Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report

The New Yorker yesterday published William Finnegan's  The Fight Over Penn Station and Madison Square Garden , subtitled "How the effort to renovate midtown Manhattan’s transit hub has been stalled by money, politics, and disputes about the public good." Dean Street, July 31, 2019 It's a fascinating article, on multiple levels, but one passage deserves clarification and explanation, because it unwisely sets up Barclays Center as a state-of-the-art alternative to MSG: Madison Square Garden has been New York’s biggest stage for mass entertainment for nearly a hundred and fifty years, and, for the Dolans, it has been a lucrative property. As bad as the Knicks generally are, the arena is almost always full for games, with even nosebleed seats sometimes going for two hundred a pop. The Garden stages more than three hundred events a year, and many of its patrons arrive through Penn. Step off your train, find a working escalator (or walk up the stairs), and you’re there. Ye...

There are a couple of interesting nuggets in a 10/20/2017 Pollstar Executive Profile: Brett Yormark, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment : Q: You have a unique load-in at Barclays Center (with its load-in elevator). We suppose that there is a sensitivity for that to other buildings. BY: Of all the companies out there right now, there is no one out there right now more focused on the artist experience, and that includes load-in, load-out... Barclays Center has a smaller footprint that has its own challenges. Yes, that one is nontraditional but it's worked flawlessly. When people come through those truck elevators they kind of look at it like we're high tech.  (Emphases added) Oh, sure, it's worked flawlessly. Trucks stall in the street and block traffic, or they block pedestrians, as I described last week, and shown in the photo above Just enough venues? Q: What is the Goldilocks principle for New York? Do you have too few, too many or is it just right? BY...

Update Dec. 19: Public Editor Liz Spayd agrees that this seems to violate the newspaper's ethics rules, and an exception wasn't warranted, writing, "It surely wasn’t the intent, but this instance has a strange ring of pay to play." Online commenters, though, were significantly divided. From the web version of the article So today's New York Times Sports section has one of those massive features, with lots of photos filling nearly two pages. On the web last night it was posted as Chauffeur, Shootaround and Boneless Chicken Wings: Living Large With the Nets , subtitled, "Some people have it all, but still crave luxury, novelty and access without irksome hurdles. At Barclays Center, that’s the Nets’ Brooklyn Experience." In print today it's "Living Large at Barclays," subtitled "Are You a Fan Who Craves Luxury? The Nets Have a Package for You." It's writer-at-large Sarah Lyall's entertaining and not-too-enthralled...

Honking. Traffic snags. A bus delay (forcing cars to the sidewalk to get around). A bicyclist on the sidewalk. A crosswalk compromised. Three 18-wheel trucks making deliveries to the Barclays Center loading dock on Dean Street blocked traffic for some 20 minutes this morning shortly after 7 am, according to a video (below) posted by Wayne Bailey. It's one of many neighborhood incursions from a not-so-smooth (but allegedly "seamless") loading dock operation.

An announcement from Arena Digest headlined  Fan Experience Options Added to Barclays Center  tells us: A partnership between Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BSE) and QuintEvents will result in some new fan experience options at the Barclays Center. The pairing of the two sides is expected to lead to the implementation of customized event offerings. Across all of its platforms, BSE will work with QuintEvents to deliver unique experience packages. In addition to sporting events, BSE will leverage its Brooklyn Direct programming division to bring fans closer to exclusive artists at Barclays Center. Fans can visit BSEexperiences.com to view select BSE Experiences for BROOKLYN BOXING™ events,BROOKLYN HOOPS™college basketball games, Brooklyn Nets games, special events, and concerts, including Barbra Streisand’s return home toBrooklyn onAug. 11 and 13. Experience packages will include a variety of special perks such as walking to the ring with top boxers, such as World M...

Update Nov. 24, six days later: Empire State Development's Nicole Jordan wrote Wayne Bailey, who'd asked for accountability, a reply that conveyed apology without penalty:  "Thanks again for bringing this to our attention. I was informed by Barclays that there was a miscommunication somewhere between the loading dock downstairs and staff at street level managing vehicle intake. Barclays recognizes that this condition is unacceptable and is working internally to eliminate congestion build up on the arena block." Screenshot from video below This is astounding. Earlier today, the intersection of Dean Street and Flatbush Avenue was congested when an 18-wheeler simply stopped in its tracks on Dean, waiting for the Barclays Center loading dock to become free. The video below, shot by resident Wayne Bailey, lasts more than three minutes, but the situation was even longer. And as shown in the video, cars and even a bicycle were waved onto the south sidewalk of De...