Atlantic Yards in some end-of-year reflections: the Brooklyn Paper's slender round-up; awards from Curbed and Streetsblog

A couple of Atlantic Yards mentions in end-of-the-year round-ups.

From the Brooklyn Paper's 2010: What a crazy year that was:

March:

...Yards groundbreaking: Developer Bruce Ratner, Gov. Paterson and future Gov. Jay-Z break ground at Atlantic Yards while about 100 counterprotesters mostly break Borough President Markowitz’s chops. By year’s end, the first set of steel pillars were up and Ratner was already making production deals.

April:

...Freddy’s closes: Beloved dive bar Freddy’s is shut to make room for Bruce Ratner’s basketball arena, but not before after an epic final party that left us wondering how the hell we ended up in the Greenpoint Hotel handcuffed to Norman Oder and New Jersey Net forward Brook Lopez.

August:

...Name game: The New Jersey Nets’ new owner, Mikhail Prokhorov, told us that the team would change its name by the time it moves to Brooklyn. We’re still trying to find out the big secret, but we kind of like the Brooklyn Knights (get it?) or The Brooklyn Papers.

For the record, I left the Freddy's event early and never made it inside. And the last last night was actually May 1.

The Brooklyn Paper's "crack staff" managed to include an item about "our intrepid Editor Gersh Kuntzman, who added a caffeine suppository to his Day of Atonement," but left out a bunch of Atlantic Yards news, prompting my comment:

Just for the record, a lot more happened regarding Atlantic Yards than is included in this round-up, including an important court ruling slamming the Empire State Development Corporation and Forest City Ratner's astonishing effort to raise money in China from immigrant investors seeking green cards.

My roundup is here.

From Curbed

The number one in the Lost Neighborhood Landmarks of the Year, to Curbed, is:

1) Daniel Goldstein's Apartment: All it took was a few years, a few lawsuits and a few million bucks to finally topple the home base for anti-Atlantic Yards agitprop. Finally, some Russki revenge for Rocky IV.

Curbed's snarky tone suggests that all Goldstein and those supporting Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn did was issue agitprop, rather than fight, as stated in a sign hanging from Goldstein's window during the groundbreaking, what might be a "corrupt land grab" and "taxpayer ripoff."

(Photograph Copyright 2010 Jonathan Barkey)

Curbed does offer an entertaining link to anchor Brian Williams declaring that 2010 was the year in which the New York Times discovered hipster, artisanal Brooklyn.

From Streetsblog

Streetsblog offered this Streetsie award:

Most Delusional Renderings: Forest City Ratner released drawings of shiny, happy people milling about the temporary plaza that will be situated between its new arena and the twin traffic sewers of Atlantic and Flatbush. Not pictured: The oceans of surface parking on the other side of the arena.

A kid with a balloon strikes up a conversation with a kid on a bike, in one of many chance encounters that will never actually happen on Forest City Ratner's arena plaza.

For the record, the surface parking will not be on the arena block--that would be interim open space, as suggested in the demure rendering below--but on the southeast block, Block 1129. Still, you can't have the arena without the parking, at least under the plan the state approved. After all, high rollers won't use public transit, will they?

Streetsblog also offered this hint of the road not taken with Atlantic Yards and many other developments:

Best Developer: Martin Dunn got an exemption from the city’s parking requirements so he could build the 458-unit Navy Green project without a single parking space.