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.
The group of Prospect Heights-area residents, which formed last year in
opposition to Bruce Ratner’s plans to build a 19,000-seat arena at
the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, divided their stance
on how to handle the IOC last week.
While some representatives landed seats at a breakfast table at the Plaza
Hotel Tuesday morning before the IOC’s tours of the city’s proposed
Olympic venues, others hung mammoth banners from buildings flanking the
now barren Atlantic Avenue rail yards where the arena is anticipated for
development.
The latter faction, led by Patti Hagan and the Prospect Heights Action
Coaltion, criticized from afar those who had entered the “lion’s
den.”
“It wasn’t a meeting directly with the IOC,” complained
Hagan, whose PHAC turned down going to the meeting when they found out
it would be “intermediated” by the city’s Olympic bid committee,
NYC 2012.
“I warned Dan Goldstein [of DDDB] that Jay Kreigel [executive director
of NYC 2012] would spin him in a direction he would probably regret,”
she said.
But members of DDDB, who along with PHAC pushed for the meeting for weeks,
went ahead anyway, sharing the table with a pro-Olympics Queens group.
When a representative from another community group, the Clinton Special
District, which opposes the West Side stadium plans in Manhattan, dropped
out of the meeting, saying he didn’t want to appear with groups supporting
the bid, DDDB was suddenly positioned as a group that supports the bid.
Indeed, in a press conference following the meeting, Kriegel said he had
met with groups that supported the city’s Olympic bid.
“The groups expressed their views, and both groups also expressed
their votes for the Games,” said Kriegel later that morning.
Multiple calls to Kriegel’s press officers and the NYC 2012 press
hotline went unreturned.
“It’s just ridiculous what he said,” said a DDDB representative
who was present at the meeting but did not want his name published. “We
spent the entire time discussing all the problems with constructing a
brand-new arena … and how countries in India or in South America would
never be able to afford to host the Olympics if it becomes this expensive.”
The representative said the four members of the 13-member IOC listened
with careful attention and seemed “particularly concerned” when
she characterized the use of the bid as “an excuse for a land grab”
and that community process, at least in Brooklyn “was being co-opted.”
The commissioners took notes, she said, but did not ask questions.
But following the meeting, Kriegel held a press conference that, according
to the activists, misconstrued their presence at the table as unflagging
support.
DDDB spokesman Daniel Goldstein said it was a bald-faced lie.
“He’s misleading and lying, as is done throughout the city,”
Goldstein said. “We don’t have a position on the Olympics; we’re
agnostic on the Olympics, and we’re against the bid. We’d like
to ask Jay Kreigel and their 2012 Committee if they’re even in favor
of the Olympics, because the bid they have outlined and put forth to the
IOC is sure to lose.
“We’re thankful to the commission for giving us 15 minutes in
their four-day tour of the city and the commissioners seemed to squirm
in their seats when we told them about the Ratner arena, particularly
when we told them their Olympics were being used for real estate deals,”
Goldstein said.
While Forest City Ratner spokesman Barry Baum said he did not know whether
a tour would be given of the Atlantic Yards site where the 19,000-seat
arena is proposed, the members of PHAC made their voice known anyway.
“It was hard to get anything across to them,” said Hagan, “So
we figured the thing we could do is put up these banners as big as we
could.”
But the Olympics never came.
“My understanding is that they send scouts,” she said. “I
imagine some scouts came out and surveyed the territory. I don’t
know how naive I am, but I supposed they would come out here on Thursday
morning and at least walk up Pacific Street to take a look. And we were
waiting there for them with information about eminent domain and people
being forced out of their homes while public subsidies are going to support
this arena.”
At least some people saw the massive banners from the rooftops of buildings,
which stayed up until Thursday and warned of land grabs in English and
French.
One featured a giant, smiling horse of special importance to any appreciator
of Greek history.
“Trojan Horse,” read the caption below it.
The IOC’s final day in the city was Thursday, and New York marked
their third visit after having been to Madrid and London. Next evaluators
will look at Paris and Moscow. The IOC will choose which city will host
the 2012 Olympics on July 6.
