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Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park FAQ, timeline, and infographics (pinned post)

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So, how does the new $150 NBA City Edition uniform, by KAWS, celebrate "the spirit of Brooklyn"?

A Nov. 14, 2024 press release, Brooklyn Nets Unveil 2024-25 Nike NBA City Edition Uniform, Created With Renowned Artist KAWS , told us: The Brooklyn Nets have unveiled their 2024-25 Nike NBA City Edition Uniform, created with renowned artist and Brooklyn resident, KAWS. The Nets remain the first and only professional sports team the Brooklyn-based artist has collaborated with. Year two of the partnership further expands upon the Nets’ commitment to highlighting local tastemakers and leading creators from Brooklyn to celebrate the unique culture found within the borough and is an example of how the team continues to elevate their retail offerings to reflect the fanbase’s growing interest in fashion and style, including launching a private label, premium merchandise line, bǝrō. KAWS is the third icon from Brooklyn that the team has paid homage to through the NBA City Edition program after previously celebrating the lives and legacies of The Notorious B.I.G. and Jean-Michel Basquiat. What...

Five years later, the Brooklyn Nets' Bar Network seems to have shrunk. It still ignores Black Brooklyn.

I wrote ( link ) in December 2019 that the Brooklyn Nets had gone all-in on Biggie Smalls and his Bed-Stuy neighborhood--or had they? Yes, there was Bed-Stuy front and center on the team's 2018-19 Nike City Edition uniform. But Bed-Stuy and Black Brooklyn were absent from the Brooklyn Nets Bar Network, presented by Modelo. There were about 25 bars in a screenshot I took in Brooklyn, Queens, and Manhattan, plus a few in Queens and Staten Island that were omitted. No locations in New Jersey, the longtime previous home of the Nets. And today Well, today's Bar Network is paltrier: 13 locations in Brooklyn, plus one in Staten Island. None in Manhattan, Queens, or New Jersey.   As the map above suggests, the bars in Brooklyn form pretty much a direct route north from Bay Ridge to Greenpoint, with stops in Sunset Park, Park Slope, and Williamsburg. There's one outlier, in Coney Island. Maybe they'd blame Modelo, but you'd think that the enlightened marketers behind th...

At hearing on Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan, a few Atlantic Yards echoes: a "public" site, oversight, and a new population needing green space

Yesterday, the City Planning Commission held a hearing on the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP) a long-percolating rezoning of blocks directly east of Vanderbilt Avenue, the eastern border of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, nearly to Nostrand Avenue. (Also included are a few blocks/parcels outside the rezoning area, where public sites can supply affordable housing.) From Department of City Planning presentation The goal is to allow new residential development, with affordable units, in an area currently shackled by outdated manufacturing zoning. Brooklyn Community Boards 8 and 3, as well as Borough President Antonio Reynoso, have issued support for the proposal, with conditions , including a greater commitment to affordable housing and to ensuring space for manufacturing. I'll write separately about the broader issues, but for now would just focus on a few Atlantic Yards-related issues. Though the project, and the development plans it influenced, is in the shadow of AAMUP, it was...

Tsais' Social Justice Fund's "Revitalize Brooklyn" offers $50K to help nine Brooklyn businesses grow. Coffee, donuts, fashion.

Eater on Jan. 29 reported, as part of a longer roundup, New grant fund gives $50,000 a piece to several Brooklyn food businesses A new grant program backed by the co-owner of basketball teams the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Liberty Liberty, along with Brooklyn arena Barclays Center announced the awardees of its funds this week. Revitalize Brooklyn — from co-owner of the Nets, Clara Wu Tsai’s Social Justice Fund — selected nine businesses based in the borough. These include Williamsburg cafe Buddies Coffee, Bed-Stuy bakery Fan Fan Doughnuts, Williamsburg butcher shop Meat Hook, frozen dumpling business Mimi Cheng’s, Greenpoint bakery and coffee roaster Paloma, and packaged overnight oats company Spoonful. Each business will get $50,000. The other recipients, unmentioned, are in the fashion sector, cited below. Note that the Social Justice Fund of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation is referred to as Clara Wu Tsai's project. That takes the focus off her husband, more controversi...

Mayoral candidate Mamdani comes to the Vanderbilt Yard (!) to promote his plan for 200K affordable homes, but doesn't mention Atlantic Yards. Too complicated?

Yesterday, Zohran Mamdani, an Astoria/Long Island City-based New York State Assemblymember ( link ) and a Democratic candidate ( link ) in the 2025 mayoral primary who identifies as a Democratic Socialist, issued a call to "build 200,000 new, permanently affordable union built, rent stabilized homes over the next 10 years, tripling what we're currently set to build."  To do that, he said in the brief video below, "Any 100% affordable project gets fast tracked. No more pointless delays. We're gonna unleash the public sector, but we're still going to need more housing. That means taller buildings near subway stations, upzoning wealthy neighborhoods, and eliminating the requirement to build parking lots." Today I'm announcing a plan to unleash the public sector and build the housing we desperately need. As Mayor, I will triple New York City's production of permanently affordable, union-built, rent-stabilized homes, constructing 200,000 new units ove...

With Related out and no full replacement yet, is "Community Engagement" coming? Won't negotiations, behind closed doors, re-shape the project?

OK, so now that we know ( link ) that Related Companies, expected as of last November to join a joint venture to develop six tower sites above the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's two-block Vanderbilt Yard, is out. We also know that the key player (astoundingly!) in the fate of the project, the U.S. Immigration Fund (USIF), the questionable packager of the EB-5 loan, has recruited a partial replacement, Cirrus Real Estate Partners, but needs to add an actual developer or construction manager with experience in large-scale projects. The question then is when the " Community Engagement ," described last Nov. 14 as pending by Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, would launch regarding those tower sites. The answer, I suspect, is: not yet. After all, that pending plan was predicated on the expectation that the joint venture, with development expertise, would take control over those development sites (...