By Gersh Kuntzman
Atlantic Yards: Opponents of Bruce Ratner’s arena-residential-commercial mega-development
at the Atlantic Yards were crying “foul” this week after the
master builder moved forward with preliminary demolition work on six buildings
within the project’s footprint.
Comment.
By Gersh Kuntzman
Atlantic Yards: He doesn’t build amusement parks, but 2005 was a roller-coaster ride
for Bruce Ratner.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: It has begun: Bruce Ratner has started clearing the site of his proposed
Atlantic Yards arena, residential and office mega-project.
Comment.
By Emily Keller
Atlantic Yards: At first glance, the carolers — with their red-and-green felt hats,
their sheet music and their accordion accompaniment — appeared to
be just another group of holiday mirth-makers on Park Slope’s Fifth
Avenue this week.
Comment.
By Gersh Kuntzman
Atlantic Yards: If 19,000 cheering Nets fans come pouring out of an arena at the corner
of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues someday, the MTA is not going to add
service to help get them home.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: The company that wants to build an arena for the struggling New Jersey
Nets had a bad third quarter of its own.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: Red Hook’s gritty industrial waterfront will become a maritime-themed
tourist attraction, under a new plan for the neighborhood’s piers
unveiled by city officials this week.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: Even world-renowned architect Frank Gehry thinks his design for the Atlantic
Yards project — a scheme so massive that even its supporters grumbled
after it was unveiled in July — was “horrible.”
Comment.
By Vince DiMiceli
Atlantic Yards: Can two National Basketball Association teams share the same city without
driving each other crazy — or hurting Knicks ticket sales?
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: Bruce Ratner has reportedly sent his world-renowned architect Frank Gehry
back to the drawing board to revise the developer’s 24-acre arena-and-skyscraper
project at the Atlantic Yards.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: How big is Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards development?
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: Speaking before fellow state legislators at a hearing on eminent domain
last Friday, assemblyman Roger Green challenged the legality of exercising
eminent domain in his Prospect Heights district, where up to 11 acres
could be condemned to accomodate Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards
project.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: City inspectors have found dangerous levels of mercury vapor in the Williamsburgh
Savings Bank tower, the landmark building at 1 Hanson Place which is being
converted into luxury condominium apartments by Earvin “Magic”
Johnson’s development company.
Comments (1).
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: A dispute over the number of affordable housing units planned for Forest
City Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards mega-development surfaced several
times in a short speech given Oct. 28 by Fernando Ferrer, Mayor Bloomberg’s
Democratic opponent in next Tuesday’s election.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: A private meeting between Forest City Ratner executives and the executive
committee of Community Board 2 has left some who were excluded up in arms.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: Forest City Ratner is considering the acquision of the former St. Mary’s
Hospital in Crown Heights, leading some to speculate that the 3-acre site
could be used for the affordable housing component of the proposed Atlantic
Yards mega-project.
Comment.
By Ariella Cohen
Atlantic Yards: They’ll be working on the railroad.
Comment.
Atlantic Yards: The boos of dissenters and jeers of supporters resounded throughout a
packed Downtown Brooklyn auditorium Tuesday night as the state agency
leading developer Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards project
heard testimony in the first of two public hearings on the plan.
Comment.
Atlantic Yards: A top Forest City Ratner official for the first time this week acknowledged
that the development company has been paying large sums of money to organizations
offering what they’ve presented as grassroots neighborhood support
for the proposed Atlantic Yards development.
Comment.
Atlantic Yards: Praising The Brooklyn Papers “on a courageous piece of work”
in its “Not Just Nets”
coverage of developer Bruce Ratner’s “Atlantic Yards” plan,
the National Newspaper Association this week awarded the newspaper its
top prize for Best Investigative or In-depth Story or Series.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Plans for a glorious, 52,000-square-foot publicly accessible recreational
space on the roof of Bruce Ratner’s proposed Frank Gehry-designed
basketball arena will not be open to the public, according to a document
released last week by the state authority acting as lead agent for the
project.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: If you fund BUILD, they will come … and support your project.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Borough President Marty Markowitz has urged that developer Bruce Ratner
downsize his Atlantic Yards mega-development, a project vigorously supported
by Markowitz since 2003.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The cash-strapped Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday accepted
developer Bruce Ratner’s $100 million bid for the development rights
over 8.5 acres of train yards at the cusp of Downtown Brooklyn.
Comment.
By Ajla Grozdanic
Atlantic Yards: With condominium apartments to spare, developer Bruce Ratner — who
has bought out most of the loft owners within the footprint of his Atlantic
Yards mega-development in Prospect Heights — may be seeking to use
the empty dwellings to temporarily provide shelter for victims of Hurricane
Katrina.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Forest City Ratner this week doubled its bid for development rights over
the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Atlantic Avenue rail
yards, but is still offering less than half of what the property is estimated
to be worth, according to a published report.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Charging that the New York Times has shied away from critical coverage
of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards housing, office skyscraper and basketball
arena plan because of its own land deal with the developer, about two
dozen Brooklynites gathered outside the newspaper’s Manhattan headquarters
last Thursday to draw attention to the issue.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A long-awaited analysis by the city’s Independent Budget Office,
released this week, finds that the Atlantic Yards arena project would
bring $28.5 million in revenue to the city over 30 years.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: If it’s in Brooklyn, build away. Just don’t build it anywhere
near Mayor Mike’s backyard.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Talk about an odd couple.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A bill was introduced in the City Council this week that would bar the
city from using eminent domain solely for economic development purposes
and prohibit city funds from being used for such projects.
Comment.
By
Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Not that the regulars of Freddy’s Bar and Backroom in Prospect Heights
needed an excuse to stop by the watering hole on Aug. 23, but a call for
action, in the form of a mass e-mail, packed the bar more than usual for
an early Tuesday evening.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The same day they signed a widely publicized agreement setting aside land
for developer Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards project, top
officials of the Pataki and Bloomberg administrations signed a separate
pact with the developer, granting him the right to build up adjacent urban
renewal sites without city review.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The Bloomberg administration illegally diverted more than $22 million
in city funds, using the money as a slush fund to further the agenda of
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, city Comptroller William Thompson charged this
week.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: An attempt by real estate mogul Bruce Ratner to curry favor among local
artists for his plan to build a basketball arena, skyscrapers and apartment
high-rises in Prospect Heights backfired this week when an arts group
not only turned down the offer of free publicity in his bimonthly Brooklyn
Standard but then went on the Internet to slam both the Atlantic Yards
developer and his publication.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A developer has quietly bought up property next to a Brooklyn Academy
of Music theater, planning what neighbors believe will be a high-rise
hotel and condo.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: As it once was, so it shall be again, the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority board decided this week, when it cast aside the high bidder
— who offered $150 million to develop the Long Island Rail Road storage
yards at Atlantic Avenue — and instead voted to continue their exclusive
negotiations with preferred developer Forest City Ratner.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: City Councilwoman Letitia James refused an invitation to appear on a special
cablecast of news station New York 1’s “Road to City Hall”
last week — live from St. Francis College and focused on Brooklyn
issues — because of what she said was an unbalanced presentation
by the show’s producers on the Atlantic Yards project.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The future
of New York City’s economy depends on Brooklyn, Deputy Mayor Daniel
Doctoroff said this week.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: At first glance, the May 24 issuance of a request for proposals by the
Metropolitan Transportation Authority for the development rights over
the state agency’s Vanderbilt Yards train tracks seemed a mere formality.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling last month affirming the
right of governments to take private property in the name of economic
development, bills are gaining momentum in both the House of Representatives
and U.S. Senate that would bar federal tax dollars from being used for
projects that employ eminent domain.
Comment.
By Brian Ketcham,
P.E.
Atlantic Yards: New York City will be changing dramatically over the next two decades
as developers take advantage of the up-zoning that is being completed
by the Bloomberg administration. Vast spaces throughout the city have
already been rezoned for increased development. The most visible being
the Hudson Yards in west Midtown Manhattan.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: More than 100 supporters of developer Bruce Ratner’s plan to build
an arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team and 17 residential and
commercial high-rises in Prospect Heights showed up Monday at Fulton Ferry
Landing to celebrate the completion of a community benefits agreement,
or CBA, between the developer and community groups that have supported
his project.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: It’s not that Frank Yost went out of his way to get involved in the
fracas surrounding developer Bruce Ratner’s plans to build a basketball
arena and skyscrapers in Prospect Heights.
Comment.
By Ed Weintrob, Paper founder
Weintrob: Whether Bruce Ratner gets to build his Atlantic Yards
mega-project rests not on any eminent domain decision (he already owns
much of the private property on the site) but on government’s willingness
to put our treasuries at the developer’s disposal.
Comment.
By
Neil Sloane and Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that local governments may seize
people’s homes and businesses — even against their will —
for private economic development.
Comment.
By
Jess Wisloski and Neil Sloane
Atlantic Yards: Letitia James is no fan of Gifford Miller.
Comment.
By
Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A civic group in Park Slope that began by successfully pressuring Commerce
Bank into modifying the look of a new branch to fit in with the neighborhood,
is now taking aim at developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards basketball
arena and skyscraper project.
Comment.
By
Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: An agreement regarding hiring, job training, community facilities and
housing, negotiated between developer Bruce Ratner and select community
groups that support his Atlantic Yards development, will be announced
Monday, The Brooklyn Papers has learned.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: If he wants to build a new home for his New Jersey Nets basketball team
atop rail yards at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, developer Bruce Ratner
will have to pay for more than air space over the Long Island Rail Road
tracks — he’s also going to have to help pay to move those tracks.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: It’s a hard battle, fighting the man. Especially if that man has
veto power, and many of your opinions are diametrically opposed to his.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Nearly 500 protesters crossed the Brooklyn Bridge Tuesday evening in a
show of solidarity against Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards
development and other contentious projects.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Borough President Marty Markowitz attempted this week to allay the fears
of tenants who may be displaced by the proposed Atlantic Yards project.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: If you ban them, he will come.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The only public hearing before a committee of the City Council on the
Atlantic Yards project was held in a room so small that dozens of people
— including, for a time, Borough President Marty Markowitz —
were barred by police from entering.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Atlantic Yards is stretching out — and into Park Slope.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A deal binding a community organization to developer Bruce Ratner’s
contentious Atlantic Yards project, anticipated since last fall, has finally
arrived.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: He conquered the NBA, he’s a giant in the retail franchising field
and now Earvin “Magic” Johnson towers above Brooklyn with his
latest purchase — the Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Borough President Marty Markowitz’s decision to hold a little-publicized
meeting this week addressing overdevelopment in southern Brooklyn —
which he called “suburban Brooklyn” in a recent newsletter —
incensed residents in Brownstone Brooklyn, who say they are facing projects
of a greater scale.
Comment.
By Jotham Sederstrom
Atlantic Yards: At first glance, the media-savvy activists of Prospect Heights and the
working-class families of Bensonhurst seem the dictionary definition of
“odd couple.”
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Democratic mayoral candidate Fernando Ferrer broke rank with his rivals
this week by addressing for the first time in the campaign plans by developer
Bruce Ratner to build a basketball arena and high-rises emanating from
Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Prospect Heights Councilwoman Letitia James wants Speaker Gifford Miller
to stop paying so much attention to the New York Jets stadium plan championed
by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and get serious about the Atlantic Yards basketball
arena, office skyscraper and housing development being planned in her
district.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Kowtowing to demands by developer Bruce Ratner, the Brooklyn Chamber of
Commerce this week barred the public from an official Chamber function,
a luncheon where Ratner’s controversial Atlantic Yards project was
discussed.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Planning, transportation and budget experts say developer Bruce Ratner’s
proposed Atlantic Yards basketball arena, housing and office skyscraper
project could overburden transit lines, clog streets with traffic and
reduce pedestrian access.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Taking their first unified stance on developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic
Yards plan, a delegation of City Council members from Brooklyn gathered
on the steps of City Hall to call for a city-level review of the basketball
arena, housing and office skyscraper project.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Borough President Marty Markowitz has hosted another closed-door meeting
about developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards proposal, continuing
his policy of shutting out community members who have prominently voiced
opposition to the plan to build a basketball arena as well as 17 residential
and office high-rise towers.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Opponents of Bruce Ratner’s basketball arena and high-rise plan were
left singing “Heartbreak Hotel” this week as a competing developer
sold his interest in the Prospect Heights site to the Atlantic Yards developer.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: An advocacy telephone poll promoting Brooklyn’s biggest potential
development project collided with the project’s fiercest opponent
while canvassing the borough’s telephone lines this week.
Patti Hagan, an outspoken opponent of developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic
Yards plan, said she received a phone call on Sunday at 6:30 pm from a
pollster asking about her political inclinations and thoughts on the project
and its supporters.
Comment.
Atlantic Yards: The following are excerpts from Prospect Heights anti-arena
activist Patti Hagan’s conversation with a pollster asking questions
about developer Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards plan. Hagan tape-recorded
the call, which she received at her home on March 20, 6:30 pm. Read
our related story.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Brooklyn’s sole appointee to the City Planning Commission, one of
only two city agencies with an official role in the proposed Atlantic
Yards arena, housing and office complex will have no voice, the city said
this week.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: To the surprise of many Prospect Heights residents, enormous drills have
begun test borings of the earth below several sites within the 24-acre
swath upon which developer Bruce Ratner plans to build his Atlantic Yards
arena and high-rise development.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A developer is moving forward with plans to build a hotel smack-dab in
the middle of Bruce Ratner’s proposed Atlantic Yards site.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A spokesman for the city’s Independent Budget Office told The Brooklyn
Papers this week that the agency finally has a starting point to analyze
the public benefit of developer Bruce Ratner’s proposed basketball
arena, housing and office development in Propsect Heights.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Community Board 6 has prepared a list of issues members hope will be considered
in the anticipated environmental review of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic
Yards plan, which proposes to build a basketball arena and 17 high-rise
residential, office and retail buildings on a 23-acre site emanating from
the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues and stretching into
Prospect Heights.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Gov. George Pataki and real estate developer
Bruce Ratner signed a “memorandum of understanding” March 3
that officially spells out Ratner’s plan to build a basketball arena
and 17 residential and office high-rises on 21 acres of property emanating
from the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Responding to calls by elected officials and activists that the Metropolitan
Transportation Authority open up the sale of development rights over rail
yards at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues to competitive bidding, as the
agency has done with the Hudson Yards in Manhattan, an agency spokesman
reiterated what he told The Brooklyn Papers last month — they already
are.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: As members of the International Olympic Committee toured the five boroughs
last Tuesday, organizers from Develop-Don’t Destroy Brooklyn split
into factions over whether to step inside the Olympic rings or worry about
what’s happening on their home court.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The U.S. Supreme Court struggled on Tuesday to balance the rights of property
owners against the goals of town officials who want to sweep away old
neighborhoods and turn the land over to private developers.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: A neighborhood group that supports developer Bruce Ratner’s efforts
to build a basketball arena, housing and office buildings in Prospect
Heights has filed a “friend of the court” brief defending the
use of eminent domain to condemn private property in a case being heard
by the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
and Neil Sloane
Atlantic Yards: Bruce Ratner and his New Jersey Nets will just have to wait.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Adding to the growing cache of projects in place for the Brooklyn Academy
of Music’s Cultural District in Fort Greene, the mayor has unveiled
designs for an ultramodern, $335.8 million, 299-seat Theater for a New
Audience.
Comment.
By Jotham Sederstrom
Atlantic Yards: Borough President Marty Markowitz promoted Brooklyn as a future home to
professional basketball, the city’s first Ikea furniture store and,
most conspicuously during his State of the Borough address, a dock for
commercial cruise ships.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: Community Board 6 has begun holding meetings to decide what issues should
be considered in an eventual environmental impact study of Forest City
Ratner’s Atlantic Yards development plan.
Comment.
By Jess Wisloski
Atlantic Yards: The affordable and market-rate housing component in plans for the Atlantic
Yards arena complex will likely expand by 1,300 units, a Forest City Ratner
executive told The Brooklyn Papers this week.
Comment.