There are elements of this project that I would change, involving the area between 6th Ave and Vanderbilt Ave.
Run Pacific St through the site.
Get rid of all the "public green space" that snakes through the project and consolidate the acreage into one park/playground that would be a focal point for the community.
Get rid of the gaps and put up a continuous streetwall that relates in scale to the neighborhood, and set back the residential towers from that streetwall.
The comment about the building height by Marty was just thrown out there. Without more of a context it is just an empty statement. So I give it no weight.
You would think that the opponets would push for taller more slender towers placed at an angle that would cast the least amount of shadow. Thereby getting rid of "the wall".
I like Zippy's idea too. Perhaps they are reading these forums and getting ideas.
All good suggestions, and all obvious. Also, I'd guess that Gehry made them all himself.Originally Posted by ZippyTheChimp
Gehry can be trusted to know what's right in an urban setting. He probably got shot down by residual modernist buildings-in-a-park theories; you'll find these are commonplace among the NIMBYs and other segments of the public, and chances are Ratner insisted on kowtowing to these elements.
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Last edited by ablarc; August 24th, 2006 at 09:25 PM.
That's true. Bruce already has overwhelming support from the state and city, I see no reason for him to change his plans now. Besides, "Miss Brooklyn" is fat enough as it is. These hearings are just a formality by the state. In the end, they will say we "listened" to the complaints. And the bulldozers will move in.
Amen.Bring it on, said Dan Jederlinic, an ironworker. “Bulldozers are coming,” he warned the project’s opponents to whooping applause, “and if you don’t get out of the way they’re going to bulldoze right over you!”
Another thing I don't get: I thought density was a good thing. Don't environmentalist activists usually encourage greater density to cut down on sprawl and save on energy? If density's such a problem in Brooklyn, why is it the most populous borough in the city?
I just don't get it!
Yes, please. With those changes, I'd fully and enthusiastically support the project. The way it is, I'm only a supporter because I don't oppose it. I think the current plan has some serious flaws that need to be fixed. For this reason, I don't mind the persistent protests even though I don't agree with many of the issues cited.
This is likely not far from the truth. Its likely the majority of wealthier white residence who oppose have moved to Brooklyn from somewhere else.Umar Jordan, 51, a black resident of Bedford-Stuyvesant, said he had come to “speak for the underprivileged, the brothers who just got out of prison,” and he drew loud cheers when he mocked opponents who had moved to Brooklyn only recently. Mr. Jordan suggested that they “just go back up to Pleasantville.”
While the working class minorities who support are likely to be life time residents of Brooklyn.
The problem with those who oppose is they mostly oppose based on some idea of how they want Brooklyn to be. While not giving enough attention to the practical problems Atlantic Yards addresses, the need for jobs and housing. Even if Atlantic Yards is mostly for rich people it still adds much needed housing that will help balance the current and extremely unequal supply and demand.The Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a civil rights activist whose church nearly abuts the project site, was talking to reporters about the need for lower-income housing when Mr. Barkey, the photographer, interrupted him.
“Like this?” Mr. Barkey said sarcastically, pointing to his posters of huge, blank building faces towering over a neighborhood. “This is rich folks’ housing. Look at these walls.”
Mr. Daughtry was not impressed. “Don’t you understand that all we’ve been around is walls all our lives?” he said. “You need to take that somewhere else.”
Those who support are looking primarily at their own practical need for jobs and housing. Those who oppose ignore this need in favor of their own idea of the way things should be.
Brooklyn Papers
Atlantic Yards hearing pits pro vs. con in historic battle for Brooklyn
2,000 show up, only 100 get a chance to speak
Opponents of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-project (left) made their point clear at Wednesday night’s seven-hour hearing on the development…while supporters, including this woman (right) holding a “Yes in my back yard” sign, cheered the development as a source of jobs and affordable housing.
By Gersh Kuntzman and Ariella Cohen
Supporters and opponents of Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development clashed loudly and repeatedly during Wednesday’s state hearing on the project — and in doing so put forward two distinct visions of Brooklyn’s future.
Seats were in short supply — and so was civility — at a NYC Technical College auditorium, as opponents of the project were roundly jeered by supporters, who, in turn, were booed by opponents.
Because the hearing’s moderator chose to alternate pro-Atlantic Yards speakers and anti-Yards speakers, the visceral chasm between the two sides was abundantly on display.
For every unemployed speaker begging the state to approve the project — whose backers predict will create “jobs in the community” — there was a seemingly more affluent activist ticking off the traffic, transit, open space, noise and pollution shortcomings of the project.
For every Rev. Herbert Daughtry, who got $50,000 from Ratner after he came out in support of the project, there was a Lee Solomon, a resident of Fort Greene, whose opposition to the project has not earned her a dime.
For every union ironworker making brownie points with his union to testify, there was a community activist hoping to testify quickly so she could save on babysitting.
The see-saw night started before the first speaker even approached the podium in the Klitgord Auditorium on Jay Street, Downtown, with a request from the moderator for civility — which was almost immediately ignored as Borough President Markowitz, who is the public official most identified by his outspoken support of the project, made the first speech.
Markowitz could barely be heard over the boos and cheers.
“Thank you very very much,” he said. “What you just heard was a Brooklyn cheer. It’s OK. I believe Atlantic Yards is the right project, at the right time, at the right place.”
His biggest applause line came when he said that Ratner would build his project with “100 percent union labor!”
But the cheering abruptly stopped when the Beep changed gears.
“This project needs to be reduced,” he said. “The Williamsburgh Savings Bank should remain Brooklyn’s tallest building! The height of [the 62-story] ‘Miss Brooklyn’ must be reduced. Next, build a school! And next, insure public safety. And get real about traffic and parking. Finally, make the open space accessible and integrated seamlessly into the neighborhood.”
After exceeding his allotted three minutes by at least two, he left the podium to a resounding chorus of boos, as project supporters felt betrayed and opponents felt that Markowitz’s concerns about the project came “too little, too late,” as one man yelled out.
As the second speaker of the night — state Sen. Marty Golden (R–Bay Ridge) — approached the podium, former Community Board 8 member Connie Lesold could not hold her tongue.
“It’s not right that he should speak,” she said as she was escorted out. “He’s from the far southern end of Brooklyn. His neighborhood hasn’t lost firehouses. This project is a giveaway to rich corporations!”
A dozen elected officials got to speak at the “public hearing” before the public itself, while hundreds of people waited their turn or, worse, waited outside just to get into the hearing.
Any politician who supported the project was cheered by scores of construction workers. Any who did not, was jeered by them.
Supporters repeatedly derided opponents as white people out of touch with the needs of black Brooklyn. Assemblyman Roger Green (D–Prospect Heights) stuck to that story line with a preacher’s cadence.
“I was born in Brooklyn and I was raised in Brooklyn,” he said. “Some of us were here before other people got here! Some of you have never been in the Fort Greene Houses. Some of you have never dared to go to the Farragut Houses. We will not be lectured to.”
Green spoke of the “conspiracy of silence” that deprives “the black man” of economic empowerment — but also said it was a “moral imperative” to bring the project’s scale down by 30 to 40 percent.
Next, Assemblywoman Joan Millman (D–Park Slope) complained that the Empire State Development Corporation released the project’s draft environmental impact statement and scheduled the public hearing during the summer, “when many people are on their vacation.”
She was hissed.
“Too many politicians in Brooklyn!” one man yelled.
The same man later cheered when another politician — this time, project supporter Assemblyman Karim Camera (D–Crown Heights) — mentioned high black unemployment.
“When people ask me, ‘How can you be for the project?’ I return the question, ‘How could I not be for this project?’ We need jobs. We need affordable housing. Do this for every black man who needs a job.”
Ratner claims there would be 1,500 construction jobs per year over the 10-year buildout of the project.
People speak
When the unelected masses got their turn to speak, the back-and-forth battle — complete with the breakdown in civility — continued.
A man from upstate Pleasantville spoke of traffic, the lack of greenspace and how historic restaurant Gage & Tollner was forced to close a few years back because Ratner “failed to live up to the promises he made at Metrotech.”
He was followed by Umar Jordan, who ridiculed his complaints.
“If you never been in the Marcy projects, you’re not from Brooklyn,” he said. “Go back to Pleasantville.”
Jordan, who lives in Bedford-Stuyvesant, added, “Black men and women are forced to rob because you won’t give them a job! You’re complaining about the height of the buildings and this and that. Well, welcome to the hood!”
Park Slope civics
Several members of the Park Slope Civic Council — speaking in three-minute allotments — read the group’s testimony into the record.
Lumi Rolley began by complaining that the hearing was scheduled “at a time when so many Brooklynites are squeezing in the last of their summer vacations.”
The group’s testimony focused on the DEIS’s failure to mitigate increased subway crowding, the loss of street parking and gridlock conditions.
Daughtry, whose House of the Lord Pentecostal Church is located in nearby Boerum Hill, followed the Civic Council’s by-the-book presentation with an impassioned sermon that argued that the area where Ratner wants to build was “written off” by they city for years.
“Nobody stepped up — but Forest City Ratner had a vision. So why are you holding this [project] against Forest City Ratner when development is going on all over Brooklyn with non-union work? And that bank building that you hold so sacred? That developer said there ain’t going to be affordable housing there! Protest against that!”
He was followed by Community Board 6 Chairman Jerry Armer, who also complained about the lack of time for a full analysis of the 2,000-page DEIS.
“This is a time when most people are away,” Armer said. “Even psychiatrists, which some of us sitting here may need when this is all over, are on vacation in August.”
Few traffic concerns
Before taking public testimony, ESDC officials offered brief presentations about the $4.2-billion project and its impacts.
Just three minutes was spent on traffic.
“The impacted locations are reduced substantially [by various mitigations], but there will still be what we would call non-mitigatable conditions,” said ESDC consultant Philip Habib. “There will be traffic congestion on Flatbush and Atlantic avenues and on Dean Street.”
Another ESDC official spoke of a “shortfall in the number of elementary and intermediate school seats” as a result of the project. “We considered that to be a significant adverse impact,” said the consultant.
By the time the ESDC presentations were done, 250 people had already registered for a three-minute timeslot. If each had been able to speak for the allotted time, the meeting would have taken 12-1/2 hours.
As it is, the scheduled four-hour hearing was extended to 11:30 pm, allowing slightly more than 100 people to speak.
The only moment of comic relief came from a speaker who identified himself only as “Mr. X” and was wearing mirrored sunglasses.
He compared the project to a drug deal and offered to put Ratner in “a tight-ass mini-skirt,” drawing laughter from both sides.
The remaining 200 or so speakers were told to submit their testimony in writing or attend a second hearing on Sept. 12 — but they were not promised a spot at the head of the line.
At the end of the long night, longtime opponent of the project, Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, said he found the whole event a depressing “circus.”
“This hearing was meaningless,” he said.
“It became a shouting match rather than an analysis of the flawed DEIS. Ratner’s supporters don’t want to hear that opponents of Atlantic Yards do want affordable housing and jobs.”
Im shocked...
This is actually seems to be an objective article from the Brooklyn Papers...
I hope they maintain this level of reporting.
New York Times
August 25, 2006
A Little Change of Tune From Atlantic Yards’ Biggest Fan
By ANDY NEWMAN
In the three years since it was proposed, the city-within-a-city known as the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn has become the most polarizing development project in New York. During that time, no elected official has proclaimed its benefits more often, or more loudly, than Brooklyn’s borough president, Marty Markowitz.
To hear Mr. Markowitz tell it, the Atlantic Yards, comprising high-rise housing, a sports arena and retail space, is Junior’s Cheesecake, Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, a bag of chips and then some. He has always acknowledged that it might need a little fine-tuning, but he has saved his exclamation points for words of praise. At a news conference on Wednesday, for example, he said, “Brooklyn is a world-class city, and we deserve the Atlantic Yards!”
But a few hours later, at a public hearing on the 22-acre project’s environmental impact, Mr. Markowitz shouted a slightly different tune.
For the first time, he urged that the project’s centerpiece, a tower dubbed Miss Brooklyn, rise no higher than the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank building, the clock-faced icon that has defined Brooklyn’s skyline since 1929. “The Williamsburgh Savings Bank should remain Brooklyn’s tallest building!” he thundered.
Miss Brooklyn is penciled in at 620 feet high. The bank tower is 512 feet high. Mr. Markowitz was telling the developer, Forest City Ratner, to lop nearly 20 percent off the project’s signature building.
Mr. Markowitz wasn’t finished. The project would still be fantastic, he said, but three other buildings on the site should be shrunk. And Forest City Ratner needed to “get real about traffic and parking!”
Mr. Markowitz said yesterday that he had planned to speak out on these concerns all along.
“I always said, ‘when the time is right,’ and now the time is right,” he said, “now” being the period for public comment on a draft environmental impact statement for the project.
But Mr. Markowitz may also be sensing a shift in the political winds. Eliot Spitzer, the Democratic candidate for governor, recently called for further review on the project. Indeed, critics have grown loud enough that politicians seem to be paying far more heed than they once did.
Assemblyman Roger Green, who has called for the project to be downsized, said of Mr. Markowitz, “In the context of negotiating with Ratner and the state, I think he’s calibrating his remarks to get to a compromise.”
Eric McClure, a co-founder of Park Slope Neighbors, a civic group, said the operative verb to describe Mr. Markowitz’s remarks was “grandstanding” rather than “calibrating.”
Mr. Markowitz, Mr. McClure said, was reaching for some political cover so that he could say he stood up to the developers, an assertion that might be useful if he runs for higher office when his term expires in 2009.
But to win over Mr. McClure, a critic of the project’s scale, he said, “Marty would have to come out and say, ‘As much as I want a pro team in Brooklyn, if this project isn’t made more manageable, even I would say don’t bring it to Brooklyn.’ ”
Mr. Markowitz said that while his years of stumping for the Atlantic Yards had given him leverage with Forest City Ratner, the developer might not follow his every instruction. Still, he said, “the recommendations that are heeded will make a good project even better.”
Several people ascribed Mr. Markowitz’s tough stand to the possession of inside information.
“I can’t see Marty demanding that those buildings be scaled back and going out on a limb unless he’s received some kind of assurance that that will occur,” said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, the project’s most strident critic. Mr. Markowitz said he had no such knowledge.
Forest City Ratner did not comment specifically on Mr. Markowitz’s remarks, but said in a statement: “We understand the borough president’s point of view and have always found his suggestions and input valuable to the project. We will continue to work with him and others to improve on what we all agree is a great project.”
Forest City Ratner is also The New York Times Company’s development partner on its new headquarters in Midtown Manhattan.
The Williamsburgh Savings Bank building is perhaps an odd platform upon which to make a stand against overdevelopment. By saying Miss Brooklyn must be no higher, Mr. Markowitz seemed to be comparing the bank tower to the Washington Monument and the statue of William Penn atop Philadelphia’s City Hall, whose heights have historically been held sacred by residents.
But the bank building in Brooklyn — where no bank exists now — is being converted into condominiums priced at up to $3 million each, a fact that was not lost on some of the speakers at Wednesday’s meeting.
The Rev. Herbert Daughtry, a full-throated supporter of the Atlantic Yards, mocked those who complained that the buildings would block views of the bank’s clock tower. “That bank that you hold sacred?” he said. “That developer said there ain’t going to be no affordable housing there. Protest against that.”
Mr. Markowitz said the bank was a treasure that needed to be protected. “I’ve seen so many buildings come down in my lifetime,” he said. “I just think it’s a good thing to preserve the yesterday as we move ahead tomorrow.”
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
This is the true goal of the opposition, and it will work
Markowitz: Limit size of Atlantic Yards
August 25, 8:36 am
Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, one of the biggest boosters of the proposed Atlantic Yards project, says he's now in favor of limiting the height of the project's tallest tower. Markowitz wants a 620-foot tower dubbed Miss Brooklyn to rise no higher than the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank, currently the borough's tallest building. He also wants three other Atlantic Yards buildings to be smaller than planned. more [NYT] and more [Post]
What is this gasbag talking about? Protected from what? Marty is truly the Blustering Buffoon of Brooklyn.Mr. Markowitz said the bank was a treasure that needed to be protected. “I’ve seen so many buildings come down in my lifetime,” he said. “I just think it’s a good thing to preserve the yesterday as we move ahead tomorrow.”
The image I get from the meeting is out of The Bonfire of the Vanities. Just add Morgan Freeman, banging the gavel and yelling, "Shut up!"
But is he saying this because he is a politician trying to appease both sides.. or is he saying this because he honestly feels it. I dont believe Marty is stupid.. he knows that the hieght wont have much to do with "scale". If he wants to see a real wall.. then tell the developer to reduce the hieght.
Also I must add, by limiting the hieght of our buildings.. I wonder what treasures we our missing out on. The downtown brooklyn plan already calls for buildings that are taller that the williamsburg bank. Does Marty truly think he can use think he can force developers to respect a hieght limit, in a city that is filled with skyscrapers, worlds tallest buildings, and a tradition of breaking records.
So what this might result in is a Plateau effect for Brooklyn where everything is capped at ~ 500 ft.
The worst version of Manhattanization.
That's what we have now. The Brooklyn Plateau.
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