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

Brooklyn site of new French sitcom, whose producer cites arena as sign of borough change

From the New York Times, Imported From France, a New Sitcom Set in Brooklyn:
“Brooklyn is the face of New York now,” said Gaetan Rousseau, a producer of the sitcom, “Brooklyn Taxi,” about a police detective who has become a laughingstock at her Brooklyn precinct because she is a rotten driver. She depends on a cabby — and his souped-up taxi — to go where the criminals are.
Mr. Rousseau and the show’s French producers say that Brooklyn has become a selling point in Europe for a show with a $35 million budget and 12 episodes now being shot. Audiences in places where “Brooklyn Taxi” will be broadcast have heard all about Brooklyn’s renaissance over the last 10 to 15 years, including the Nets basketball team and the Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, the team’s majority owner; the rap artist Jay-Z; the Atlantic Yards development; and hipsters.
“Brooklyn is more than Manhattan,” said Mr. Rousseau, who has lived in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, for eight years. “I live, like, four blocks from the Barclays Center. I see the change. It could have been ‘New York Taxi,’ but if you live in Brooklyn, you know there are no yellow cabs, so ‘Brooklyn Taxi,’ it’s funny.”
Interesting that his perspective is based on eight years in Brooklyn, since change started long before then and--at least at the Atlantic Yards site--was frozen by then.

Based on personal anecdotal evidence, Europeans visiting New York have heard of the Barclays Center, thanks to Jay-Z's star power.

And they have no idea about the arena's tainted history, from the promises of community and youth access to the dishonesty in the legal process. Could that have anything to do with the Times's record of ignoring or downplaying that news?

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