with New York Times Co.
Posted by lumi at 7:15 AM
May 26, 2006
Brian Lehrer Live: Norman Oder
The online videostream of Brian Lehrer's interview with Atlantic Yards Report author Norman Oder is posted on the CUNY TV web site .
Lehrer and Oder analyze the recent Atlantic Yards brochure and the latest Gehry designs.
Posted by lumi at 9:53 AM
May 24, 2006
TONIGHT: Brian Lehrer Live
Atlantic Yards Reporter Norman Oder will be Brian Lehrer's guest tonight on CUNY's live TV call-in show.
Brian Lehrer LIVE on CUNY TV, Channel 75 at 7:50 pm.
More info (including webcasting)
Though Oder has been barred from press conferences and is a regular (probably unwelcome) correspondent with the NY Times ombudsman, somehow he manages to continue peeling back the layers of Bruce Ratner's $3.5-billion project. The walking Atlantic Yards encyclopedia is on a mission to unwind Ratner's PR spin and doggedly follow each lead through the underbelly of Brooklyn politics, urban planning movements and minutiae, media criticism, financial analysis, and the secretive world of quasi-governmental state agencies and corporations.
The big question is, who is Bruce Ratner going to send to go mano-a-mano against Norman Oder?
Ratner Executive VP Bruce Bender stopped making sense a long time ago. Forest City Ratner's President of the Atlantic Yards Development Group Jim Stuckey has a poor poker face and a couple of known "tells." Ratner mouthpiece Joe DePlasco (previously on Brian Lehrer's WNYC radio show as "Joey in Cobble Hill") is more of a PR straightman and may not have the chops to deal with plan particulars. Will it be ACORN head Bertha Lewis, who is contractually obliged to stump for the project? Or, do they have a secret weapon?
Posted by lumi at 9:06 AM
May 18, 2006
High-rise vs. low-rise; the Times resists corrections, maintains false dichotomy
Atlantic Yards Report has a bone to pick with The NY Times's characterization of the Extell alternative plan for the Vanderbilt Railyards as "low-rise," instead of "high-rise."
Though the characterization either favors the opponents of Forest City Ratner's (FCR) Atlantic Yards plan by showing a viable "low-rise" alternative, or favors FCR by promoting a false dichotomy, the mission of Norman Oder's blog has been to clarify the debate by focusing on verifiable facts and figures.
Starting with a detailed letter to the corrections department, Oder engages in an exchange with the corrections editor, who somehow concludes that no correction is warranted.
Posted by lumi at 7:46 AM
May 16, 2006
Sun critic dislikes Gehry, misreads opposition, misdescribes site
Atlantic Yards Report analyzes James Gardner's critique of Frank Gehry's Atlantic Yards design from today's NY Sun. Mentioned are the dubious description of the site (NEWS TO THE MEDIA: only 8.4 acres of railyards comprise the 22-acre site) and the characterization of the opposition.
Posted by lumi at 12:30 PM
May 15, 2006
Catching up with Atlantic Yards Report
Norman Oder is posting up a storm in the wake of the Stuckey-Gehry-Olin show, in which the new "Three Men in a Room" revealed the new-ish plans for the arena and 16 high-rise proposal.
Here are some AY Report posts we missed:
Hidden in plain sight: new towers over the Atlantic Center mall
Here's one the entire press corps missed -- Frank Gehry and Jim Stuckey failed to mention the three towers over the Atlantic Center Mall. In January, Gehry spoke of some 20 buildings to be designed by him at the site (NY Times Arts & Leisure Weekend).
If the Atlantic Center Mall towers are the missing buildings and are part of a separate-but-related plan, the discussion of these high-rises should not be limited to Atlantic Yards Report and the second un-released Memorandum of Understanding.
ACORN's Lewis vs. three Community Boards: is one side lying?
ACORN's Bertha Lewis says that "people" who signed the Ratner Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) were not hand-picked, they "self selected in, and self selected out."
Community Boards 2, 6, & 8 do not name names, but contend that "some eventual signatories barred us from attending the working sessions" for the CBA.
Atlantic Yards Report wonders "is one side lying?"
Hint: One side is contractually obliged "to take resonable steps to publicly support the Project." (see HousingMOU.pdf)
Stuckey's stonewall re CBs: another detail
In an article headlined Community boards to Ratner: Stop your fibbin’, the Brooklyn Papers adds an important detail to the story on the complaint by three Community Boards that the developer has misrepresented their participation in "crafting" the Community Benefits Agreement.
The detail: The response by Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey came in a statement, not an interview. In other words, Stuckey chose to dance around the question, with no opportunity to follow up.
Comparing AY 2005 vs. 2006--and why did the Times downplay the latest?
The last time Frank Gehry unveiled design updates for the Atlantic Yards plan it was a front-page NY Times exclusive. This year, Gehry unveils his new designs and it lands on page B5 (Metro section).
Did the Times downplay Gehry or did Gehry downplay the Times?
Posted by lumi at 8:58 AM
Can’t See the Forest
The Brian Lehrer Show
It's Stuckey vs. Goldstein!
Tune in Monday morning at 11:05am to WNYC 820AM, 93.9FM:
Forest City Ratner VP Jim Stuckey says architect Frank Gehry’s new slightly scaled-down plans for the Atlantic Yards arena development in Brooklyn make it a better fit in the neighborhood. Daniel Goldstein, a spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, which opposes the project, disagrees.
Posted by amy at 7:37 AM
May 14, 2006
Blogger, Journalist or Both?
i-Team Blog:
The question came up after Dan Klores Communications, the public relations firm hired by Nets owner Bruce Ratner to put a postitive spin on his proposed $3.5 billion megadevelopment, barred Norman Oder from its press conference with architect Frank Gehry and landscape architect Laurie Olin. Oder is a longtime journalist who is the blogger behind The Atlantic Yards Report, and he has been one of Forest City Ratner’s most dogged critics.Oder is certainly not a neutral, objective observer in this fight, but the guy has an encyclopedic knowledge of the issues surrounding the Atlantic Yards and consistently raises good questions about a project that will influence Brooklyn’s future for decades to come. And that’s a good thing for a project with so many question marks: What will be the health and environmental impacts? What about traffic and parking? Where will the thousands of new kids in the neighborhood go to school? How much money will Bruce Ratner and his partners make on this deal? What’s it ultimately going to cost taxpayers?
NoLandGrab: The Ratner crowd insists that their opponents are against progress and change. Ironic that they do not embrace new media.
Posted by amy at 12:43 PM
May 10, 2006
NEWS ADVISORY: ARCHITECT FRANK GEHRY AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT LAURIE OLIN TO PRESENT NEW IMAGES OF BROOKLYN ATLANTIC YARDS PROJECT
Architects to Discuss Plans for Atlantic Yards - the Residential and Commercial Development that Will Also be Home to the Nets Basketball Team
(Brooklyn, NY) - May 10, 2006 - Architect Frank Gehry and landscape architect Laurie Olin will discuss their work on the Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn and present new images of the 22-acre project tomorrow, Thursday May 11 at 10 a.m. at the Atlantic Yards Information Center in the Atlantic Center shopping Center (625 Atlantic Avenue, 3 rd floor.)
Gehry and Olin will discuss overall design themes and the on-going design process. While they will share new images and plans, these are not final images and it is expected that they will continue to change throughout the public review and design process. The proposed 22-acre Atlantic Yards project that will be situated at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn will provide affordable and market rate housing and retail and commercial space as well as the new arena for Nets basketball team. (A disk with selected images will be available for distribution to members of the press.)
Please note that this press conference is open to reporters with valid press credentials. If you do not have press credentials, we require a request from the publication that you will be representing. The request on letterhead should be faxed to 212.981.5449.
What: Frank Gehry and Laurie Olin discuss Atlantic Yards Project for Brooklyn. Will present new design images of the 22-acre site, including newly designed buildings and the proposed arena that will become the home to the Nets.
When: Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 10:00 a.m.
Where: Atlantic Center Shopping Center (625 Atlantic Avenue, 3 rd floor)
(Subway: Take 2, 3, 4, 5, Q, to Atlantic Avenue or M, N, R, W to Pacific Street.)
(Best entrance located on Atlantic Ave. at S. Portland Ave beneath the Circuit City sign. Elevators just inside the door lead directly to the 3rd floor.)
-30-
Posted by lumi at 5:31 PM
Covering Ratner's brochure: why not treat it like campaign advertising?
Atlantic Yards Report makes the case that the three brochures that Forest City Ratner has sent to area residents constitute a political campaign. Heck, they even hired Knickerbocker SKD, an advertising/direct-mail firm that specializes in political campaigns.
In political campaigns, however, newspapers have learned they must evaluate political advertising--to not rely on critics or political opponents but to use basic journalistic practices and check claims against the record. Other press outlets do it too and the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania offers the Annenberg Political Fact Check for regular nonpartisan analysis.
Last summer, for example, the Times twice analyzed ads produced by KnickerbockerSKD for Morganthau's campaign.
...
Forest City Ratner's campaign deserves no less scrutiny. Outside the blogosphere, the Brooklyn Papers' Kuntzman has been the only journalist to take a look.
NoLandGrab: Besides the issue brought up by Atlantic Yards Report, two questions come to mind:
1. If these two local Forest City Ratner project proposals are such great ideas, then why do they need a political-style PR campaign?
2. If Forest City Ratner has millions of dollars to spend on PR, then why do their projects require government subsidies above those that are "as of right?"
Posted by lumi at 4:48 PM
Forest City Ratner Press Conference Unveiling New Gehry Plans
10 AM
Thursday
FCR's Atlantic Center Mall "exhibition" office (above Pay/Half).
NoLandGrab: If Forest City Ratner's recent 12-page booklet is any indication, the "new" Gehry plans will be radically different, having replaced the arena with a meadow and the towers with Brownstones.
Posted by lumi at 4:09 PM
Rhetoric check: the use and misuse of "Atlantic Yards"
Atlantic Yards Report points out that "Atlantic Yards" is not an actual place, it's the name of Forest City Ratner's proposed project and a brand extension of Ratner's Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls.
Local officials and reporters, encouraged by the developer, have used terms like "at the Atlantic Yards" or "on the Atlantic Yards," without explaining that it's a proposed development site.
These seemingly minor errors serve Forest City Ratner's interest. They falsely conflate the developer's commercial branding--a project called Atlantic Yards--with a much smaller piece of publicly-owned land.
Posted by lumi at 8:53 AM
May 8, 2006
DDDB's new advisory board, Jane Jacobs, & "angry blogs"
Atlantic Yards Report reviews New York Magazine's coverage and the potential effects of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Advisory Board.
Posted by lumi at 8:22 AM
May 6, 2006
Errol Louis stays on course, careless with facts
AtlanticYardsReport:
Errol Louis is back on his Atlantic Yards hobbyhorse. The Daily News columnist and editorial writer, in his column in Brooklyn's black-oriented Our Time Press, takes aim at me and other unnamed Atlantic Yards critics, at the same time betraying his own tenuous grasp of facts.
Posted by amy at 3:11 PM
April 27, 2006
Paper of record, on record, "For the Record"
It's not exactly the mea culpa that Atlantic Yards critics were looking for, but The New York Times checked it out and found that Ratner's plan isn't now and has never been in Downtown Brooklyn:
Because of an editing error, an article in The Arts on Tuesday about Frank Gehry's design for the first phase of the Grand Avenue development project in Los Angeles misstated the location of the proposed Atlantic Yards project that Mr. Gehry is designing in Brooklyn. (The error also appeared in sports articles on Feb. 9 and April 11, in the City section on Jan. 15 and in several articles in 2003, 2004 and 2005.) It is on rail yards and other land in Prospect Heights and on a block in Park Slope; it is not in Downtown Brooklyn, although it is near that neighborhood. (Go to Tuesday's Article)
The Real Estate Observer, We were wrong all along
Matthew Schuerman ranks this correction amongst his all-time favorite Times corrections (no kidding).
Atlantic Yards Report, The Times finally corrects the "Downtown Brooklyn" errors
Stormin' Norman Oder welcomes the "belated" correction, but believes The Times could have gone further. In his typical relentless fashion, Oder managed to find 14 articles in the NY Times Sports section in 2003 that have yet to be appended.
Posted by lumi at 10:41 PM
April 25, 2006
Atlantic Yards Report Roundup: Times editorial and ad sales
Today's Atlantic Yards Report turns its attention back to The NY Times.
Forest City Ratner's ad in the Times: home court advantage?
If you own the lower floors of the Times Tower, is this ad that ran on the back page of this Sunday's Empire State Building special tribute section a "house ad" or a favor for your business partner Bruce Ratner?
"Buried by The Times": a darker story of inadequate coverage
A book whose premise is that the publisher of The New York Times downplayed the coverage of the Holocaust as the news of genocide was reaching our shores may contain lessons about how a paper's publisher can affect news coverage that may be against his or her own political or financial interest.
Posted by lumi at 9:48 AM
April 22, 2006
Ratner’s new Web site o’lies
Brooklyn Papers:
Almost from the moment that www.atlanticyards.com went live, critics began finding half-truths and outright dishonesty on the site — the most glaring example, a several-year-old photo of a gutted building labeled “existing conditions.”That building — at 636 Pacific St.— was later renovated into luxury condos. Ratner wants to tear it down to make room for an arena for the Brooklyn-bound New Jersey Nets.
Posted by amy at 3:58 PM
April 20, 2006
"Stretching the truth"--why can't the Times look critically at Forest City Ratner?
Atlantic Yards Report looks at the challenge of reporting on an issue in which he-said-she-said journalism doesn't tell the story. Today's post lists some of Forest City Ratner's specious numbers and claims, linked to easily verifiable documentation.
Norman Oder also points out that one subjective characterization in The NY Times was misleading and kind of unfair:
The Times's 4/16/06 article about bloggers observed of the new AtlanticYards.com web site: "A day later, the site had already drawn jeers from at least two blogs." But I had not merely jeered at the site, I had fact-checked the site and found several errors. Later I found photos that lied.
NoLandGrab: We are lifting our veil of silence and are coming forward to say that it was us — NoLandGrab was the site that jeered at AtlanticYards.com last weekend, as cited by the Times. Even a developer who repeatedly uses eminent domain to build a real estate empire at the taxpayers expense is funny sometimes.
So Norman Oder is right, while we were being snarky, he was actually contributing to the public discourse about the project (showoff!).
Posted by lumi at 6:52 AM
April 17, 2006
Blog on blogs on media coverage of blogs, when will it end?
Curbed.com has a look at "The Grand Army's" reaction to being covered by the Times and muses:
God, when are these people just going to cut the wishy-washy bullshit and tell us where they stand on this whole Atlantic Yards thing?
Posted by lumi at 11:30 AM
It came from the Blogosphere...
Blogs on blogs on Atlantic Yards
Yesterday's NY Times article on the bloggers covering Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal drew the inevitable reaction in the blogosphere, creating a virtual hall of mirrors.
FROM THE "GRAND ARMY"
OnNYTurf, Worthy Reading -- Atlantic Yards Related
The creator of the Google Map photo tour of the Atlantic Yards footprint was interviewed for the Times article but ended up on the cutting room floor. He issues a challenge to the Times to, "provide density analysis of Ratner's proposal in any form that would come slightly close to matching the quality of my map."Atlantic Yards Report, The Times & the blogosphere, ten story ideas, and some reflections on coverage
Norman Oder not only dashed off a detailed response to the article, but he also added the link to most of the blogs listed below (that's what bloggers do).
LOCAL
Dope on the Slope, Grand Army of Bloggers
The movement has a name, "The Atlantic Yards Blogade." Then the expat hillbilly unleashes on "Joey from Cobble Hill" DePlasco:Let me assure Mr. DePlasco that there is no "sense" of anger in Brooklyn over this project. The anger is very real and it is growing as more people become informed about the details.
Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn, BROOKLYN BLOGOSPHERE IN THE NY TIMES
The Sunday Metro section discovers the Brooklyn blogosphere (no mention, btw, of OTBKB).
The Gothamist, Extra, Extra
Gothamist humorously describes the relationship between Ratner and Brooklyn bloggers as "tenuous."
REAL ESTATE
Curbed.com, It Happened One Weekend
4) Instead of delving into the major issues constantly written about on the anti-Atlantic Yards blogs, the Times merely points out that, uh, these blogs exist. Thanks, guys.
The Real Estate Bloggers, Blogs Tell The story in Brooklyn Development of Atlantic Yards
One of the biggest construction projects in Brooklyn, New Yorks history is the development by Forest City Ratner called Atlantic Yards. Like most huge projects, it has its proponents and detractors. What is interesting is that both sides are using weblogs to get their story out.
justiNYC, (Proposed) Atlantic Yards Development has its own blog
Just under a year ago, there was virtually no voice to be heard from the real estate blogging community. These days, we practically run the show! Good luck to Jonathan Cohn, the author of Brooklyn Views Blog!
TRANSFORMING JOURNALISM & POLITICS
IP & Democracy, Blogs Take on NYC Real Estate Developer
One New York City real estate developer, however, may wish that the blogosphere would vanish.
JStudies.com, Urban Blogging
I think the public nature of blogging pushes people into doing more and better research.
The response to this project highlights the fact that blogging is a multidimensional writing/research/communication modality.
This article is in the Time's technology section not its media section although the implications for traditional media are perhaps more important than the mere fact of the technological delivery
Buzz Machine, Hyper local
Media commentator Jeff Jarvis declares that the Brooklyn Blogfest is an example of how "hyperlocal citizens’ media" is supposed to work.Experimental Space, NY State Agency Plan Gets an Online Reaction
Even if the state doesn't provide a place for public comment, the public knows how to set up comments elsewhere. With Blogspot and other easy to set up sites, with commenting enabled, the opposition can get organized online earlier and better than in public hearings.
Would a state agency provide a centralized comment space, for communication and dialog about its proposals?
- Virtualpolitik, In the Zone
The article, "A Blogfest over a Project in Brooklyn," describes how the web's new class of professional amateurs can even impact land use policy.
But I wouldn't want to suggest that "professional amateur" was intended as a derogatory term in any case. Having recently returned from a eclipse-viewing trip, I know how important "amateur" astronomers are to the "professional" astronomy community. I consider it a form of "open source" culture that should be encouraged.
Government Technology, Bloggers Focus Attention on Proposed Brooklyn Development
Bloggers' rapid-fire dissemination and analysis of community issues can obviously outflank any daily newspaper and are already a force to be reckoned with.
+D1 (Portuguese journalism blog), Blogs e cidade (Blogs and City)
Um exército de blogs ajudaria a brecar ou a rever algum projeto que esteja sendo implantado na sua cidade?
Posted by lumi at 7:57 AM
April 16, 2006
A Blogfest Over a Project in Brooklyn
The NY Times
By Nicholas Confessore
The media echo chamber is complete when the mainstream media covers bloggers who cover gaps in the mainstream media coverage of the largest project (ever) in Brooklyn.
Today's human-interest piece in the Metro section marks the coming out of many of the bloggers familiar to NoLandGrab readers.
NoLandGrab: Thanks to Der Meisterspinner Joe DePlasco for giving us props for our media clipping service. It saves some Forest City Ratner intern about a half an hour a day, time better spent on handing out box lunches.
As for the "sense of self-importance and anger that often pops out," any grumpiness arises from the fact that we'd rather be doing something else, if it weren't for the self-important multi-billion-dollar boondoggle that ate Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 9:45 AM
The Times & the blogosphere, ten story ideas, and some reflections on coverage
The Times rarely makes a move that goes unnoticed by Atlantic Yards Report blogger Norman Oder, and today's article is no exception. Oder offers some more detail, disputes some of Nicholas Confessore's characterizations of the band of bloggers, and submits his list of topics to cover for the consideration of the Gray Lady.
Posted by lumi at 9:45 AM
April 15, 2006
Atlantic Yards Report Superpost
The Times's editorial blind spot (again) regarding Atlantic Yards
The NY Times just tossed another softball to Norman Oder, whose former raison d'être was to analyze the paper's coverage of its business partner, Bruce Ratner.
Oder ponders the editorial board's inconsistency when it comes to covering taypayer financing of the Nets arena. Does Bruce Ratner pull strings with publisher Arthur Sulzberger or is it sloppiness?
The demise of the "Brooklyn Nets" and the rise of the "[Corporate Sponsor] Arena"?
Atlantic Yards report looks at recent coverage anticipating a name change for the NJ Nets.
We're partial to the "Brooklyn LandGrabbers."
Posted by lumi at 8:57 AM
w York ime: No Nets in the Times
DDDb.net
Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn points out that The NY Times failed to cover their business partner, Bruce Ratner, (again) by ignoring NY State's pork barrel appropriation for the Nets arena in an editorial about Governor Pataki's "budget item vetos," even though the editorial specifically mentions "$150 million to help build stadiums for the already rich owners of the Yankees and the Mets."
NoLandGrab: NY State just approved $100 million (no strings attached) for the Nets arena.
Posted by lumi at 7:54 AM
April 13, 2006
A stingy correction on the Times's buyouts story
Atlantic Yards Report
The NY Times published a minor correction on Monday's story about displaced footprint residents. Norman Oder lists a few more corrections for the Times's consideration.
Posted by lumi at 7:47 AM
April 12, 2006
Will a correction finally sideline the Times's "Downtown Brooklyn" mistake?
Atlantic Yards Report
Advocates in Brooklyn have long been fighting the notion that Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards proposal is sited in Downtown Brooklyn, an impression that the developer has created from the start.
Atlantic Yards Reporter Norman Oder brings it up (again), after the NY Times messed up the distinction in yesterday's article in the sports section, though Oder grants that the Times has been "better but inconsistent" on the matter.
NoLandGrab: Let's hope the Times finally catches on, before Oder snopes them upside their head again.
Posted by lumi at 7:44 AM
April 7, 2006
14 and counting
NY Newsday
By John Jeansonne
The drum beat by the press persists in another article referring to Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project as a done deal:
For the Nets, who haven't lost since March 12 and already have locked up the division title with eight games to play, matters appear to be moving well beyond nice architectural drawings to the near completion of a beautiful edifice. Something like the arena owner Bruce Ratner plans for the team in Brooklyn by 2009. But that is getting far ahead of matters.
Posted by lumi at 8:14 AM
April 2, 2006
Brooklyn vs. Bush
In lieu of Sunday Comix this week, we invite you to watch the following music videos by Steve DeSeve. Cover your children's ears.
THE USE OF THE THREAT OF EMINENT DOMAIN: Bruce and brother and coinvestor Michael Ratner have been using something called "The Threat of Eminent Domain," to push people into signing insane contracts saying they will not talk about their dealings with the Ratner corporation AND that they will not DONATE MONEY TO ANY NEIGHBORHOOD ORGANIZATIONS FOR THEIR DEFENSE AGAINST EMINENT DOMAIN. THIS IS HOW THEY BLIGHT A NEIGHBORHOOD WHEN THEY PREPARE TO TAKE IT OVER FOR THEIR HIGHRISES. THEY USE THE USE OF THE THREAT OF EMINENT DOMAIN AS THEIR FORM OF CARPET BOMBING.A Ratner Day: Bruce and brother and coinvestor Michael Ratner have it all worked out for themselves.
Posted by amy at 3:33 PM
March 16, 2006
The Times on ACORN report: some context missing regarding Atlantic Yards
Atlantic Yards Report
In reference to The NY Times's article on reconsideration of NYC's 421-a plan, "The Times offered one incomplete paragraph referencing the Atlantic Yards issue:"
New York Acorn, which successfully pressured the Forest City Ratner Companies to include mixed-income housing in its 9.1 million-square-foot Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, looked in its new report at 87 housing development projects in various Brooklyn neighborhoods starting at the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges and extending toward Prospect Park.
Missing, however, was any explanation of what the developer would get from the deal. It would receive the 421-a tax break. More importantly, FCR got grassroots support for a project that would override city zoning and allow the developer to construct larger buildings--and thus more market-rate units--than would ordinarily would be permitted at the site.
Posted by lumi at 8:01 AM
Nassau Chooses Developer to Revive Coliseum Area
Apparently Atlantic Yards Report's persistent attempts to extract a couple of corrections from The NY Times is having some impact. It seems like a "style sheet covering some of the factual pitfalls in covering this controversy," as described to Norman Oder by Deputy Metropolitan Editor Patrick LaForge, has been distributed in the newsroom.
In today's article about Charles Wang's bid to redevelop "the area surrounding the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale," in a section about mixed-use development around sports venues, reporter Paul Vitello wrote:
In Brooklyn, the developer Bruce C. Ratner plans to build a residential and commercial complex over and near railyards with a new Nets basketball arena as its centerpiece. [Emphasis added.]
Posted by lumi at 7:18 AM
March 14, 2006
BCAT Reporter Roundtable, ONLINE
BCAT's Reporter Roundtable discussion of Atlantic Yards moderated by Gersh Kuntzman of Brooklyn Papers.
Participants:
Brian Carreira, Brooklyn Rail
Patrick Gallahue, NY Post
Steve Witt, Courier Life
Posted by lumi at 9:51 AM
New Map of Atlantic Railyards
WBAI, Wakeup Call
During the 7-o'clock hour of yesterday's show, guests Will James from OnNYTurf and Candace Carponter of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn discussed James's new Google Map illustrating the size and scale of Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan.
Posted by lumi at 8:05 AM
March 10, 2006
"Rezoning" for the Atlantic Yards project? The Times plays dumb
Atlantic Yards Report
All the news that's fit to print has come a long way baby, but Stormin' Norman Oder suggests that a couple more distinctions should be made in "shorthand" terminology used by The New York Times to report on city rezoning and the "Atlantic Yards project."
Posted by lumi at 8:31 AM
March 1, 2006
Introducing The Atlantic Yards Report
TimesRatnerReporter Norman Oder has long since extended his attention beyond the NY Times's coverage to include all things Atlantic Yards.
Introducing Oder's new blog, The Atlantic Yards Report.
Fans of TimesRatnerReport will breathe a sigh of relief when they visit the new blog — The Atlantic Yards Report is still packaged in the familiar "Blogspot" wrapper and still has Stormin' Norman Oder's penchant for detail and analysis of events and news coverage.
And speaking of analysis...
Oder delivers blow-by-blow coverage of last night's affordable housing debate.
Posted by lumi at 8:42 AM
February 25, 2006
Brooklyn vs. Bush
This week's episode: Brooklyn vs. Bush Anti-Ratner anti-Bush from Brooklyn with Freddy's regulars & video art by Donald O'Finn.
Watch the show on t.v. in Brooklyn MONDAY NIGHTS and in Manhattan on WEDNESDAY NIGHTS.
BKLYN Mon at 11:30 pm on BCAT ch. 3 Time warner ch. 56 CVision ch 69, no box: 10. MANHATTAN weds 9pm MNN1/Time War 34 RCN 110 as "Tales of the New Depression"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Brooklyn vs. Bush Comedy Show reluctantly backs the Brooklyn Beer Boycott, and Says So on T.V. Monday Night in a debut, 2 part special, of local artist Donald O’Finn’s Art Show.Brooklyn public affairs television producer Steve de Sève announced today that his show, which airs Monday night at 11:30 p.m. on BCAT 3, (Time Warner ch. 56) will be taking sides on the controversy started by Brooklyn Beer owner Steve Hindy when he announced his support for the oversized Ratner complex at the Atlantic Yards.
Brooklyn vs. Bush Comedy Show, which airs at 11:30 p.m this Monday night, is part 1 of a 2 part series that features the current art show of Donald O’Finn, the Freddy’s bartender who will be out of work if the plan Steve Hindy of Brooklyn Breweries supports goes through. O’Finn is a painter and video artist who has cultivated a unique community of writers, musicians and visual artists over the last 10 years. This community has made Freddy’s their home because of O’Finn. Many interviews on the 2 part series on O’Finn’s art show had strong opinions about the pending destruction of their community center. And two sketches, an ad for Brooklyn Beer “the beer that wants to throw you out on the streets and into the sewers,” and a longer piece about Hispanic residents being thrown into the streets and their struggle to understand Bruce Ratner’s need for a legacy at the cost of their neighborhood, will air this Monday night.
The decision for the Brooklyn vs. Bush show’s support for the Brooklyn Beer boycott comes from de Sève’s family’s personal experiences.
“Brooklyn Beer is great, but I can’t drink it for a while,” de Sève said at last week’s show’s viewing party at Freddy’s Backroom. “I have had two very bad experiences with eminent domain, and I think Brooklyn Beer’s owner Steve Hindy has not had any. Once you live through a 17 year threat to your family home, and then move to a town that is 75% underwater because of the state seizure of property, it makes things very clear.”
de Sève is from the small hamlet of Raymertown, NY, in the Berkshire Mountains. “My hometown, Raymertown, was seized by eminent domain for a reservoir. We were an agricultural community. The state took our most fertile farmland in the valley that made up most of the town, and made a reservoir for the nearby city of Troy. We not only lost most of our arable land, but several of the older farmers who lost their livelihoods and their homes died soon after the destruction of our town. It was a tragedy. And you know what? We didn’t even get access to the water. Folks back home still drink well water.”
Back when they were building highways like they were going out of style, de Sève’s grandmother’s Italian neighborhood was threatened with being torn down for a highway. The neighborhood was built on a hill, formerly called “mudslide hill,” where the Hudson River Valley met the foothills of our Berkshire Mountains. The Irish who had settled earlier in Troy to work in the collar and cuff factories and iron foundries, never figured out how to live on mudslide hill. Eventually, Italians migrated to Troy, and a man from de Sève’s grandmother’s anscestoral town of Cardinale, was looking for cheap land and saw mudslide hill. It was exactly like the hill where Cardinale had been for centuries. The people from his town had figured out centuries ago how to tame mudslides with terraces and concrete. “You gotta love Italians and their concrete.” de Sève said.
Mudslide hill soon attracted a number of families from Cardinale, who loved living together on the hill. Beautiful terraced gardens were built along with the sturdy homes, many of which were built during the Depression, if you can imagine that. It was a labor of love and of community, and the sites and smells of the gardens above the modest houses, as well as the food cooked from what the gardens produced made for a rich life for these poor immigrants.
Then, in the 1950’s the state announced plans to level the neighborhood to build a highway. Seventeen years of legal battles followed, and the neighborhood became blighted, because nobody wanted to put money into upkeep in a doomed neighborhood.
“The highway planners were told again and again that they couldn’t build a highway on mudslide hill if they wanted to. Those who acknowledged this fact were fired or transferred. The fix was in. It was in insider deal.”
The upshot? The highway was never built. BUT the neighborhood was seized anyway because the state had given out the demolition contracts on the houses! The land where the neighborhood stood is blighted to this day. And you can still see the sturdy terraces.
“It was, and is, very sad. We lost 6 old Italian women who died from broken hearts within months of the land seizure. My grandmother stayed and fought for another year. She told everybody to save the houses that were left, because no highway could be built. But intimidation tactics and the loss of her husband finally got to her and she called a family meeting and announced she had been beaten.”
“And THEN do you know what the state did?” asked de Sève. “They charged my grandmother RENT for living in her own house after the official date of the eminent domain seizure!” said de Sève. “They took it out of the small payment they gave her for her two houses, gardens, and four car garage. I think she got $8,500 for everything, after they made her pay rent for a house she helped pay to build by working in clothing factories during the Depression. She lost everything. Her neighborhood, her home, her rental income from the second house, and many of her friends. It was a rough year on an old lady who had recently lost her husband.”
de Sève started working with the local historical society at age 12, and interviewed many of the town’s remaining elderly about the loss of their homes and friends. “They were changed by this. Make no mistake about that.” The next year he was hired as the photographer for the local weekly newspaper, The Pittstown Centinal, and worked closely with the communities surrounding the Tomahannock Resevoir. “You can’t imagine what these people went through when the water reached the steeple of the old church in the valley. Although I can, because of what happened to my Grandmother and her neighbors.”
The other eminent domain tragedy that touched the de Sève family, which includes Beevis and Butthead director Mike de Sève, Filmmaker Jim de Sève who directed Tying the Knot which is now in DVD release, and Dr. Charles de Sève, who was the economist on the team that recently defeated the west side stadium in Manhattan, was the loss of their family home in Troy, NY to eminent domain in the 1970’s.
“We are against Eminent Domain in almost any situation,” said Mike de Sève, who plays George W. Bush on the show. “It kills people. And what about the American Dream? And now supporters of the oversized stadium project are telling people who live in the footprint, ‘all you’ve worked for all your lives, and the stability of your home and your neighborhood are going to be taken from you because some Billionaire who is a crony of the Governor is using the law to make your homes his. That’s deeply messed up, and completely wrong.”
Sketches in the works to educate people to the unseen dark side of eminent domain include “Ratman and Marty,” the dynamic duo in action, as they evict folks while chugging Brooklyn Beer. “How come you need more money, Ratman?” asks Marty, dressed in a “robin” costume, and sporting an enlarged Brooklyn Beer-belly, “don’t you have enough money already?” Ratman reaches for his utility belt and zaps Marty’s electric dog collar. “Oh, I get it,” Marty says, “You WANT MORE MONEY. That’s cool.”
“Art imitates life sometimes,” de Sève said. “We make a show that is educational, and contains a lot of parody. But our goals are serious. Bush and Ratner are the biggest local issue in Brooklyn. Eminent domain kills people. So does war. So does asthma from the kind of traffic increase that has prompted talk of widening Flatbush Avenue. That’s not funny.”
“A multi-billionaire is like a crack addict, child,” says a Hispanic mother in this week’s sketch called, Mother and Child. “He just needs more and more money, and he doesn’t care who he hurts. Maybe we need money, too. Or maybe we need our homes. But that don’t matter to the billionaires and the politicians. You’ll see when they show up with the police next week to give our home to Mr. Bruce Ratner.”
Although eminent domain has yet to be invoked formally in the Atlantic Yards proposal, the threat of eminent domain HAS been invoked already, and Ratner has been intimidating people in the footprint to sell out based on this threat.
“Brooklyn Beer is in with some bad company. And they favor putting Freddy’s Bar, one of their most loyal customers out of business. We at the show hope Steve Hindy will educate himself as to what eminent domain means to each of its victims, and to the families of each of its victims, and will turn around and support the people of Brooklyn instead of one greedy billionaire. After what I have personally experienced in Raymertown and in Troy, NY. it is clear to me that he will have at least a few deaths on his conscience, and we are hoping to turn him around and save him from a life of regret at his uninformed decision to support the Atlantic Yards project and it’s inhuman tactics.”
Contact:
Sabine Aronowsky, 917-370-8268
Sabine13@gmail.com
http://www.brooklynvsbush.com/
Posted by amy at 1:30 PM
February 13, 2006
On a Gritty Shore, California Dreaming
The NY Times
By Jake Mooney
A short article about plans to bring beach volleyball to Coney Island, contains this disclosure (emphasis added):
The tournament, to be televised live on NBC, is scheduled for Aug. 17 to 20, and the league plans to build a 4,000-seat stadium and 12 outer courts next to the Boardwalk. Its promotional partner is Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment, a company controlled by the developer Bruce Ratner, who is a development partner in the Midtown office tower being built by The New York Times Company.
The Times has been criticized in the past for not disclosing their business relationship with Forest City Ratner. Is today's disclosure part of a change in policy, or a haphazard application of journalistic principles?
Posted by lumi at 8:06 AM
February 12, 2006
TimesUp@NYT
Common Financial Sense looks at the financial relationship between NY TImes and Forest City Ratner:
The other thing the [New York Times] did with its cash was to make a huge bet in New York real estate, again during a bull market. In 2004, the company sold its old building on West 43rd Street for $175 million. Earlier, in 2001, it had committed to pay about $639 million for a majority share of a 52-storey building across the street from Port Authority. (The Times paid $86 million to New York State to clear the lot, evict the tenants, and lease the land for 99 years. Bet you didn’t read the tearful details of that eviction in the paper?) Its minority partner is Forest City Ratner (FC), a real estate company that, as I read the small type, got the better of the Times when it came to cutting the deal. When the tower, which looks like a giant paper shredder, is finished around 2007, the Times will own 58 percent and FC 42 percent. But as the 2004 annual report notes: “Because NYT is funding its contribution equity first, a portion of those funds will be used to fund FC’s share of Building costs (the “FC funded share”) prior to the commencement of funding of the construction loan.” In other words, Ratner gets his 42 percent share for nothing down. The company believes the new headquarters will solve problems ranging from office politics to television production. But Raines is more cryptic, concluding offhandedly: “If and when it is built, the space for the broadcast and digital activities central to the Times’s future will be inadequate.” Gee, Howell, whaddaya want for $639 mill?
Posted by amy at 11:45 AM
February 10, 2006
The NY Times sports section: arena a done deal or just maybe?
TimesRatnerReport stays on top of the coverage, this time turning attention to the sports pages.
New York Times sports columnist George Vecsey began yesterday's column about local NBA teams thus: "EVERYBODY knows where the Nets are going: Brooklyn. But where exactly are the Knicks going?"
This pointed comparison prompted a reaction by Ratner foes in Brooklyn who are always quick to point out that the arena isn't a done deal.
Posted by lumi at 10:52 AM
February 9, 2006
Creating Media That Are Free From Corporate Interests
The Village Voice
NYC Grassroots Media Conference
New School University
65 Fifth Ave
212-420-9045
Saturday at 9 a.m.
$5 to $30
For the third year in a row, activist group Paper Tiger Television organizes a full day of panel discussions, workshops, and brainstorming sessions, all geared toward those interested in creating fair, diverse, accurate media that are free from corporate and government interests.
Among the highlights are the NYC Radical Cheerleaders, satirical singing group Missile Dick Chicks, and Time's Up Bicycle Clown Brigade's talk "Making Folks Think, When They're Laughing Too Hard to Realize It . . . Performance as Creative Resistance."
Members of Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and the Philadelphia Independent Media Center examine "Models for Independent Media Making and Political Organizing."
And Adrienne Brown of the League of Pissed Off Voters leads a discussion on "Grassroots Media in an Election Year: Creating Community Voter Guides."
For more information and a complete schedule visit nycgrassrootsmedia.org.
Posted by lumi at 7:19 AM
February 8, 2006
Two Bits, Four Bits...
Dope on the Slope chides Dennis Holt for skipping The Brooklyn Daily Eagle's last sensitivity-training seminar.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle: "They frown if someone calls them cheerleaders rather than dancers, and attractive people should never be allowed to frown."
Dope: You've come a long way baby. What was your name again?
 |
Additional research uncovers the surprising fact that Brooklyn's Official Cheeleader in Chief (aka "Dancing Marty" for you NY Rangers fans) doesn't mind being considered a sex symbol.
NoLandGrab: Holt's cheery dispatch from the Brooklyn Brewery hang — attended by Marty, Stuckey and family, Darryl Dawkins, and members of the Meadowlands Modern Dance Company — was a great puff piece, full of the self-assurance that an old guy gets when ogling a pretty girl whose job requires her to stand around in a short skirt.
Posted by lumi at 11:04 AM
February 7, 2006
Curious FCR omission in Times story about Senegal-to-NYC rower
Though Forest City Ratner figures prominently in the story about Victor Mooney and his plans to row from Senegal to New York to call attention to AIDS prevention, The New York Times makes no mention of the developer and its business partner's support in yesterday's article, "A Slow, Solo Crossing of the Atlantic Is One Man's Response to the AIDS Crisis ".
TimesRatnerReport ponders the decision:
Why leave Forest City Ratner out of the article? It's a judgment call, and not an easy one. Is the donation of a work space more worthy of mention than the donation of supplies? Maybe the omission was a question of space, and that paragraph got cut from the final version of the article.
Posted by lumi at 9:06 AM
February 3, 2006
Brooklyn Rail reaps Ippies!
Congratulations to The Brooklyn Rail, reporter Brian Carreira and editor Theodore Hamm for being recognized by the Independent Press Association's 2005 Ippy Awards for outstanding community journalism.
3rd Place, Best Investigative/In-Depth News Story Brian J. Carreira, "No Room at the Inn: Ratner Continues to 'Game' Officials and the Public" (June 2005)
2nd Place, Best Editorial/Commentary Theodore Hamm, "Arthur Miller's Brooklyn Legacy" (March 2005)
1st Place, Best Overall Design: Amelia Hennighausen
1st Place, Best Story About Immigrant Issues Gabriel Thompson, "When Even the Minimum Wage is a Distant Dream" (December 2004/January 2005)
Over the last couple of years, Brain Carreira's series on Ratner's land grab has provided Brooklynites with, hands down, the best updates on the fight over the fate of Prospect Heights.
Ted Hamm's editorial, "Arthur Miller’s Brooklyn Legacy," explores the theme of rampant overdevelopment in Brooklyn in "Death of a Salesman," in which "Willy [Loman] wrestles mightily not only with what’s happening to himself and his family but also with what’s happening to his home and neighborhood."
Posted by lumi at 9:23 AM
January 26, 2006
Mayor To Redevelop Iron Triangle in Bid To Transform Flushing
The NY Sun
By David Lombino
In an article in today's NY Sun about City Hall's plans for Willet's Point redevelopment, reporter David Lombino stated:
As with some of the other large redevelopment projects in the works that also have the city's approval, such as the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn and the new Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, members of the local community say City Hall's grand plans neglect neighborhood interests.
NoLandGrab: Bronx and Brooklyn residents are not aware that the City has approved the Yankee Stadium plan yet, and the Brooklyn Nets Arena isn't even getting the chance to be evaluated under the City's local review process.
It would be more correct to say that the projects have City Hall's (i.e. Mayor Bloomberg's) approval.
Posted by lumi at 8:53 AM
January 19, 2006
UNFIT TO PRINT
NoLandGrab and TimesRatnerReport weren't the only ones who noticed that The NY Times covered eminent domain as a development tool, without covering themselves.
NY Post columnist Steve Cuozzo sums up the case:
The Times-Ratner project is entirely the product of a widely discussed eminent-domain condemnation that took years wending its way through the courts, and whose final cost to the taxpayers is yet unknown.
No better local example exists to dramatize the eminent-domain controversy in all its textured complexity. Yet yesterday's story avoided the Times saga altogether — the proverbial elephant in the room everyone pretends not to see.
NoLandGrab: After reading Cuozzo's piece, it should be clear to Brooklynites why there has been no sympathy for arena opponents in the Editorial Pages of The Times.
Posted by lumi at 7:11 AM
January 16, 2006
It Was Wrong 9 Months Ago, And It Still Is
The Brooklyn Downtown Star published a letter from Gib Veconi, Chairman of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, decrying "the reprise Theodore Ross’ attempt to link community concerns about Forest City Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards project to race issues."
The agitation around race and the Atlantic Yards proposal displayed at the February 2005 meeting Mr. Ross covered can now be confirmed to have been caused by individuals who were at the time working with the project’s developer to secure contracts for their organizations. Unfortunately, the disturbance at the PHNDC meeting was typical of the political theater groups seeking a financial role in the Forest City Ratner project put on at many public events during 2005. This is the real story in retrospective analysis, while the issue of a real racial divide on Atlantic Yards at the end of 2005 remains unsubstantiated fiction.
Posted by lumi at 7:50 AM
January 5, 2006
Toward transparency: where's the Atlantic Yards web site and the latest Brooklyn Standard?
Transparency and information junkie TimesRatnerReport wonders when we're going to see the new BBall.net and Brooklyn Standard.
Posted by lumi at 6:45 AM
January 2, 2006
A Mayor With Lofty Goals, and Better Than Average Odds of Reaching Them
From the New York Times:
Yet whether Mr. Bloomberg can emerge in 2010 with the "great" designation is unclear, as many of his goals may not be realized for a decade or more: today's first graders will still be years away from their high school graduations when he is finished; the fruits of his huge rezoning initiatives along the Brooklyn waterfront and at the Atlantic Yards will not all be realized within four years, nor would the impact of all his fiscal policies.
TimesRatnerReport finds two errors in that single sentence. Maybe they should make their sentences shorter to improve their sentence/error ratio.
Two errors in one sentence: the Times cites "rezoning ... at the Atlantic Yards"
Posted by amy at 3:28 PM
December 26, 2005
The NY Times, Corrections
December 25, 2005
The NY Times published this correction to last week's article in the Real Estate section.
The "Living In ..." article last Sunday, about Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, referred imprecisely to a proposal by Bruce C. Ratner to build a nearby complex of shops, offices, housing and a basketball arena. It would indeed be built over the Atlantic Avenue railyards, but also on adjacent land now occupied by residences and businesses.
The article also misstated the name of the team Mr. Ratner hopes to install in the arena. It is the New Jersey Nets, not the New York Nets.
TimesRatnerReport:
The Times corrects the "over the railyards" error--in the Real Estate section, at least
TimesRatnerReport gives props to the Real Estate desk for the correction, but points out that the same mistake has stood uncorrected in two prominent articles by historian John Manbeck (11/13/05) and the previous Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp (12/11/03).
This leaves TimesRatnerReport wondering if the correction signals a change in policy or just increased scrupulousness on the part of the Real Estate desk.
Posted by lumi at 8:57 AM
December 23, 2005
The arena (and Atlantic Yards project) would NOT be built "over the railyard"
TimesRatnerReport
Everyone says it, but TimesRatnerReport explains why it is "imprecise" (a nice way of saying "wrong") for journalists to say that the Atlantic Yards project would be "built over the railyards."
Norman Oder suggests using, "on and around the railyard" or "over and around the railyard."
NoLandGrab: Since Ratner employees and PR batallion use the same terminology, can you blame journalists? Also, the press corps is the same group that still frequently refers to the location of the project as "Downtown Brooklyn" instead of "Prospect Heights."
Posted by lumi at 6:40 AM
December 20, 2005
Times/Ratner disclosure absent from Real Estate article on Prospect Heights
TimesRatnerReport makes a case that The NY Times should have disclosed their business relationship with Bruce Ratner, in this weekend's article on Prospect Heights, in the Real Estate section.
Posted by lumi at 9:05 AM
December 9, 2005
TimesRatnerReport: Zimbalist and Times coverage of Ferrer
TimesRatnerReport
Forest City Ratner consultant Andrew Zimbalist, then and now
"Idealized nostalgia" completes sports venue economist Andrew Zimbalist's descent to the dark side.
The Voice questions the Times's coverage of Ferrer--and I add more questions
Citing weakness in the Times's local political coverage is like shooting fish in a barrel, as Norman Oder gets into the action by adding several items to the Voice's "Times Election 2005 Quiz." The TimesRatnerReporter unleashes a litany of missed opportunities relating to the Times's coverage of Ferrer's concerns about Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project.
Posted by lumi at 8:00 AM
December 5, 2005
Taking the Public Editor's cue: how the Times could improve coverage of its own real estate deal
TimesRatnerReport applies the NY Times Public Editor's ideas and suggestions for improving The Times's coverage of itself, to their real estate deal in partnership with Bruce Ratner for the new Times Headquarters.
Posted by lumi at 10:12 AM
December 4, 2005
Shooting from the lip
Mike Lupica of the Daily News sees a similarity between Brooklyn and Iraqi media:
It came out this week that the Lincoln Group, this firm hired by the Pentagon, was paying to have positive stories about the war run in Iraqi newspapers.And right away, I thought to myself, Hey, who does these guys think they are, Caring Bruce Ratner?
I mean, it's just the Baghdad version of The Brooklyn Standard, right?
We're just exporting American-style journalism to help Iraq achieve American-style democracy.
Posted by amy at 12:01 PM
December 1, 2005
Ratner Roundup
Dope on the Slope talks turkey about Bruce's Brooklyn boondoggle. Topics covered are: "Pocket Stuffing," "Gehry's Goose Cooked?" and "Chestnuts Goading Me to Open Ire."
Gehry lost me when he failed to hold any public input forums or charettes before he pulled out his popsicle sticks and aluminum foil. Gehry should have insisted on such input as a condition of employment with Ratner. The fact that he didn't makes him unfit for the project in my view. Either he didn't recognize the difference in designing a single building and defining a neighborhood, or he wasn't willing to stand up for what he knew to be the right thing to do.
Posted by lumi at 6:31 AM
November 29, 2005
The Times editorial on Atlantic Yards: spirit without subsidies?
TimesRatnerReport
So the New York Times finally weighs in with an editorial about Atlantic Yards, and while it acknowledges some of the important changes (or, some might say, false promises) in the plan, it still maintains a vague Marty Markowitz-esque call for the plan to be scaled down, criticizes local opponents as NIMBYs, confusingly criticizes subsidies, and praises the "spirit" of the development without acknowledging the avoidance of public process.
Check out the point-by-point analysis of the most recent NY Times editorial with comparisons to past NY Times editorial and op-ed pieces.
Posted by lumi at 7:13 AM
November 27, 2005
Forest City Ratner day in the NY Times regional editorial sections
The NY Times
Two Ratner projects were covered in the corresponding regional editorial sections of the Sunday Times.
Atlantic Yards
The City
A Matter of Scale in Brooklyn
The NY Times editorial board still holds that the project should go forward, but not before laying out many of the problems: traffic congestion, expansion of the project, fewer jobs, less affordable housing, modest returns, and public subsidies.
Ridge Hill
Westchester
The Shame of Palookaville
You could have cast a half-dozen Frank Capra movies from the roomful of regular folks - moms and pops, tweedy types, old ladies in wool coats, a lawyer or two - who stepped up to deplore an impending vote to rewrite city zoning law to help a rich developer. Their words were hot but their demeanors cool. They spoke civilly and played by the rules, something the Council majority assuredly did not do on that chilly, depressing, inspiring night.
The Times's Westchester editorial lauds the Yonkers citizens who showed up at a meeting of their City Council, intent on saving democracy. Brooklynites, however, can note that the same paper's Atlantic Yards editorial left out one key point from its litany of concerns with the project: the subversion of the local city planning process.
The NY Times loves democracy; maybe it can look into getting some more of it in Brooklyn.
Posted by lumi at 5:55 PM
November 20, 2005
NY Times: Correction
The NY Times has published a correction in today's City section and has also appended the online version of last week's Op-Ed:
An Op-Ed last Sunday about the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn misstated some of its details. Plans for the project call for 16 buildings surrounding a sports arena, not 17, and for nine million square feet of construction, not 14 million.
Other details that were misstated, as noted by TimesRatnerReport and NLG, were not included in today's correction (i.e. the number of housing units was off by 1,000 and the perpetual myth that the project is proposed on the site originally denied to the Brooklyn Dodgers).
Posted by lumi at 7:11 AM
November 19, 2005
Three posts from TimesRatnerReport
TimesRatnerReporter Norman Oder posted three items in the past two days:
Jason Kidd, "comprehensive" planning, and the Ratner p.r. machine
Fact checking and filling in some of the blank spots in Harvey Araton's NY Times piece about Jason Kidd's spiritual transformation (with a little Ratner PR thrown in for good measure).
Brooklyn Standard mystery solved, partly: second issue relies more on Ratner staff
Only Norman Oder would still be wondering about the bylines in the Ratner puff press, The Brooklyn Standard. Why just yesterday, he stumbled into Ratner employees and "reporters" Brigitte Labonte and Jeff Rothberg.
Marty Markowitz stays on message, except for that affordable housing twist
When Norman Oder runs into Marty at a civic event and questions him on Atlantic Yards, it's hard to know whom to feel sorry for.
Posted by lumi at 2:12 PM
November 16, 2005
Historical Hindsight
The Real Estate Observer
by Matthew Schuerman
Schuerman catches up with historian John P. Manbeck, the author of this weekend's NY Times City Section Op-Ed piece on the Atlantic Yards fight, to find out why Manbeck wrote pieces for Ratner's puff press, The Brooklyn Standard. Manbeck's Brooklyn Standard bylines were noted by "TimesRatnerReporter," Norman Oder.
Manbeck, tracked down in Pennsylvania, said that he had agreed to write for the Standard early this year knowing full well who was behind it and even while he had reservations about the project. “I was not unaware that it might have been a conflict of interest, but I had my standards and I upheld them,” he said. “I said I wanted to write about history, not politics, and they said okay.”
He charged Forest City the same modest fee he receives for his weekly column in the Brooklyn Eagle. He would not divulge the sum, but said that the Times, which commissioned the op-ed a couple of months ago, paid better.
Posted by lumi at 7:19 AM
November 11, 2005
Freddy’s Fumble: Ferrer mishandled Atlantic Yards, but the press made it worse
TimesRatnerReport
He coulda been a contender. Maybe Freddy Ferrer wouldn’t have won the election, but if he’d raised the Atlantic Yards issue early enough, and forcefully enough, he could’ve had Mayor Bloomberg on the defensive. At the least, he would’ve sparked some real debate about the mega-development in Brooklyn, a $3.5 billion project to build a Nets basketball arena and 16 high-rise buildings, nearly all of them housing--and mostly luxury housing at that.
Then again, maybe he never had a chance. Ferrer also faced a press corps that too often has failed to explain the controversy or to challenge project supporters like Bloomberg and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
Posted by lumi at 6:07 AM
November 7, 2005
Sulzberger's fraudulence: He needs a Karl Rove
NY Press
*by Russ Smith
This opinion piece on the recent woes of the NY Times lists the Times's recent PR problems.
Interestingly, the litany begins with Jayson Blair, Howell Raines, Judith Miller, layoffs, Wen Ho Lee, and then includes using eminent domain for paper's Ratner-built headquarters.
NoLandGrab: There is no mention of Brooklynites' frustration with the Times's coverage of their business partner Bruce Ratner, but the article leaves readers to wonder if the recent "systemic changes" are only cosmetic.
Posted by lumi at 8:34 AM
November 5, 2005
Critiquing the NewsHour's piece on Atlantic Yards
TimesRatnerReport again factchecks the media. Shouldn't they be paying him to do this BEFORE the stories are released?
Other errors: the segment said the complex would cost $1.2 billion; the number was once $2.5 billion, now $3.5 billion. The footprint was described as 24 acres, with 17 high rise buildings; the numbers now are 22 acres and 16 high-rises plus an arena. The arena would cost $555.3 million, not $435 million.
Posted by amy at 10:45 AM
November 3, 2005
Today's Times correction: another correction needed regarding housing, scale, location
From TimesRatnerReport:
A correction, in the print but not online version of today's New York Times, 11/3/05: A front-page article on Monday about the first debate between Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and his Democratic opponent, Fernando Ferrer, referred incompletely to a development project in Brooklyn that Mr. Ferrer said he would halt. The development, known as the Atlantic Yards project, calls for an arena for the Nets basketball team and office, residential and commercial building--not just residential.
Oder acknowledges the correction but indicates that the Times missed a few more mistakes in the same article.
Posted by lumi at 9:48 PM
November 2, 2005
TimesRatnerReport report
Ferrer vs. Bloomberg on Atlantic Yards: the same unchallenged statements
Analysis of the second and last Mayoral debate.
An open letter to NY Times Public Editor Byron Calame: It's time to address Atlantic Yards
Times coverage is getting better, but what about all the stuff they missed? TimesRatnerReport calls on the public editor to come clean, while the Times is cleaning house.
The dark genius of Ratner flack Joe DePlasco--and how some resist
Ratner's "real man of genius" is PR crisis king Joe DePlasco, how does he do it? TimesRatnerReport tells you how.
Posted by lumi at 6:14 AM
October 31, 2005
TimesRatnerReport feeds Atlantic Yards News addiction
Addicted to Atlantic Yards coverage? If you haven't gotten your fix, check out TimesRatnerReport for analysis of every nitty-gritty detail on what coverage there is.
Ferrer vs. Bloomberg on Atlantic Yards (and it barely makes the Times)
Ferrer fumbles facts while Bloomberg bulldozes them. Check out the mayoral candidates' exchange on the Yards and The NY Times's coverage.
An alternate version of the Pace Poll--could tougher questions have made a difference?
The Pace poll published last week has been criticized for not asking the hard questions. Oder makes some suggestions for next time around, but places the blame on the media for inadequate coverage.
Questions about the CBA: Is this "systemic change in doing business"?
So, is the Community Benefits Agreement regarding Atlantic Yards supposed to help the local "community" or the minority "community"? There's an interesting tension there, because the signatories are local (and minority), but several beneficiaries are hardly local, with none based in Brooklyn and some outside New York City.
Posted by lumi at 7:12 AM
October 28, 2005
All good news all the time
NY Press
by Azi Paybarah
The Press covers Newark's unabashed efforts to pay for good news, turns its attention to the gold standard of PR rags...
Before getting too uppity about wacky Newark Mayor Sharpe James and the gang across the river, though, let's pay tribute to our own agit-prop rag, the occasionally-printed Brooklyn Standard (again, no italics warranted), which is dedicated to providing in-depth coverage to the superb efforts of their benevolent parent company, Forest City Ratner, to build a stadium in the borough.
... and then takes a swipe at the NY Times's "warm, fuzzy stories" on the Ratner deal, suggesting, "Perhaps they could use the Brooklyn Standard as a wire source."
Posted by lumi at 8:18 AM
October 26, 2005
Letter to the Editor: Daily News
Here's another letter to the editor in response to the Daily News Editorial that characterized Brooklynites concerned about Ratner's plans as "NIMBY-ites."
To The Editors:
I was apalled to read your editorial categorizing all opponents of Atlantic Yards as "NIMBY-ites" and "anti-development complainers". Most Brooklynites would warmly welcome a sensible development plan for Atlantic Yards - one that integrates with instead of slicing through the surrounding neighborhoods, and one that is approved through a transparent public process and not back-room deals with one cherry-picked developer.
The Boerum Hill Association has always welcomed development that makes sense, and has enthusiastically supported numerous development projects in our Brooklyn neighborhood. To claim that anyone who opposes this particular project is simply anti-development betrays an ignorance of the facts. Until Forest City Ratner shows the slightest interest in working with the surrounding neighborhoods, studying and addressing the enormous environmental impacts, and addressing who (if anyone) will pay for the massive infrastructure increases this project will require, we oppose THIS development, and we don't want THIS in our backyards.
Sincerely,
Joel Potischman
Vice President
Boerum Hill Association
NoLandGrab: Just a hunch, but this project would likely never be sited in Publisher Mort Zuckerman's backyard since his neighbor Mike Bloomberg is already on record stating that he would not support such a move.
Posted by lumi at 9:12 AM
To Publicize Its Good News, Newark Makes Deal With a Newspaper
The NY Times
by Jeffrey Gettleman
Why print your own paper like Brooklyn Standard Second Edition (BS 2.0) when you can just pay the media to print your stories:
Mayor Sharpe James and the City Council of Newark have devised a new way to get their message across: paying a weekly paper $100,000 to print "good news" about themselves and their city.
Posted by lumi at 8:18 AM
TimesRatnerReport Correction: Bloomberg's 'retouched' press release vs. the governor/ESDC
TimesRatnerReport
Oder smelled a rat, and erroneously jumped to the conclusion that Bloomberg retouched a press release. Now he has posted a correction, but still questions the use of different jobs, housing and economic benifit figures released to great fanfare by the City, State and Borough President's office back in March.
Posted by lumi at 8:14 AM
October 25, 2005
Times correction (TimesRatnerReport)
Behind today's New York Times correction on the location of a new Brooklyn railyard
The NY Times took their own sweet time (over a month) to print a correction brought up by Brooklyn gadfly, Norman Oder.
Posted by lumi at 12:31 PM