On NPR: "Jay-Z and Beyonce were kind of used as pawns to help the developers..."

I can't tell you how trashy and disgusting hip hop and contemporary R&B culture appears to me. I never liked it and it never spoke to my soul

Thousands gathered in more than 100 cities across the U.S. Saturday to protest Stand Your Ground laws and to show support forTrayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager shot and killed last year by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, who wasfound not guilty by a jury in his murder case July 13. And Beyoncé and Jay-Z were among them.

actually most people I talk to say few people showed up...

....from what I've heard of the gathering in NYC this is not true. People are starting to become embarrassed by this story and narrative. Most admit behind closed doors that Trayvon was not the dead icon they had hoped for....

meanwhile....

(Atlantic Yards Report) OK, Jay-Z may be "bulletproof" in the music market, as some experts say, but some remember lingering taint from the role the hip-hip entrepreneur and cultural force played in the building of a certain Brooklyn arena.

From NPR, 7/19/13, Getting Real On Race After Zimmerman Verdict...MARTIN: ...But before we go, we do want to talk about Jay-Z's album "Magna Carta Holy Grail." There's new criticism - now people might remember that the singer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte once said that Jay-Z and Beyonce need to take more social responsibility. Well, Jay-Z's talking back on this album. I just want to play a short clip.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: I'm Michel Martin and this is TELL ME MORE from NPR News. Now it's time for our weekly visit to the barbershop, where the guys talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shape-up this week - our writer and culture critic Jimi Izrael, with us from Cleveland. Fernando Vila is the director of programming for Fusion. That's a joint venture between ABC and Univision. He's with us from Miami. Sportswriter and professor of journalism Kevin Blackistone is here in D.C. And also here in Washington this week - Mario Loyola. He's normally with us from Austin, where he is with the National Review magazine and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, NICKELS AND DIMES")
[I'm just trying to find common ground
'fore Mr. Belafonte come and chop a nigga down
Mr. Day O, major fail
Respect these youngins boy, it's my time now
Hublot homie, two door homie
You don't know all the shit I do for the homies]

MARTIN: Oh, I had missed that lyric until you all pointed it out to me. Ouch, Kevin what are you saying? Is he overstepping? Is he giving his props to the elders? What's up?

BLACKISTONE: Yeah, he's overstepping. I mean, come on you can't go after Harry Belafonte even though he went after you. Look, you are doing your thing, but we also know you don't have the history and the narrative of Harry Belafonte. You know, you didn't learn at the knee of Paul Robeson. You know, you didn't write the check to get MLK out of the Birmingham jail. I mean, you didn't do all of those sorts of things. You didn't march on South Africa.

You know, you did "Big Pimpin," which a lot of people would say is a misogynistic album, OK. I mean, it may be funky, but at the end - you know, you can look at the lyrics for yourself. And, you know - and most recently, with the whole Barclays Center up in Brooklyn, there's a whole documentary out called "Battle of Brooklyn," which shows how Jay-Z and Beyonce were kind of used as pawns to help the developers just steam roll over people in the Atlantic Yards neighborhood so that they could build that sparkling new arena there. So, you know, lay off of

Harry Belafonte.

It's actually Battle for Brooklyn, but Blackistone gets the picture in a way many don't.

Government Money trying to look like Government spent logo? #NETS #Brooklyn:

Does it come in Red White and Blue? No

(hoops) Brooklyn Nets Release Logo, Color Scheme: The Brooklyn Nets today introduced their black and white color scheme and logos as the team prepares for its move to the Barclays Center next season.
Created by Jay-Z, the Brooklyn Nets’ brand identity incorporates a timeless black and white color palette of the old New York subway signage system, including its clean “Roll Sign” typeface. The treatment celebrates the history and heritage of the city by drawing upon the familiar signage from when Brooklyn last had its own major professional team in 1957.
The Nets have two primary logos. One features a shield to symbolically identify the team with the strength and character of Brooklyn, and serves as a salute to the shield in the Nets’ past logo. The circular portion of the logo incorporates a prominent ‘B’ inside a basketball to proudly express the team’s new home borough, and includes the word Brooklyn below the shield. The other logo features a basketball with an iconic ‘B’ inside, along with a ‘Brooklyn New York’ mark surrounding a basketball.
“The Brooklyn Nets logos are another step we’ve made to usher the organization into a new era,” Jay-Z said. “The boldness of the designs demonstrates the confidence we have in our new direction. Along with our move to Brooklyn and a state-of-the-art arena, the new colors and logos are examples of our commitment to update and refine all aspects of the team.”
“Our black and white colors speak to Brooklyn’s strong traditions and grittiness and convey an uncompromising confidence,” Nets CEO Brett Yormark said. “With its daring color display, the Brooklyn Nets logos are the new badges for Brooklyn and who better to design them than one of the world’s top tastemakers and Brooklyn’s own JAY Z. We are thrilled to launch our brand and to introduce the Brooklyn community to its new team. It’s an honor to bring major professional sports back to Brooklyn and to become part of the fabric of this great borough.”

With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook

The New York Times
by David M. Halbfinger
It's a broadsheet war! Not to be outdone by today's puffball Wall Street Journal interview with Bruce Ratner, The Times counters by tickling Jay-Z with feathers.

Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Z’s contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake — a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it.
Now, with the long-delayed Barclays Center arena nearing opening night in September and the relocated Nets bidding in earnest for Brooklyn’s loyalties, Jay-Z will perform eight sold-out shows to kick things off. But away from center stage he has put his mark on almost every facet of the enterprise, his partners say.
He helped design the team logos and choose the team’s stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (The N.B.A., insiders said, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (“Less Jersey,” he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.)
He even coached them on how to screen patrons for weapons without appearing too heavy-handed. (“Be mindful,” he advised oracularly, “and be sensitive.”)

article
NoLandGrab: Silly us! Here we were concerned about the arena's security plan, when Hova had it under control all along.
Related coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, NYT: Jay-Z & Nets have "written a new playbook for... strategic celebrity investor" (and generating unskeptical publicity)

"Jay-Z’s contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago," the New York Times observes in a none-too-tough profile just posted, adding that "he and the Nets have effectively written a new playbook for how to deploy a strategic celebrity investor."
...
The Times reports:

Mr. Carter’s involvement frustrated opponents of Mr. Ratner’s development plans in Brooklyn who saw the arena and proposed residential and office towers as a subsidized land grab that could ruin the neighborhood....
“Bringing in someone who grew up in public housing, with a rags-to-riches story, who could identify with Brooklyn and African-Americans, that was slick,” said City Councilwoman Letitia James, a critic of the project. Mr. Ratner played down Mr. Carter’s importance in overcoming opposition. “Had Jay-Z not come along,” he said, “we’d still have an arena.”

Ratner's right. Jay-Z wasn't important in overcoming opposition; actual full-time Brooklynites like the leaders of BUILD and ACORN, signatories of the not-so-credible Community Benefits Agreement, were far more important, given that they brought people to rallies and public hearings.
Jay-Z was important in generating publicity, and in getting journalists/tv hosts like Rosanna Scotto to turn into simpering fans. And he's still generating publicity, as with this article.
...
That missing disclosure
I don't know what the Times's policy is any more: do they no longer feel obligated to disclose the parent company's business relationship with Mr. Ratner? Wouldn't that prompt readers to be a wee bit skeptical?

via No Land Grab: With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook

no doubt government infrastructure has always had fascinating logo designs. It's how they sell the lies. It is a post modern irony here. A sports team paid by the public dollar trying to look like New Deal era type font.

No Land Grab: Doing The Wrong Thing: Spike Lee Won't "Get Into the Politics of the Barclays Center"

(no land grab) Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn

"I'm not going to get into the politics of the Barclays Center; the thing is, it's up, it's a reality, and that's just that."
Yeah, that is a good point. Really, history shouldn't be discussed at all because whatever happened is now" a reality and that's just that."
Spike Lee has spent a career discussing the politics of both current and historic events. But somehow the politics of the BARCLAYS Center is off limits? Even with the current, very current, scandal in which the bank is embroiled?
C'mon, this can't be the same Spike Lee who once said, "I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten."

article

Brookly Nets/Barclays Center Weathered Steel Company Demise

(crainsnewyork.com) The developer of the Barclays Center arena in downtown Brooklyn says that the year-end demise of the company that is fabricating the weathered steel for the arena's distinctive façade will not result in any construction delays.
The 675,000-square-foot arena that will be home to the Brooklyn Nets is supposed to open this fall in time for the start of the basketball season. It is the first building to rise in the vast $4.9 billion, 14-apartment tower Atlantic Yards project being developed by Forest City Ratner Cos.
“We are concerned when any of our partners has problems, but we don't believe it will affect our construction schedule,” said MaryAnne Gilmartin, executive vice president of Forest City Ratner, referring to steel fabricator ASI Limited having gone out of business. “We can still continue with construction.”
In a statement, a spokesman for Forest City said the site's construction manager, Hunt, and the bonding company for ASI have developed an action plan. They have already started work on site and have developed several options for on-going fabrication. It didn't specify the options.
According to a blog by SHoP Architects, the façade's designer, it started working with ASI in the summer of 2010 to develop the process to weather the steel. Early last year, ASI started to process the 12,000 weathered-steel panels plus support rails that were needed for the arena. Those panels are combined into 921 large units that are used to enclose the center and build the canopy. The spokesman said that 57% of the 561 panels that will enclose the arena have been put up. He said the enclosure panels are critical because they protect the arena from the elements.
There was no answer to calls placed to Whitestown, Ind.-based ASI. Gregg Pasquarelli, a partner at SHoP Architects, couldn't immediately be reached for comment.
The Atlantic Yards Report, a watchdog blog about the controversial project, first reported the news about ASI. It also reported that a construction monitor report said the metal work for the exterior skin had an “early finish” date of May 13.

Marty Markowitz's holiday card: "We got the Brooklyn Nets"

(Atlantic Yards Report) ...The cover(Goodbye to Hurricane Irene) and the inside of Borough President Marty Markowitz's holiday card. (Here's some Brooklyn Paper analysis of Markowitz's "gay marriage" theme.)
He's so excited, he states, "We got the Brooklyn Nets," even though they won't arrive til next year.
By the way, Steve Buscemi, shooting for an Emmy, is no fan of Atlantic Yards.

yeah... great... people who like to sodomize their way into non pregnancy are worthy of the same government benefits as those who live a life where pregnancy is a reality that can change life as they know it... but hey... they have the Brooklyn Nets... and in a "Progressive", "MoveOn dot Org" world... that is bliss. Ass monkeys!

Jay-Z, the 1%, and his decision to drop that "Occupy All Streets" t-shirt

(h/t Atlantic Yards Report) The New York Post reported: Jay-Z has pulled his $22 Rocawear t-shirts, which showed “Occupy Wall Street” altered to read “Occupy All Streets” after criticism of his company's failure to share profits with protesters.

Another article on the Post web site, attributed to Newscore, slammed him harder:

Jay-Z, who has had 12 No. 1 albums, has spent much of his career promoting the massive accumulation of wealth and celebrating the people that do so.

The Jay-Z defense
On the other hand, those defending Jay-Z point out that, while he may be in the 1% of wealth, he's earned it through creativity and drive, not through the crony capitalism and unfair rules that the Occupy protesters have decried.
That's a significant point, except it breaks down when it comes to Jay-Z's promotion of Atlantic Yards and the new Brooklyn arena.
Comments on Jay-Z from Gothamist
Gothamist quoted Occupy Wall Street spokesman Patrick Bruner:

Naturally there will be some bloodsuckers who come out of the woodwork. We have a screen-printers guild on camp, and it's easy to find many other T-shirts that actually benefit the cause.

As to questions of appropriation, one Gothamist commentator, Daniel, made a salient point:

Exactly a sad tale of cultural appropriation of art forms, culture, and entertainment of poor whites starting with such exploitive black men like Elvis, through The Beatles, and Led Zeppelin blatantly lifting entire songs of the white man for the black man's profit. Oh wait, that's not how that happened! One cultural idea appropriated and all this outrage?

Where does Occupy All Streets come from?
To quote the Wall Street Journal (quoting uncredited 'blogs'):

The Occupy Wall Street protesters can’t claim complete ownership over the “Occupy All Streets” phrase, however. As blogs have pointed out, that phrase appeared in the SlutWalk protests in Berlin.

Daylight at Night

According to the document, to facilitate early start of work, railyard flood lights are supposed to be turned on at 6am. When the NETS finally win a championship it is proof that the end of the world is coming (Atlantic Yards Report) Can we believe the latest Atlantic Yards Construction Alert? (Sunrise is after 6:30 am.)	However, according to a neighbor who shot photos and video yesterday and posted them on Atlantic Yards Watch, the lights went on at about 4:30 am. The impact on residents? Those at 700 Pacific Street, face "extreme excess light pollution," blinding at times, according to the neighbor.

Ukrainian brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko

The_two_reigning heavyweight boxing champions, Ukrainian brothers Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko said they were excited about the possibility of bouts at Barclays in front a big Russian crowd. "Let's do it," said Wladimir.

From the photo one wonders exactly what kind of show Brooklyn is getting? Gay Incest? No Land Grab!

Two renderings (click to enlarge)

On Battle for Brooklyn day, Markowitz, Nets, allies plant tree in Fort Greene Park to promote donations

Yesterday, as the film Battle for Brooklyn opened commercially to widespread positive reviews, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and the city of New York were doing their best to promote the Nets, the Barclays Center, and the salubrious effect of the team's move in 2012.

The event: a tree donation, and a photo op, with associated advertising for the team, the arena, and a lawn care company. (There was no mention of how Forest City Ratner tried to evade paying for street trees it demolished.)
The media event drew coverage from the New York Post's Brooklyn blog and NY 1. via Atlantic Yards Report

image via nypost.com and (Photo by Norman Oder)

is anyone really buying this Green crap? the government is taking private land for a sports team.

"Gray Lady Down," a debate on the Times, and an AY mention

Atlantic Yards Report

Having read William McGowan's book Gray Lady Down: What the Decline and Fall of The New York Times Means for America, I knew it does not address such relatively local issues at Atlantic Yards (built by the Times Company's business partner on the Times Tower, Forest City Ratner), but instead more ideological issues such as gay marriage, immigration, the Duke "rape" case, and the war on terror. 
So McGowan didn't bring up Atlantic Yards during a debate last month with Michael Tomasky, American editor-at-large for the Guardian, at St. Francis College in Brooklyn Heights. (Tomasky's main point was that the allegedly halcyon days of the past featured flawed coverage, especially in scope, of a different stripe.)
...
I think the issue is somewhat murky. I have no doubt that the editorial page is committed, by virtue of the "spirit of the Times" (aka Sulzberger), to supporting Atlantic Yards, or, at least, keeping its mouth shut about dismaying details.
Is the Metro desk in the tank? I don't think so--and I can't let myself think so. But the Times has done, on the whole, a lousy job covering Atlantic Yards.
Editors make choices, and the Times has chosen to put far less energy into looking carefully at Atlantic Yards than at a number of other issues. Meanwhile, the Sports section laps up Nets publicity.

link

via nolandgrab.org

"Lifeforce" 1985 International one sheet image via doppelganger
and via thatsmyface.com

world's tallest prefab steel structure for first affordable tower

Critic Lange: Maybe Gehry's design was kinda modular, too...

Atlantic Yards Report:

...In Bad Faith Towers, Design Observer's Alexandra Lange makes the connection between the Times's graphic, for illustrative purposes, of a pre-fabricated, modular tower that might be built at the Atlantic Yards site, and a Frank Gehry rendering of the arena block, which looks pretty darn modular.

She writes:

Are we so desperate for affordable housing (again, the recession changes everything) that we will take a chance on untested building technology? Who gets to be the guinea pig on the 34th floor? Surely Forest City Ratner did not want this news out the week of the Japanese quake.

...Surely Ratner will tart up the prefab units with some cast concrete lintels and blown-up brownstone details, and call them contextual. But the truth is, the Times rendering is not so far from the boxy stacks Gehry proposed after the billowing Miss Brooklyn proved too costly. As with the disappointing 8 Spruce Street, there's a thin value engineered line between industrial production and genius.

link

via nolandgrab.org

Big savings, but promised Union jobs, tax revenues lost, and new risks at Brooklyn Atlantic Yards... The problem here is this government intervening project was supposed to create jobs, but cost cuts save the project without creating the promised jobs. This is why you don't want the government taking private property away!

In what seems to be a desperate--or maybe innovative--effort to save money and time, Forest City Ratner may build the world's tallest modular structure to deliver the affordable housing long promised as an Atlantic Yards benefit.

In doing so, however, FCR would establish its own factory to manufacture the components, severely cutting expected on-site union jobs, and presumably cutting deeply into projected tax revenues, thus upending the always optimistic estimates of project benefits.

FCR's Lego-like solution would severely antagonize union construction workers who, fulfilling requests by the developer and their own leadership, fervently and sometimes obnoxiously backed the project at rallies and public hearings.
And the bait-and-switch would continue a pattern of renegotiating contracts in order to save money.
For example, FCR in 2005 bid $100 million in cash for the rights to build on the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Vanderbilt Yard, only to renegotiate the contract in 2009, paying only $20 million out of the $100 million pledged, with 22 years to pay the rest.
Also, in building a 34-story tower at first, FCR would take risks by venturing into a construction technology that is still developing, the current record-holder only rises 25 stories..
A scoop for the Times
Charles Bagli of the New York Times, who has paid intermittent attention to the project but is a go-to guy for scoops, has the story, headlined Prefabricated Tower May Rise at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards:

In a bid to cut costs at his star-crossed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer Bruce C. Ratner is pursuing plans to erect the world’s tallest prefabricated steel structure, a 34-story tower that would fulfill his obligation to start building affordable housing at the site.
The prefabricated, or modular, method he would use, which is untested at that height, could cut construction costs in half by saving time and requiring substantially fewer and cheaper workers. And the large number of buildings planned for the $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards — 16 in all, not including the Nets arena now under construction — could also make it economical for the company to run its own modular factory, where walls, ceilings, floors, plumbing and even bathrooms and kitchens could be installed in prefabricated steel-frame boxes.
The 34-story building, with roughly 400 apartments, would comprise more than 900 modules that would be hauled to Atlantic Yards, lifted into place by crane and bolted together at the corner of Flatbush Avenue and Dean Street, next to the arena.

The current record-holder


The tallest modular building in the world, according to a 9/2/09 article in Building Design and Construction, is Victoria Hall, a 25-story apartment tower in Wolverhampton, England. A 9/21/09 article in National Real Estate Investor (source of the photo) calls it 24 stories.
Note the prefab appearance. Does Forest City Ratner's claim that buzzy firm SHoP will design the building apply to the modular units? Or, more likely, would SHoP merely graft a "skin" on the building, as with the Ellerbe Becket arena?
Some flaws
The Times suggests that tall modular buildings require significant bracing, but modular buildings can have their flaws. A 3/26/08 Times article describes a modular building at Yale University that was built in 2004:

“They tried to blend in the appearance of the building with what’s here already,” said Martin Dominguez, a first-year medical student who was also an undergraduate at Yale and has lived in the modular building for 18 months. “They did a reasonably good job, though the building obviously looks pretty modern relative to the other architecture.”
Mr. Dominguez said he was not happy with the quality of the dormitory’s construction — some of the walls do not quite fit together and the floor is uneven in the bathroom, he said.

However, the Times reported, campus housing administrators at another college were impressed with the work and decided to go the modular route.
The benefits of modular
The Modular Building Institute, a trade group, explains that Modular Delivers More than Speed to Completion:

Commercial modular buildings are cutting-edge facilities of the highest quality, efficiency, endurance, and design: cost-effective permanent and temporary buildings that respond to ever-changing demands...
Today, multi-story, multi-unit buildings can be constructed in a factory from steel and concrete. The units, shipped to the site either on a flatbed trailer or on their own axles and tires, are craned into place and joined on site. Once completed, these high-end, factory-built buildings are indistinguishable from site-built construction. There generally are no visual or structural differences whatsoever....
The advantages of modular construction remain the same, however. Commercial modular structures are built in a climate- and quality-controlled environment, where savings of as much as 50% in overall construction time are not uncommon.

Ratner savings, union tensions
The Times reported that Forest City has been designing both a conventional tower and a modular one, and is looking for sites in Long Island City for a factory:

“The company is interested in modular, high-rise construction in an urban setting,” [FCR's] Ms. [Maryanne] Gilmartin said. “It’s driven by cost and efficiencies.”
But it would also infuriate the construction workers who were Mr. Ratner’s most ardent supporters during years of stormy community meetings, where they drowned out neighborhood opponents with chants of, “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”

The Times notes that Forest City promised Atlantic Yards would generate “upwards of 17,000 union construction jobs.” Actually, that's job-years, so 1700 jobs a year over ten years or, more likely, many fewer jobs a year over a much longer period of time, perhaps 25 years.
The Times reports:

Not to worry, Ms. Gilmartin said, “We’re a union shop, and we build union.”
But under current wage scales, union workers earn less in a factory than they do on-site. A carpenter earns $85 an hour in wages and benefits on-site, but only $35 an hour in a factory.

Need for a cost-benefit analysis
Gilmartin should be asked to estimate the actual number of expected jobs, as well as the total in wages. Or the Empire State Development Corporation should do so.
Such numbers should be plugged into the cost-benefit analyses conducted by the city, state, and Independent Budget Office.
Forest City is clearly under pressure to fulfill its obligations and make its expected profits. City officials denied a request for $10 million in additional housing subsidies.
Going to 34 stories?
A firm located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, Capsys, states that its system is good for 12 stories:

Our system of structural steel framing, concrete floors, and steel-framed walls is ideal for projects as high as 12 stories. Our in-house engineering group is capable of designing modular structures that fit the floor plan of almost any residential building.

Those quoted by the Times say taller buildings are possible, but pose challenges:

“At a smaller scale, prefab buildings have proven to be more efficient, more sustainable and less expensive,” said Thomas Hanrahan, dean of Pratt Institute’s School of Architecture. “The taller the building, the logistical and structural issues become much more complex.”

Keeping the arena block quieter
Unmentioned in the Times: prefab construction would clearly make it easier to build towers around the arena while conducting arena activities.
After all, cranes would be at the site for less time, and fewer workers would be at the site, as well.

via atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com

Posted via email from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Developer Bruce Ratner recently revealed the latest design for his proposed new Nets basketball arena in Prospect Heights, part of a controversial project that also includes 16 residential and office towers. The third version of the 675,000-square-foot Atlantic Yards arena was created by local SHoP Architects and Kansas City-based Ellerbe Becket.

The Brooklyn development project has restored some of the ideas of Frank Gehry, the original designer. Earlier this summer he was replaced with Ellerbe Becket, whose preliminary designs elicited howls of protest.

According to the associated press, the price for the project is 800 million USD, reduced from an earlier estimate of 1 billion USD.
To defer additional costs, Mr. Ratner has divided up the design. ‘The arena will be built first, and then,’ he says, ‘the foundations for the residential and commercial buildings will be dug, once he is ready to start the next stage of construction.’


In Mr. Gehry’s original design, all of the structures were conceived as part of a single cohesive scheme.

For further information read the New York Times article here.
via archicentral.com

Green Design looks like an Eminent Domain Shit Sandwich - SHoP Architects Alters Design For Barclays Center

public plaza with environmentally-friendly landscaping and a green roofed entrance to the subway?

surrounded by exhaust from cars... lovely!

SHoP altered the design to make the entrance more accessible and useful for the surrounding community and even designed it so it could be used as a farmer's market or event plaza.

 cough cough cough.... sure

The Plaza in front of the Barclays Center for Atlantic Yards is located at the busy intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues, and it will serve as the main entrance to the arena. When designing the plaza, SHoP’s main focus was on creating a smooth, flowing area centered around transit and pedestrian traffic. The roof of the subway entrance will feature Sedum plantings that will compliment several other planters spread throughout the plaza. Seating around the plaza and planters will be made from Ipe wood.In addition to the green roof subway entrance, the updated plaza will feature a large covered area at the entrance of the arena with a giant oculus (read: hole in the roof), which will include a state-of-the-art display screen that can be programmed for games, events and other activities on the plaza.

I thought they were designing it for the Jolly Green Giant to light his farts on fire

Currently, there is a lot of debate and contention regarding Atlantic Yards and the Barclays Center, and a small green roof and transit-oriented design don’t do a whole lot to reduce the footprint of the massive development. Is it a peace offering or a necessity to make the space work? In other news, that affordable housing the developers promised is supposedly not gonna happen.
+ Barclays Center
+ SHoP Architects
Via Gothamist

via inhabitat.com

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz could be headed to China to help developer Bruce Ratner trade green cards for cash for his Atlantic Yards project, our Erin Durkin reports:

Markowitz is waiting for the OK from the city Conflicts of Interest Board to accompany Ratner’s delegation on the trip, which kicks off Oct. 11.
The New York City Regional Center invited Markowitz on the trip and would pick up the tab, his spokeswoman said.
It’s part of the EB-5 visa program, which offers up green cards to foreigners who invest $500,000 in a project that creates or saves at least 10 jobs.
The federal government sets aside 3000 a year for such deep-pocketed investors.
Ratner is looking to lure 498 Chinese investors for a total of $250 million in financing for the new Nets arena and 16 tower project. The money could go to pay off land loans or build the new railyard that Ratner has to put up for the Long Island Rail Road.
Markowitz spokeswoman Laura Sinagra said: "Part of his role is to encourage investment in Brooklyn, and this program is designed to bring investors to the table for projects that create jobs. As the person who came up with the original idea of bringing major league sports back to Brooklyn and one of the biggest supporters of Atlantic Yards, he obviously believes this project is worthy of investment, and is seeking guidance from the Conflicts of Interest Board on the possibility of accompanying the group.”

The trip was first reported by prolific Atlantic Yards blogger Norman Oder, who has questioned whether raking in Chinese cash for the project, already under construction, should really count as creating or saving jobs.

via nydailynews.com

Daniel Goldstein to tell you why this sucks:

Today the developer unveiled designs for an outdoor "public plaza” where the tower and atrium structure were promised, and told reporters at a press conference that his firm has no plans to build 15 of the 16 towers he promised to build, which would include nearly all of the "affordable” housing Ratner used to sell his plans to Mayor Bloomberg, Governor Paterson and a long list of other politicians.
"Ratner's not-so-pretty drawings of a barricaded, exhaust-enveloped plaza—including the absurd rendered fantasy of a traffic-less Atlantic and Flatbush intersection—is not the Atlantic Yards news of the day. The news of day, which is not surprising but is very troubling, is that Bruce Ratner admitted that he has no plans whatsoever to build the affordable housing he promised or the office tower he promised. It is crystal clear that Atlantic Yards is nothing but a scam, a money-losing arena, surrounded by massive parking lots, in the middle of a housing and unemployment crisis,” said Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn co-founder Daniel Goldstein.

via gothamist.com

I can't see any reason why any organization would want to hold an event here...much less outdoors trapped between the exhaust of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues. Rarely have I seen a less impressive design and a worse use of Eminent Domain. It is also alarming what measure government is claiming creates jobs or removes urban blight. I see little cohesion with any community whatsoever.

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Obama and the NETS Mikhail Prokhorov want your property

Wall Street Journal

LeBron James has reportedly been apartment hunting in Manhattan. But for the city’s real estate brokers, there may be a bigger client on the market.

As The Journal’s Craig Karmin reports, New York real estate brokers are drooling over the prospect of showing palatial pads to Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, 45, the owner of the New Jersey Nets.

The Russian billionaire has made his presence known in Brooklyn as well–albeit in a different way. His firm invested $200 million in the Atlantic Yards development project, which includes the stadium the Nets expect to call home in 2012.

link

via nolandgrab.org

Nets majority owner Mikhail Prokhorov can be a friendly, charming guy, sure, and he's offering (with the help of Jay-Z and, oh, lots of public assistance) free agent LeBron James big bucks, but check his reaction at the draft lottery to see the steel.
And notice how the picture of Prokhorov with President Barack Obama, appearing on the Nets web site, sure looks like it's being used, despite a ban, "in any commercial or political materials... that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House."
(Click on graphics to enlarge)

Apparently they talked basketball, but there's no sign Prokhorov thanked Obama for some 4150 million in federal tax breaks for the Atlantic Yards arena.
The opening page to NJNets.com

At the draft lottery May 18

via atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com

anything to keep the masses happy... even stealing property

noahdavidsimon's posterous

Land confiscated in Samaria to build Apartheid road

Land is to be confiscated in Samaria to build a new road, but you won't hear about it anyplace else and no one will protest. That's because privately owned Jewish land is being confiscated to build an apartheid road for Arabs only.

Jewish land in Judea and Samaria is to be confiscated for the construction of a road that will connect between the Arab city of Ramallah with the new Arab settlement of Rovai, to be built near the Jewish town of Ateret in the Binyamin region.

So when Rovai is finished, will the Arabs who live there be called settlers?
Can you say Double Standard?

via israelmatzav.blogspot.com

Just looking at this from a humane viewpoint one has to ask why the state is being allowed to seize land from private owners in the first place. In the United States the owners of the Atlantic Yards (the future home the Nets basketball franchise was able to force buy land at market prices under the clause that they were improving the quality of life, but in Israel how does an Arab only Apartheid road figure into improving the quality of life for a public that can not use it? Arabs in Israel are allowed everywhere, but that same liberty is not given to Jews where the Arabs have been given power. The two state solution is nothing short of furthering the goals of the "final solution".

Posted via web from noahdavidsimon's posterous

Nets Arena Brooklyn

I disagree with the NYTimes take on the new design of the Nets Basketball Arena. The restraints of the new economy has forced Brooklyn to scale down their dreams and I think the possible design is more beautiful then what they had previously conceptualized. While I like the idea of a rooftop park and the integration with the street and community form, I think design and community should develope organically and if they trully wanted they could set code for future development, but to ask for the taxpayers to throw in the kitchen sink is poor archetecture. Gehry's design was just too grandiose