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 Bru