Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

The kudos, well deserved, have poured in for Richard Ravitch, who died two weeks ago.  Richard Ravitch, Rescuer of the Subways and New York’s Finances, Dies at 89 , the New York Times reported 6/26/23, noting: Mr. Ravitch never won elective office. But he left an outsize mark on government at every level as one of the backstage wise men recruited to stave off the financial collapse of New York’s Urban Development Corporation [now Empire State Development] in 1975 and, a few months later, of New York City’s own overdrawn municipal accounts. By rallying public support for inventive means of raising revenue, he was also instrumental in rejuvenating the city’s mass transit system in the 1980s as the chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. He later served as New York’s lieutenant governor, enlisted by David A. Paterson in 2009 to lend gravitas to his teetering administration. Write Sam Roberts, "Mr. Ravitch was shrewd, guileless and so unambiguously blunt that he was som...

Underdog Democratic mayoral nominee Bill Thompson's an Atlantic Yards supporter. Indeed, he signed a boilerplate letter (left) in July 2005 to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in support of the project. Should Thompson somehow challenge Mayor Mike Bloomberg on his support for the project, the challenger might gain some headway--only if he looked back in history and framed the issue appropriately. (Right now the only AY critic in the race is Green Party candidate Rev. Billy Talen .) After all, there was originally widespread civic dismay at the plan, just as there was for the West Side Stadium, and the support Atlantic Yards has garnered depends in part on overoptimistic assumptions about its benefits. And Atlantic Yards is radioactive enough for Bloomberg to ignore it on his campaign web site . Nor, despite claims about the project's benefits, was AY mentioned in Bloomberg's PlaNYC 2030 sustainability plan , likely because the report lays out a plan to develop rail...

Naively or cunningly, architect Frank Gehry 4/10/06 famously described Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner as "politically my kind of guy, he's a do-gooder, liberal." Well, in his personal politics, Ratner may lean left, but when it comes to business, the developer is an equal-opportunity rent-seeker . Hence Forest City Ratner's willingness, in the pursuit of federal stimulus funds, to enlist lobbyist and former Republican Senator D'Amato , who gained election as a conservative and maintained three terms as "Senator Pothole," emphasizing constituent service and pork. Now D'Amato's an influence-peddler to the highest bidder, who previously was hired by the developer to make sure federal eminent domain laws didn't get tougher. Bloomberg on D'Amato Not so long ago, in 2004, D'Amato was hired by Cablevision, owner of Madison Square Garden, to lobby against the construction of a sports facility, the West Side Stadium, seen as a rival...

Remember the battle over the West Side Stadium, that 15-month donnybrook, from March 2004 through June 2005, that dominated the city’s discourse over sports facilities, leaving scant attention for the Atlantic Yards and baseball stadium controversies? The documentary A Stadium Story , screened in 2006 but not yet in wide release, offers some eerie echoes, curious contrasts, and cautionary lessons for Atlantic Yards watchers. (The film is well worth watching; for now, it’s available for $25 from the official web site , but it should be distributed soon, according to the filmmakers.) Summary of the battle The stadium , to be built on Metropolitan Transportation Authority railyards west of Penn Station--the Hudson Yards site--was to serve not only as the home of the New York Jets, to be relocated from the Meadowlands (accessible pretty much only by car), but would be the centerpiece of the city’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics and also, with a retractable roof, be home to trade shows...