Post columnist Peyser's dada take on Atlantic Yards

Probably the best way to read New York Post columnist Andrea Peyser is to consider it some sort of dada performance, untethered to reality.

Yesterday, one section of a larger column, headlined 'Net' result sure beats a nut revolt, concerned Atlantic Yards.

She's no longer touting the 10,000 "incontrovertible" office jobs Forest City Ratner once promised but she's still on board.

"Hearty go-ahead"?

She writes:

After years of legal combat that rivals the days of the Roman forum, the state's highest court has given a hearty go-ahead to the Nets basketball arena in Brooklyn. Finally! Sanity reigns in a borough where people will protest sunny days and rainbows if given the chance.

Hearty go-ahead? They said they wouldn't second-guess the Empire State Development Corporation's approval of the project (not merely the arena).

The "selfish handful"

She continues:

The Court of Appeals says the small knot of resisters who've refused to sell their properties to developer Bruce Ratner -- at handsome profits, I might add -- can be displaced by eminent domain.

Several of the people are residential renters not about to gain any money. The profits--no longer likely--came thanks to public money, not developer generosity.

She continues:

This is good news to the many New Yorkers who will win jobs and affordable homes, and bad news only to the selfish handful who'd refused to let their neighbors get a shot at prosperity.

Selfish handful? Thousands of people who have financially supported lawsuits challenging AY, and dozens of community groups have signed on. The provision of affordable housing is very much in question, as are the number of jobs.

"So blighted" spot

She continues:

Smack in the middle of some of the richest real estate in the city sits Atlantic Yards, a spot so blighted, it's an outrage nothing has been built there in 40 years. Now, there's a chance.

Atlantic Yards is a project, not a place. The "so blighted" Vanderbilt Yard is and was a working railyard; only when vacant land shrunk and land values rose did it become cost-effective to propose development.

The "outrage" is the fault of borough and city leaders who chose never to try to market this piece of real estate. And even the Court of Appeals calls the situation "relatively mild conditions of urban blight."

"Big entertainment dollars"

She concludes:

Even better, big entertainment dollars will be sucked back into New York from New Jersey, where the Nets currently play. It's a win-win situation.

Bring it on!

Well, some spending would be sucked back into New York. But these days Nets attendance--and ticket revenue--is sinking.