Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Dec. 4 photos by Norman Oder Remember, the revamp of the plaza outside the Barclays Center, which started in June, was supposed to be done by September, and  then , after an update from the arena company, by mid-October.   The portion serving the arena entrance was, indeed, finished just before the Oct. 19 season opener for the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, the building’s anchor tenant. Arena guests, of course, got priority. After all, it's SeatGeek Plaza, named for a sponsor. But the segment behind the subway entrance, where the general public sits on benches near the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, still has not been restored, some six weeks later.  It kind of gives a lie to the "You belong here" art (or is it advertising? ) installation, since, after all, you can't belong on that parcel if you can't get inside the fence or sit down. Some progress When I walked by on Sunday, Dec. 4, the green fencing around that portion of the plaza remained, as shown at

Recently the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center tweeted an excerpt from Courtside Conversations , a podcast with in-arena host Ally Love, sponsored by arena ticketing partner SeekGeek. A snippet of the 34-minute interview, with Queens-raised Brooklyn resident and BMX athlete Nigel Sylvester , praises the arena.  "I've got nothing but love for the basketball scene that's growing here in Brooklyn, and to see how the community is galvanizing around the Nets," he tells Love. After invoking The Block, the fan section, Sylvester says, "It's just awesome to see what the Barclays has done in the Brooklyn community, everything from the games to the concerts to the other events.... So yeah, keep doing the damn thing." However, it's no riogorous assessment to observe that a big venue has lots of events, including home games, and people have fun there, especially since the Barclays Center is a publicly-subsidized and -supported venue. Assessing the arena So after

So, slam dunk, or off the rim and out? 🏀🍦 Brooklyn Nets x Ample Hills 🍦🏀 In celebration of 10 years in Brooklyn, we’ve teamed up with  @amplehills  for two brand new birthday cake ice cream flavors. 🎂  pic.twitter.com/fERn04gNMr — Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets)  November 27, 2022 Super sweet But you can’t beat the price today  https://t.co/Alb5XmOCim   pic.twitter.com/nUoBFSATc0 — Norman Oder (@AYReport)  November 27, 2022 I'm generally a fan of the Brooklyn-born ice cream chain Ample Hills Creamery, and remember when their It Came From Gowanus flavor exploded in 2014. As a business, though, it didn't work. As reported by Courtney Rubin in Medium in 2021, Ample Hills grew too fast, with a way over budget new production facility in Red Hook, and went into bankruptcy, being bought in June 2020 for just $1 million to the Oregon tech manufacturer Schmitt. Teaming up So it was a little off-putting to read, in the 11/28/22 Brooklyn Nets press release, Ample Hills Teams Up With

It's long been obvious that the New York Police Department has little interest in pursuing complaints about vehicles parking or idling illegally during Barclays Center events--response to 911 complaints, or crimefighting, is the priority--so it's useful that Streetsblog has pursued the general issue of response to 311 complaints. Captain of 78th Precinct Defends Arrest of Famed Bike Lawyer For Fixing Defaced Plate , Streetsblog wrote 11/30/22, covering an exchange at the online 78th Precinct Community Council meeting, which is one of the few--if not only--forums for citizens to get answers from precinct brass. (The case was not pursued by the Brooklyn DA.) Screenshot from Streetsblog. Colors = complaint type (blocked  bike lane, double parking, blocked hydrant, etc). These are  near the Barclays Center but not necessarily related to events. That article pointed back to Jesse Coburn's Streetsblog investigation published 10/21/21,  IGNORED, DISMISSED: How the NYPD Neglects 3

The Barclays Center yesterday released its December 2022 calendar of events: eight ticketed events including six Brooklyn Nets games, one basketball tournament (the Basketball Hall of Fame Invitational , with four games), and one concert. (Note that, while there are four games for that tournament, they're not  selling the upper bowl .) Nets games against top teams like the Boston Celtics, Golden State Warriors, and Milwaukee Bucks likely will sell out, or come close, with standing-room tickets. For the Celtics game, the two cheapest tickets I could find on the arena's ticketing partner worked out to $105 each, with fees. For the Warriors, they'd be $185 each; for the Bucks, $112. There are also two unspecified private events, on Dec. 6 and Dec. 14, each lasting a full business day.  No New Year's Eve show Notably, though the arena has a concert, with the rapper  Future , scheduled for Friday, December 30, billed as "The Ball Drops In Brooklyn," it's dark o

Hochul (c) with TV personality Robin Roberts (l) and Clara Wu Tsai (r). Photo : Kevin P. Coughlin/ Governor's Office, 8/2/22 Little more than a month before Gov. Kathy Hochul attended a WNBA New York Liberty game last summer, posed for a photo with Liberty co-owner Clara Wu Tsai, and also honored recipients of the team owners' Social Justice Fund, Clara Wu Tsai gave Hochul's election fund the maximum contribution, $69,700. Tsai, by my calculation, was among the 42 individuals (plus five political action committees) that contributed the maximum. Other contributors included Madison Square Garden owner James Dolan, local developers Steve Roth and Steve Ross, and tech leaders Eric Schmidt and Reid Hoffman. Contributors often have some business--or expect to do some business--before state agencies. It was a part of a massive haul, $46 million in Hochul's first 14 months in office, as Gotham Gazette  reported  10/12/22, noting that future campaigns will be limited--and made m

The School Construction Authority's (SCA)  November 2022 update of its FY2020 – 2024 Capital Plan has been published, and it updates/confirms previous information that I.S. 653, the 806-middle school being built in the base of 662 Pacific Street (B15, aka Plank Road), won't open until September 2025. The school has the address of 491 Dean Street. Representatives of Empire State Development, the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, and master developer Greenland Forest City Partners have, at public meetings, proven uninformed about the school timetable.  I've suggested that elected officials should probe the delays in the school, not just the start of the tower, which was announced and then delayed, but why the school will open nearly four years after Plank Road opened to residents. Now there's another issue. Costs rising Notably, the cost has ballooned to $170.72 million (see below) from the previously estimated $128.91 million (see further below),