I don't think so - not yet. The two areas could eventually merge into one, but Atlantic Yards alone won't do the trick.Quote:
Originally Posted by ablarc
I don't think so - not yet. The two areas could eventually merge into one, but Atlantic Yards alone won't do the trick.Quote:
Originally Posted by ablarc
So?Quote:
Originally Posted by BrooklynRider
Government agencies prescribe what's real? There were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? The powers of authority ...
BR, Brooklyn's much too big to settle forever for such a shriveled downtown. Tiny Boston's perceived downtown stretches a mile or two through Back Bay regardless what agencies might claim in definitions.
That's quite presumptive. Best to leave such omniscience to God. Wouldn't want the earth to start shaking beneath your feet. :pQuote:
It is not now nor will it ever be considered a part of Downtown Brooklyn.
Isn't it time Brooklyn recognized its bigness and started acting its size? :)
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The Brooklyn Fox Theater defined the limits of what was considered "going Downtown" in Brooklyn - so, say Flatbush and Livingston. It's about a quarter mile from AY.
The Downtown Brooklyn Rezoning Plan boundary is the WBB, 400 ft from AY.
400 feet, or a quarter mile, how small a distance!
Before moving to Manhattan, I lived on Ashland Place and on St. Felix for for many years. There is "downtown" in the literal and zoning sense, as trumpeted by BrooklynRider and others, and there is the actual downtown as pretty much everyone else perceives it. Brooklyn is huge, and it's "downtown" area, if you use that word to mean an area of concentrated businesses, hotels, and/or cultural attractions, will expand and envelop Atlantic Yards. The projects around BAM, the towers going up on Fulton, Dekalb, Flatbush, all of these will redefine what Brooklynites think is "downtown", more so than some zoning map that no one, except people like us, on this rather specialized forum, will ever be aware of. Soon enough, people will say, "I'm going downtown to see a basketball game", or a performance at BAM. The 400 ft. or 1/4 mile is, in a way, meaningless when you just rode in from the edges of the borough.
I'm trying hard not to say something crude about "going downtown" or about the size of Brooklyn's "downtown."
I think that despite the city's definition or our speculation, it is pretty clear what could be construed now or going forward as downtown. It is the area, both residential and commercial, that borders the historic districts on Park Slope, Fort Green, Brooklyn Heights, Bourum Hill, and Cobble Hill.
It is a huge area. I think those familiar with is understand how tremendous the area is. The only place we have commercial towers are along Court Street (all vintage 1920's & 190's, some converted to residential). We have the banal MetrotechCenter somewhat pushing eastward. A smattering of atrocious buildings that are two or three steps below useful and interesting. We have the Williamsburg Bank Tower.
There's not much meat to the large swath that can be inarguably called downtown Brooklyn. The potential (without even considering Atlantic Yards) for a hi-rise business district is greater than anyone not familiar with the area might realize. South of te Fulton Mall is a barren area of parking lots and crap buildings. The challenge is whether the city contonues to give a pass to developers, so they can in turn build more residential housing. We need housing all over the city, but 8 or 10-story residential buildings in the heart of the "Downtown District", such as the new building on Livingston defy logic.
Yes, it is great to see the investment in the area, but it is investment that has a minor payback versus commercial development that brings jobs. Every project seizes on "job creation" and about the only job creation we get are jobs in the construction trades. Transient jobs. Then we get the dry cleaners, delicatessens, florists, chinese restaurants and phone stores augmented by [insert name of pharmacy here] and Starbucks.
The Downtown Brooklyn Plan is not working. It is not attracting ANYONE. Thor's Albee West was the often hailed catalyst for the revitalization. It was flipped and Joe Sitt, Brooklyn's son and a person who swore he had only Brooklyn's future and jobs, jobs, jobs, in mind bailed. He bought that parcel fo $25M and could've built commercial or commercial hotel and still made a fortune.
The Brooklyn Plan is faltering, if not entirely falling apart. The BAM cultural district is the most promising, cohesive plan announced - if it happens. The most high-profile and attractive development in Brooklyn in decades, Richard Meier's One Prospect Park, isn't anyhere near the Downtown Area.
Brooklyn will have a two great cultural districts: BAM and the Prospect Park-Eastern Parkway cultural mile.
Atlantic Yards is nothing. It adds nothing. It is being built on nothing. Take that project away an NO PROJECT of the job-creating kind is being built in Brooklyn. The folks in Red Hook have it right fighting to preserve the watefront jobs. lest we lose the last vestiges of a "working Brooklyn." Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge from Manhattan to Brooklyn and you will see the pier buildings on the right proclaiming "BROOKLYN WORKS." No it doesn't. Those signs are obvioulsly holdovers from decades ago and THOSE VERY PIERS will be razed to make way for a park. Brooklyn does NOT work.
Its pretty extreme to say downtown Brooklyn is not working. As you walk around the area during the day it is bustling with people living, working, shopping.
I suppose in relation to Manhattan downtown Brooklyn isn't much but hey its Manhattan. I've seen downtowns that are not used and they look nothing like Brooklyn.
As far as jobs. Again yes most of the lucrative jobs are in Manhattan but that does not take away from the fact that Brooklyn has 2.5 million people. Brooklyn as a city by itself would be the fourth largest city in the country. If there were no jobs people would not live here.
Brooklyn river front shipping has been a business slowly dying for 40 years. It is incumbent on city leaders to determine what is the best use of resources. It is possible that river front housing may be more lucrative use of the land for Brooklyn than shipping. I'm not necessarily saying the shipping should be shut down. But there has to be room for adjustment because time and industry move on.
Its also pretty extreme to say AY adds nothing. It may not add what you prefer but it certainly adds something. It adds housing, a basketball franchise, retail, possibly a school.
You may not value either of those things but they cannot be dismissed as nothing.
Atlantic Yards adds nothing?
It adds an entire dense neigborhood.
Retail.. thousands of square feet. ( shopping district next to a transit hub)
Housing, thousands of new residents........ (next two a transit hub)
Even though it may not seem like much.... hundreds of thousands of square feet of office space..
The Arena... will be a cultural attraction... not only was it designed by superstar architect...., it has been so contriversial and so public that it will instantly draw tourism...There will be many public events that will take place there.
Atlantic Yards adds a new urban core to Downtown Brooklyn, it will spur tons of growth along Flatbush, and Atlantic Avenues....
And thousands of people will work there.
Seems to be alot of nothing
PS. Are you sure 1 prospect park is the most exciting and high profile project in Brooklyn either today or in the past decades? I know you don't like atlantic yards.... but it has gained worldwide attention, and has excited many millions of people.
Downtown Brooklyn has as much office space as Atlanta.... the new developers of the Thor Mall, are still planning to build an office tower. There are other office towers being considered for the area.... (Muss development), and developers have been quietly buying areas of downown brooklyn for years. The Downtown Brooklyn plan was approved in late 2003/2004, its only been three years, and things like this take time
Atlantic Yards is nothing in relation to the Downtown Rezoning Plan and Downtown Brooklyn. Please quote me in context.
We can all speculate of the plethora of new commercial buildings that are going to create a giant Brooklyn skyline and day now, but they aren't there. There's no hole in the ground. There's no construction fencing going up.
The only construction we are seeing is residential towers. I am pleased to see them, but the are THE ONLY portion of the Downtown Rezoning that is moving forward as you said, "after 3 or 4 years." That's a pretty lousy rezoning plan if all we can get are 7 or 8 new residential highrises in a business distict hurrahed as the next big thing.
With regard to the Downtown Rezoning and Downtown Revitalization - Atlantic Yards ADDS NOTHING. The city is now writing a blank check to the developer to building a platform over the yards before construction can even begin. We aren' going to see PERMANENT jobs. We are going to see construction jobs. Those are transient.
Nothing has begun at Atlantic Yards and the design relies on the completion of the arena AND adjoining towers before we can check that phase off and count how many fewer jobs we get than promised. Then we'll have to check to see the average wages of those new quality jobs as security guards, maintenance men, pretzel vendors, and cashiers.
Yeah, Atlantic Yards means NOTHING to Down Town. If it did, it would be a commercial development as opposed to an arena built in a Gehry fugly Battery Park City.
Walk around MSG during the day ...Quote:
Originally Posted by bkmonkey
Almost never anything going on there during daylight ours.
So if tourists show up to look at the Gehry / Nets Arena they'll take a look and move on.
What is the daytime activity at AY that will draw tourists to that site?
Its nice to see that some that are being displaced, in this case the choice was temporarily, have a positive outlook and are making the best of what is an inevitable situation, this particular story is a win-win for everyone.
Drink ’til you drop at Yards-area bar
By Dana Rubinstein
The Brooklyn Paper
A neighborhood establishment wants you to come in and get completely wasted — and you can thank Bruce Ratner for it.
The JRG Restaurant and Fashion Cafe — which is on Flatbush Avenue between Atlantic and Fifth avenues — is having a hedonistic last hurrah before it is torn down to make way for Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development.
The bar, which is in the way of the Frank Gehry–designed arena, is liquidating its stock in a $30, all-you-can drink bacchanal.
And rest assured — that cash won’t buy you mere swill.
“It’s all premium liquor — we’re not talking house wine,” said the bar’s general manager Ray Rodriguez. Even better, the $30 gets you 15 percent off all food, which is a substance sometimes ingested during alcoholic binges.
Like any decadent exercise, this one is tinged with a sense of fatalism.
The liquoricious deal will last only as long as the bar-cum-restaurant-cum-fashion house does — through the end of the month.
That’s because the premises are owned by Forest City Ratner, which has said it intends to start demolition for its 16-tower development as early as next month.
On a recent Tuesday evening, the ploy to pour liquor into the throats of eager Brooklynites wasn’t going so well. The bar was empty, save a few diners and a couple of reporters.
Rodriguez attributed the slow night to the just-beginning snow, and of course, to the fact that it was a Tuesday. But he was optimistic that business would pick up again once the streets became passable and the long President’s Day weekend encouraged lots and lots of toasts to our former leaders.
Rodriguez insists the bar will relocate rather than just close down.
“We’ll come back even stronger,” he said.
He also claimed that JRG Restaurant would move into the Nets arena when it is completed in 2009 — though Forest City Ratner would not comment.
After all the binge-drinking is done, Rodriguez will throw one last two-day bash on March 3 and 4.
Brooklyn: Atlantic Yards Construction to Begin
February 20, 2007
By RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA
Construction crews were expected to take the first steps today toward building the huge Atlantic Yards project near downtown Brooklyn, according to an aide to Bruce C. Ratner, the developer. The first stages of the work will involve subcontractors removing contamination from a bus depot, then demolishing that structure. Forest City Ratner Companies will build a temporary Long Island Rail Road yard in its place, so that a giant platform can be built above the permanent rail yard to support much of the $4 billion development. The city and state approved the project despite heated opposition from residents who said it would overwhelmingly congest the local streets and transit system. The development will include thousands of apartments, commercial buildings, a hotel and an arena for the Nets, the basketball team Mr. Ratner owns.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
It's inevitable...
NY Post
B'KLYN ARENA TIP-OFF BREAKS GROUND TODAY
By RICH CALDER
February 20, 2007
Brooklyn developer Bruce Ratner is expected to finally break ground today on his controversial $4 billion Atlantic Yards project, The Post has learned.
Preliminary work on the 22-acre Frank Gehry-designed development - which is to include an NBA arena for Ratner's Nets and 16 skyscrapers filled with residential and commercial space - will quietly kick off without fanfare along the Vanderbilt Rail Yard off Atlantic Avenue, sources said.
The start of construction on property Ratner already controls comes as a federal judge weighs the merits of a lawsuit by opponents seeking to block the developer from getting other property he needs for the project through eminent domain.
The MTA - to which Ratner is to pay $100 million for development rights to the 8.4-acre rail yard - gave the developer the green light last week to begin work on the site, sources said.
The first job calls for building a temporary parking area for trains on the east side of the yard so that existing LIRR trains could be moved from the west end, which must be cleared so that construction on the $637 million Barclays Center basketball arena could begin in September.
The Nets hope to be playing in their new home for the 2009-10 season.
Later this week, a former auto-repair shop at 179 Flatbush Ave. is to be demolished so that the land could eventually be used as the base of the planned 511-foot "Miss Brooklyn" at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
Patti Hagan, of the anti-Atlantic Yards group Prospect Heights Action Coalition, called the start of construction "free cleanup work for the MTA by Ratner," adding that she believed the developer would eventually lose the eminent-domain lawsuit and have to abandon the project.
The first work on Brooklyn's biggest development in decades includes more than $600,000 in contracts awarded to minority- and women-owned companies as part of a Community Benefits Agreement reached by Ratner and government bosses.
Daily News
Restaurant 'Nets' new site at arena
By JOTHAM SEDERSTROM
The only restaurant operating in the footprint of the controversial Atlantic Yards project will shut its doors next month - but it won't be gone for long.
JRG Fashion Cafe will be resurrected to serve food and drinks inside the Frank Gehry-designed Nets arena when it opens in 2009, a manager for the Flatbush Ave. restaurant told the Daily News.
"Yes, we will be serving drinks and food in the arena," said JRG general manager Ray Rodriguez, who said the Caribbean-inspired hotspot will close March 2.
"We were fully compensated and part of the deal is [that we are] coming back in 2009 as part of the [arena]," he said.
Owners of the restaurant and bar, which opened in 2002, began negotiations with Forest City Ratner officials 18 months ago, Rodriguez said.
Though the cafe was originally to stay open until later this summer, Ratner officials moved up the closing date because of construction plans, Rodriguez said.
Groundbreaking may begin as early as this week, sources said.
"We were doing really well, so to tell you the truth, it's sad," Rodriguez said. "We felt like we were kind of like the show 'Cheers' - everyone knew everyone."
A spokesman for the developer declined to comment, citing ongoing negotiations with cafe owners.
The $4.2 billion development - greenlighted by the state in December - calls for a basketball arena for the Nets and 16 towers with residential and commercial space in Prospect Heights.
The cafe's current spot on Flatbush Ave. at Pacific St. will become an open area at the base of the Miss Brooklyn building, a source said.
In a concession to opponents, Ratner agreed to scale back the 620-foot skyscraper so it won't rise above the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, the borough's tallest building.
Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Fort Greene) said including the cafe in the arena is a good move, but she warned that the project still threatened to hurt other small businesses.
"It's a step in the right direction, but obviously I'm very much concerned for the small businesses that will be impacted by the entire project," James said.
Freddy's Bar and Back Room, a bar in the project footprint, is one of the holdouts fighting Ratner in court to prevent the use of eminent domain to make way for the 22-acre development.
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Hell just froze over. Letitia James actually had something positive to say about the development.Quote:
Councilwoman Letitia James (WFP-Fort Greene) said including the cafe in the arena is a good move, but she warned that the project still threatened to hurt other small businesses.
"It's a step in the right direction, but obviously I'm very much concerned for the small businesses that will be impacted by the entire project," James said.