In Daily News, Bruce Ratner packs multiple lies into one sentence: "For 100 years, this was a train depot in the middle of downtown Brooklyn."

Bruce Ratner tells the New York Daily News, "For 100 years, this was a train depot in the middle of downtown Brooklyn. Now it’s the greatest arena I’ve ever seen.”

No, it wasn't.

About half the arena site was a railyard used to store and service trains. The rest consisted of buildings where people lived and worked, as well as a public street.

Nor was that a depot, in the common definition: a "building for railroad or bus passengers or freight."

Nor was it "in the middle of downtown Brooklyn" but rather in Prospect Heights. And even if you consider the arena site an extension of Downtown Brooklyn--as Forest City surely will argue--it's by no stretch of the imagination in the middle.

"Extreme joy"

The cheerleading piece is by real estate correspondent Jason Sheftell, known for real estate hype. At least the author doesn't call it Downtown Brooklyn:

Even in midconstruction, there are moments touring the Barclays Center in Prospect Heights when you can’t help but feel extreme joy
...It’s not just that pro sports are back in the borough for the first time since 1957; it’s the arena’s shape, design, intent, location, housing, public space and stubborn persistence it took to get this here.

Note that Ratner continues to call the arena "the first truly 21st-century building in New York City," which surely he'd have said about the Frank Gehry-designed Beekman Tower.