Bloomberg says "it would be sad if Atlantic Yards gets built without the Gehry design" but seems resigned to it
The story in the New York Observer yesterday concerned Mayor Mike Bloomberg's comments about Larry Silverstein, developer at the World Trade Center site, but Bloomberg also offered some offhand and ill-informed support for Atlantic Yards, as well as resignation that it might be built on the cheap, without a Frank Gehry design. (Video from Azi Paybarah at PolitickerNY)
"It's also true that it's a good example to us when you--in this case, it wasn't like Atlantic Yards-- but when you litigate again and again, what happens is that the economy changes and the assumptions that were made in the past which are typically made at the top of the market, because that's when people want to build things, have to get changed, downscaled, and it would be sad if Atlantic Yards gets built without the Gehry design, which would've been phenomenal for this city, although I gather at this point it looks like that the only ways Ratner's going to get that done is to do it at a lower cost and not to do everything at the same time."
The myopic mayor
What's Bloomberg leaving out? Oh, that maybe government shouldn't endorse the assumptions that are made at the top of the market, but maybe should proceed with more caution.
Bloomberg doesn't sound like he's informed beyond reading the newspaper, but he should know that his own administration, via the City Funding Agreement, allowed the developer to build far less than promised and at a slower pace--all before the economic downturn.
Is Gehry still on the job?
Yesterday, Forest City Enterprises announced it will release its fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 financial results on Monday, March 30, and will hold a conference call with investors on Tuesday, March 31.
Perhaps one of the investment analysts will ask whether Gehry's design for Atlantic Yards is in play.
"It's also true that it's a good example to us when you--in this case, it wasn't like Atlantic Yards-- but when you litigate again and again, what happens is that the economy changes and the assumptions that were made in the past which are typically made at the top of the market, because that's when people want to build things, have to get changed, downscaled, and it would be sad if Atlantic Yards gets built without the Gehry design, which would've been phenomenal for this city, although I gather at this point it looks like that the only ways Ratner's going to get that done is to do it at a lower cost and not to do everything at the same time."
The myopic mayor
What's Bloomberg leaving out? Oh, that maybe government shouldn't endorse the assumptions that are made at the top of the market, but maybe should proceed with more caution.
Bloomberg doesn't sound like he's informed beyond reading the newspaper, but he should know that his own administration, via the City Funding Agreement, allowed the developer to build far less than promised and at a slower pace--all before the economic downturn.
Is Gehry still on the job?
Yesterday, Forest City Enterprises announced it will release its fourth-quarter and full-year 2008 financial results on Monday, March 30, and will hold a conference call with investors on Tuesday, March 31.
Perhaps one of the investment analysts will ask whether Gehry's design for Atlantic Yards is in play.
This is the genius who orchestrated the overturning of term limits because only he has the financial acumen to steer us through the economic crisis? Where were the warnings about the faulty assumptions driving the building bubble that was largely his doing?
ReplyDeleteBloomberg is one of those guys whose money and power make him think he's a lot smarter than he really is.
Is Mayor Bloomberg not almost as phenomenally sad to concede "it looks like that the only ways [sic Lingua Bloomberg: all 'way' words, for him get rearended with an 'S'] Ratner" is going to give NYC a Gehry (despite Liberty Bonds) is to give NYC a HALF-GEHRY? (In Lower Manhattan.)
ReplyDeleteIn August 2003 Deputy Mayor Dollar Dan Doctoroff assured New York's citizenry, via the press, that taxpayers had nothing to fear as far as subsidizing Ratner: Ratlantic Yards would be almost all privately funded.Mayor's promise. -- Patti Hagan