The Markowitz wish list: Atlantic Yards groundbreaking and bigger Nathan's hot dog

A New York Daily News article today, headlined Borough President Marty Markowitz still has a few tricks up his sleeve, woos big companies, highlights Markowitz's efforts to woo Queens-based airline JetBlue, to lure a big overseas manufacturer like Korean electronics giant LG (he says manufacturing would be cheaper here, because of shipping; where's the cost-benefit analysis?), and to "beg big retailers like Nordstrom's and the Apple Store to open in the borough."

Markowitz said he's "absolutely flabbergasted" that the Apple Store hasn't arrived, and he has a point--surely Brooklyn has the demographics.

And what about AY?

The article continues:

That's not all that's on his wish list: Markowitz is pushing a groundbreaking for the controversial Atlantic Yards project, and last but not least, a bigger Nathan's hot dog.

Well, it wasn't Markowitz who yoked the clearly frivolous--the bigger hot dog--with the highly deceptive--the groundbreaking--but the sentence does sketch the BP's rather curious universe of duties.

Should there be a groundbreaking, assuming a victory for the state in the eminent domain case and the sale of some $700 million in arena bonds--it almost surely would involve only the arena (with perhaps one tower in tow), not the project at large.

And it most likely would occur before footprint residents, owners, and commercial tenants have been removed via eminent domain.