Skip to main content

Featured Post

Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park infographics: what's built/what's coming/what's missing, who's responsible, + project FAQ/timeline (pinned post)

Fair warning from 2010: the Atlantic Yards story is not ovah (and now look at the news); What about the EB-5 angle?

The Atlantic Yards story is still going strong, isn't it? As Michael D. D. White writes in his Noticing New York blog:
The Times is having a harder and harder time not covering Atlantic Yards. That’s partly because Atlantic Yards is a bigger story than the paper has heretofore rightfully acknowledged.
Last year, when press and public attention diminished, it shouldn't have. I wrote 8/24/10, about the lack of press attention to the appointment of Arana Hankin as the Empire State Development Corporation's Atlantic Yards project manager:
Perhaps, they think, the Atlantic Yards story is ovah. Except it's not.
I wrote 11/30/10 about the failure to follow up on the last Atlantic Yards court case and the Community Benefits Agreement:
Journalists and others who think the Atlantic Yards story is ovah simply have closed their minds.
And I wrote 12/7/10 about the New York TImes's curious failure to cover Atlantic Yards news:
Instead, in the last month, we've seen two feature articles and a review regarding The Civilians, as if Atlantic Yards is ovah, history, an arts story. Nah.
Now, given the news about modular construction and charges against state Senator Carl Kruger and lobbyist Richard Lipsky, it should be clear that Atlantic Yards will remain a subject of interest--and require scrutiny--for a good while.

What about the EB-5 angle?

The biggest uncovered story? Forest City Ratner's recruitment of 498 green card-seeking immigrant investors under the federal government's EB-5 program.

I called it Anatomy of a Shady Deal and last week pointed out questions left unanswered in the Times's cursory mention.

Today, the Times offers a headline asserting "Shady Dealings," but it has nothing to do with Atlantic Yards, but rather deals with someone already safely classified as a pariah: Shady Dealings Helped Qaddafi Build Fortune and Regime.

Comments

  1. There is also the challenge by BrooklynSpeaks sponsors and DDDB to reverse the ESDC's 2009 approval of the Atlantic Yards project plan that extended construction of the project from ten to twenty-five years. The community groups won the first round and the case continues.

    The court is also currently contemplating a request for a stay of construction of the whole or part of the site.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment