February 3, 2012
Forest City doing worse on M/WBE contracting for Atlantic Yards than previously reported: ESD says total is 15.4%, not 22.6%, because some firms aren't certified
Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Ratner maintains its perfect record of not making good on an promises!
By the state's measure, developer Forest City Ratner has a much lower M/WBE (Minority and Women's Business Enterprises) utilization figure than previously reported, which suggests it's doing less than previously assumed in reaching out to businesses that truly need a boost.
On January 31, I reported that, according to statistics released by Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, the MBE awards total $91 million (about 16.3% of total purchases), while the WBE awards total $35.1 million (about 6.3% of total purchases).
Thus the combined M/WBE participation is apparently 22.6%, about three-quarters of the way toward the goal of 30% (20% MBE plus 10% WBE), as reflected in the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).
Revising the numbers
Well, that was true, but I've since learned that the statistics, while released by ESD, were not only prepared by Forest City Ratner--there was no indication on the document--they do not represent the ESD's own analysis of M/WBE figures.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project for ESD, explained:
ESD and the Atlantic Yards Project have a certified MWBE utilization contract goal of 20%. Firms must use “best efforts” to meet that goal. If they have not met the goal they must show that they have used their best efforts to retain MWBE firms through outreach and solicitation. ESD has calculated that Forest City has awarded 15.4% to MWBE certified firms to date. ESD does not count the MWBE firms that are not certified. If non-certified firms were included the percentage would increase.
Why wouldn't they be certified? I speculate that either 1) they are/were too fledgling to bother or 2) are too large and prosperous to qualify under the state's newly narrowed rules aimed to exclude M/WBE firms that are very large or led by businesspeople who are so wealthy as to be clearly not disadvantaged.
Whatever the reason, the discrepancy again points out the need for Forest City to not merely self-report but to hire the Independent Compliance Monitor required by the CBA.
NoLandGrab: It's official! CBA now stands for Completely Bulls**t Artifice.
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 1:56 PM | Permalink
Gallof: A New Home? Don’t Believe The Hype, Islanders Fans
Brooklyn! Trades! Venues! Excitement? It's Time To Temper The Expectations
CBS New York
by B.D. Gallof
More cold water for the Brooklyn Islanders fantasy.
Despite the inevitable media buzz and the glimmer of hope this will create for a downtrodden fan base, the realities of Brooklyn being any more than a diversion and attempt to pick up some interest from other areas, like Queens and Suffolk, while sending a message to Nassau, aren’t many.
The ultimate goal with these smokescreens is to get someone to ante up some options for the team as its lease with Nassau County winds down. The idea of Brooklyn two or three years ago might have had more promise. Back then, the media and blogosphere would innocently parrot notions. Now, anyone parroting them is instead feeding into the Islanders’ own PR aims and hype.
Brooklyn is wrought with issues.
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 1:48 PM | Permalink
Retail politics vs. policy positioning: a contrast between the Markowitz and Stringer "State of the Borough" speeches
Atlantic Yards Report
OK, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer is running for mayor. And he presides over a borough that, unlike Brooklyn, doesn't have an identity independent of the city at large nor, arguably, needs one.
But it's still worth noting how Stringer's State of the Borough Address, unlike Markowitz's version, focused on policy.
...By the way, here's the word count per speech:
- Stringer: 4,190
- Markowitz: 11,246
NoLandGrab: Y'know what they say — if you have nothing to say, talk for 95 minutes.
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 1:41 PM | Permalink
PHOTOS: Atlantic Yards Becomes the Barclays Center
A monthly photo essay documenting the construction of the Barclays Center, which the Brooklyn Nets will soon call home.
Park Slope Patch
by Amy Sara Clark
Month by month, the Barclays Center has grown.
Now covered with fabric, the looming frame of the Brooklyn Nets's future home is beginning to look more like the building it will eventually become.
NoLandGrab: Ironically, the entire project has been swathed in fabrications since the get-go.
Photo: Amy Sara Clark/Patch
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 1:32 PM | Permalink
Forest City Enterprises, long a family-controlled corporation, to shift to a majority of independent directors; also, new plans to sell land, change corporate focus
Atlantic Yards Report
Forest City Enterprises (FCE), parent of Brooklyn developer Forest City Ratner, is making some changes.
It has decided to sell its land band business to focus on "core rental products - apartments, office and retail properties" in core markets (including New York), and also to divest itself from properties in non-core markets.
Also, long controlled by some interlocking families, namely the Ratners, FCE is shifting its board to a majority of independent directors, rather than family members.
That may be an effort to enhance credibility in the marketplace, but even independent directors are not necessarily corporate watchdogs, as history has proven again and again. FCE public board meetings, at least according to webcasts, show a clubby, go-along atmosphere.
Related content...
FCE Press Release, Forest City Announces Governance Actions
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 1:11 PM | Permalink
Pricey Yankee Stadium parking garages hardly used and owner heading for default on $237 million in bonds
Lots part of new stadium deal but have turned into waste of space — 21 acres — producing nothing for taxpayers
NY Daily News
by Juan Gonzalez
Pshaw! Parking garages surely are a good deal for the taxpayers. Uh...
THE FIRM that built and manages the new Yankee Stadium parking garages can’t repay $237 million in tax-exempt bonds the Bloomberg administration arranged for it four years ago, new financial records show.
Bronx Parking Development Company LLC is running perilously low on cash reserves and faces a looming default by the end of the year, according to a report filed Friday by a trustee for the firm’s bondholders.
Time is running out, in other words, to avoid one of the biggest failures in decades of bonds issued by a New York City agency.
The simple fact is that Bloomberg and his aides made a costly mistake when they succumbed back in 2005 to the Yankees’ demand for a 9,000-space garage system. It was all part of the deal for the team to build a new stadium in the Bronx.
...Bronx Parking Development has turned into a giant tax deadbeat. The firm, which is not connected to the Yankees, has failed to pay any rent or property taxes, even though the garages sit on 21 acres of leased public land.
It currently owes the city a whopping $25 million.
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 1:01 PM | Permalink
Super Bowl Lands on Taxpayers’ Backs as Stadium Deal Turns Sour
Bloomberg Businessweek
by Aaron Kuriloff and Darrell Preston
Hosting the Super Bowl has to be a civic moneymaker, right? Guess again.
While Super Bowl fans are riding zip lines through downtown Indianapolis this week in the runup to the National Football League’s championship game, taxpayers are digging deeper in their pockets to pay for the stadium where the game will be played.
The $720 million Lucas Oil Stadium, where the New York Giants meet the New England Patriots on Feb. 5, has prompted local officials to raise hotel, restaurant and rental car taxes, and make other payments on top of about $43 million in unexpected financing costs related to their sports and convention facilities.
“They said, ‘We’re going to have one great fantastic party with an unbelievable advertisement for Indianapolis and it isn’t going to cost taxpayers a dime,’” said Pat Andrews, 60, a blogger and community activist who ran unsuccessfully for City Council last year. “Well, baloney.”
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 12:57 PM | Permalink
Developer: Never Mind About Morton's -- Downtown Brooklyn 'On Fire'
mcBrooklyn
By now local carnivores have discovered that Morton's Steakhouse in Downtown Brooklyn has abruptly closed, but not to worry, landlord Muss Development told the Brooklyn Daily Eagle Thursday.
A spokesperson for Muss told the Eagle late Thursday that in the previous 24 hours, Muss had received a dozen calls from interested restaurants.
...Question: Did Morton's give advance notice to members of Brooklyn's high society who kept their personal bottles in the restaurant's private wine cellar before they closed? (Like Bruce Ratner's, shown [right].)
NoLandGrab: Will you be having the Subsidy Chardonnay or the Domaine Eminent today, Monsieur Ratner?
Posted by eric at February 3, 2012 12:44 PM | Permalink
February 2, 2012
State of the Borough: Markowitz's overstuffed tribute to Brooklyn, with only mild enthusiasm for the new arena
Atlantic Yards Report
Well, maybe next year, once it's open, the Barclays Center will make a bigger splash. As in past years, the diverse crowd at Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz's typically overstuffed State of the Borough address was only mildly enthusiastic to mentions of Atlantic Yards and the new arena.
Then again, he brought it up 38 minutes into a speech (full text) that went more than 95 minutes, and that's a lot of speech.
...The arena mention
Just after that "ink" remark, Markowitz transitioned this: "After years of struggle and false starts, 2012 is the year that the Barclays Center will really come to fruition. With the new arena nearly complete, it's clear this area will be the hub of a new city center, creating the jobs in and around the arena that we desperately need."
There was no reaction. It's not at all clear that the area will create jobs "that we desperately need," since most jobs, it seems, will be in the fields of restaurants, entertainment retail, and arena services, which generally don't pay well.
But Markowitz found some applause lines. "For an old-timer like me, it feels like Brooklyn has gone 'Back to the Future' —to the days when Downtown was teeming with nightclubs and dancing halls — when we rocked — and we rolled — our way to the Fox Theatre, the Paramount, and back," he continued, generating some claps from old-timers.
"I can't wait to sit in the arena watching the Brooklyn Nets mop up the floor with the 'Manhattan Knicks,'" he continued, provoking more enthusiasm with a line that always works by appealing to reflexive borough pride.
"And I'm filled with hope that the Nets will get Dwight Howard, someone I really 'look up to!,'" he added, as a photo illustration of the diminutive Markowitz and the itching-to-leave Orlando Magic center appeared on the screen. "In fact, my ultimate dream would be Dwight Howard on the Nets — and Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand on stage."
The Dwight Howard mention didn't do much for a crowd that apparently included relatively few basketball fans. Then again, it didn't have time to sink in. In a rather bizarre interlude, a Streisand impersonator then entered the stage, serenading the crowd and, Babs-like, began shaking hands, as if at a bar mitzvah or wedding, with the diverse group of honored guests on stage.
Posted by eric at February 2, 2012 1:42 PM | Permalink
Barclays Center provoking real estate boom? If so, why can't Ratner get housing off the ground
Atlantic Yards Report
I can't say I completely buy the amNY article headlined Brooklyn nabes expect real estate boom with Barclays Center. After all, the neighborhoods described are already changing--and they're not exactly adjacent to the arena.
The article begins:
When you think about Brooklyn real estate, Williamsburg, Park Slope and the downtown district - the borough's hottest and priciest areas - are probably the first neighborhoods that come to mind.
But with the opening of a new arena in seven months, other nabes may be rising to the top - even if it comes at a price.
The buzz surrounding Barclays Center in Prospect Heights is expected to attract an onslaught of investment to the area and turn the nearby neighborhoods into some of the most sought-after ZIP codes in the city, real estate experts said.
"Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy, Bushwick and Sunset Park are on the verge of exploding," said Jamella Swift, senior associate broker at Citi Habitats. "Once the stadium opens, the domino effect from Fort Greene, Park Slope and Prospect Heights will carry over to the adjacent neighborhoods."
What? A domino effect from the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush all the way down to Sunset Park? Crown Heights began changing a while ago, as we were reminded this morning. Bed-Stuy began to boom before the 421-a law expired. Bushwick has been experiencing a domino effect from Williamsburg, not the arena.
NoLandGrab: Right. Same way the Upper West Side was cow pastures until Madison Square Garden was built.
Related content...
amNY, Brooklyn nabes expect real estate boom with Barclays Center
Posted by eric at February 2, 2012 12:58 PM | Permalink
The Islanders Are Coming! The Islanders Are Coming!
Runnin' Scared
by Neil deMause
There's one problem with that scenario: As part of the frugality-induced downsizing of the Nets' arena that took place when Ratner sacked architect Frank Gehry in 2009, the building's floor is now sized only for hoops, not pucks. The solution proposed by the Brooklyn arena operators has been to reduce the building's capacity from 18,000 to 14,500 seats for hockey. Nets spokes-VP Barry Baum tells the Voice that this "would involve a decreased capacity in the upper and lower seats behind one of the goals" — likely along the lines of what the AT&T Center in San Antonio does for the minor-league Rampage, with one entire end taken up by a giant ad board.
That works fine for minor-league hockey, and should be good enough for an exhibition game, especially when the Islanders aren't even drawing 14,500 fans a game out in Uniondale. But for a permanent home of an NHL franchise? That'd be more problematic.
First off, a hypothetical Brooklyn Islanders would be playing in the league's smallest arena: The Winnipeg Jets are the current record holders, squeezing into the 15,000-seat MTS Centre. At 14,500 seats, in fact, the Isles would be doomed to draw less than all but two non-Islander NHL teams (the Dallas Stars and the when-are-they-moving-to-Canada-already Phoenix Coyotes) — not a vision to warm the cockles of a pro sports owner's heart.
Then too, there's the little matter that the Islanders would be sub-tenants of the Nets in Brooklyn, which means giving up first dibs on all the suite revenue, ad board and concessions sales, and other boodle that makes having a brand-new arena such a lucrative prospect for sports teams.
Related coverage...
F'd in Park Slope, MARTY PUTS THE BARCLAY CENTER ON ICE
As for Marty, he said ice hockey is the tip of the iceberg for the ugliest arena ever built. He has dreams of monster truck races, Ringley Brothers Circus and concerts from Jay-Z, just to name a few. Sorry Marty, no matter how many awesome monster trucks or gentle elephants in festive head gear you parade through that rat's nest, it won't make it any prettier.
Posted by eric at February 2, 2012 12:50 PM | Permalink
Brooklyn 'courts' more tourists with Barclays Center venue
amNY
by Erik Ortiz
Brooklyn's making a play for the millions of tourists who come to the city -- and wagering that its new arena will win over more visitors.
Elected officials and sports execs want to give Manhattan a run for its tourism dollars, although it is uncertain whether the new Barclays Center -- set to open Sept. 28 with a gala concert by Jay-Z, a part owner of the Nets -- will score.
"When all is said and done, it will be another jewel in the crown of Brooklyn," Tony Muia, who runs "A Slice of Brooklyn" bus tour, said of the upcoming arena.
Tour buses are exactly what we need at the confluence of Flatbush, Atlantic and Fourth Avenues.
Triangle Sports, a 96-year-old business across from Barclays Center, is being sold. It could become an upscale restaurant or retailer catering to visitors and locals alike.
"The stretch [of Flatbush Avenue] is packed," said Geoff Bailey, vice president of retail services for TerraCRG, which is marketing the Triangle Sports property. "There are new restaurants coming and [that are] rumored to include big New York chefs. It gives people a reason to come to the area and linger."
Because nothing says "fine dining" like an arena.
Posted by eric at February 2, 2012 11:10 AM | Permalink
High-rise housing going modular
This Just In [CNN.com]
This just in? Sure, if by "just in," they mean 11 months ago.
It's an idea that has the potential to revolutionize the construction industry: Use prefabricated modules to build more than 6,000 housing units. If the real estate development firm Forest City Ratner is able to turn the idea into a reality, the firm will build the tallest modular construction building in the world, a 32-story residential tower in Brooklyn, New York.
Click through for more, plus audio, if, like the newshounds at CNN, you missed this story when it broke in March of last year.
Posted by eric at February 2, 2012 10:59 AM | Permalink
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 February 1, 2012 11:40 PM | Permalink
February 14: a day of reckoning for Forest City Ratner? Cases involving Atlantic Yards timetable and Ridge Hill corruption charges go to court
Atlantic Yards Report
Tuesday, February 14, may be a day of reckoning for developer Forest City Ratner, as two key court cases proceed in Manhattan.
Sometime after 2 pm, there will be oral argument in the appeal filed by FCR and Empire State Development in the case challenging the state's finding that there was no need for a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) to analyze the impacts of a 25-year buildout.
In a victory for community petitioners, a judge ruled that such an SEIS was needed.
The case will be heard in the Appellate Division of New York State Supreme Court, 27 Madison Avenue. I've already written about the first two legal exchanges: the appeal brief from ESDC/FCR and the reply from the petitioners. The appellants get the last word, so I will write shortly about their reply.
The Ridge Hill case in Yonkers
On February 14, jury selection begins in federal court regarding the Ridge Hill corruption case, which touches on Forest City Ratner, though the developer was not charged. The case, which could take a month to try, will be heard by U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in courtroom 14C of the federal courthouse at 500 Pearl Street.
...Will Forest City staffers or lobbyists be called to testify?
I'll have a preview article about the case in the next week or so.
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 1:17 PM | Permalink
Waiting for Bruce: The Commercial Observer Tours Atlantic Yards Arena
NY Observer
by Daniel Geiger
Bruce lets his testy side slip out...
Mr. Ratner bristled when asked to make further reaching projections of progress on the Atlantic Yards site. Standing inside the arena and gazing into its nearly finished bowl of seats, The Commercial Observer’s gaze couldn’t help but trail farther, through a large entryway being used by construction vehicles. Beyond was the rest of the site, a stretch of train tracks and dirt recessed below grade that runs east for several blocks between Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street.
“We’re here to talk about the arena,” Mr. Ratner snapped when asked when those portions of the development would begin.
One could forgive Mr. Ratner’s edginess given the opposition he has faced. Sensing that he had perhaps recoiled a little too fiercely, his demeanor quickly loosened.
“You have to understand, my words have been twisted around in the past,” Mr. Ratner said.
Translation: "My 'promises' have been exposed as lies time and time again.'"
Mr. Ratner also pointed out that games will be partially visible from the plaza in front of the arena.
“It’s going to be the only court in the league where you can literally watch the game from the street outside,” Mr. Ratner said, pointing out the arena’s embrace of the surrounding community.
NoLandGrab: If by "embrace" Mr. Ratner means "death grip," then, by all means, the arena is embracing the surrounding community.
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 1:06 PM | Permalink
Testing the Ice Where Hockey Was an Afterthought
The New York Times
by Liz Robbins
The New York Islanders, tied for last place in their conference and playing in the obsolete Nassau Coliseum, are scheduled to play an exhibition game against the New Jersey Devils in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center on Oct. 2, perhaps to test the ice for a future move.
The arena that had been designed, and redesigned, for basketball will now transform somewhat awkwardly to accommodate hockey for its first sporting event days after the building opens with a concert by Jay-Z. The Nets will start playing there in mid-October.
...The Barclays Center, under the original design of Frank Gehry, was configured to accommodate professional hockey. But when Mr. Gehry was replaced by SHoP Architects and the company now known as Aecom, hockey became an afterthought. Now, the developer of the arena and the surrounding Atlantic Yards site, Forest City Ratner Companies, is adjusting to make the arena suitable for hockey.
According to Robert Sanna, Forest City Ratner’s executive vice president for construction and design development, the seating capacity will be reduced to 14,500 from 18,000 for basketball, which would make it the league’s smallest rink. Retractable seats will mostly be collapsed on one end, closest to the Atlantic Terminal side, and therefore the alignment around the rink will resemble a horseshoe.
NoLandGrab: "Somewhat awkwardly?" That's an understatement. "Suitable for hockey?" Well, yes, it would have ice.
Related coverage...
Let this once and for all put an end to talk of an NHL team calling the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™ home — we're certain no NHL rink is configured as "somewhat awkwardly" as this...
New York Islanders Adrift, The Hockey Configuration of the Barclays Center
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The configuration for hockey will be the horseshoe shape that I thought it would be according to a New York Times article.
The New York Times, Islanders to Play Devils in Preseason Game at New Arena in Brooklyn
For the Islanders, this is purely a scare tactic...
The announcement serves as another shot across the bow of Nassau County politicians and voters, who have rejected every effort by Islanders owner Charles Wang to upgrade or replace Nassau Coliseum, the club’s 40-year-old home. Although the 16,250-seat Coliseum is one of the N.H.L.’s best buildings for sightlines and intimacy, it is virtually inaccessible by public transit and has few of the money-spinning corporate luxury enticements that provide revenue at other arenas.
...N.H.L. Commissioner Gary Bettman has been a vocal supporter of Wang’s efforts to get a new or extensively upgraded building for the Islanders. He commented briefly on the Islanders situation in answer to reporters’ questions Saturday during the N.H.L. All-Star weekend in Ottawa.
“They still have three and a half years to go,” Bettman said, referring to the club’s Nassau Coliseum lease. “Long Island deserves a new building, not just for hockey but for concerts and family shows and the like.”
Gothamist, Islanders To Play In Brooklyn! For One Game
GOAL! The rumors were (sort of) true! Hockey is really coming to Brooklyn...for at least one game. Yup, despite concerns that the Barclays Center was too small for regulation hockey, the much-maligned Atlantic Yards stadium has announced that on October 2, 2012 the Islanders are going to play the New Jersey Devils. In Brooklyn!
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 12:44 PM | Permalink
Markowitz will promote Barclays Center hockey (exhibition game!) in State of the Borough, won't close door on mayoral run, but seems resigned to sitting it out; not sure "son" (gray parrot) understands his legacy
Atlantic Yards Report
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, who gives his invitation-only State of the Borough address tonight, apparently will be promoting future events at the Barclays Center.
As Newsday first reported yesterday, the Islanders will play the New Jersey Devils in a preseason game on October 2; it's the first NHL game in Brooklyn.
(Would you believe the New York Times devoted a Metro section article to the game, Testing the Ice Where Hockey Was an Afterthought, with credits to four reporters? The Times sure didn't cover the failure to provide the promised Transportation Demand Management plan, or the failure to provide promised larger affordable housing units.)
According to a Courier Life report issued before the official announcement, he indicated he'd be pushing for NHL hockey. Markowitz was appearing at the Bay Ridge Community Council's Presidents' Luncheon, held, not coincidentally, at the Bay Ridge Manor, long owned by state Senator Marty Golden and his family.
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 12:35 PM | Permalink
FOR SALE: A CENTURY’S WORTH OF SWEAT AND SNEAKERS
F'd in Park Slope
Mom-and-pop store TRIANGLE SPORTS has sat at 182 Flatbush Avenue since 1916. For nearly 100 years it has bravely survived amid the growing monstrosity of its now-neighborhood, much like the last chip in the otherwise empty plastic party bowl.
...The rise of Atlantic Yards and the controversial Barclays sports arena has changed the smaller-scaled Brooklyn landscape forever. Growing numbers of big-box chain stores and eateries are following the big money and pushing out local businesses that can’t compete.
...Christie’s Jamaican Patties, another long-time and much beloved business further up Flatbush, is also closing, a result of skyrocketing rents sought by landlords for any property that falls within the long shadow cast by development corporation Forest City Ratner. They are, by the way, the Godzilla of Greed, responsible for the nightmarishly unnavigable MetroTech and the “crime-ridden” Atlantic Center mall, as it is often referred to in the local papers.
Meanwhile, workers in the independent stores that are displaced don’t have much to look forward to. In a federal lawsuit filed in November of 2011, seven would-be Atlantic Yards workers claimed that construction jobs and union cards that were promised to them by various Ratner-affiliated agencies never materialized. The lies were so numerous and so little was actually accomplished that City Council member Letitia James called the promise of jobs for the workers, some of whom ended up working at McDonalds, “the greatest bait-and-switch in the history of Brooklyn.”
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 12:29 PM | Permalink
From the latest Construction Alert: a two-week (at least) closure of the Flatbush Avenue sidewalk west of Dean
Atlantic Yards Report
The latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/30/12, was distributed yesterday by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
There's not much dramatic in the alert, just indications of expected progress in various aspects of the project. Most notable to neighbors, perhaps, is this:
An 80’ section of the northern Flatbush Ave. sidewalk west of Dean St. will remain closed during this reporting period while façade installation is underway. This closure is due to agreement between NYCDOB [Department of Buildings] and Hunt [Construction].
Late-shift work
As in the previous alert, there will be double-shift and weekend work at the Long Island Rail Road/Vanderbilt Yard/ Carlton Avenue Bridge:
- All weekdays all locations in the yard: 6:00AM to 11:00PM
- Saturdays as required: 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM
- Sundays and Holidays as required: 8:00AM to 11:00PM
And there may be late shift and overnight shift work at the arena site:
Subject to receipt of permits, a second shift shall be continued throughout this reporting period, from 3 – 11 PM, Monday-Friday only. Also subject to receipt of permits, a third shift may be instituted during this reporting period, from 11 PM – 7 AM, Monday–Friday only.
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 12:22 PM | Permalink
Did an "emergency situation" really preclude alerting neighbors to overnight work last Saturday? Permit for crane was issued 11 days in advance
Atlantic Yard Report
Let's take another look at the explanation given for the disruptive overnight work beginning last Saturday at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Sixth Avenue.
Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, Empire State Development, stated:
The work that was occurring this weekend was being done by the LIRR and had nothing to do with Atlantic Yards. The LIRR is typically very good at notifying us of work that they need to do after hours so that we can inform the community, especially when it relates to Atlantic Yards. But apparently there was an emergency situation in the yard this weekend and they had to get in there very quickly.
Well, maybe it had "nothing to do with Atlantic Yards," but, given that reconfiguration of the LIRR's Vanderbilt Yard is part of the project, it seems like there's some connection, even if not formally part of the Forest City Ratner-led work.
"Emergency situation"?
It's even more doubtful there was an "emergency situation." After all, it's hard to get cranes on short notice.
And, it turns out, the (almost surely) related Department of Transportation permits were issued January 17, eleven days earlier. The permits were for work on Atlantic between Sixth Avenue and the block immediately to the east, South Oxford Street,beginning Saturday, January 28.
Three sequential permits, listed below, were issued the same day.
Given that the announced purpose purpose was "Mobile Crane to Lift Electrical Equipment," and that's what happened, I trust that the permits applied to the work indicated in the photo above. I've asked Hankin for any further explanation, and will update this post if I learn more.
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 12:14 PM | Permalink
YIKES! Brooklyn Nets’ Barclays Center 1.0 “Concept Court” Looks Frighteningly Real
Brooklynian
Wow! Or Yikes! Or both. Mythbuster created this “Concept Court” called Brooklyns Nets’ Barclays Center 1.0. So Brooklyn basketball is just around the corner (literally). This brings it all into focus. Maybe a bit too sharp. Until now, “Brooklyn Nets” has seemed like some distant figment of Bruce Ratner’s imagination (or Jay-Z’s). What has it been, 7 years??
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NoLandGrab: Seven minutes gone and the Nets haven't put any points on the board? Seems pretty real to us. And it's been eight years.
Posted by eric at February 1, 2012 12:05 PM | Permalink
January 31, 2012
Islanders head to Brooklyn -for one game
Newsday
Et voila, exactly as we predicted: the Islanders are coming to Brooklyn — for three hours.
The Islanders announced Tuesday they will play a preaseason game at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn against the Devils on Oct. 2, marking the first NHL game ever to be played in Brooklyn.
Jay-Z will open the new arena with a concert on Sept. 28 followed by the Islanders-Devils preseason game four days later.
NoLandGrab: Exhibition hockey. Just as exciting as regular-season Nets basketball.
Posted by eric at January 31, 2012 11:56 AM | Permalink
Workers at the AY site: 666 people, but perhaps 500 full-time jobs; record of 41% minority hiring exceeds CBA goal of 35% (but women lag)
Atlantic Yards Report
How many workers are at the Atlantic Yards site? Last week emerged two reports, with slightly different numbers, based on slightly different reporting times.
At the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting January 26, Forest City Ratner officials said there were 666 workers at the site, including the arena, transit connection, and railyard. (This number tends to exceed slightly the number reported by Merritt & Harris, the real estate consultant to the arena PILOT Bond Trustee, because the latter does not examine railyard work.)
That total, I later confirmed, represents the total number of individuals employed at the site, not the average number of workers based on a five-day week, since some individuals do not work each day.
Thus the total number of full-time "jobs"--construction jobs are calculated in job-years--is probably some 25% lower, or closer to 500. (As noted below, Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the project, calculate the average number of workers as about 75% of the total of individuals working.)
This confirms that the numbers Forest City has been reporting at the cabinet meetings represent the number of individuals employed, not full-time jobs. Had Forest City Ratner hired the Independent Compliance Monitor as required by the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA), we might have had clarification earlier.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Minority/women contracting numbers lag 25% behind ambitious CBA "goals" (sometimes billed as "promises"); results better than WTC, other projects
In building the Barclays Center and other Atlantic Yards construction activities, Forest City Ratner is lagging 25% behind its ambitious plan to devote devoting 20% of construction contract dollars to minority-owned business enterprises (MBEs) and 10% to women-owned firms (WBEs).
According to statistics released last week (see below) by Empire State Development (ESD), the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, the MBE awards total $91 million (about 16.3% of total purchases), while the WBE awards total $35.1 million (about 6.3% of total purchases). The total, as of the end of 2011, encompasses work back to 2005.
Thus the combined M/WBE participation is 22.6%, about three-quarters of the way toward the what ESD calls the "program requirement of 30% for M/WBE," which also appears as goals--20% and 10%, respectively--in the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA).
The Atlantic Yards web site, as noted in the screenshot at right, presents the figures as certainties.
Posted by eric at January 31, 2012 11:15 AM | Permalink
Goodbye, Triangle Sports: in 2005, Atlantic Yards sounded like a boon; now it's a reason to close
Atlantic Yards Report
From a 7/6/05 New York Times article headlined Brooklynites Take In a Big Development Plan, and Speak Up:
Henry Rosa, 55, the co-owner of a sporting goods store at Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, said: "I suspect it will be great for us. Once the project is complete, with new residents here, it will bring us more traffic." But he said that if he lived in the area, he would probably be angry.
From today's Wall Street Journal, Bowing to Change: Brooklyn's Triangle Sports Feels the Pressure From All Sides:
A family-owned sporting-goods and apparel store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is calling it quits after 96 years in business, another sign of changes sparked by the coming of the nearby Barclays Center arena complex.
Feeling the pressure from big-box stores and the weak economy, Triangle Sports has put its building up for sale in hopes of finding a store or restaurant itching to be close to the multiuse sports, retail and residential project rising across the street.
"It's getting harder and harder for a smaller, independent retailer to survive," said an emotional Henry Rosa, one of the partners behind Triangle Sports, who started working in the shop as a teenager in the 1960s.
...National retailers and Manhattan restaurateurs have been quietly scoping out properties around the arena, real-estate brokers and property owners said.
Related coverage...
Brownstoner, Triangle Sports Building for Sale
Posted by eric at January 31, 2012 11:06 AM | Permalink
planners + Atlantic Yards: community advocates or development cheerleaders?
“The planning debate of the decade: Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn. The argument isn’t just about Atlantic Yards, however: it’s about what we want our country to look like next.”
Landscape Urbanism
by Peter Chomko
Over the past couple weeks, the Penn School of Design and Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts have teamed up to get the Philadelphia intelligentsia talking about, of all things, an out-of-town city planning dispute. Not just any planning dispute, of course, the planning dispute. You know one: Brooklyn, the Nets, Russian oligarchy and organized crime, Jay-Z. Atlantic Yards.
Um, what planning?
You’ll notice that the words “Atlantic Yards” aren’t linked to anything. That’s deliberate: Given the heated debate those two words frequently give rise to, I’m avoiding taking anything that even looks like a position on the issue. Because this particular post isn’t actually about Atlantic Yards. At this point, “Atlantic Yards” (the cause it’s become, not the physical space) isn’t actually about Atlantic Yards anymore. It’s about a country emerging, e-v-e-r–s-o–s-l-o-w-l-y, from a long and deep recession, and what we want the country that emerges to look like.
NoLandGrab: No, we're pretty sure everything is about Atlantic Yards.
Posted by eric at January 31, 2012 10:56 AM | Permalink
Marty’s goal: Hockey in Brooklyn
Brooklyn Daily
by Dan MacLeod
Like the antagonist in a bad horror movie, the phony idea that a pro hockey franchise might someday call the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™ home keeps coming back from the dead — despite being killed again and again.
Borough President Markowitz wants to put the Barclays Center on ice — and hinted that hockey will indeed be coming to the soon-to-be-opened $1 billion arena as he teased his agenda for the coming year at the Bay Ridge Community Council’s Presidents’ Luncheon on Saturday.
“It would be great to see some hockey at the arena,” the uncharacteristically tight-lipped Beep told us before zipping out of the Bay Ridge Manor on 76th Street, claiming that any official announcements will be made at his annual State of the Borough address tomorrow. “In Brooklyn, there should be an NHL team, no question.”
NoLandGrab: "Some hockey?" Sure, the Islanders might schedule an exhibition game or two in Brooklyn. It's possible the Rangers might do the same as they complete the Madison Square Garden renovation next fall. But the seating capacity and awful sightlines make the arena an untenable home-ice disadvantage.
Posted by eric at January 31, 2012 10:34 AM | Permalink
Ratner’s parent company unveils $300M in NYC property financings
Company closes loans on Queens Place, Nine Metrotech
The Real Deal
by Katherine Clarke
And we thought lenders had learned their lessons...
 |
Forest City Ratner’s Cleveland-based parent company Forest City Enterprises completed more than $300 million in property financings in the quarter ending Jan. 31, 2012, including two worth a combined $163 million in New York City, it announced today.
The company closed a 10-year, $87 million loan for Queens Place, a 455,000-square-foot, five-level retail center on Queens Boulevard. It also purchased the existing $75 million loan at Nine Metrotech, a 317,000-square-foot office building in the MetroTech Center office campus in downtown Brooklyn, and then closed a new 10-year, $63 million loan for the same property.
Posted by eric at January 31, 2012 10:27 AM | Permalink
January 30, 2012
Bowing to Change
Brooklyn's Triangle Sports Feels the Pressure From All Sides
The Wall Street Journal
by Joseph De Avila
There goes the neighborhood — courtesy of Bruce C. Ratner.
A family-owned sporting-goods and apparel store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn is calling it quits after 96 years in business, another sign of changes sparked by the coming of the nearby Barclays Center arena complex.
Feeling the pressure from big-box stores and the weak economy, Triangle Sports has put its building up for sale in hopes of finding a store or restaurant itching to be close to the multiuse sports, retail and residential project rising across the street.
"It's getting harder and harder for a smaller, independent retailer to survive," said an emotional Henry Rosa, one of the partners behind Triangle Sports, who started working in the shop as a teenager in the 1960s.
...More change is on the way for the area around Barclays Center as it prepares to open this fall. National retailers and Manhattan restaurateurs have been quietly scoping out properties around the arena, real-estate brokers and property owners said.
"Is it going to look like Madison Square Garden?" said Geoffrey Bailey of real-estate service firm TerraCRG, which is marketing the Triangle Sports building. "It's going to look like Brooklyn's interpretation."
..."This trend is going to accelerate in a monumental way as we get closer to the arena opening," said Timothy King, managing partner with CPEX Real Estate.
...But longtime Triangle Sports shoppers said they were sorry about the news that the business was closing.
"It's a symbol of things that have been here a long time," said Liz Fader, 75 years old, from Boerum Hill. "This is just another example of this loss of community."
Related coverage...
Here's Park Slope, Triangle Sporting Goods Up For Sale
This sadly seemed inevitable: After 96 years occupying the prime corner of Fifth Avenue, Flatbush Avenue, and Dean Street, Triangle Sporting Goods has put itself, and the building it calls home, up for sale.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 5:12 PM | Permalink
Daniel Goldstein on Edge of Sports Radio
Edge of Sports Radio via Sirius Satellite Radio
Edge of Sports host and The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin talks with Daniel Goldstein about Atlantic Yards, beginning around the 28:40 mark.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 5:05 PM | Permalink
What's going on here? Noisy, chaotic congestion during (unannounced) overnight work at Atlantic and Sixth avenues
Atlantic Yards Report
It was a very busy Saturday night at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Atlantic Avenue, but the street closure, noise, confusion, and heightened danger were not predicted in the latest two-week Atlantic Yards Construction Alert, dated 1/16/12, that was distributed by Empire State Development (after preparation by developer Forest City Ratner).
Though no weekend third shift work was announced, the documentation appears in two postings on Atlantic Yards Watch.
On Saturday afternoon, January 28, trucks dropped off transformers that were later to be lowered into the Vanderbilt Yard. The trucks positioned themselves on the south side of Atlantic, east of Sixth Avenue, thus taking up a lane used as a bus stop.
Uh, normally used as a bus stop.
As noted in the video below, which begins at about 11 pm, the congested traffic led to some untoward consequences.
NoLandGrab: Good practice for what it will be like every time there's an event at the Barclays Center of Brooklyn™.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 3:20 PM | Permalink
Lingering questions: Where's the Barclays Center security plan? What precinct will be in charge? Who'll pay for traffic agents?
Atlantic Yards Report
Local elected officials are still waiting to examine the security plan presumably prepared for the Barclays Center arena, but are not getting very far. No one knows yet which police precinct will be in charge of the arena.
And there's still no clarity on whether the developer would pay for traffic agents needed for the area.
In other words, as the opening of the Barclays Center approaches in September, some major questions remain unanswered, as was aired at the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet meeting January 26, held at Brooklyn Borough Hall with agencies and officials whose work touches on the project.
NoLandGrab: Don't worry, the NYPD has this covered — they're just going to show The Third Jihad on the Jumbotron before every arena event.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 11:28 AM | Permalink
With transportation plan delayed, Nets finally survey fans about transportation options regarding Barclays Center attendance
Atlantic Yards Report
What a coincidence: a day after a public meeting in which officials revealed delays in the long-awaited Transportation Demand Management plan for the Barclays Center, Nets Basketball on January 27 sent "an important online survey about our move to Barclays Center in Brooklyn next season" to those on its mailing list.
The survey, which offered the opportunity to win "autographed merchandise, courtside seats to a NETS game or a NETS Fan Experience package!," seemed designed to alert people to the extensive public transportation options and deter them from driving.
However, should word-of-mouth or advertising attract drivers to non-arena-related garages or to residential streets in search of free parking, that will hamper the effort to promote transit use.
Last week, Arana Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, for Empire State Development suggested that the delay in the NBA season hampered development of the plan. Perhaps, but there's no reason why those on the Nets' mailing list could not have been previously surveyed.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 11:21 AM | Permalink
Nets Owner Mikhail Prokhorov Worth Billions Less
Forbes
by Luisa Kroll
Russian billionaire and Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov was officially registered as a Russian presidential candidate on Wednesday, after collecting the required 2 million signatures. His name will now appear on the March 4 ballot alongside heavily favored candidate, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and three others.
While he’s been busy campaigning, his net worth has taken a beating. Prokhorov is now worth between $12 billion and $13 billion, down from $18 billion last March when we published our 2011 ranking of the World’s Billionaires.
Most of that loss has come from the poor performance of his public holdings, which have gotten battered along with the Russian stock market.
...One investment that has not lost value is Prokhorov’s NBA basketball team, the soon to be Brooklyn Nets, which he bought in 2009 and plans to move into a new arena in Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards later this year. According to our recently released NBA valuations, the team is valued at $357 million, 14% more than last year.
NoLandGrab: While the Nets may have appreciated in value on the backs of New York's taxpayers, the Curse of the Nets is surely responsible for Prokhorov's losses. At this rate, he'll be broke in three years.
Related content...
NorthJersey.com, Nets gains – in spite of current struggles
The annual Forbes NBA valuations came out this week, and the Nets are ranked last in revenue, 28th out of 30 franchise in debt/value ratio, and 28th in operating income (minus $23.6 million, which may be being kind).
So you might think the Nets will place 28th, 29th, or 30th based on those numbers.
Instead, they rank 14th – up from 21st a year ago. So I checked in today with Forbes reporter Kurt Badenhausen on what seemed like might be a discrepancy.
Badenhausen said that the future economic prospects of the Nets – who are moving to Brooklyn this fall – is somewhat “baked into the value” of the franchise at $357 million.
...But he cautioned that honeymoons with new sports facilities keep getting shorter and shorter – and cited the Mets’ CitiField as an example.
“Fans have shown, with the NBA, that they will not support a team that loses week after week,” Badenhausen said.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 10:47 AM | Permalink
Keystone will rely on Eminent Domain!?
The Daily KOS
by JL Finch
Why haven't I heard more about this before now?
Of course the Keystone XL pipeline will need to rely on Eminent Domain to site the pipeline along its alignment. Where the path crosses private land, if the landowner refuses to grant an easement, the easement will need to be taken (condemned) by eminent domain.
I thought those right-wing types HATED eminent domain! The taking of private property for a PRIVATE benefit - the benefit of TransCanada in this case, a FOREIGN corporation, and BigOil, who own the processing and shipping facilities in Houston.
In the Right's hierarchy of needs, fossil-fuel production trumps most everything else, including property rights.
Of course the project has now NOT received federal approval. And Boehner and the US Chamber are screaming bloody murder about it for the purpose of making political hay.
Nebraska, Texas - these ultra-conservative states are going to tolerate their private landowners being strong-armed by a FOREIGN corporation? They are going to tolerate private property being seized for corporate benefit?
Related content...
The New York Times, Eminent Domain Fight Has a Canadian Twist
A Canadian company has been threatening to confiscate private land from South Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico, and is already suing many who have refused to allow the Keystone XL pipeline on their property even though the controversial project has yet to receive federal approval.
Randy Thompson, a cattle buyer in Nebraska, was informed that if he did not grant pipeline access to 80 of the 400 acres left to him by his mother along the Platte River, “Keystone will use eminent domain to acquire the easement.” Sue Kelso and her large extended family in Oklahoma were sued in the local district court by TransCanada, the pipeline company, after she and her siblings refused to allow the pipeline to cross their pasture.
“Their land agent told us the very first day she met with us, you either take the money or they’re going to condemn the land,” Mrs. Kelso said. By its own count, the company currently has 34 eminent domain actions against landowners in Texas and an additional 22 in South Dakota.
Posted by eric at January 30, 2012 10:30 AM | Permalink
January 29, 2012
FILM SCREENING + PANEL DISCUSSION
Gowanus Institute for Research, Planning & Development
FILM SCREENING + PANEL DISCUSSION
Gowanus Institute + Rooftop Films present
BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN
a documentary film about Atlantic Yards
Details at rooftopfilms.comTUE 31 JAN 2012 7:00P [Note: This is a REVISED date]
Doors Open 7:00p. Screening 7:30p. Run time 93 min.
Panel discussion and Q&A to follow
Free admissionTHE OLD AMERICAN CAN FACTORY
232 Third St corner Third Ave
Gowanus Brooklyn NY 11215BATTLE FOR BROOKLYN follows the story of reluctant activist Daniel Goldstein as he struggles to save his home and community from being demolished to make way for a professional basketball arena and the densest real estate development in U.S. history. Along the way, he falls in love, gets married and starts a family while living in a vacated building located at the heart of the project site. Over the course of seven years, Daniel spearheads the movement against the development plan as he and the community fight tenaciously in the courts, the streets, and the media to stop the abuse of eminent domain and reveal the corruption at the heart of the plan. More at battleforbrooklyn.com
Posted by steve at January 29, 2012 10:19 PM | Permalink
Seen but not heard: the mayor's new emissary on Atlantic Yards issues
Atlantic Yards Report
Lolita Jackson, director of special projects at the mayor's office and described (probably over-described) as an ombudsman to oversee quality-of-life issues regarding the project--attended the January 26 meeting--her first--of the Atlantic Yards District Service Cabinet, which includes agency and governmental officials.
She was introduced by Sam Pierre, Brooklyn director at the Mayor's Community Assistance Unit. (Pierre was formerly an aide to Rep. Ed Towns, as well an officer in the powerful Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club, both of which have favorable postures toward Atlantic Yards, as does the mayor.)
“Lolita’s role will be to assist some of the work we're already doing here, working with city agencies, so that we can improve quality of life issues around the project," Pierre said. "We’ll be working with Carlo [Scissura, special advisor at the Brooklyn Borough President's Office], and Arana [Hankin, Director, Atlantic Yards Project, Empire State Development], and Forest City. We've had conversations, we’re going to be working together to make sure that we have our agencies work together... so that the project can be done.”
Jackson spoke individually to several people but didn't address the group. She had arrived at the 9:30 a.m. meeting--which normally starts ten minutes late--on time, despite a trip from the Upper East Side. You have to wonder what she thought about the delay in the Transportation Demand Management plan.
Posted by steve at January 29, 2012 10:15 PM | Permalink
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 January 29, 2012 10:11 PM | Permalink
Illuminating disgraced Senator Carl Kruger: was he a good guy gone bad, or amoral from the start?
Atlantic Yards Report
Earlier this month, New York magazine published an illuminating, somewhat sympathetic profile of King Carl of Canarsie: The gothic saga of Brooklyn power broker Carl Kruger, a state senator who loved a gynecologist and his family so much he was willing to sell his influence for them.
It allowed Kruger to half-explain how he slipped into corruption, clawing his way up from neglect (he was put up for adoption but returned to his mom) and poverty--and it provoked several (mostly anonymous) commenters, as noted below, to observe that Kruger was dirty a lot longer.
And, though Atlantic Yards is unmentioned, the Kruger saga provides excruciating context for the (then)-Senator's over-the-top support for Atlantic Yards, support that, at least in retrospect, seems provoked not by Brooklyn pride, or jobs, but something more.
It's not clear whether (guilty) lobbyist Richard Lipsky's payments to Kruger were predicated on support for Atlantic Yards, but Kruger pleaded guilty to, among other things, directing funds in response to a request from Forest City Ratner executive Bruce Bender. Was it just because they were old Thomas Jefferson Democratic Club cronies?
Posted by steve at January 29, 2012 10:02 PM | Permalink
