Well, the New Yorker is known for its fact-checking, so I assume they've confirmed something that had not, as far as I know, been previously announced: Bruce Ratner has married for the third time, to his companion Linda Johnson, president and CEO of the Brooklyn Public Library.
(As reported in early 2019, they bought a condo together in Brooklyn Bridge Park.)
From A Less Dingy, Less Raccoon-Infested Brooklyn Public Library, published in the June 7 issue and online 5/31/21, concerning a revamp of the Central Branch:
Ratner, apparently, didn't pay full attention. From the penultimate paragraph:
From A Less Dingy, Less Raccoon-Infested Brooklyn Public Library, published in the June 7 issue and online 5/31/21, concerning a revamp of the Central Branch:
The ceremony began. “Every time I stand up here, I start by saying how excited and delighted I am, and I mean it every single time,” Johnson said, from a lectern. “But I have never felt it or meant it more deeply.” Johnson’s husband, the real-estate developer Bruce Ratner, fumbled to applaud, juggling a coffee cup in his left hand. Johnson, reading from a wind-rustled page, rhapsodized about a “poured-terrazzo floor that makes you completely forget the linoleum that preceded it.” She ad-libbed: “Maybe it’ll make you forget it. I will never forget it.”An interesting juxtaposition:
[Architect Toshiko] Mori spoke, followed by a philanthropist, some local politicians, and three sons of the late Major Owens, a long-serving congressman from New York, who got his start as a Brooklyn librarian. Chris Owens, the eldest son, struggled to lead a chant of “This is what a library looks like!” and read from his father’s poetry...Chris Owens, it should be noted, was active in the resistance to Atlantic Yards, Bruce Ratner's signature project.
Ratner, apparently, didn't pay full attention. From the penultimate paragraph:
The fourth phase, if it ever gets funded, will involve a roof garden and a terrace that will connect the library to Mount Prospect Park and to the Brooklyn Museum, the Botanic Garden, and the park beyond. “That way, Eastern Parkway becomes a kind of Fifth Avenue,” Mori said. This put her in a futuristic frame of mind, and she began talking about librarians as “navigators of knowledge,” and the “limited associative capacity” of artificial intelligence. Ratner, behind her, tapped out a text on his iPhone.
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