Times: ESDC hiring significantly based on ties to Cuomo (what else is new)

The Empire State Development Corporation is the purportedly independent agency--or, to be technical, authority or entity--overseeing Atlantic Yards. It's well-known that the ESDC is under the control of the governor, which is why opponents and critics of Atlantic Yards have called for a less dependent entity--along the lines of the Battery Park City Authority--to oversee Atlantic Yards and allow for public input.

A front-page New York Times article, headlined Many Openings at State Agency Go to Those With Ties to Cuomo, raises further qualms about the independence and quality of the agency.

Note that agency hiring based on political ties is hardly novel; notably, the official overseeing Atlantic Yards, Arana Hankin, was appointed by previous Gov. David Paterson in 2010 to a new, unadvertised position.

Or, if we go back a few governors, let's remember that a 2007 consultant's study called for reform of ESDC's parent organization, blaming agency failures on "political patronage," "political convenience," and the "practice of favoring political over economic criteria."

So should we really have expected Gov. Andrew Cuomo to act differently?

The Times's investigation

Today's article begins:

ALBANY — New York State’s economic development agency created a new position last June, and then found a candidate to fill it: a young man named Willard Younger, who had just graduated from Colgate University with a degree in classics and religion. He became a special projects associate, at a salary of $45,000 a year, according to state personnel records.
His father, Stephen P. Younger, is a lawyer and power broker in legal circles who was a member of one of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s transition teams. He has also donated $26,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s campaigns over the years, disclosure records show.
The next month, the agency hired 23-year-old Andrew Moelis, a University of Pennsylvania graduate, for another new position, strategic planning associate, at a salary of $75,000 a year.
Shortly before Mr. Moelis’s first day of work, his father, Ron Moelis, a prominent real estate developer, gave $25,000 to Mr. Cuomo’s re-election campaign, according to the records.
Since taking office in 2011, Mr. Cuomo has repeatedly pledged to bring a new approach to Albany, where politicians of both major parties have long rewarded supporters with jobs that are not open to the general public.
But an investigation by The New York Times into hiring by the agency, the Empire State Development Corporation, shows how Mr. Cuomo’s administration has engaged in some of the same patronage practices that have often prevailed here.
... While some of the new employees at Empire State had experience in economic development, others did not. Some of the jobs were not open to competition, and were filled with little input from the agency itself.
Empire State has also hired friends of Mr. Cuomo who may help form his political brain trust should he decide to run for president in 2016.
James P. Rubin, a former State Department spokesman, was hired at the agency in 2011 as counselor on competitiveness and international affairs, with a salary of $150,000 a year. Mr. Rubin’s appointment was seen by political consultants as a move by Mr. Cuomo to add a foreign policy hand to his stable.
Empire State hired 49 people in the first 20 months of the Cuomo administration, according to personnel records obtained by The Times. Nearly a third were the governor’s political associates, donors and friends, or their relatives, the records and interviews show.
At least seven of the new hires with connections were placed in newly created positions.

As the Times explains, ESDC has only 300 employees, but can be used for patronage because it's outside the executive branch. Kenneth Adams, who heads the agency, wouldn't comment.

It's well-known that hiring in state government has to go through Cuomo's office. That's likely why it took so long for the ESDC to hire Derek Lynch last September as Government and Community Affairs Manager, filling the position long left open by the June 2011 departure of Forrest Taylor, once billed as an ombudsman.

There's no evidence that Lynch was a political hire along the lines of those named in the article, but the push for political hires likely slowed the effort to fill that position.

Some comments from the Times web site

DJS New York
The fact that Empire State's job openings were "advertised" hardly disproves the allegations of patronage.My cousin ,who works for New York State, has told me that jobs are routinely posted after they have already been filled by "insiders" in order to protect against just such allegations.
What are the statistical odds, ,that nearly ONE-THIRD of 49 new hires, purely by CHANCE,happened to be"political associates, donors, friends, or relatives" ?!!

att A Manhattan
Should we all be aghast that a politician makes political appointments to friends and cronies? Perhaps the Times can find a single example of a politician who does not. That would be a newsworthy story! There is only one way to have fewer political appointees and that is to have less government. Don't hold your breath in New York State.

Eman
Waldwick, NJ
Not remotely close to being a scandal. And actually, not even any story hear. Headline says "many openings" then identifies 16 or fewer positions out of 49 new hires over a two year period. I would have expected much higher numbers if NY was to be consistent with the way government operates in the rest of the US, from the smallest towns all the way through the Federal government.

And an Ivy league graduate was being paid $45,000. So? Where's the story? Another Ivy league graduate, with financial experience in the private sector, was paid $75,000. A scandal!!!, Really? From what I've seen, the Governor is able to attract many top notch people to State Government - people who did, and could be again, earning many times more working in the private sector. According to an article in the paper last year, Governor Cuomo only put in about 5 people at the Port Authority, while his NJ counterpart, Mr. Chris Christie, put in about 50 people there. But Mr. Christie's popularity is at 78% or so, and Mr. Cuomo is being vilified. The Times should report that, given the dismal state of affairs in government in this country, NY is very fortunate to have Mr. Cuomo as its Governor.

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Times, in coverage of sale of Dean Street house, says noise from arena generally "negligible"

The New York Times's Appraisal columnist, who seems verry interested in Brooklyn but less so in Queens or The Bronx, has, in the spirit of her not so reliable coverage of Daniel Goldstein's house, written House in Barclays Center’s Shadow Is Snapped Up:

At the end of February, that little yellow clapboard house at 474 Dean Street was put up for sale, listed for $1.495 million. And despite a domineering neighbor — or perhaps because of it — the owners of that house received an offer, which they planned to accept, after less than two weeks.

Except it's not really the house but the site, which "allows for the construction of a somewhat taller residential building that can include commercial space." You can bet there's a valuable retail outlet to install--or, perhaps, a very carefully constructed new residential building.

The quiet arena

Also curious is the Times's rather positive description of the area: though one resident points to "dozens of flattened cigarette butts on the sidewalk" and shrubs used as a urinal, some neighbors disagree:

“It’s actually way less intrusive than we thought it would be,” said Sally Morgridge, who moved into her boyfriend’s apartment in December. “Though it does depend on who’s playing.”
“It turns out wrestling fans are very loud,” she explained, “and after a big basketball game there are crowds out chanting ‘Brooklyn.’ My boyfriend tells me Justin Bieber fans were quite loud.”

Ok, "very loud," "chanting," and "quite loud." How, then, can the Times tells us that, "[i]n general, residents said that the noise was negligible, less noticeable than sirens from a nearby firehouse and police station"?

Which residents? There's no one quoted. After all, it's not just noise from arena patrons, it's all the trucks idling in the streets--and the occasional concert with bass that penetrates residences. Not so neglible.

The value of free tickets

The article states:

Lourdes Pacheco, who has lived at 478 Dean Street since the early 1980s, said she loved being able to scamper across the street to take in a show or a game, which she had done six times. (The Marc Anthony concert was particularly good, she said.)

Unmentioned: the arena has given away some free or discounted tickets to neighbors, likely including Ms. Pacheco.

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In Times's sunny report on selling library (and school) sites, REBNY head gets definitive word on arena impact

It's front-page news in today's New York Times (both local and national editions), Saving Schools and Libraries by Giving Up the Land They Sit On, describing plans to see buildings like the Pacific (pictured) and Brooklyn Heights branches of the Brooklyn Public Library:

Government-financed agencies, seeing a way to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in a weak economy, are looking at the land right under some of their own institutions and offering it to the best bidder, who will build new, modern libraries or schools in the base of new developments. In the process, they will also erase the stout civic buildings now there, in effect leveling public facilities to make sure the agencies are financially secure.
The strategy has been embraced in Brooklyn, where the two libraries need repairs of $9 million to $11 million.
“We would deliver two of these libraries for essentially no cost to the library system,” said Joshua Nachowitz, the Brooklyn Public Library’s vice president for government and community relations. “It’s a win-win.”
But the approach has provoked growing protest in the affected communities. Most pressingly, residents are concerned about how far they will have to go to reach a library, and where their children will go to school, during the years it will take to erect the new towers. But they are also worried about the aesthetic and cultural price of replacing local institutions to which they are deeply attached, neighborhood landmarks if not official ones, and having them swallowed up into stacks of concrete, steel and glass.

What's missing

There are a couple of things missing from that capsule description. First, the sale of the libraries would not leave the Brooklyn Public Library "financially secure," as both its operating and capital budgets face deep deficits. It's by no means clear that the sale of the prime Brooklyn Heights site--perhaps worth $100 million--would be plowed back into the system.

Second, those protesting--see Michael D.D. White's Noticing New York blog and associated petition--have expressed concerns not only about proximity and esthetics, but also whether the library sites would indeed be sold, to quote the Times's breezy shorthand, "to the best bidder."

Moreover, elected officials like Council Members Steve Levin and Letitia James have expressed wariness about the process.

After all, there is a history of not selling sites--such as the Vanderbilt Yard--in an open and fair process.

The Atlantic Yards reference

But the Atlantic Yards saga gets turned into this:

The real estate industry, of course, is delighted with this growing trend. Steven Spinola, president of the Real Estate Board of New York, pointed out that the Barclays Center arena — itself the result of an eminent domain effort that prompted bitter accusations that the city was enriching a private developer — had revived a sleepy quarter of Brooklyn and made a place like the nearby Pacific branch library suddenly ripe for a lucrative land deal.

The sleepiness was caused significantly by the developer's decisions to purchase and empty property. And what about those "bitter accusations"? Why not follow up on some calculations, like the uncounted savings on property like Pacific Street?

A "win-win"?

The last word in the article goes to a neutral expert, author of a worthy report (Branches of Opportunity) on libraries that advocates getting the most from library real estate:

But David Giles, research director of the Center for an Urban Future, a nonprofit urban-affairs institute, said there was wisdom to the approach.

“They can rebuild a new branch for the neighborhood and add money for other branches as well,” he said. “That’s clearly part of the calculation there. It’s property values.”

His general point is inarguable. The question is how much the administration, and the process, can be trusted.

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Times: Yormark donation means " Nets Make Full Effort to Fit Into Brooklyn" (yeah, sure)

If the New York Times says so (or repeats the p.r. pitch), then you know it's true: Nets Make Full Effort to Fit Into Brooklyn.

The article, in the Sports section's Off the Dribble blog and in today's print paper, has a spoon-fed scoop:

One way the Nets have been able to keep the momentum going for their move to Brooklyn has been to embrace the philosophy the Dodgers employed when they were the borough’s lone professional sports team, which was to be involved in all aspects of the community. They will continue that tactic on Friday when Brett Yormark, the team’s chief executive, officially reopens the basketball gymnasium at the Navy Yard Clubhouse of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club. For added flair, Brook Lopez and MarShon Brooks will be there to help him introduce the new court, which will be a replica of the Nets’ practice court, including the team’s oversize logos, and black and white color scheme.

“We can’t just take for granted that Brooklyn is going to support us just because we wear Brooklyn every night,” Yormark said, referring to the team’s jerseys. “We’ve got to do things that are significant, that have an impact on the lives of the people that make up Brooklyn.”

The court will be the first endeavor by Yormark’s foundation, but it is in line with other efforts the team has made since its move to Brooklyn was announced.

Actually, it's not the first endeavor by Yormark's foundation. It dumped--er, distributed--free tickets to the first boxing match last October.

Some skepticism

As I commented:

How much is Yormark contributing? What % of that is the renovation cost?

The Nets and Barclays have a history of claiming credit for refurbishing school playgrounds while furnishing only a fraction of the cost:
http://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2011/09/nets-bring-new-playground-to-canarsie.html

And, of course, the Dodgers fit into Brooklyn by living in the neighborhoods and taking public transit.

Another reader commented:

$7000 upfront for season ticket holders who want to go to the playoffs. Those charity courts are expensive.

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As New York vies for marquee sports events, a good deal for the public or just good business for owners?

From a New York Times Sports section article today headlined New York Builds Momentum in Sports:

In the next few years, though, the New York metropolitan area will host numerous marquee events that will thrust it into the sports spotlight. This summer, the major league baseball All-Star Game will be played at Citi Field, followed next year by the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl, at MetLife Stadium. A few weeks later, basketball fans will head to Madison Square Garden to see the final rounds of the East Regional of the N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament. By then, the N.B.A. will probably have decided whether the 2015 All-Star Game will be played at the Garden or at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Throw in the N.F.L. and N.B.A. drafts in Manhattan and the N.H.L. draft at Prudential Center in Newark, as well as annual events like the United States Open tennis tournament and the New York City Marathon, and New Yorkers will have a full slate of top-flight sports to attend.

The Barclays Center perspective

The article explains what's good business for the Brooklyn arena:

Brett Yormark, the chief executive of Barclays Center and the Nets, said that hosting boxing matches, college basketball games and other events helped put his arena on the map outside the city.

“We want to host events with national appeal,” he said. “It creates value for our naming rights partner, and it’s important to be seen nationally because boxers, artists and others will aspire to perform on our court and stage.”

In other words, it's all about the bottom line.

A good deal for the public?

The article equivocates:

For all of sports’ appeal, critics contend that stadiums and arenas rarely generate the economic benefits that their backers claim because cities, including New York, provide builders with hundreds of millions of dollars in tax breaks and other subsidies that could be used for other things, like hospitals and schools. Others argue that New York is already one of the most visited cities and does not need an All-Star Game, for instance, to boost tourism.

Consider a 9/7/10 article by the same reporter, headlined As Stadiums Vanish, Their Debt Lives On:

How municipalities acquire so much debt on buildings that have been torn down or are underused illustrates the excesses of publicly financed stadiums and the almost mystical sway professional sports teams have over politicians, voters and fans.

Rather than confront teams, they have often buckled when owners — usually threatening to move — have demanded that the public pay for new suites, parking or arenas and stadiums.

Or a 10/11/09 article by the same reporter, headlined In East Rutherford, N.J., New Football Stadium, but at Whose Cost?:

But critics remain unrepentant. George Zoffinger, then the authority’s chief executive, who opposed the deal, said that the authority might ultimately need to ask lawmakers in Trenton to help make its payment to East Rutherford.

“It’s a travesty that no one is focused on them building a $1.5 billion stadium and that they don’t pay any more in taxes,” he said. “At the end of the day, the authority is going to have to go back to the state for subsidies.”

Zoffinger said that while the teams liked to claim that they built their stadium with private funds, New Jersey taxpayers are on the hook for about $400 million in road improvements, a new rail link from Secaucus and more than $100 million to retire the debt on the old stadium after it is torn down.

[East Rutherford Mayor James] Cassella added that under the terms of the authority’s agreement with the teams, the Jets and the Giants can keep any money from stadium naming rights, parking and other revenue that is sometimes shared with local governments that subsidize sports complexes.

Ditto for the Barclays Center, but there's no authoritative local official to protest about a decision made by a larger political entity. And while the arena is not publicly funded through a bond issue, the nearly $300 million in direct subsidies, more than $100 million in free land, and other tax breaks/assistance add up to significant advantage.

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Yes, arena impact's less than feared, but Times downplays idling limos and leaking bass as "everyday irritants"

It's not surprising that the New York Times would say everything's pretty much fine.

Yes, compared to the fears expressed before the opening of the Barclays Center, there's been what the Times called in an initial headlined "Smooth Debut for an Arena That Rocked Brooklyn" but has revised, rather snarkily and conclusory, to Neighbors Predicted Chaos. Now They’re Just Annoyed.

Yes, most people do take public transit, and gridlock so far has been managed away. (More towers will complicate things.) Crime is low (though crime was hardly the top fear). And residents admit the impact isn't as bad as they'd imagined (though that throng of Justin Bieber fans was, in fact, chaotic).

"Everyday irritants"

But there's no mention of things like buses and trucks idling outside the arena on "the pad" and beyond.

And it's irresponsible to dismiss as "gripes about everyday irritants" some issues that were not--and should not be--everyday fare:

Many car owners say that when they return from work on basketball game or concert nights, it is almost impossible to find a parking space.

That's why local elected officials have advocated--and will continue to advocate--for residential parking permits.

Another capsule description:

Another nuisance has been the double-parked or illegally parked chauffeured town cars that idle around the neighborhood during high-end events like a Barbra Streisand concert.
[Forest City's Ashley Cotton] said the company had tried to address the problem of so-called black cars by designating a parking area for them on Atlantic Avenue south of the arena.

Actually, that hasn't worked, as regular reports on Atlantic Yards Watch indicate: "2.5 hours of gridlock/blaring horns." In fact, that was a design flaw in the Transportation Demand Management plan.

Funny that the Times would devote a whole article to the phenomenon of additional yellow cabs near the arena, while dispatching the black car issue in two paragraphs.

Note the main photo, at right, with the caption: "A busy street near the Barclays Center in Brooklyn before a concert this month."

Um, that's Fifth Avenue, an existing retail corridor, about three blocks south of the arena. A different picture--or video--might emerge of cars idling on residential streets, or honking at intersections.

Another "everyday irritant": leaking bass

The Times reports:

And some residents say they are upset by thrumming bass sounds that seem to escape from the arena. During some performances, like Jay- Z’s, residents a block or two away say they can hear or feel the vibrations. Barclays Center received a $3,200 summons for noise violations during a Sensation dance-music event after inspectors from the city’s Environmental Protection Department recorded excessive decibel levels in a loft-building apartment on Pacific Street.
“It’s like having a subway go underneath your apartment,” said David Stevens, 47, a history teacher at St. Ann’s School who lives in the same building.

That's not an "everyday irritant." It's something that was pointed out during the first weekend of concerts, and still hasn't been solved.

Cotton said "the company was talking to engineers to see what could be done about muffling the noise." She wasn't asked for an apology, or whether the arena would pay the fine.

And why couldn't the cops shut down the concerts? Too big to shush, apparently.

Citizen activism

The Times quotes resident Wayne Bailey as giving "most of the credit for any improvement to a watchful network of community advocates who have confronted Forest City Ratner and city agencies and have prodded them to make improvements." Unmentioned is the main forum for such advocacy: Atlantic Yards Watch.

About those trees

The Times reports:

residents on Pacific Street are bracing to have their lives further disrupted by the widening of the Long Island Rail Road rail yards, with 20 trees scheduled to be cut down, more parking spaces eliminated and sidewalks occupied by construction vehicles.

In contrast, the Daily News publishes a full article tonight, Forest City Ratner to chop down trees to clear path for construction at Atlantic Yards: No plans to replace the 20 Pacific St. trees anytime soon, which addresses the issue in much greater detail and quotes three unhappy residents.

The money quote's from Peter Krashes of the Dean Street Block Association: “It’s a prescription for construction delay induced blight." (And here's a video report from NY1 and an article from the Brooklyn Paper, De-Forest City Ratner! Barclays builder wants to chop down 20 trees on Pacific Street.)

I'm actually surprised that the tree issue got such extensive coverage, in individual stories. But maybe that makes up for the cramped, in-passing mention in the Times.

In closing

In the Times article, the closing paragraphs are sunny:

But businesses in the area, particularly restaurants, say the arena has been great for sales. Some residents also say it has made the area more vibrant.
Athalie Laguerre, 29, a writer who lives in a fourth-floor condominium in the Newswalk building, bought a small share of a spectator suite in the arena so she could go to many Nets games and concerts. The presence of the busy arena in what was a quiet mix of factories and brownstone-lined blocks has made the neighborhood feel safer at night, she said.
“I have less tolerance for the neighbors who complain about the noise than I do for the noise,” she said. “I’m proud of Brooklyn and excited about the Barclays arena.”

Yes, for some businesses, the arena's a boon; others are moving or closing.

As for that final paragraph, well, Bruce Ratner couldn't have written it better himself. Even better, the Times no longer feels it has to disclose that the developer and the newspaper company were partners in building the Times's new headquarters.

Some comments on the Times web site:

Roger BroomeSullivan County, NYNYT Pick
The author gets the tone wrong here. As many comments point out, the concern of most people in the area is about the overall development, not the arena in particular. The arena is the first piece that Ratner has got vaguely right -- look at the horrible mall structures to see what precedent has been set. The proposed towers that will fill the rest of the site are poorly scaled and are unlikely to be anything other than generic developer-grade work. I love the idea that the rail yards could be a new neighborhood but my fantasy for it is a thoughtful urbanism composed with an intimate scale that maintains some acknowledgement of the trains passing below. Alas, what we will get will almost certainly be more akin to nearby Metrotech but with apartments instead of offices. Sigh...

JohnBrooklyn, NY
I live very close - the stadium takes up one and half of the two windows in my bedroom - and I don't notice anything much. Increased foot traffic? yes. Do I avoid my local spots when I know a game is on? yes. Does that affect me much? No. All the local businesses are raking it in, they're happy, and it shows in their attitudes.

ESnew york, ny
I'm not sure this journalist walked around the Barclays neighborhood on event nights-- Okay, maybe his titular "chaos" did not ensue, but it's pretty stressful. Just this past Saturday night, I witnessed five pedestrian almost get run over, in five separate incidents, when they had right of way. These drivers are not used to pedestrians or city driving, are aggressive, and knocked one of my friends to the ground. When we spoke the next day, we all wondered why such a high percentage of drivers got especially crazy and dangerous on certain nights in Brooklyn.... we had all had, separately, harrowing experiences. We've been here for over a decade and never seen anything like it before. And then we realized-- ah, yes, the Barclays Center.

LindaNew York, NY
What the NY Times has failed to include in its analysis of the situation in this article is that the arena is only part of Ratner's redevelopment plan. He plans to build an enormous number of new housing units - - as cheaply as he possibly can - -that will overcrowd the area, pack the already-packed subways, and wreck the character of the area and its surrounding, low density, mainly brownstone neighborhoods. He was only able to come up with the $$ to build the arena by going into business with a reputed Russian mobster - a friend of mind from the state department was amazed that the government did not intervene. And let's not forget how our NY state/city government/officials allowed him to do this in the first place. In partnership with the Empire State Development Corporation, which was initially established to allow the state to condemn "blighted" areas and build low income housing, using a self-serving study that declared the area "blighted" (which was nonsense), Rather was allowed to eject people from their homes and use the land for his own purely private gain. And by the way, because this was done through the Empire State Development Corporation, he was allowed to by-pass the most stringent environmental laws that most developers would have to comply with. I am still astonished that the power of condemnation could be used in this way and that he got away with it. Business as usual in NYC.

LiamBrooklyn, NYNYT Pick
I live right in the area and I love this stadium. Yes, the whole land grab of knocking down neighborhood establishments and homes was really sketchy and bad policy. But the events they have hosted are great. Havent been to a Nets game yet, but I am excited to have them right near by.

The customer service there is better than I have experienced at ANY major venue in NYC. And it has brought a little class to an area that was a bit on the rough side before.

The whole flatbush & 4th ave district near by has been booming with nice restaurants and good shops. The whole area has had a facelift.

And very minimal impact of crowds and traffic. All you 'brooklyn native' haters are missing out. I am sure there was similar hating going on when any other big stadium went in like Yankee or the old time Dodger stadium.

grilledsardineBrooklyn
I largely agree with the article, but I also find the article disingenuous. Most of the damage to the neighborhood had already been done!

I happen to like and be excited by the arena, but to just brush off legitimate concerns the way the Times just did is sophomoric reporting.

Also, does the Times not think that the arena's success as described in the article is also not a result of the pressure that different groups put on Ratner and Bloomberg?

RBBNYC
So the moral of the story is that the ends justifies the means?

Bob MarvinBrooklyn, NY
No, even worse it's "might makes right.

ChrisBrooklynNYT Pick
The issue was never NIMBY-style concerns about noise, crowds, etc. (although these problems are present to a degree not really indicated in this article). Barclays and the entire Atlantic Yards project represent inappropriate and, in the opinion of many, illegal development, enabled by an abusive interpretation of the meaning of eminent domain. As has often been the case under the last few mayoral (and gubernatorial) administrations, neighborhoods that were doing a perfectly good job "developing" themselves have been targeted by greedy developers with the approval of city government over the loud protests of a large proportion of local residents.

RobNYC
The area used to be a total pit. It is now marginally better. I do not understand why people are complaining.

Daniel GoldsteinProspect Heights Brooklyn
You know what did materialize starting in 2003 but the NY Times has failed to acknowledge by continually downplaying Atlantic Yards as yet another "NIMBY" issue to pat on the head? The fundamental corruption of a government giveaway (private and public land, and money), by fiat, to a corporation at the expense of a lot of people.

You know what else hasn't materialized? 15,000 construction jobs and 10,000 office jobs. Not to mention 2,250 units of so-called "affordable housing." not to mention 8 acres of "privately owned publicly accessible open space, not to mention the removal of bogus blight.

You know what else hasn't materialized, good reporting by the NY Times.

Yes, there are exciting and entertaining events at the arena, as any arena would have. But the bill of goods the public was sold by Ratner, NYC, NYS and, yes, NYT, was that there would be Jobs, Housing and Hoops. Focusing on an early analysis of the neighborhood impact while ignoring the much larger issues....reeks.

As for impact on local businesses, Mr. Berger, I suggest you check with the 5th Avenue BID how the arena is doing for the bulk of the businesses along the avenue that stretch from Flatbush southward.

MikeNYC
I live nearby, and here are three more legitimate complaints for you:

The big glowing sign in front blinds drivers and will cause an accident some day -- I've seen several people drive dangerously because of it.

The ugly rust is getting everywhere. It is noticeable on nearby windows, and there's a big stain on the sidewalk all the way around the building. Don't walk under it in the rain in clothing that you like.

While restaurant and bar owners may be raking in the money, it's now too crowded for neighbors who want their quiet local hangouts in the evenings.

BNYgalbrooklyn
The writer of this article asked a few people in the neighborhood how they felt, or perhaps cherry-picked those who actually aren't bothered by it. HOWEVER, most people that live in the neighborhood DO NOT like the center. It most certainly HAS BROUGHT CRIME into the area. Maybe not directly around the Center where the police are, but certainly a couple of blocks away it has. Muggers come into my neighborhood now looking for those people going to their cars after the game or walking around. The TRAFFIC has gotten much worse at game time -- friends of mine won't even try driving into Brooklyn on in the evenings any where near time there is an event. There is honking on my street from the backed up traffic. And, all the missing parking spaces are a problem. There is absolutely NO UPSIDE for the people living near the stadium. Also, property values have stagnated in the direct neighborhood surrounding the stadium while going up everywhere else in BrownStone Brooklyn. We who live here don't actually want all the bars and outdoor restaurants. And the only reason things aren't worse is that the community is doing A LOT if work to try and keep things in order. The reporter should have attended a community meeting before writing this very one-sided view.

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Cognitive dissonance in the Times: "real Brooklyn people love" the Barclays Center, while a "real Brooklyn person" (a prominent Atlantic Yards opponent) is lauded

For the close reader, there was a little cognitive dissonance in the New York Times yesterday. There, in the weekly Metropolitan section, one of those advertiser-friendly features, At the Table, featured the restaurant Woodland in Park Slope, under the headline A Pregame Reunion in Brooklyn.

The closing paragraph:

At one point during the meal, the Brooklyn faction decided the Australians needed to know the story of the Barclays Center’s contentious construction, and the whole sordid tale was trotted out: Bruce Ratner, eminent domain, the protest groups. “But those were fake Brooklyn people,” Mr. [Keith] Glazer said sociologically. “Real Brooklyn people love the place.”

Real Brooklyn people love the Culture of Cheating?

A real Brooklyn person

And in the Real Estate section, in one of those penance-for-all-the-promotion interviews, the Times talked with a real Brooklyn person, under the headline Because Green Goes With Everything

Ron Shiffman, an Israeli-born, Bronx-raised urban planner and a Park Sloper long before the Slope was chic, has spent half a century trying to make New York a more livable city. The journalist Jack Newfield once wrote that Mr. Shiffman “has saved more New York neighborhoods than Robert Moses has destroyed.”
Many of Mr. Shiffman’s fellow New Yorkers would agree. He is a former member of the New York City Planning Commission and the recipient of the 2012 Jane Jacobs Medal for Lifetime Leadership. A burly, voluble bear of a man, Mr. Shiffman is at 74 also deeply engaged in of-the-moment issues. His efforts to make New York’s residential neighborhoods more environmentally healthy have resonated throughout the city.

Shiffman apparently wasn't asked about the arena, but his comments on density are instructive:

Another benefit for New York is its density, thanks largely to its mass transit system. The new bike routes also make a big difference. But there’s an optimal level of density. You don’t want to overburden the transit system or to build where a transit system doesn’t exist, as happened with some of the new development along the Brooklyn waterfront.
...You can have low-rise buildings that are environmentally sound — look at Sunnyside Gardens in Queens, with its interior courtyards. But although density is important, the solution isn’t just to create more density. Parts of New York are too dense. There has to be optimal density, and that depends on a proper infrastructure.

Note that, while there certainly is transit infrastructure around the Atlantic Yards site, Shiffman in 2006 came out as a forceful opponent of Atlantic Yards:

The density proposed by Forest City Ratner far exceeds the carrying capacity of the area’s physical, social, cultural, and educational infrastructure. The Atlantic Yards density is extreme and the heights of the proposed buildings totally unacceptable.

And while he was open to a sports team, he suggested the developer's mall site should be the first alternative. He also wrote:

I had hoped that, in the past two-and-a-half years, the city, the developer, or the civic community would propose a viable alternative to the "Atlantic Yards" plan. The Municipal Art Society’s plan falls short because it avoids discussing the process issues and attempts to apply a design solution to a fundamentally flawed and ill-conceived plan. In the absence of a democratically accountable process and without any rational and acceptable alternative on the horizon, I believe that the FCR plan must be defeated and the process of revitalizing the rail yards completely rethought. I have chosen to support the efforts of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s and have joined the group’s advisory board.

The "process issues" undoubtedly include using an arena and team to leverage a real estate deal.

Another major award

Shiffman also just received the American Planning Association's National Planning Award for a Planning Pioneer, the organization's highest award:

During Ronald Shiffman's 50 years as a city planner, he has provided program and organizational development assistance to community-based groups in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. His development of the model for community development corporations is a direct result of this groundbreaking work in the 1960s to rebuild Bedford-Stuyvesant through economic development programs. Trained as an architect and urban planner, he is an expert in community-based planning, housing, and sustainable development. He has had extensive experience bringing together private and public sector sponsors of housing and related community development projects.
Shiffman co-founded one of the country's first university design centers — Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development; established one of the nation's first community development corporations in one of the nation's most distressed neighborhoods; pushed for New York City's first inclusionary zoning policy as a commissioner on the NYC Planning Commission; and pioneered the city's mixed-use zoning, which has preserved many of the city's most vital neighborhoods.

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Times gets spoon-fed scoop on Barclays Center concert of cantorial music; unmentioned: cost, capacity, Ratner relationship with Met Council

The New York Times's City Room blog had an exclusive yesterday, Another First for Barclays Center: A Concert of Jewish Music:

The arena he built in Brooklyn has hosted concerts of hip-hop, Latin salsa and reggae, not to mention performances by Dylan, Streisand and the Rolling Stones, but when the genre chosen was Jewish music, Bruce C. Ratner decided to take charge himself.
Mr. Ratner, a real estate developer who cut his musical teeth on cantorial singing at a synagogue in his hometown, Cleveland, is the de facto impresario of a concert at the Barclays Center announced on Tuesday that will feature the violinist Itzhak Perlman and Yitzchak Meir Helfgot, the cantor from the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan who has been a leader in the revival of Jewish liturgical music. 

The two musicians will perform at the 19,000-seat arena on Feb. 28 in an event where food carts will feature glatt kosher food and a special section will most likely be set up with separate seating for men and women, to accommodate the customs of ultra-Orthodox Jews, who make up a sizable share of the Jewish population of Brooklyn. There will be plenty of food selections for Jewish brownstoners and non-Jews as well.

The 19,000 seat arena? Actually, it will be set up theater-style, as noted in the graphic at right, with some 6,000 seats.

The Times goes on to quote Ratner regarding cantorial singing and his friendship with Perlman (their kids attended private school together), and mentions the advertising plan in Jewish newspapers and efforts to expand kosher food offerings.

Cost unmentioned

However enthusiastic Ratner may be about cantorial music--he also "loves" the New York Islanders--he's also a businessman. Unmentioned is how much this might cost. A graphic on the Ticketmaster web site indicates that tickets start at $65.75 and go up to $282.75.

Charity plans

The Times reports:

Profits from the concert, Mr. Ratner said, will benefit the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty and the Perlman Music Program, a music camp on Shelter Island, N.Y., started by Mr. Perlman’s wife.

That's very interesting on two fronts.

Unmentioned is the political connection: the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty is run by William Rapfogel, a buddy of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, a key Atlantic Yards supporter. Spouse Judy Rapfogel works for Silver. Son Michael Rapfogel works for Ratner.

Also unmentioned is whether this qualifies as one of the promised ten community events under the Community Benefits Agreement:

The Arena will be available to Community groups for at least ten (10) events per year, at a reasonable rate, with net proceeds from such events to be used to support non-profit community organizations.

That certainly seems possible, though, if so, we'd be reminded that the Met Council had nothing to do with the CBA or any of its constituent groups.

Meanwhile, unmentioned

As I commented on the Times's web site, meanwhile, the Times hasn't reported on some important news regarding the arena & the larger Atlantic Yards project:

1) the closing of BUILD (Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development), the job-training group that served as a cheerleader for the project. BUILD was the subject of a complaint to the state Attorney General saying the organization misdirected funds even as it owed the IRS a significant sum.

2) the effort by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, a nonprofit organization significantly influenced by arena developer Forest City Ratner, to establish a new business improvement district (BID) that not only would provide services like sanitation and security, but also manage planning and advocacy issues.

Disclosure

Also, what happened to the once-common disclosure that Forest City Ratner and the New York Times Company were business partners on the Times headquarters tower? Might that not alert editors and readers that there could be another agenda behind the story?

The concert announcement

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Barclays Center opened with defective bolts, not disclosed fully to Department of Buildings; problem hints at why ESD, construction monitor have obscured the issue

The New York Times's scoop today, Problem With Weak Bolts Has Complicated the Barclays Center’s Early Days, reveals that the arena opened even as the developer acknowledged that more than 1700 defective, weak bolts had been used to attach the facade.

The article suggests that the city Department of Buildings (DOB) was not sufficiently informed by developer Forest City Ratner about the bolts, which were half as strong as requested.

Bucket of apparent replacement bolts, Sept. 2012,
photographed outside ASI Limited office on Dean St.

Moreover, unmentioned in the article, neither Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing the arena, nor the construction monitor for bondholders have been fully forthcoming about this issue.

In fact, both have interrupted their regular schedule of reports, for reasons unexplained. The new information could bolster suspicion that the reports were withheld to obscure the problem.

Indeed, the reports that did emerge obscured the problem in their own way, failing in one case to indicate defects and in the other the scope of the defects. It's still unclear how much danger the defective bolts have posed.

The scoop

The Times's Charles Bagli writes:

And lately, iron workers have replaced hundreds of bolts that anchor the panels to the building’s structure. Engineers determined that weaker ones were originally installed, raising concerns about the structure’s integrity.
The incorrect bolts were discovered only a month before the Barclays Center was scheduled to open on Sept. 28. ...
After examining every joint, engineers determined that only 8 percent of the 23,351 weaker bolts needed to be replaced.

Who was told

The DOB says it was not informed:

“The department was not made aware of this issue,” said Anthony Sclafani, a Buildings Department spokesman. “We would expect to be notified in a case like this.”
But Forest City provided a copy of a nine-page letter concerning the bolts that it said had been filed with the Buildings Department on Sept. 14. That was the day the agency issued a temporary certificate of occupancy [TCO] that allowed the arena to open as scheduled.
The letter, from an engineering company, outlined a plan to address the “recent discovery” that incorrect bolts had been used. It did not indicate how many bolts would be replaced, only that a “change out” had begun.

In other words, whatever the DOB was told, it wasn't enough. (The DOB web site indicates multiple outstanding requirements for the current TCO, but I was unable to get any details when I inquired.)

What ESD told the public

The problem was hardly explained to the public by ESD, which issues regular two-week Construction Updates prepared by Forest City Ratner.

While the work has apparently continued since the arena opened--the Times reports that workers last month "were replacing the final batch"--ESD stopped issuing regular updates after mid-October, as the graphic above indicates.

Moreover, the Construction Updates issued 9/24/12 and 10/8/12 did not indicate the scope of the problem, stating merely that facade panels would continue to be installed and replaced. There was no mention of defective bolts.

The 12/3/12 Construction Update made no mention of facade panel installation.

What bondholders were told

Merritt & Harris, the construction monitor that reports to the state, Forest City, and bondholders, also has been obfuscatory.

While the Times reports that an engineering firm discovered the that the "fabricator had sent five-eighths-of-an-inch bolts that were half as strong as those of that size that had been ordered," such detail has not appeared in the Merritt & Harris reports.

First, as I wrote 12/7/12, Merritt & Harris apparently skipped public issuances of two Site Observation Reports, failing to make public #30 and #31.

Second, the information shared in Merritt & Harris's 11/30/12 document contained the exact same text regarding Deficiency Items as in the 4/2/12 document, except that the later document references a later consultant's report.

In other words, while the problem apparently persisted, there was no indication of the extent--except for a failure to reference an expected "sign off of all corrective work" expected "to be made available by the first week of October 2012."

The Merritt & Harris documents, while indicating "defective installation," did not specify defective bolts nor indicate their extent.

From the April Merritt & Harris report

From the November Merritt & Harris report

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From the New York Times: Barclays Center opening seen as bright spot in 2012 (except...)

From the New York Times, What to Expect in New York in 2013:

If the phrase “annus horribilis” had not already worked its way into the language — thank you, Queen Elizabeth II — some New Yorker thinking deep, year-end thoughts would surely have coined it for 2012.

Not that everything went wrong, of course.

Fans were happy when Brooklyn got a new sports and entertainment center, not to mention a basketball team.

Of course fans were happy. But you can click through to the link, a sports column headlined Packing Brooklyn’s Arena and Packing Away Discord, and read the comments to see what gets ignored. Again.

Also mentioned in the article, under Development:

In Brooklyn, the first of 15 residential towers is under construction at Atlantic Yards.

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From the Times: After the Storm, Brooklyn's Moment (and some amnesia about that planned Knicks game)

From the Times's Sports round-up today, After the Storm, Brooklyn’s Moment:

Everything had gone right for the Nets. Their new home in Brooklyn was complete, their apparel had become a huge hit among fans, they unexpectedly retained their signature star, and they were going to be able to show all of that off in a season opener against the Knicks.
Then Hurricane Sandy hit.
With the city’s tunnels flooded, gasoline becoming scarce and the subway system shut down, suddenly the opener, scheduled for Nov. 1, had to be postponed and all of the excitement seemed to wither away.
Two days later, with the transit system still a mess and the city in a fierce debate over the cancellation of the marathon, it was decided that the Nets would go ahead with their scheduled game against the Toronto Raptors, a far less exciting opponent than the Knicks, risking empty seats in what they had hoped would be their grand debut...
Come game time, the crowd had filled out nicely, helped by a last-minute surge in ticket sales through online marketplaces like StubHub, and the Nets took the floor with Jay-Z watching and BrooklyKnight rappelling from the ceiling.
It was not a pretty game, with the Nets falling behind early and then struggling to catch up, but a strong second quarter led to the first major Brooklyn sports team since 1957 winning, 107-100.
Considering everything that had gone into the move from New Jersey, and the conditions surrounding the season’s start, the actual basketball was the easy part.

My comment:

So, the Barclays Center opening "had to be postponed."
What the Times coverage glossed over was the bullheadedness of the Nets/NBA in pursuing the nationally-televised opener against the Knicks in the face of the severely compromised transit system, and arena/team CEO Brett Yormark's claim that everyone, including the mayor's office was onboard.
More here

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Times editorial on subsidies: "politicians and officials are trying to pick winners and losers, almost exclusively to the benefit of big corporations"

So, on the heels of its series on subsidies (which unaccountably ignored Atlantic Yards in its database), the New York Times on 12/6/12 offered an editorial headlined Race to the Bottom:

Competition among states and cities to lure businesses in hopes of creating jobs is not new, but it has become more fierce in recent years. An investigation by The Times found that state and local governments are giving out $80 billion a year in tax breaks and other subsidies in a foolhardy, shortsighted race to attract companies. That money could go a long way to improving education, transportation and other public services that would have a far better shot at promoting real economic growth.

Instead, with these giveaways, politicians and officials are trying to pick winners and losers, almost exclusively to the benefit of big corporations (aided by highly paid lobbyists) at the expense of small businesses. Though they promise that the subsidies are smart investments, far too often the jobs either don’t materialize or are short-lived, leaving the communities no better off.

...Local governments would be much better off investing tax dollars in education and public works that would deliver long-term benefits to both businesses and workers. California, for instance, is among the least generous of the larger states in doling out tax breaks. It gave out just $112 per capita compared with $759 in Texas, $672 in Michigan, and $210 in New York. Its experience leaves no doubt that investments made in public institutions like the University of California system can remain critically important to economic growth decades later.

Here's the key paragraph:

The trouble with targeted incentives is that they are little more than transfers of wealth to a handful of powerful corporations from all other taxpayers, including other businesses. If the problem is excessive tax burdens on businesses in general, then the solution is broad tax reform that also benefits small business owners, who are more likely to stick around if the regional economy weakens and who are unlikely to hopscotch around the country in search of a bigger tax break.

Remember when the editorial page was at least semi-skeptical about subsidies for Atlantic Yards?

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In Times series on "United States of Subsidies," a glaring gap: no mention of Atlantic Yards or Forest City Ratner, which should lead the pack in New York State

The New York Times today begins a three-part series, UNITED STATES OF SUBSIDIES, A series examining business incentives and their impact on jobs and local economies.

The first installment, which dominates the front page, is headlined As Companies Seek Tax Deals, Governments Pay High Price.

Surprising, though Brooklyn-based developer Forest City Ratner has collected hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies and other support for the Atlantic Yards project, neither the firm nor its parent, Forest City Enterprises, appears among those company that have received more than $100 million.

In fact, as I explain below, Forest City Ratner, rather than being absent from the list of firms taking advantage of subsidies in New York State, should be at the top of the list, as it gains far more than the $157 million attributed to JP Morgan Chase.

(Here's my posted comment, which responded to another commenter's statement that "Atlantic Yards is a perfect example of the worst kind of corporate welfare..."

The Times summary of the article:

A Times investigation has examined and tallied thousands of local incentives granted nationwide and has found that states, counties and cities are giving up more than $80 billion each year to companies. The beneficiaries come from virtually every corner of the corporate world, encompassing oil and coal conglomerates, technology and entertainment companies, banks and big-box retail chains.
The cost of the awards is certainly far higher. A full accounting, The Times discovered, is not possible because the incentives are granted by thousands of government agencies and officials, and many do not know the value of all their awards. Nor do they know if the money was worth it because they rarely track how many jobs are created. Even where officials do track incentives, they acknowledge that it is impossible to know whether the jobs would have been created without the aid.
“How can you even talk about rationalizing what you’re doing when you don’t even know what you’re doing?” said Timothy J. Bartik, a senior economist at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich.
The Times analyzed more than 150,000 awards and created a searchable database of incentive spending. The survey was supplemented by interviews with more than 100 officials in government and business organizations as well as corporate executives and consultants.
A portrait arises of mayors and governors who are desperate to create jobs, outmatched by multinational corporations and short on tools to fact-check what companies tell them.

Who benefits?

The Times reports:

Far and away the most incentive money is spent on manufacturing, about $25.5 billion a year, followed by agriculture. The oil, gas and mining industries come in third, and the film business fourth.

Location is crucial:

Even big retailers and hotels, whose business depends on being in specific locations, bargain for incentives as if they can move anywhere. The same can be said for many movie productions, which almost never come to town without local subsidies.

This recalls the New York Yankees' threat to leave the Bronx, the Bronx Bombers' storied location. And it puts into perspective Forest City Ratner's desperation to move the money-losing Nets from an antiquated arena in New Jersey to a new arena in the country's media capital.

However, oddly enough, there's no reference to Forest City Ratner in the database, and only a piddling mention of parent Forest City Enterprises, below.

Fuzzy data, including on New York


According to the Times, the leading beneficiary of subsidies in New York is JP Morgan Chase, which gained $157 million in a property tax abatement. The Yankees and the Mets, via their corporate entities, each gained about $100 million in a property tax abatements.

The Times reports:

Collecting data on property tax abatements is the most difficult because only a handful of states track the amounts given by cities and counties. Among them is New York, where businesses save an estimated $1.1 billion a year in property taxes. The American International Group, the insurance company at the center of the 2008 financial crisis, continued to benefit from a $23.8 million abatement from New York City at the same time it was being bailed out with $180 billion in federal money.
Since 2000, The New York Times Company has received more than $24 million from the city and state.

What about Atlantic Yards?

The best summary, though imperfect, regarding Atlantic Yards, comes from the New York City Independent Budget Office's (IBO) September 2009 report, titled The Proposed Arena at Atlantic Yards: An Analysis of City Fiscal Gains and Losses.

The IBO delineated $169.4 million in direct costs to the city budget, and $104.3 million in costs to the state budget. Beyond that, for example, it counted $146 million in city costs for the arena property tax exemption and $193.9 million in federal costs regarding tax-exempt financing.

(As I described, because the IBO predicted $678 million in tax-exempt financing rather than the ultimate $511 million, the savings on such financing should be cut by about one-fourth. Thus the IBO's assertion that the net gain to Forest City was some $726 million should be dialed back by at least $50 million--one-fourth of the $200.3 million in projected savings on the financing. Then again, as noted below, Forest City achieved other savings unmentioned in the report.)

The methodology

The Times describes its methodology:

The Times included incentives of many types: cash grants, corporate income tax credits, sales tax exemptions or refunds, property tax abatements, low-cost loans or loan guarantees and free services like worker training. The database does not reflect the savings businesses receive in states with minimal or no corporate income tax or sales tax.
The $80 billion figure is based on more than 100 records requests to state agencies nationwide and on an examination of numerous government reports. The Times identified 1,950 incentives programs and compiled figures on benefits used by businesses in the most recent year available.
Since many state programs The Times examined did not identify the names of specific beneficiaries, examples of companies were obtained from several sources, including Investment Consulting Associates and Good Jobs First, a non-profit policy center that focuses on economic development. (For some of those examples, the dollar figures reflect the initial award; it is not known whether the entire benefit will be used.)

Apparently because Atlantic Yards benefits come from rather unusual "pots" compared to most other corporate incentives--they're absent from databases regarding the NYC Industrial Development Authority nor state PILOTs (payments in lieu of taxes)--they didn't show up in the Good Jobs First/Good Jobs New York database the Times consulted.

Even so, among the "numerous government reports" could have been that from the IBO, which would have been a good start.

I don't think the Times was trying to protect Forest City because it was the newspaper company's partner in the Times Tower. However, as I've said before, I think the newspaper has an obligation to cover Forest City Ratner exactingly, and it has often fallen short.

More Atlantic Yards savings

And that IBO report, for example, doesn't even get to the giveaway of arena naming rights, worth more than $200 million, or the state and city help in getting Forest City Ratner low-cost loans via the federal government's EB-5 program of investment immigration, likely saving more than $100 million.

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As predicted, Times reports on how Atlantic Yards opponents are exhausted by losses; neglects to cite court win, other news validating critique

I can't say I didn't predict it, the New York Times feature today headlined Opponents of Atlantic Yards Are Exhausted by a Long, Losing Battle. The Times, I wrote last month, would report that opponents were diminished and disempowered.

Which they are--duh. Some have left the neighborhood or left town. Then again, so too have many paid exponents of Atlantic Yards, including Forest City Ratner's two point men (both of whom left under ethical clouds), several state executives, union executives, as well as a criminal lobbyist and a criminal legislator. (Where was the headline "Atlantic Yards Proponents Shamed, Indicted, Convicted"?)

Then again, the (nearly all) unpaid activists--groups organized by Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn and BrooklynSpeaks--also won a big lawsuit, requiring Empire State Development, the state agency overseeing and shepherding Atlantic Yards, to conduct a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS), to study the community impact of a project lasting 25 years, not ten years, as long promised.

There's no mention of that lawsuit in this article. Nor, for that matter, recent news that validates the "opposition's" critique of Atlantic Yards: the demise of Community Benefits Agreement signatory BUILD, and the slippery behavior of developer Forest City Ratner in challenging project tax assessments and then withdrawing that challenge.

Nor any connection between the opposition and the Times's belatedly tough coverage of developer Bruce Ratner this past September, describing as "his reputation for promising anything to get a deal, only to renegotiate relentlessly for more favorable terms"?

Didn't the unpaid, overmatched opposition accomplish anything? (Quick, how well did the Yankee Stadium opposition do? And how well would the West Side Stadium opposition have done without funding from the Dolans?)

The need for oversight

In other words, as I wrote, there's still a need for civic and press oversight, especially when the government and developer devote so much effort and money to lobbying and public relations.

There's a bare hint of that in this article:

“There’s nothing I want more than not to be involved,” said Peter Krashes, a painter who lives nearby and has been embroiled in the battle since 2004.

“I’m desperate to have my life back. The problem is, only when paid professionals working in the public interest are doing their jobs do I get to go away.”

He writes most of the posts on a blog, Atlantic Yards Watch, where concerns of neighbors are posted.

Only when paid professionals working in the public interest are doing their jobs do I get to go away. That's the Culture of Cheating that I've documented. Instead, we get this boilerplate:

Joe DePlasco, a Forest City Ratner spokesman, said that the developer was holding meetings with the community and seeking solutions to concerns, including those of the [Brooklyn Bear's] garden, and that the arena and the police had recently increased patrols.

Concerns of neighbors? How cute. That could have been a jumping off point for some real reporting, such as citing the AY Watch-sponsored study that validated those concerns, showing how arena construction was accomplished thanks to violations of or inadequate environmental protocols.

Trivialization by anecdote

 Instead, we get trivialization by anecdote:

Eight years ago, after having sold an advertising business, [Eric McClure] joined the convulsive battle over what would fall and what would rise on a plot of land in the heart of Brooklyn, 15 blocks from where he lived. Now he was spent. As the final editor on the nolandgrab.org blog (succeeding his wife), he halted daily posts on Sept. 29, to start sifting for the next chapter in his life.
Neglected home projects summoned his attention. Mr. McClure began refinishing his front door. He painted a bathroom. 

Actually, McClure has also been involved in other civic projects, via Park Slope Neighbors. He hasn't withdrawn from civic life. Of course there's no citation of the actual accomplishments of his blog or McClure's goodbye message:

We thought the community (and media) would benefit from having a one-stop shop for what was being reported about the project, as well as a venue for the dissemination of information about the fight against what we believed was, and is, a corrupt abuse of eminent domain, a sinkhole for scarce public dollars, a subversion of democratic process, and an urban-planning disaster — among other abuses.

Here's a rather pissy caption attached to a photo of McClure:

After thousands of blog posts vilifying the Atlantic Yards project, Eric McClure of Park Slope, recently halted his posts.  

Was it really just vilification? Couldn't the Times have reported on any valid analysis?

Home news

I get mention in a paragraph:

Norman Oder, a journalist writing a book on the project, remains its most indefatigable chronicler with his long-standing blog, Atlantic Yards Report, for which, he said, he has no expiration date.

Any value to what I've done? You can't tell from this paragraph.

For example, the Times's coverage in September--mentioning the failure by Forest City Ratner to hire an Independent Compliance Monitor and the failure to follow promises in the configuration of the first tower--relied on news I'd broken.

I'm "not exhausted by a long, losing battle." I'm a watchdog journalist, covering an ongoing story.

Freddy's mellowed

The operators of the relocated Freddy's Bar & Backroom are mellowed:

[Manager Donald O'Finn] said he would patronize the arena. While a huge Knicks fan, he can imagine transferring fidelity to the Nets. “I’m not going to hold the team responsible for my bar getting kicked out,” he said.

That's generous. Because Bruce Ratner bought the team and used it to leverage a new arena on a site that included Freddy's.

A fitting close

The article closes with mention of Candace Carponter, who long headed Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn's legal team. She talks about how the experience has made her more cynical.

The press coverage, too, should have made her more cynical. After all, the reporter in this case got the byline on the multi-reporter article on the opening of the Barclays Center, in which Carponter's statement that the arena was a "monument to crony capitalism" got scrubbed between the early online version and the later version published online and in print.

Others mentioned

The article also describes, in varying detail:

• Daniel Goldstein
• Patti Hagan
• Scott M.X. Turner
• Mary Garsia of Bear's Garden

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The Times Sports section on the Nets-related comic books

In today's New York Times Sports section, a promotional report on the two Nets-related comic books, headlined online Nets Comic Books Are Latest Newcomers to the N.B.A. Library and in print "Drawing Upon the Nets for Inspiration."

(I'd suggest there are reasons for skepticism about both.)

The text:

From Walt Whitman to Jonathan Lethem, Brooklyn has served as a muse to a string of celebrated writers. The Nets, although new to the borough, have also inspired writing, in a less highbrow genre than poetry or the novel: comic books.

It started with the Nets’ new mascot, BrooklyKnight, who was lowered from the ceiling of Barclays Center before the team’s season-opening win over the Toronto Raptors. Applauded by some, derided by others, the black-and-chrome BrooklyKnight superhero is far more intimidating than the team’s former mascot, Sly Fox, and the Nets made it clear that he was not to be trifled with.

“He is equipped to handle almost any threat with a protective metal B on his chest,” a news release said. It added that he had “defined muscles, including a six-pack, and a multifunctional cape.”

As part of BrooklyKnight’s introduction, the team released a comic book in conjunction with Marvel Comics, telling of his adventures protecting the team and Barclays Center.

The trend continued last week when Bluewater Productions released a comic, “Orbit: Mikhail Prokhorov,” describing the ins and outs of the life of the Russian billionaire who owns the Nets.

The Prokhorov comic, written by Tony Laplume, begins: “If ever there was a real-life Bruce Wayne, it’s Mikhail Prokhorov.” The notion that his business persona is only half of the story could make some more whimsical fans wonder if Prokhorov, who estimated that he would attend about a quarter of the Nets’ games in Brooklyn, might be secretly donning the BrooklyKnight costume.

But one attribute proves that they are not the same. Prokhorov is 6 feet 8 inches; the mascot appears to be much shorter. It is worth noting that a Web search for a photograph of Prokhorov and BrooklyKnight together yielded no results.

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My City Journal essay on the New York Times's record covering Atlantic Yards: "The Barclays Center's Media Enabler"

I have an essay in the online section of the urban-policy magazine City Journal, The Barclays Center’s Media Enabler: From the start, the New York Times was reluctant to challenge Brooklyn’s new arena.

An excerpt:

[The sanitized story] again signaled the paper’s inability to get tough on Forest City Ratner, the Times’s partner in the New York Times Building in midtown, which opened in November 2007. Atlantic Yards has involved nearly $300 million in direct subsidies from the state and city, substantial tax breaks, and an inside track (and discount) on public property for the developer, along with the state’s use of eminent domain to deliver purportedly blighted land for Ratner to warehouse. All of this presented ample opportunity for scrutiny.
...Ratner has enjoyed heavy-duty support from New York’s political class since announcing the project nearly a decade ago. That left the press as the only potential counterweight. The New York Daily News regularly cheered for Atlantic Yards. The newspaper now sponsors the Barclays Center plaza, and on October 28, it produced a 44-page special section, chock full of ads from arena sponsors. The New York Post, while occasionally critical, never really dug, while its sports page was predictably enthusiastic. That left the Times. While it occasionally broke news, the paper never truly mustered the effort to dissect Atlantic Yards. The Times ignored important events or relegated coverage to its online edition. Except for a 15-month stretch ending in 2006, the paper failed to make Atlantic Yards one reporter’s responsibility, losing institutional memory.
If there was no newsroom thumb on the scale for Ratner, neither did anyone dig too hard... Outside the newsroom, the Times’s preferences were more glaring.

For the rest of the article, click here.

Eminent domain

City Journal, published by the conservative Manhattan Institute ("new ideas that foster greater economic choice and individual responsibility"), frequently challenges the Times and is a critic of eminent domain. (See the Winter 2010 article regarding Atlantic Yards, Eminent Domain as Central Planning, by Nicole Gelinas.)

With Atlantic Yards, it should be noted, critics of eminent domain span the political spectrum; after all, a leading voice slamming New York state's condemnor-friendly laws is longtime civil libertarian Norman Siegel, while liberal New Jersey law professor Ronald Chen has declared that "the New York Court of Appeals basically abdicated any meaningful role for the judiciary in determining whether a blight designation even passed the laugh test."

Beyond the article

Given the space constraints, there's much I can't address in the article, so I'll augment it here.

Do I recognize that the Times's staff was shrinking and that it's tough to cover complex stories? Yes. Do I recognize that the Times missed other big stories, such as NYU's absorption of Polytechnic University? Yes.

Doesn't coverage of Atlantic Yards reflect the fact that Brooklyn still lags in comparison to coverage of Manhattan? Probably. Do I think Times coverage suffered from “The View from Nowhere”--as detailed by NYU media scholar Jay Rosen--in which journalists position themselves between poles to appear impartial, no matter who’s lying? Yes.

Do I think those are excuses? No, not for not showing up or ignoring counter-evidence--especially with the copious information available from others' reportage (including this blog) and Brooklyn activists.

Yes, the Times has done some good work in the midst of its erratic, inadequate coverage. But the Times has made numerous groaningly bad calls, some cited in my City Journal article (the MTA deal, the Community Benefits Agreement, hyping Jay-Z, etc.), others not. Here are some of the latter:

• critic Herbert Muschamp, in his rapturous 12/11/03 essay hailing Atlantic Yards, claimed, in glaring error, “The six-block site... is now an open railyard.” The Times wouldn't correct it
• a 11/6/05 article that allowed Forest City Ratner point man Jim Stuckey to claim that criticism of the developer was "Orwellian, almost"
• the 9/5/06 lead story that treated rumors of a 6-8% scaleback in Atlantic Yards as big news, even though that would bring the project back to the square footage initially announced
• a month after Atlantic Yards was first approved, the Bloomberg administration in January 2007, quietly doubled the size of its direct subsidy for Atlantic Yards, to $205 million (now closer to $180 million). The Times waited until 4/5/07 to backhandedly mention the subsidy increase
• the newspaper failed to cover the 5/29/09 state Senate hearing on Atlantic Yards, the only such state oversight hearing in the project's history
• the Times on 4/17/12 unskeptical transmitted Forest City Ratner's claim that retail changes on and around Flatbush Avenue were "evidence that the arena has already met its goal of transforming a dreary section of Brooklyn," including the railyards--but they remained undeveloped

What it meant

Tougher Times coverage might not have killed Atlantic Yards. More responsible coverage, however, could have helped shape deals more in the public interest, delivered a project with less neighborhood damage, and dissected the flaws in the eminent domain process.

Above all, such coverage would have put public on notice that such high-stakes, decades-long real estate development demands steady skepticism and democratic oversight. Even after the project has been approved.

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