From Bklyner: Brooklyn’s Accidental New Town Square

I have an essay in Bklyner, Brooklyn’s Accidental New Town Square, subtitled "Protest at Barclays Center’s plaza redefines a privately operated public space." The lead:

When the Barclays Center was designated one of “The New Shapes of New York” by the New York Times in 2016, Justin Garrett Moore, executive director of the city’s Public Design Commission, saluted the “pedestrian-oriented public spaces.”

I scoffed, since the privately-controlled plaza was not just sponsored by Resorts World Casino NYC, its presence was an accident.

Since May 29, though, crowds protesting police brutality and racist killings—triggered by the gruesome killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd—have converged at Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, turning that plaza into Brooklyn’s new Town Square. The Barclays Center, thanks to its location at Brooklyn’s largest transit hub, its proximity to residential neighborhoods, and its mothballed-by-pandemic status, has become the locus of activism in Brooklyn.

For the rest, go here.