Brooklyn Ron

Protesters to Gov: This Land (Atlantic Yards) Was Made for You and Me

On sunny Saturday, May 3rd, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries told the crowd of hundreds gathered at Atlantic Yards that they should put their trust in their new Governor, David Paterson.

"Let's give Governor Paterson a chance to engage in a real dialogue with this community about this project,"  Jeffries said on a sunny May 3 Saturday afternoon.

The Assemblyman [photo] called Paterson "a person who understands the importance of community input."

The protesters were hoping the Governor joins them in calling for a halt to the demolition taking place for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, which envisions a new Nets stadium and (according to Ratner's web site) "commercial offices, retail establishments and a boutique hotel."

The project is side-by-side the borough's signature Williamsburg Savings Bank, which has been converted into condos and is anticipating a big name company as its anchor retail tenant, perhaps even Microsoft (see The Brooklyn Paper).

The Ratner project is so vast that opponents say it will destroy the character of that part of Brooklyn. The opponents also object to the use of eminent domain under which the state allows the developer to take possession of land within the footprint of the project. Already businesses have closed and the land on which they operated lies vacant.

Earlier that Saturday of the protest, many hundreds of others were in same area of Atlantic Yards but were demonstrating for the arena and the other buildings to be erected.

Opponents maintained that the pro crowd was made up mostly of union activists paid to attend and protest.

One thing seemed clear: Even if Ratner is able to overcome the obstacles posed by the poor economy and housing market, the opponents and elected officials who stand with them (Leticia James, David Yassky and others) will continue to stand in the way.

Download atlantic_yards_movie_real2.mov

Tony Avella: Mayoral Candidate Siding With Communities Against Big Developers

There he was on Saturday, May 3d, with the hundreds of Brooklynites opposed to Bruce Ratner's plan to build a Nets stadium at Atlantic Yards, along with a conversion of the signature Williamsburg Savings Bank building into condominiums.

Tony Avella [photo], Councilman from Queens, took the stage in the afternoon and joined several Brooklyn politicians in denouncing the Ratner plan as a kind of steamrolling over local residents and an abuse of the powers of eminent  domain.

Calling out to Bruce Ratner (who, of course, was not there), Avella told the enthusiastic crowd, "We're not going to let you destroy a neighborhood!"

He added that New York State "should not use eminent domain to give some developer millions of dollars."

Atlantic Yards is one of the biggest development projects in city history, though doubts have arisen lately as to Ratner's ability to carry out his plans given the sagging economy and real estate market.

Avella's presence at the anti-Ratner rally brought to mind his appearance some months ago on Gil Noble's "Like It Is" Sunday television program, on which he appeared with Councilman Charles Barron (one of the most radical African Americans every to occupy a seat in that local legislative body) and oppose the redevelopment of Central Harlem's W. 125th St. commercial strip, using the same kind of language he's employing in opposing Atlantic Yards.

Given his announced intentions to run for mayor in next year's election, we'd have to say we'll be in for a very exciting campaign.

Bococa Really Means: The British are Coming! Man the Gates!

The first time I heard Bococa, I thought to myself, Now what the hell kind of name is that for a Brooklyn neighborhood?

It's supposed to be a combination of Boerum Hill, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens.

But I knew this much: No self-respecting Brooklynite would ever say Bococa to refer to any of those places.

And I've been right. It's not native Brooklynites saying the word; and it's certainly not anybody self-respecting. It's realtors and Brits.

To make it all official, the British newspaper the Daily Telegraph of London recently ran an article praising the community, new name and all, and warning that the Brits, lured by favorable exchange rates, are flocking there for investment and domicile.

Will Brooklyn be the New Paris? Will It Burn as Paris Did?

The Downtown Brooklyn Partnership has big plans to turn
Flatbush Avenueinto a version of the Champs-Élysées, a wide tree-lined boulevard with cafés galore and a 24-hour ambiance that draws high-end condo-dwellers and tourists.

The problem with this vision is that it erases the older picture of people who were the heart and soul of Brooklyn for half a century, its struggling, working-class African-Americans, Latinos and others who are getting lost in this new-age shuffle.

Already the Brooklyn Paper is reporting that rising rents in the area, notably along the Fulton corridor that has been the home of a number of black businesses, are forcing out the tenants.

Troubling also is that the current city plans entail demolishing the old Duffield Street homes that some say were part of the the Underground Railroad escape route for slaves in the ante-bellum era.

Good bye history. Hello latté.

To publicize its grand plans for the future, the Partnership unveiled a series of photos and renderings that show New Brooklyn in a new mid-town Manhattan light, a beaming reality that does not shine warmly on the dispossessed or under-employed. (See Brooklyn Eagle and Post stories.)

But if Brooklyn is to become the new Paris, the hope is that it does not devolve into the place that erupted in riots two years ago, in scenes that startled the world beyond.

France's urban left-behinds, the dark-skinned immigrants and children of immigrants who evolved over the past generation, had been shunted over the years to the peripheries of the great city of light. Angry and taken for granted, they turned against the police and others who they saw as outsiders.

What lies ahead for us?

Pols Demand: Will Atlantic Yards Be a Suicide Bomber's Target?

Some elected officials are asking the mayor and governor to study whether Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards complex will be a target for terrorists.

The request expresses concerns that the streets around the project could draw drivers wanting to wreak 9-11 style havoc on the area around the project, particularly the arena that will be home for the Nets basketball team and will hold 18,000 people.

The letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Governor Eliot Spitzer comes after the city of Newark decided to close streets around it arena, the Prudential Center.

“You can’t construct an arena and put it right against a street in a post-9/11 world,” Newark’s police director Garry F. McCarthy was quoted as saying.

Picking up on that assertion, Brooklyn elected officials requested a formal study on the matter as it would apply to Atlantic Yards. Signing the request were State Senators Eric Adams and Velmanette Montgomery; state Assembly Members Jim Brennan, Hakeem Jeffries and Joan Millman; and City Council Members Letitia James, David Yassky and Bill de Blasio.

“We want to know how the situation in Brooklyn differs from that which has just occurred in Newark,” Assemblyman Brennan said, according to The New York Times.

The Atlantic Yards project is one of the largest in the city's history and its basketball stadium is scheduled to be done and ready for fans in 2009.

(The above photo is of the current Atlantic Yards site. It is from citynoise.org.)

Duffield St. Homes Versus Atlantic Yards: Two Different Issues!

Councilwoman Letitia James has become the most prominent anti-land grab activist among Brooklyn's elected officials.

But it's worth drawing a distinction between city land grabbing of the Duffield Street homes and, on the other hand, the taking of land to make way for Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards/Brooklyn Nets project a bit to the South along Fatbush Avenue.

Keep in mind that the Duffield Street homes command a strong respect and even reverence to the founder of this web site -- Brooklyn Ron -- given that they represent the borough's connection to a strong abolitionist past.

They are believed to be the residences of Brooklynites who fought against slavery before the 1860s, when many people across the River, in Manhattan, actually supported that peculiar institution.

Those homes on Duffield St. are now threatend with being taken down by way of eminent domain, in order to make way for -- of all things -- a parking lot. (The poetic allusions that could be applied here are painful, and songs come to mind that cry tears of hurt. Think: "They Paved Paradise and Put up a Parking Lot.")