
The difference in 2008, with the project at this moment stalled, was a palpable air of defensiveness, calls for “our share” and “a piece of the pie,” even as developer Forest City Ratner, behind the scenes, seeks more subsidies.
(Photo: Tracy Collins. His set and set by Adrian Kinloch. Other photos by Jonathan Barkey and Norman Oder.)
Video from Carpenters Union.
The edge in Borough President Marty Markowitz’s voice was undeniable, as he and others flailed the opposition for delaying the project, but offering no more insight other than “build it now.” They mentioned nothing about the credit crisis, the limited pool of tax-exempt bonds, the state’s extended deadline for construction, and the developer’s subsidy request.

(Photo: AK)
Despite decent weather, free t-shirts, a full-page ad in the Daily News, an E-newsletter, requests from union bosses to attend, and promises of free food, free transportation, and “international recording artist Maxi Priest,” the disparate and soon-diminished crowd was often subdued, even bored, and a passel of Forest City Ratner operatives monitoring the event looked somber, despite the billing as a “fun day.”
3500 attendees?

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FCR's bad luck
It probably didn’t make a difference for the turnout, but Forest City Ratner suffered some bad luck. The marquee speaker, the Rev. Al Sharpton, never arrived, stuck in transit in the Midwest. (His organization received support from the developer; has that continued?) Reggae star Maxi Priest, the main entertainment draw, was ill, leaving his band to perform without him. (Maybe the bad luck was some karmic equalization for sweltering and rainy weather at previous opposition rallies.)

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At previous event like the August 2006 public hearing and the January 2007 Barclays Center event, stars Vince Carter and the now-traded Jason Kidd had appeared; were Forest City Ratner more desperate, perhaps big guns like Richard Jefferson and Carter would have been dispatched to Brooklyn.

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Though arguably the rally was aimed at subtly influencing pending legal cases and making the case for additional governmental subsidies, no Forest City Ratner employees spoke. The MC work was left to Delia Hunley-Adossa, chair of the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) executive committee and head of the CBA signatory Brooklyn Endeavor Experience. (Its Potemkin responsibility to monitor the environmental impact of project construction leaves Hunley-Adossa more time to do things like organize buses for the rally.)

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A "great show"
“We got a great show for you,” Hunley-Adossa said at the outset of the event, as if convincing herself. “All right, Brooklyn, we hope you have a good day today.”
The show, as it were, wasn’t much. The Nets drumline, often paid to appear at FCR-sponsored events did their usual high-quality work. Teen singers ably led the crowd in “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the “Black National Anthem.” But those who had come to see Maxi Priest had to endure an hour of speeches, variations on a theme. As Tracy Collins’s picture (fourth from top) shows, a lot of people were bored.
The embattled BP

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Even if the project moves ahead, the arena would not open until 2010, according to the developer, or 2011, which is my estimate of a likely best-case scenario. In either case, Markowitz’s two four-year terms would be up. Surely when he first embraced the project in 2002, a year before it was announced, he must have believed he could cut a ribbon at the arena opening before his second term.
With Atlantic Yards, New York City, Markowitz told the audience, would have two centers, Midtown Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn, somehow ignoring the growth in Lower Manhattan and the fact that Downtown Brooklyn, without Atlantic Yards, nevertheless is changing immeasurably.

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(In photo by TC at right, FCR general counsel David Berliner, at left, looks on.)
Markowitz said he imagined seeing the Grammy Awards at the new arena, a band like U2 or “Brooklyn’s own Jay-Z” in the building designed by Frank Gehry. (There were no cheers at the mention of Gehry’s name; he was likely not on the audience’s radar.)
“This is Brooklyn’s future,” he declared in closing. “Nobody’s going to hold it back—nobody. We deserve it.”
ACORN’s Lewis
Next up was Bertha Lewis of ACORN. “You sure look good,” she said, buttering up the crowd. (Lewis, who has a background in theater, is a powerful speaker.) “Some people think that you can’t fight City Hall,” she said. “But ask the people in Starrett City, because those people will have 5000 units of affordable housing.”
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Lewis’s invocation of affordable housing initially drew little applause, but Lewis was just ramping up. “No other developer,” she said in a familiar refrain, is doing what Ratner has promised. (That’s true, but the plan for affordable housing is based in part on a zoning override that trades off "extreme density" for Ratner, and it’s hardly clear that the promises will come to fruition, since there’s no deadline for Phase 2 of the project.)
“Rent is too damn high,” she said, channeling a one-issue political party.
“But it won’t be at Atlantic Yards,” she continued. “No, baby.”
(Well, that’s debatable. Many of the people attending an affordable housing information session sponsored by Forest City Ratner and ACORN in July 2006 thought the rent would, in fact, be too high.)

“Now,” responded the crowd.
“We need it—when do we need it?
“Now.”
“We deserve it—when do we deserve it?”
“Now.”
(Photo: TC)
Lewis then took up a now familiar trope. “We were here when nobody wanted to come here,” she said. “We’re still here.” Actually, many people critical of the project came to neighborhoods like Prospect Heights and Park Slope before Brooklyn’s renaissance and before Forest City Ratner began its downtown project MetroTech in the 1980s.
Sliwa looks back

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Then he offered a historical argument that seemed very 2004. Sliwa recalled the deplorable state of the area around Atlantic Terminal in the 1950s. The Fort Greene Meat Market (long cleared for the Atlantic Terminal Urban Renewal Area, or ATURA), he said, was part of a Brooklyn in disarray: prostitutes, drug dealers, and low-lifes.
He blamed master builder/power broker Robert Moses for rejecting Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley’s plan for a new Ebbets Field. (Actually, O’Malley’s plan was not popular among the political establishment, according to Henry Fetter’s definitive study.)
“We see the devastation that happens when you pass up capital improvements,” declared Sliwa, papering over decades of urban redevelopment and sounding like, well, the talk-show host he is.
Targeting the opposition

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“We need to convince all the opposition to step aside and make this project happen,” he continued, “so we can all pursue the American dream.”
Union workers, watching other job sites in Brooklyn and New York operated by non-union labor, have a legitimate sense of grievance; Forest City Ratner’s pledge to use unions--though not necessarily in its pre-construction demolition phase--has earned it continuing support.

(At right, in photo by TC, Forest City Ratner employee Tom Tuffey surveys the crowd.)
Taking aim at elected officials
Carpenters union head Zarzana offered a familiar trope, accusing the opposition of not saving Brooklyn. “Where were you 40 years ago, when Downtown Brooklyn looked like a war zone?” he asked. “But we were here.” He praised Ratner’s MetroTech: “Look what he gave you.”

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Red-faced with emotion, he criticized James, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, and City Council Members David Yassky and Bill de Blasio for having sought support from the union but blocking a project the union supports.
“David Yassky--he wants to stop us from having jobs,” Zarzana said bluntly. (Most in the audience probably didn’t hear Zarzana’s criticism of Jeffries, since the public address system was balky.)
Camara’s call

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Camara, a clergyman himself, said he was representing “my good friend Al Sharpton,” who was stuck in Detroit but wanted to convey that he was “100% behind this project.”

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More elected officials

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Assemblyman Darryl Towns (his father, Rep. Edolphus Towns, also supports the project) also spoke, along with City Council Members Darlene Mealy, Lew Fidler, and an energetic Dominic Recchia (right), all of whom represent districts comfortably distant from the project footprint.

(Photo: TC)
“Our share” and “piece of the pie” sound like all-American applause lines; they just obscure the complex machinations behind a complicated project. (Remember, Kruger's posse last November questioned Mayor Mike Bloomberg's Coney Island plan wearing hats that read, "The Bloomberg Plan: How much $? How long? Who pays?")
CBA signatories
Community Benefits Agreement signatories got some of the last words. James Caldwell (right) of BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development) told the crowd they didn’t know about Bruce Ratner’s “compassionate side.” Ratner has helped community members go to Nets games and other events, he said.
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As the rally wound down, Hunley-Adossa announced the presence of several other CBA signatories, though some, such as the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, were missing. Markowitz and other elected officials were long gone.
Before turning the festivities over to the band, Hunley-Adossa praised the crowd: “We’ve got to take time out and do things like this, because it can’t be all work and no play.” The afternoon, however, was just not that playful.
Last word

Ratner spokesman Loren Riegelhaupt insisted the project is on track and that preparation work - including demolition - is well under way.
"Work is continuing every day," he said.
Riegelhaupt (at left in photo by AK with FCR's Bender and Cantone) could have said exactly that without the rally, because it aimed to advance not site preparation work, long in process, but the project itself.
How inappropriate for government officials to allow a single private developer to use the Brooklyn Day celebration for his own political and economic benefit. Once again, we see how the government in New York is facilitating and aiding developers by use of public funds, energy, and now, public celebrations, to enhance a single developer's benefit.
ReplyDeleteUsing the celebration to bring attention to all developers in Brooklyn, both large and small, would have held a valid public purpose. But to use the Brooklyn Day celebration to promote a single, private developer, is outrageous, and probably breaks several ethical canons of governmental independence. The citizens of New York City should be concerned that their government is using the public trust bestowed by them to facilitate a private developer, who seems to be incapable of even starting his development without the public picking up the tab.
To be clear, the Atlantic Yard development is a public funded, windfall profit giveaway to one developer. Period. The United States Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Kelo v. New London (2005) has stated the following:
“A purely private taking could not withstand the scrutiny of the public use requirement; it would serve no legitimate purpose of government and would thus be void” … "Nor would the City be allowed to take property under the mere pretext of a public purpose, when its actual purpose was to bestow a private benefit."
This development is a purely private taking, as a pretext of a public purpose, to bestow a private benefit on one developer. I pray to the Supreme Court, bring this developer, and these public officials, before your honorable chamber to answer why the Atlantic Yard development, the public process, the continued use of government resources, and even the Brooklyn Day Celebrations, is now only for the wealthy few and politically connected.