Roundup: dressing spiffy at the Barclays Center, and the art within

Here are a couple of articles that, along with the Brooklyn Nets' entry into the playoffs (see photo of hew #HelloPlayoffs arena signage at right), have to be considered part of a successful arena rollout.

Dressing fancy

A regular Wall Street Journal feature on clothes at the workplace arrived 3/27/13 with What They’re Wearing at the Brooklyn Nets and Barclays Center:

Whether it’s dressing for a basketball game, an Alicia Keys concert or a business meeting with Jay-Z, looking sharp is a must for the employees of the National Basketball Association’s Brooklyn Nets team and their home arena, Barclays Center. That means a shirt and tie for men, who make up about two-thirds of the roughly 200 employees at the venue and a separate office at 15 MetroTech Center in downtown Brooklyn.
“Our CEO [Brett Yormark] really sets the standard here, so I try to take a cue from him,” says Kari Cohen, associate counsel. “I’ve never seen him in anything except for a suit and tie, and it’s always impeccable.” She tries to emulate that level of style, albeit with a skirt or dress.
“I go into it with the thought that I’m essentially an extension of [Mikhail] Prokhorov, [Bruce] Ratner, Mr. Yormark, and Shawn Carter (Jay-Z),” says Emmanuel Jacobo, who manages suite sales and services, including the arena’s 11 exclusive Vault rooms, which rent for $550,000 a year.

Yormark, of course, sets some other standards.

But the article has to be considered confirmation of the Brooklyn rebrand:

The Nets' move to Brooklyn has meant a style change for her. "I probably wouldn't dress like this in New Jersey," said Ms. [Irina] Pavlova [of Onexim]. "You want to look good here. You want to dress up. It's very exciting. It feels like there's good energy to be here. New Jersey just felt dead."

Arena art

A 3/28/13 article/slideshow in the art/design publication Complex is headlined Interview: David Berliner Gives a Tour of the Art at Barclays Center:

The Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets, is also home to a series of art commissions that will only multiply in the months and years to come. The stadium currently has one-of-a-kind pieces by José Parlá, Mickalene Thomas, and OpenEndedGroup, in addition to a new series of photographs celebrating The Black Fives, a series of African-American basketball teams in Brooklyn before the racial integration of the NBA.
Board member and executive director, David Berliner, gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of the art pieces they have at The Barclays Center so far. Of the decision to have art there, he says,
"The idea of putting art somewhere that isn't a museum is interesting to me, because people don’t know what they are going to get, and they can start to see something in a new way. That’s why I like putting art in this place, because people don’t come here for the art. In the first year alone, this building will have 2.6 million people come through it. It's just the idea of exposing people to this art. It’s amazing when you think about how much power we have."

And they have a little money left over from, say, not providing arena employees with health insurance.