Speaking of getting away with things, the media have largely and repeatedly allowed Bruce Ratner and Brett Yormark to get away with floating the absurd notion that the not-designed-for-hockey Barclays Center might someday be home to the Islanders. Kudos to Dan Bush and the Brooklyn Paper for calling their bluff.

The Barclays Center will debut an unconventional horseshoe-shaped seating configuration for a preseason hockey game this fall — raising questions about whether the undersized arena could truly accommodate an NHL franchise.

A dozen sections behind one of the goals will be closed off when the Islanders take on the hated New Jersey Devils on Oct. 2, according to a seating chart that shows what hockey might look like in a $1-billion arena that would be the smallest stadium in the National Hockey League and the only arena without wrap-around seating.
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Nets spokesman Barry Baum confirmed the seating arrangement, but declined to provide further details.

“We have to see how all the sight lines are and then we’ll move forward,” Baum said.

Arena developer Bruce Ratner has long courted the Islanders. Hockey was originally considered for the arena but the plans were scuttled after Barclays Center’s starchitect Frank Gehry was fired in 2009 and his proposed design was scrapped to cut costs.

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Some keeping watch on the recent Yonkers corruption trial, in which former Council Member Sandy Annabi and her political mentor, Zehy Jereis, were convicted, had to wonder why developer Forest City Ratner, the beneficiary of Annabi's vote flip to enable its huge Ridge Hill retail/residential project, went unscathed.

After all, while Annabi got nearly $200,000 from Jereis over eight years, and he got a far smaller sum from the two developers he worked with, Forest City's gain, in exchange for a no-show job it gave Jereis after the vote, was surely far greater.

Annabi's vote unlocked progress on a project on which Forest City had already spent some $70 million. Forest City's potential losses, from delay, from selling Ridge Hill to other investors, or from shrinking the project, could have been huge. And it only cost Forest City a commitment of $60,000 to Jereis, who ultimately was paid only for three months: $15,000.

So, why didn't prosecutors target the biggest beneficiary?

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Prospect Heights Patch
by Amy Sara Clark

When the “early-access” tickets to Barbra Streisand’s “Back to Brooklyn” concert went on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday, they were sold out nearly instantly.

An area resident said she and two family members all tried for the coveted seats at exactly 10 a.m. but were told the tickets had already sold out.

She wanted to know exactly how many tickets to Barclays events to were reserved for area residents. The answer? None.

A spokesman for the 18,000-seat Barclays Center said management has never discussed the possibility of reserving seats at big-ticket events for people living near the arena, though he noted that Brooklynites were given the chance to buy general admission Nets tickets on April 30, a day before the general public.

What do you think? Should people living in the 11238 or 11217 zip codes, which covers Prospect Heights, and parts of Crown Heights, Fort Greene, Boerum Hill and Park Slope have the chance to buy tickets to high-demand events before the general public?

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NoLandGrab: Considering that people living near the arena aren't going to ever want to put a dime into Bruce Ratner's pocket, does it matter?

Regular readers of NoLandGrab know we don't normally have much good to say about Bruce Ratner's basketball arena, but here's an exception — they're kindly providing a means for fans to entertain themselves when the Nets are down 30 midway through the third quarter.

To say wireless coverage at NBA arenas is spotty is being kind. They weren’t built for it and the nooks and crannies of such large spaces, filled with thick concrete walls, is not an ideal environment. But Barclays Center was built with wireless in mind and Tuesday, the team announced it’s chosen a company to design, install and operate the arena network.

ExteNet Systems of Illinois will set up a a Distributed Antenna System (DAS) network in the newly constructed arena that will meet “rising expectations in fan demand”, says the company.

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There goes the neighborhood.

A reader sent in the photo above, as well as the following note: “I noticed this on my commute in this morning — It looks as if some of the new “Barclays Center” signs are up and uncovered — at least at the far end of the Q/B platform at Atlantic Avenue (or I guess I should say Atlantic Ave / Barclays Center). It looks as if the signs are up for the length of the platform, but the rest are covered.”

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Justice at Atlantic Yards! Justice for Brooklyn!
Join residents, clergy, community leaders and elected officials for a rally to demand the promised housing, jobs and stronger oversight.
June 10, 2012, 3pm - c/o Atlantic & South Portland Aves.

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SBNation.com
by Tom Ziller

SBNation speculates about how the NBA draft could shape up if the cruel basketball gods have their way — or if David Stern & Co. rig the draft so the #1 pick goes to their brand-new Brooklyn franchise.

Think of The Basketball Gods as cruel pranksters, mischievous dalliers who seek to inflict pain on the unholy and maximize schadenfreude in the execution. (Basically, think of them as the actual Greek and Norse gods you learned about in middle school.) What tricks will they have in store for us in 2012? Let's make some predictions. Let's mock.

Note: this is not the actual draft order, only the most cruel but legitimately possible draft order according to my assessment.

1. BROOKLYN NETS: ANTHONY DAVIS

Why would The Basketball Gods give Brooklyn the No. 1 pick?

1. The Basketball Gods have abandoned Portland, who gets this pick if it's not top three.
2. Bruce Ratner leveraged this team to gentrify/destroy a neighborhood, basically. Mad black hat swag.
3. Jay-Z not only has sway over young players, but holy spirits. Game recognize game.
4. Mikhail Prokhorov. See Bullet No. 3.

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Yes, the luxury suites and sponsorships needed to pay for the enormously expensive Barclays Center are part of a questionable trend. So is the credit to the Barclays Nets Community Alliance for playgrounds it has helped refurbished. And so is the green-cards-for-jobs scheme used to save Atlantic Yards developer tens of millions of dollars.

In case you missed it, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman on Sunday wrote This Column Is Not Sponsored by Anyone, taking off from Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel’s new book, What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. (Here's an excerpt from The Atlantic).

Sandel might be thought of as the anti-Brett Yormark, as the Nets/Barclays Center CEO has tried to monetize nearly everything to do with the team/arena, and, in the wake of experience finding sponsors for soccer jerseys and NASCAR gear, is ready to sell sponsorship space on NBA uniforms.

He told Sports Business Daily, "You can monetize this in ways you can’t monetize any other kind of marketing inventory." Indeed. Because the arena and team are, in the words of developer Bruce Ratner, a "civic" endeavor.

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Next stop, Barclays Center!

The MTA has quietly updated subway maps on its Web site by slapping the name of the Brooklyn Nets’ new arena onto all listings for the busy Atlantic Avenue stop.

The transit hub — which connects to the under-construction arena set to open in September and serves nine subway lines plus the LIRR — was revised online to “Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center” as part of the agency’s first naming-rights deal approved in 2009.

Printed subway maps and station signage won’t be updated until the summer, said officials yesterday.

Barclays Center developer Bruce Ratner has agreed to pay the MTA $200,000 over 20 years for the name change.

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Related coverage...

Atlantic Yards Report, Sloppy! MTA updates subway maps to include Barclays Center--and excises Pacific Street

Well, the MTA was a wee bit sloppy. After all, the subway hub is known as Atlantic Av/Pacific St. The entrance to the N/R/D lines running along Fourth Avenue originally had both names, as indicated in the screenshot from a May 2011 map, below.

By that logic, the station along those lines should be renamed Pacific St-Barclays Ctr, not Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr. Was the MTA so concerned about getting the arena mentioned that they'd mislead straphangers?

Brownstoner, Barclays Center Makes it to the Map

Set your calendar for the most important meeting of the spring: Tuesday’s release of the transportation mitigation plan for the 18,000-seat Barclays Center.

Community members have been long awaiting this plan, which was supposed to have been revealed in December. The delay has frayed nerves for residents of the low-rise, residential communities around the basketball arena and proposed 16-tower development.
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Transportation Demand Management Plan hearing at Borough Hall, 209 Joralemon Street between Adams and Court Streets in Downtown, (718) 596-5410, May 22, 6 p.m. For info, contact Arana Hankin, director of the Atlantic Yards project for the Empire State Development Corporation, at AtlanticYards@esd.ny.gov.

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Ratner (and ESDC) to residents near Atlantic Yards site: "F**k you!"

Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing Atlantic Yards, today issued a Supplemental Report to its regular two-week Construction Updates.

The gist: floodlights at the Vanderbilt Yard that are supposed* to be off by 3 am may be on all night during the next two week period, in mid-June, and possibly through the end of June. That means residents nearby to ensure they have very thorough coverage blocking their windows.

Why'd I add the asterisk? Because residents have already reported, via Atlantic Yards Watch, that those operating the lights do not necessarily follow the stated plan.

The reason? Developer Forest City Ratner is rushing to achieve "timely completion" of the Carlton Avenue Bridge, indicated in the announcement by the rather cryptic initials CAB.

What's missing? That the current schedule for the bridge indicates completion in the week after the arena opens, though the reconstruction of the bridge is an "arena opening condition," and the state has asked Forest City Ratner to draw up mitigation plans in case the arena opens September 28 without having the bridge open. The bridge is a major artery between Prospect Heights and Fort Greene.

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Community groups learned from Empire State Development Corporation CEO Kenneth Adams on May 2 that less than half of the 1,100 parking spaces required for arena patrons in ESDC’s 2006 and 2009 development agreements with Forest City Ratner Companies (FCRC) would be available at the opening of Barclays Center. FCRC and ESDC appear to believe their Transportation Demand Management (TDM) plan will be effective enough to revise expected demand for arena patron parking on-site down by 50%.

Robust TDM plans include both incentives and disincentives to discourage driving and parking. We’ll know more about the TDM plan for Barclays Center on May 22 when FCRC, its transportation consultant, NYCTA and LIRR present it. But the details of the TDM plan in the 2009 Amended Memorandum of Environmental Commitments include only incentives, and the draft scope of the TDM plan FCRC’s consultant presented to community groups in January did not include some effective disincentives.

Barclays Center still appears to guarantee reserved parking to all suite-holders. Its web site includes the following information on its FAQ page:

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Related coverage...

Atlantic Yards Report, About that Transportation Demand Management plan: where will the suiteholders go? Where are the disincentives to drive (as opposed to incentives for public transit)?

After Empire State Development announced that the Block 1129 parking lot would be cut at least in half from 1100 spaces, I asked the agency's Arana Hankin what would happened to the 600 spaces promised (in the Memorandum of Environmental Commitments) for HOV (high-occupancy vehicles) at the Project site.

I got no answer.

Similarly, there's been no public statement about where the suiteholders will park. Have they all be moved to the Atlantic Center/Terminal parking that is closer to the arena?

As noted today on Atlantic Yards Watch, the suites and boxes can hold 1,179 people. In Will the TDM plan be only a half a plan?, Tom Boast points out that Forest City Ratner "has committed to demand management incentives like remote parking lots and free round trip subway fare for Nets games."

What it hasn't committed to are disincentives:
--parking management, via residential parking permits, as in the areas around baseball stadiums in Chicago and Washington, DC
--a parking surcharge, as in the area around the Prudential Center in Newark

BrooklynSpeaks

The BrooklynSpeaks sponsors announced today that more than 1,000 Brooklynites have signed an online petition calling on the State to limit the hours of liquor sales at the Barclays Center arena, with a final cut-off time of 10:00 PM. The petition was first posted on BrooklynSpeaks’ web site on Monday, May 7.

“The response to BrooklynSpeaks’ petition says volumes about public concern for safety and neighborhood quality of life following the opening of the Barclays Center,” said Jo Anne Simon, Democratic Leader of the 52nd Assembly District. “The arena operators and concessionaires have an obligation to do what is reasonable and responsible to ensure that crowds leaving events late in the evening don’t disrupt residential life.”

Said City Council Member Stephen Levin, whose district includes the neighborhoods of Boerum Hill and Park Slope adjacent to the arena, “Residents don’t understand why Barclays should be reluctant to accept a 10:00 PM limit on liquor sales, when the same concession operator has a 9:30 PM curfew at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Barclays has a responsibility to ensure that rowdy crowds will not be spilling into our residential communities late at night, causing problems for the families who live here.”

“The only reason Barclays Center is being built at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues is because the State allowed overrides of City zoning regulations that would have prevented an arena being sited next to homes,” said Council Member Letitia James, who represents the adjoining neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Fort Greene. “We now need the Governor and the State Liquor Authority to ensure we don’t end up with an all-night bar, too.”

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After a rare off-week, Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Center mall reappears on the crime blotter — along with its crime-ridden sister-mall.

It was a different sort of week for the cops in the 88th Precinct, with a rare crime inside the Steiner Studios film center and lots of good collars. Of course, there was more crime in the Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Center malls, and some car thefts and burglaries.
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More Mall Rats

A thief stole a wallet from a shopper inside the crime-riddled Target department store in the Atlantic Terminal Mall on May 8.

The victim told cops that she had been shopping inside the store at around 6:20 p.m. when a pickpocket swiped the wallet — and with it various credit cards.

The thief tried to use the credit cards at a nearby Applebee’s and in a Metrocard machine, but failed. But the villain was more successful at the Macy’s on Fulton Street, where he or she rang up more than $1,000 in purchases, cops said.

Bathroom Break

A thief waited until an Atlantic Center Mall customer was in the bathroom before he or she stole an iPhone and wallet from the shopper’s baby stroller on May 10.

The victim told cops that she was stopping at the crime-addled mall on Atlantic Avenue at around 4:30 p.m. when she needed some restroom relief. After conducting her business, she returned to the hallway to discover that someone had taken her phone and wallet.

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Crain's NY Business
by Theresa Agovino

The Empire State Development Corp. filed a request on Friday to appeal an earlier court ruling which said that the agency illegally approved changes to Forest City Ratner's massive Atlantic Yards project in 2009 by failing to examine how the long-term construction would affect the neighborhood.

The agency must get permission to appeal because last month's decision by the Appellate Division of New York state was unanimous in affirming a July 2011 lower court ruling. That earlier ruling said that the Empire State Development Corp. violated the law by not conducting another environmental study of the $5 billion project when the plan was modified in 2009.
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However, the project’s opponents believe that there is a very slim chance that the ESDC will be allowed to appeal because two courts found it acted illegally.

“We are disappointed in ESDC’s decision to bring an appeal instead of working with the community to make the project better and just do the environmental impact study,” said Jeffrey Baker, a partner at the law firm of Young Sommer, which is representing Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a group opposed to the project. “The appeal is a waste of resources.”

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