Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

Probably the definitive profile of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz was Rebecca Mead's 4/25/05 piece in the New Yorker ( Mr. Brooklyn ), which portrayed, in devastating detail, Markowitz's willingness to play nice with developer Bruce Ratner. But the profile this week in Manhattan Media's City Hall News, headlined Marty! The Brooklyn BP on being overlooked, and what he plans to do about it , does a very good job of sketching the BP's moods, obsessions, and style, and provides useful contrast between Markowitz's approach and those of his counterparts. The author, one Edward-Isaac Dovere, is best known to Atlantic Yards watchers as the Executive Editor of Forest City Ratner's promotional Brooklyn Standard , but his profile is not something that would've appeared in a puffy publication that portrayed Bruce Ratner as having a "humble, winsome" manner. The AY albatross Dovere describes an African-American crowd cheering Markowitz at the open...

What's a generic Atlantic Yards advertisement--featuring some dubious statements used to promote the project even before it was passed--doing in the July 2008 issue of New York Family/Brooklyn , "a glossy, vibrant city magazine that offers active, sophisticated New York parents an inviting mix of feature articles and selected tips about their interests, issues, and concerns"? Well, the magazine comes from none other than Manhattan Media, the enterprise that previously teamed with developer Forest City Ratner on the short-lived but much-criticized Brooklyn Standard "publication." Forest City Ratner initially pledged publication "every few months." Contract unfulfilled? Only two issues of the Brooklyn Standard were published, both in 2005. I speculate that Forest City Ratner contracted with Manhattan Media for more issues than were published, and the advertisements we see represent a fulfillment of the contract. [ Update: NLG points out there's a ...

In this week's New York Press , page 5--a prominent spot--is taken up with a full-page advertisement from developer Forest City Ratner. The ad appears to be a branding exercise rather than an effort to plug any particular project. However, the ad also might be seen as an effort to shape opinion among residents of Lower Manhattan, where the newspaper circulates, and where the developer seems to have delayed promised plans to complete a school in the Frank Gehry-designed Beekman Tower , despite queries from Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Developer ties to newspaper chain The free weekly newspaper, for years a somewhat iconoclastic voice since its founding in 1989, last August was sold to the more conventional Manhattan Media chain. Our Town Downtown, launched by Manhattan Media in 2006, was merged with the New York Press. And Forest City Ratner has ties to Manhattan Media, which produced the ill-fated (two issues) publication The Brooklyn Standard , with fake bylines. A Silver ad...