The Brooklyn Paper file / Tom Callan

Congresswoman Yvette Clarke

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Rep. Yvette Clarke, a powerful supporter of the Atlantic Yards project, denounced developer Bruce Ratner’s $400-million deal with Barclays that would brand the Nets arena — the centerpiece of Ratner’s 16-skyscraper project — with the name of an institution that profited from the slavery and other horrors of human history during its “troubling past.”

“Barclays is a 400-year-old, $2-trillion, multinational financial empire that has been linked to Nazi Germany, Apartheid in South Africa and the transatlantic slave trade,” said Clarke.

The naming-rights deal comes “under very questionable circumstances,” added Clarke, who largely sat on the sidelines of the Atlantic Yards debate during her tenure in the City Council, but now raised the possibility of “congressional hearings on the impact of the Atlantic Yards development on my constituents.”

By issuing her condemnation, Clarke joined a growing group of black leaders — many of them Ratner supporters — demanding that the developer reconsider the agreement.

“I have a duty, as a representative of arguably the largest black community in North America, to voice concern when minority supporters are left in the dark about the arrival of an institution with such a troubling past,” she said.

Opponents of the arena naming deal hailed Clarke’s move as an acknowledgement that “this is not just a local issue.”

“Brooklyn needs to make sure that [Barclays] invests in the community if they want to benefit from the American market,” said Rev. Clinton Miller, the leader of Brown Baptist Memorial Church in Fort Greene and an Atlantic Yards opponent.

“Barclays needs to come off its high horse and admit…that it was as involved as anybody else in slavery.

“If they’re not willing to be inclusive and fair, then the agreement should be terminated,” he said.

A spokesman for Forest City Ratner did not return calls for comment. Barclays denies a link to slavery.

©2007 The Brooklyn Paper

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