In Brooklyn Paper, Shake Shack and racist cabby seen as bigger news than court ruling slamming ESDC on Atlantic Yards

There you have it. Among the articles the Brooklyn Paper considers more important than this week's Atlantic Yards court decision are ones concerning the arrival of Shake Shack and the arrest of a racist cabby.

Meanwhile, the Brooklyn Paper is sure to tell us the court decision is unimportant:

The state agency overseeing the Atlantic Yards mega-development purposefully withheld information on the project’s timetable to avoid having to reexamine the project’s negative impacts, a judge ruled on Tuesday in what appears to be a meaningless victory for foes of Bruce Ratner’s project.

As I commented:

It's curious that the Brooklyn Paper can so confidently assume that this is a "meaningless victory." The day after the decision, an executive from Forest City Enterprises, the parent company of developer Forest City Ratner, was somewhat unnerved as he discussed the decision. He didn't call it "meaningless."

Note that the deck beneath the YARDS FOES WIN A CASE headline is even more conclusory than the text: "Judge says state lied, but ruling won't change a thing."

Battle over?

By the way, the article in the companion Courier-Life chain, on p. 16, is paired with a longer feature article on The Civilians' play In the Footprint.

The article begins with an inaccurate claim:

The battle over Atlantic Yards may be over, but it's still brewing on stage.

Yes, the battle to stop the arena from construction is over, and most (but clearly not all) of the legal fight is over. And, yes, activism has diminished. But the controversy is not over.