After the film and the play, time for a book about Atlantic Yards

Well, if Atlantic Yards has spawned a documentary film, Battle of Brooklyn, and documentary-inspired theater, In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards, shouldn't it also generate a book?

That's what a number of people have told me, and why I'm leaving my job to get it done, as I explain in a farewell column for Library Journal, where I've written about library issues for more than 14 years:

With so much to cover, why am I leaving? For more than four-and-a-half years, I’ve been moonlighting on my own blog, the Atlantic Yards Report, about an enormously controversial real estate development—Atlantic Yards—that would bring an arena for the relocated New Jersey Nets basketball team and 16 towers to Brooklyn, just a short walk from my apartment.

I’ve immersed myself in issues like urban planning, affordable housing, and eminent domain. It’s been tiring but rewarding; I’ve written for the New York Times (though I’ve been a fierce critic of its coverage) and cowritten a law review article. Now, I’m working on the book the saga deserves. (Agents, yes, you’re welcome to contact me. Librarians, yes, I’m happy to visit on book tour.)

I'm still in the early stages--just keeping up with the blog has kept me busy--but there's a lot of material to go over.

Here's a Q&A with the Observer. An excerpt: :

“I think the story needs to be told,” Mr. Oder said in his demure way. “It’s been told in dribs and drabs. It will be mythologized, and it will be spun, and parts of the story will get lost. The story needs to to be synthesized and made sense of. And made compelling.”

Demure?

More coverage, from The Local, DDDB, NLG, and Unbeige.