Rosie Perez explains Barclays Center turnabout: "then I saw they were hiring people from the neighborhood"

Ah, Rosie Perez. From a funzy New York Post interview, Rosie Perez: ‘I see food and I turn into Oliver Twist!’: "Barclays [Center] is literally in my backyard. I was apprehensive at first, but then I saw they were hiring people from the neighborhood."

She was more than apprehensive, she spoke at a rally opposing the project and in 2006 joined Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's Advisory Board. (She left or was bounced, at some later point.)

Perez didn't just see that the Barclays Center was "hiring people from the neighborhood." She was hired--or at least had some business arrangement--to make taped announcements on the arena public address system. She appeared on an NBA-TV series about the Nets. Now she's on an arena advisory board.

Also, "then I saw they were hiring people from the neighborhood"--pretty much Spike Lee's line, too--is just a bit too pat. After all, it doesn't mean people get sufficient hours to earn benefits and thus support themselves--as union protests have shown.