Giant granite bollards removed from Atlantic Terminal station, replaced by more modest bollards to improve pedestrian flow

On Transportation Nation, WNYC's Andrea Bernstein reports on NY MTA’s $1.35 Million Mistake:

Now we know.
The New York MTA spent $1.35 million on giant granite bollards that it later removed outside the Atlantic Terminal station.
To put that in perspective, a year of service* on the B51 bus line, which the MTA discontinued in 2010, cost $800,000 a year.
The bollards, much-reviled by architects and planners and panned by the Brooklyn Paper as “sarcophagi,” were installed in 2010 for unspecified security reasons.

Dec. 2009 photo

But those 15 humongous tombstones served as a barrier to pedestrians and represented overkill compared to the more modest cylindrical bollards more typical in the system.

So now it will be much easier to walk to the arena, among other destinations, from the terminal. (That refers mainly to those coming on the LIRR; those in the subway should be able to traverse the station internally and exit on the plaza.)

Who came first

Also note Eric McClure's comment:

One more reminder that NoLandGrab.org first broke the news of the massive bollards in December 2009, and referred to them as Sarcophagi well before the Brooklyn Paper did:
http://www.nolandgrab.org/archives/2009/12/tomb_of_the_unk.html
http://www.nolandgrab.org/archives/2011/08/bollard_backtra.html