As some Brooklyn followers may know, Monday the state agency known as the The Empire State Development Corporation, was granted through a state judge the right to seize property from 12 private landowners, to make way for Bruce Ratner's 4.9 Billionaire Net's Arena and High Rise Towers. (read all about it www.nolandgrab.org) One of those homes was *Miss Wit's brother's. For that and lots of other reasons, she's pissed!
If ever there was a time to come to show some solidarity, anger, some vocal chords, this is it. The Miss knows it's hard to pull away on a Thursday in the middle of the day, but she's asking you to try!bNothing can be done to save this property - but to see bobble heads and fat cats like Markowitz and Ratner, and
I'm going to guess Bloomberg, stand by and literally revel in the taking, is nothing short of sad and despicable.
Is that really the
"Brooklyn Style" this project means to project?
Is that really the
"Brooklyn Style" this project means to project?
Take a long lunch? Take a break from the Web. Whatever it is.
Join Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn to Protest and Drown Out the
Join Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn to Protest and Drown Out the
Barclays/Ratner Boondoggle Ceremonial Groundbreaking
ALL HANDS ON DECK
Thursday, March 11. Reportedly 1:30pm
Next Thursday, March 11th, Forest City Ratner will stage a “groundbreaking ceremony” for the money-losing Barclays Center Arena. We presume it will take place in the Atlantic Yards project site though we do not yet know exactly where. We also presume they will do all they can to keep Brooklynites away from the site and limit our free speech. We are working on that.
Note there will be no groundbreaking for any "affordable housing" and the Barclays Billion Dollar Boondoggle will not house a single Brooklynite.
The ceremony of dirt shoveling politicians will signify the start of prepping to eventually build an arena, not the promised affordable housing Bruce Ratner still claims he is going to build. It is a ceremony to celebrate a money-losing arena and at least 25 years of blight and interim surface parking where a neighborhood once stood.
It is a classic bait and switch.
*Here is what Miss Wit's alter-ego has to say:
My position against this project exists far beyond my personal connection. However, being up close, the things I have learned over these past 6 years have been mind-boggling, heartening, disheartening, unbelievable, believable and down right wacked. I've met many incredible people and witnessed some really rotten ones, in situations that would make your skin crawl, and sometimes even make me mouth off to some seriously big scary dudes. (I'm not so proud). It has challenged many things that I thought I believed in about community, development, unions, organizing, lying, truth telling, snow jobs, etc. I've witnessed complete strangers vilify the people I know and love. Through the adversity of fighting, good things surely did happen.
On a personal level I watched someone emerge from "average citizen" into a public speaker (and therefor a target for ridicule I suppose), an activist, a publicist, and actually an amazingly calm person given the crap he has dealt with on a daily and nightly basis. He met his wife, which gave me a sister in law and more and I now have the cutest most joyful love of a niece around. But that does not substitute for the fact that this land grab, the taking of one's home, the dividing of a community, for a sports arena and a project designed on transparent myths, is nothing short of wrong. I struggle to find any lesson that would work to tell any child. Nothing I ever practiced or learned in union organizing, social work or community organizing, ever called for this kind of grazing to reach progress, jobs, and definitely not affordable housing. Personal or not, I'm pissed!
On a personal level I watched someone emerge from "average citizen" into a public speaker (and therefor a target for ridicule I suppose), an activist, a publicist, and actually an amazingly calm person given the crap he has dealt with on a daily and nightly basis. He met his wife, which gave me a sister in law and more and I now have the cutest most joyful love of a niece around. But that does not substitute for the fact that this land grab, the taking of one's home, the dividing of a community, for a sports arena and a project designed on transparent myths, is nothing short of wrong. I struggle to find any lesson that would work to tell any child. Nothing I ever practiced or learned in union organizing, social work or community organizing, ever called for this kind of grazing to reach progress, jobs, and definitely not affordable housing. Personal or not, I'm pissed!
I hope Ratner follows through on his word, and builds affordable housing. I hope this project does not really become the "I told you so" that it so feels like it will be. But I am doubtful, and so much has been lost, tainted driven away and destroyed to get there. I believe humans can and could have done better than this.
However, even if one believes the use of eminent domain, and this project is right - is it really "Brooklyn Style" to take such joy in the bulldozing of one's home and neighborhood?
"Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, cheered the decision as paving the way for the first professional sports team in the borough in 53 years." http://www.metro.us/us/article/2010/03/02/03/3344-82/index.xml
DDDB:
This is why we ask you to join us this Thursday first at our Groundbreaking to Bury the Soul of Brooklyn, then to loudly protest Ratner’s/Bloomberg's/Markowitz's/Paterson's/Prokhorov's “groundbreaking."
Mr. Ratner apparently doesn’t know Brooklyn very well.
Because by now, he ought to know that Brooklynites are mad, very mad, about his project.
We’re mad that a top-down, developer-driven, Big Brother-style project has been billed as “involving the community.”
We’re mad that our city laws have been overridden and our democratic city land use review process has been bypassed and subverted.
We’re mad that billions of dollars that belong to taxpayers will be wasted on a folly whose prime beneficiary will be Bruce Ratner.
We’re mad that the unelected, unaccountable Empire State Development Corporation has abused eminent domain for the benefit of a private real-estate project.
We’re mad that 22 acres at the heart of Brooklyn, including city streets, private homes and businesses, and publicly owned land are being given to Ratner in a no-bid, no-vote deal, granting him a land monoply at the Borough's crossroads.
We’re mad that publicly owned land is being awarded to the lowest bidder, in a faux bidding process, by the unelected, unaccountable Metropolitan Transportation Association, the same MTA that has neglected to properly maintain the Vanderbilt Railyards so Bruce Ratner can claim “blight.”
We’re mad that public money is being wasted on a frivolous, money-losing arena while public transportation, schools, infrastructure and social services go wanting.
We’re mad that our own elected representatives, like Tish James and Velmanette Montgomery, have been ignored by the powerbrokers in Albany and City Hall who try to hide their cronyism by saying that they know what’s best for Brooklyn.
We’re mad that for all the phony Brooklyn and Dodgers nostalgia pushed by Bruce Ratner and his supporters, the naming rights for the arena have been sold to a British bank with a sordid past – while Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov and Bruce Ratner pocket all the money.
We’re mad that a project that will do nothing but cause blight has been falsely sold as blight removal.
We’re mad that public streets are being closed and discredited superblock designs are taking their place.
We’re mad that Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson have continued to keep their head in the sand about this boondoggle.
We’re mad that the ESDC railroaded through a sham environmental review, ignoring comments from thousands of citizens and telling Brooklyn residents that we’ll just have to deal with the project’s many unmitigable adverse impacts.
We’re mad that Bruce Ratner has told us that his out of scale, out of character project is what’s best for Brooklyn, when we know much better.
We’re mad that Bruce Ratner and his political supporters have exploited the housing crisis in New York City to sell the public a project that will cause instant gentrification (if it is ever built) and cause the displacement of thousands of lower-income residents, while never fulfilling its affordable housing promises.
And on and on and Etc.
It is greatly important for all those who oppose Atlantic Yards and its abuses, whether you have been involved in the fight against the project to any degree or not at all, to come out to this protest and demonstration.
Let the political dignitaries who have allowed this corrupt project to proceed hear and know of your opposition and anger.
Let them know that they are not getting away with this unnoticed. Let them know that WE, the people, are angry and watching…. very closely. If you, too, are mad about this miscarriage of justice and abuse of our political system, taxpayer dollars, about this irresponsible, unsustainable boondoggle, about this Land Grab, join us this Thursday from 12:30 onward to express your anger.Bring your signs, slogans, posters, effigies and noisemakers—drum, horn, trumpet, kazoo, a pot, a whistle—make some noise, and let Bruce Ratner and his political cronies know that Brooklyn is mad as hell, and we’re not taking it sitting down or quietly.
(More to come as details emerge about the event. Please check back at www.dddb.net/upcoming for more details on precise locations for the two groundbreakings.)
DDDB:
This is why we ask you to join us this Thursday first at our Groundbreaking to Bury the Soul of Brooklyn, then to loudly protest Ratner’s/Bloomberg's/Markowitz's/Paterson's/Prokhorov's “groundbreaking."
Mr. Ratner apparently doesn’t know Brooklyn very well.
Because by now, he ought to know that Brooklynites are mad, very mad, about his project.
We’re mad that a top-down, developer-driven, Big Brother-style project has been billed as “involving the community.”
We’re mad that our city laws have been overridden and our democratic city land use review process has been bypassed and subverted.
We’re mad that billions of dollars that belong to taxpayers will be wasted on a folly whose prime beneficiary will be Bruce Ratner.
We’re mad that the unelected, unaccountable Empire State Development Corporation has abused eminent domain for the benefit of a private real-estate project.
We’re mad that 22 acres at the heart of Brooklyn, including city streets, private homes and businesses, and publicly owned land are being given to Ratner in a no-bid, no-vote deal, granting him a land monoply at the Borough's crossroads.
We’re mad that publicly owned land is being awarded to the lowest bidder, in a faux bidding process, by the unelected, unaccountable Metropolitan Transportation Association, the same MTA that has neglected to properly maintain the Vanderbilt Railyards so Bruce Ratner can claim “blight.”
We’re mad that public money is being wasted on a frivolous, money-losing arena while public transportation, schools, infrastructure and social services go wanting.
We’re mad that our own elected representatives, like Tish James and Velmanette Montgomery, have been ignored by the powerbrokers in Albany and City Hall who try to hide their cronyism by saying that they know what’s best for Brooklyn.
We’re mad that for all the phony Brooklyn and Dodgers nostalgia pushed by Bruce Ratner and his supporters, the naming rights for the arena have been sold to a British bank with a sordid past – while Russian tycoon Mikhail Prokhorov and Bruce Ratner pocket all the money.
We’re mad that a project that will do nothing but cause blight has been falsely sold as blight removal.
We’re mad that public streets are being closed and discredited superblock designs are taking their place.
We’re mad that Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson have continued to keep their head in the sand about this boondoggle.
We’re mad that the ESDC railroaded through a sham environmental review, ignoring comments from thousands of citizens and telling Brooklyn residents that we’ll just have to deal with the project’s many unmitigable adverse impacts.
We’re mad that Bruce Ratner has told us that his out of scale, out of character project is what’s best for Brooklyn, when we know much better.
We’re mad that Bruce Ratner and his political supporters have exploited the housing crisis in New York City to sell the public a project that will cause instant gentrification (if it is ever built) and cause the displacement of thousands of lower-income residents, while never fulfilling its affordable housing promises.
And on and on and Etc.
It is greatly important for all those who oppose Atlantic Yards and its abuses, whether you have been involved in the fight against the project to any degree or not at all, to come out to this protest and demonstration.
Let the political dignitaries who have allowed this corrupt project to proceed hear and know of your opposition and anger.
Let them know that they are not getting away with this unnoticed. Let them know that WE, the people, are angry and watching…. very closely. If you, too, are mad about this miscarriage of justice and abuse of our political system, taxpayer dollars, about this irresponsible, unsustainable boondoggle, about this Land Grab, join us this Thursday from 12:30 onward to express your anger.Bring your signs, slogans, posters, effigies and noisemakers—drum, horn, trumpet, kazoo, a pot, a whistle—make some noise, and let Bruce Ratner and his political cronies know that Brooklyn is mad as hell, and we’re not taking it sitting down or quietly.
(More to come as details emerge about the event. Please check back at www.dddb.net/upcoming for more details on precise locations for the two groundbreakings.)
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