Less than a week after a terrorist attack on the underground subway system
in London left more than 52 dead and 700 injured, a document examining
the vulnerability of a once and potentially future target in Brooklyn
has been released.
The Brooklyn Papers was given a first-look at the “white paper”
report, titled “Terrorism, Security and the Proposed Brooklyn Atlantic
Yards High Rise and Arena Development Project.” The study examines
safety and terrorism concerns involving developer Bruce Ratner’s
plan, issues that have been raised at community meetings on the proposed
project over the past year.
The report was completed July 6, a day before the attacks in London. It
addresses an overriding concern about any major development near the Atlantic
Terminal transit hub that includes major subway stations and the Long
Island Rail Road, at Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, and outlines reasons
the area could be an effective target for terrorists.
The report includes an account of the 1997 planned bombing of the hub
by terrorists operating out of a Park Slope apartment just blocks away.
The most chilling reference of the report comes from the book “Jihad
in Brooklyn,” by Samuel M. Katz, who wrote about the effective thwarting
by police and detectives of the 84th Precinct of the terrorist plan to
pipe-bomb the Atlantic Terminal.
“Built-in design flaws” of the Ratner buildings — designed
by noted architect Frank Gehry — include “a perimeter of high-rise
towers surrounding an open central green area with only five street entrances
to the entire 24-acre complex,” according to the report, which was
based on recent overhead renderings released by Forest City Ratner, the
developer’s company. It also cites underground parking in the plan
as an attraction to terrorist bomb plotters.
The concerns about lack of building setbacks in the report find that buildings
abutting sidewalks in such close proximity serves in “maximizing
the blast effects of any car or truck bomb passing by,” stating the
result could be “widespread physical destruction and loss of life.”
Officials with Forest City Ratner, including Executive Vice President
Bruce Bender, have said the current designs for a 19,000-seat arena directly
over the largest transportation hub in Brooklyn, the Atlantic Terminal
— which services 11 subway routes, is in close proximity to three
other lines and connects to the commuter Long Island Rail Road —
came as the result of amending earlier conceptions the company had of
building an elevated arena that would arch over property already owned
by Forest City Ratner to create a gateway between their existing Atlantic
Center mall, Atlantic Terminal mall and fallow land on the other side
of Atlantic Avenue.
Bender explained they were deterred from that design after an expert showed
them how a truck bomb could blow up the entire structure if it drove underneath
the overhead platform.
Forest City Ratner’s spokesman declined to comment for this article.
The report was solicited by members of the local community and Develop-Don’t
Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), a neighborhood group formed in opposition to
Ratner’s plan to build a professional basketball arena and 17 high-rises,
some of them skyscrapers, on a swath of Prospect Heights that emanates
from the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
The community members commissioned Christina Cope, an environmental policy
analyst for the Department of Defense, and Alan Rosner, a Prospect Heights
resident, who is a retired strategic and business analyst for MetroNorth.
Rosner is also a member of DDDB.
Considering a series of likely and admittedly not-so-likely scenarios,
the eight-page report outlines issues raised by the arena’s proximity
to the major transportation hub; “critical land transportation routes”
of the three major cross-borough roadways of Fourth, Flatbush and Atlantic
avenues; intention to have large-scale events there; and lack of set-backs
of buildings from the streets.