Remember that Site 5 tower in the 2007 ad? Now, imagine it much larger.

Mock-up of the bulk of the tower at Site 5

Remember the 1/19/07 ad below in the New York Times? It was the first time the paper showed Atlantic Yards in street perspective.

Instead of looking at the unbuilt Miss Brooklyn tower, looming over the arena, consider, in the foreground, the planned tower at Site 5, currently home to P.C. Richard and Modell's.

In the ad, that building looms too--check the contrast with the Times Plaza control house at center, or the MTA bus--but the brick section is only 16 stories tall. The whole building is supposed to max at 250 feet/439,050 square feet, though there look to be at least 12 additional floors in the rendering.

Now, the proposed but under-wraps tower I've dubbed the "Brooklyn Behemoth"--see above right for mock-up--would add the bulk of Miss Brooklyn, more than 1.1 million square feet, to the Site 5 building, producing the largest tower in Brooklyn and one of the largest in the city, comparable in bulk to the 1,046-foot Times Tower in Manhattan.

So the already large building could be quadrupled (in bulk if not height) on a site which, on the south side, borders row houses. ("You don't want a 25-story building next to a single-family home," real estate lobbyist Steven Spinola of REBNY has said.) This preposterous building must be a gambit.