Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

At a ceremony June 29 starting at noon, the northeast corner of Dean Street and Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights/Crown Heights will be co-named for James E. Caldwell, the longtime President of the 77th Precinct Community Council, political activist in Crown Heights and Prospect Heights, and former Executive Director of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development (BUILD). BUILD, a group set up to both provide job training and support for the project, was a key signatory of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). Developer Forest City Ratner funded its CBA partners, violating best practices for such agreements. Caldwell, known to many as "Mr. C.,"  died in May 2021 at age 69, long after BUILD had shuttered . It was also long after a bitter lawsuit , filed by BUILD trainees who charged they were promised a path to union construction careers, was settled by Forest City, which, in testimony released publicly, evaded responsibility but deflected blame to C...

I wasn't planning on writing about the late James Caldwell (RIP) and Atlantic Yards until sometime after his funeral Wednesday, but Stephen Witt's Recollections of James Caldwell (1952-2021) , posted yesterday on PoliticsNY (part of the Schneps Media network ), requires response. The "notorious" Witt has never been known for nuanced reporting on Atlantic Yards--mostly for the Courier-Life chain, since bought by Schneps--and this summary is no different. So much for Witt's 2012 pledge to "be vigilant to be watchful against my own tendencies to have personal axes [to] grind. (His recollections address much more than Atlantic Yards, of course, notably Caldwell's salutary role in blowing the whistle on the city's problematic Third-Party Transfer Program.) Summarizing Atlantic Yards Witt writes: My relationship with Mr. Caldwell became closer in 2003 when Developer Bruce Ratner bought the Brooklyn Nets and announced the massive 22-acre Atlantic Yards pro...

On his passing . 

I’m saddened to learn of the passing of James Caldwell. As President of the @NYPD77Pct Community Council, James worked tirelessly for the Crown Heights, Prospect Heights, and Bedford Stuyvesant communities. May he rest in peace. — Tish James (@TishJames) May 27, 2021 From Stephen Witt yesterday in Politics NY,  James Caldwell, Pillar of Brooklyn’s Black Community, Dies at 69 : Mr. Caldwell, as I called him, was a mentor, source and friend. He trusted me to report on crucially important issues to his community such as the Third Party Transfer stories , which wound up saving millions of dollars of Black generational wealth . He also advised me on many personal and professional issues. I am devastated. But as devastated as I am personally, it pales in comparison to what his loss means to Brooklyn’s Black community. For nobody, bar none looked out for and helped his community more selflessly than Mr. Caldwell. He knew all the politicians and supported a good many of them. But if push...

An 11/12/20 CNBC article, On the job: What it takes to earn $100,000 a year as an ironworker in New York , profiles Brooklyn native Memesha Davis, a structural ironworker, who finds that this union career can earn her a solid income: In 2015, Davis was a hostess at the Barclays Center's 40/40 Club and was also working at her aunt's restaurant. She says her hours were limited and inconsistent, and without benefits, she relied on Medicaid and food stamps to support her family. "The year that I was working at the Barclays Center and with my aunt, I made maybe $13,000 for the year," she says. "At the time, my son was 6, my daughter was 7. Raising kids on that budget was painful because there will be times where they just want something that costs a dollar, but a dollar was like a stretch." That's a reminder that, however appreciated arena jobs might be, most are part-time--later in the article Davis said $15/hour, 8 hours/week--and must be coupled with other...

In a race that pushed incumbent Gov. Andrew Cuomo to his left and highlighted challenger Cynthia Nixon's criticism of Cuomo's stewardship of the subway system, Cuomo, riding a huge war chest, soundly defeated Nixon in yesterday's Democratic primary election, likely a path to victory in the November general election. In other words, "Status Cuo-Mo," as the Daily News cover "wood" put it. And that would be the status quo for New York State's stewardship of Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, via the state-controlled Empire State Development, which likely will remain deferential to the developer's desires. Not that ESD oversight became a campaign issue. Not status quo was the defeat of most Democratic Senators who were in the breakaway Independent Democratic Conference, including Brooklyn's Jesse Hamilton, who represents a broad district that includes part of Prospect Heights. The AG race From the New York Times In a surprise to some, e...

I've written about this before , but the more I think about it, this testimony at the 9/18/06 community forum , part of the public input on the Atlantic Yards Draft Environmental Impact Statement, speaks both to the project's troubled history as well as the hope people invest in, well, real-estate executives known for extravagant promises. “I’m a member of BUILD [Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development],” declared Anthony Wright, a working class black guy, heavy-set, with a grey-flecked goatee and white knit cap with “Allah” on it. “I’m also a member of the streets.” Wright, clean of drugs and alcohol for 16 years, spoke as if at a revival. Work--thanks to BUILD, one of the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement signatories--could make a huge difference. "Because, see, when you go to one of them minimum-wage jobs and you come home with two hundred and thirty five dollars and the rent is, you know, nine hundred dollars, it just don't add up," W...

Unofficial mockup of planned building at Site 5 I've previously written skeptically about two of the three justifications for shifting the bulk of the tower planned over the arena plaza and creating what I've dubbed the " Brooklyn Behemoth," a giant tower of 1.55 million square feet at Site 5, now occupied by Modell's and P.C. Richard. The notion of "activating" the Atlantic Avenue corridor is pretty thin , and the idea of keeping the arena plaza as permanent open space positions it as a public amenity, rather than a branded business deal . But what about the the third notion, "delivering jobs," to quote Forest City Ratner spokeswoman Ashley Cotton, representing the developer, Greenland Forest City Partners? Building an office tower delivers space for jobs, and the jobs come if there's a market for it. And the market depends on, among other things, the cost of construction. And building the tower at the site originally approved, n...

I wrote 2/24/16 how Michael West of Devotion NYC, the fledgling organization pushing for community accountability, met with Forest City External Affairs executive Ashley Cotton, reporting that she "confidently communicated a number of stats regarding employment, construction contracting, post-construction contracting, business development and more." West said the "figures sounded overwhelmingly positive upon first listen. She agreed to send us [a written record]! This is a huge for the community." I responded skeptically that Forest City had not even hire the Independent Compliance Monitor required by the Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement. Well, Devotion NYC followed up, reporting  2/29/16: We gave Ashley additional time. We asked her for a full report on F.C.R.C.’s C.B.A. work in the area of economic development. She agreed to deliver the statistics in writing. Ms. Cotton was given a week to produce this report, but she’s failed to produce anythi...

The Daily News offers an update , which puts a new gloss on Devotion NYC's campaign, since it has an element of self-interest not disclosed to me: West said he is meeting with Forest City Ratner executive Ashley Cotton next week to discuss a proposal to have an affiliated organization, HigherSelf Lifestyle, take over job training, business development and other programs promised in the CBA. West recently sent a proposal to Forest City Ratner, which he shared with the Daily News, to have HigherSelf Lifestyle administer the economic development programs promised by the CBA for $149,000. ---- It's a belated cry for fair play from a one-time cheerleader for Atlantic Yards. Yesterday, a key participant in the early days of BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), the now-defunct Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) signatory, launched a campaign arguing that the project developer left Central Brooklyn behind and must fulfill promises regarding jo...

Daily News exclusive , 11/15/11 The lawsuit over a coveted training program expected to deliver union construction jobs related to Atlantic Yards began four years ago with public drama . "I was robbed," claimed a plaintiff. (The story made the Daily News , the Times , NY1 , the Brooklyn Paper , and others.) It proceeded with some high-stakes legal arguments and provocative press releases, as plaintiffs' lawyers called the program a "sham" and legal filings illuminated flaws in the highly promoted Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement (CBA). But the suit against Forest City Ratner and ally Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development  (BUILD), a key CBA signatory and vigorous Atlantic Yards cheerleader, ended last month in murk, enforced almost completely by the ironclad laws of confidentiality so often required by legal settlements involving Forest City. Murky numbers We don't know how much the 19 trainees got for their dashed hopes ...

Former Courier-Life and Our Time Press reporter Stephen Witt, who now writes the Kings County Politics blog, on 7/7/15 wrote  Hot Dog Vendor Alleges De Blasio Using City Services To Even Score : A well-connected hot dog-cart vendor received about $,5,000 in health inspection tickets, today, after calling a special ‘Little Peoples” Town Hall to confront the de Blasio Administration for not involving local clergy and community leaders about issues in the community. ...James Caldwell, president of the 77th Police Precinct Community Council in Crown Heights for the past 17 years, alleged the tickets were in retribution for the meeting. ...Caldwell, 64, and an army veteran, is the former president of the now defunct Brooklyn United for Innovative Development (BUILD), which was formed as a local support group in favor of and financially supported by Forest City Ratner, the developer of the Atlantic Yards project including the Barclays Center. Recently, FCR let Caldwell set up a hot ...