At the arena plaza, a McCartney announcement, a persistent rat, and a hint of the coming "Brooklyn Skybox"

Yesterday was a big day for arena hype, notably a public announcement that Paul McCartney will bring his 2013 "Out There" tour to the Barclays Center on June 8 and 10.

AM New York provided a photo of the promotion led by Borough President Marty Markowitz and arena CEO Brett Yormark, complete with a Union Jack and faux Royal Guards.

According to Markowitz:

"It's been a 'Long and Winding Road' and never 'In My Life' would I have guessed that my favorite knight would be leaving the Queen to come to the glorious county of Kings -- so let's all 'Come Together' and celebrate."

Funny, every time Madison Square Garden signs a tour, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer doesn't feel compelled to promote it.

And even though the Daily News labeled it a "publicity stunt," the newspaper--a sponsor of the arena plaza--posted an article with several photographs.

Below, the message in the oculus.

At left, a photo circulated by Markowitz's office via Twitter.

In the oculus

The wider view

See below for the concert banner at left under the oculus and, in the distance, the union rat put up as part of a union protest.

Brooklyn SkyBox coming

In the photo above, note the "Coming Soon" sign for, as here's Park Slope reported, "Brooklyn SkyBox" Coming to Barclays Area:

A new billboard has gone up on top of the building that will next be home to Shake Shack, on the south side of Flatbush Avenue directly across the street from the Barclays Center, advertising Brooklyn SkyBox, "The ultimate sports viewing experience," coming soon.
There's a Twitter handle set up, and the concept already seems to be pretty fleshed out. Looks like it'll be a "stadium inspired restaurant that features sports viewing, roof top lounge, fine dining, food concessions, event rentals, arcades and games," according to the description, and apparently they've already worked out a partnership with Pepsi. It also appears as if it's owned by Drummond & Drummond LLC, a management and holding company.

Where exactly is it located? Brownstoner reported:

We hear that the exact location is 604 Pacific Street, right off Flatbush Avenue, where it will open by the end of this year. The owner, Michael Drummond, plans to set up a restaurant, rooftop dining, big-screen TV and arcade. He’s also in touch with the North Flatbush Avenue BID with the assurance that the venue is community friendly and will be a good neighbor.

The location? The former furniture store once supposed to house a gastropub. Note that the Twitter location above is "Atlantic Yards, Brooklyn, NY."

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Machavelle, sports lounge across from arena, out of business (but may return?)

Machavelle Sportsbar and Lounge (Yelp reviews), at 602 Pacific Street, across from the Barclays Center, has closed and, as the sign indicates, the space is for sale.

According to a message posted 2/13/13 on  the establishment's Facebook page, they're trying to reopen:

As some of you might know, Machavelle's doors have been closed since Feb 1st. We are working diligently to reopen very soon to continue serving you all!
We thank all of our patrons who have expressed their best wishes to us during this time.
We will keep you posted on the latest developments!

However, the "for sale" sign raises questions about that optimism.

As the photo indicates, the Machavelle space is right next to a larger building with scaffolding outside it. Machavelle opened in May 2011, more than 16 months before the arena did.

Why exactly the doors closed is unclear; it's impossible to leave a phone message. However, among business establishments near the arena, bars and restaurants have generally thrived, while others have not.

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Barclays Center seen as not cannibalizing Jersey arenas, at least; bars in arena's orbit not yet feeling huge effect from spillover patrons, Nets fans

According to the Bergen Record, Barclays Center not viewed as drain on concert business at Izod, Prudential arenas, because, as one promoter suggests, the marketplaces is capable of expansion.

Then again, the Izod Center, now lacking a major league team, also gets rented for Madonna rehearsals, which brings in revenue but not paying guests.

And the big loser, given the coming loss of the New York Islanders and the accessibility of the Barclays Center to the Long Island Rail Road, may be the Nassau Coliseum.

What about the bars?

A long New York Times Sports section article headlined Places to Drink for Brooklyn’s Toast of the Town (though the URL suggests an earlier version of the headline was the more neutral "searching-for-nets-bars-near-barclays-center"), finds that, though there are numerous bars near the Barclays Center, and some new ones, they're slow to gain Nets fans.

The explanation is that "these things take time":

You don’t just: 1) draw a line around a succulent 22-acre parcel of real estate in the heart of Brooklyn; 2) throw out all the people and knock down all the buildings; 3) shoehorn in an arena that, according to the readers of this newspaper, looks like a rusty turtle or a parking garage, a spaceship, a dragon, a bed pan, a comb-over, rat scat or possibly a “Transformers” robot with only his head sticking out of the ground and a long tongue snaking out in front of it; 4) and then import a gloriously inept basketball team from the petrochemical badlands of New Jersey, toss up a ball and expect fans to stampede the place.

Note that not all of the people have yet been thrown out, nor all the buildings demolished. There's a whole 'nother phase of eminent domain. Nor has the majority of the MTA's Vanderbilt Yard been paid for, in terms of development rights.

And doesn't this article further undermine the dubious premise of a Times article last April that, to developer Forest City Ratner:

the changes are evidence that the arena has already met its goal of transforming a dreary section of Brooklyn — the Long Island Rail Road’s rail yards and surrounding industrial buildings, which the company’s spokesman described as “ a scar that divided the neighborhood.”

Voices from the bars

But the authors diligently survey numerous bars, and people. A few selections..

The personal assistant to Nets' player Josh Childress, on the arena: "It’s extreme, a little out there. It didn’t look like it fits the neighborhood, that scrap iron."

Kree Gumbs of the Trinidadian bar/restaurant Sugarcane, on Flatbush Avenue: "The Nets haven’t changed anything — yet."

At Frank's Cocktail Lounge on Fulton Street:

Patrons from the far reaches of the bar jump into conversations. They talk about life’s dramas. Bring up the Nets, and the first thing the sewing circle discusses is the nightmarish traffic and the dubious promise made to build affordable housing near the arena. Still, the Who’s performance last week sent a crowd jamming into Frank’s that did not thin until 3 a.m.

At the home of the relocated Freddy's, in South Park Slope/Greenwood Heights, once the clubhouse of the Atlantic Yards opposition before its Dean Street location was demolished:

On this night, there appeared to be no Nets fans in Freddy’s. The Knicks-Magic game was on the TV in the back. The bartender, Matthew Kuhn, a 10-year Freddy’s veteran, insisted there were no sour grapes.

“We’d switch to the Nets game if somebody asked,” he said. “Life goes on.”

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Barclays Center round-up: neighborhood impacts (and not); elegy for Brooklyn; "How to Steal a City"; mixed review on food; bringing back the Dodgers

The impact of the Barclays Center--so far--has been less than feared on many of the blocks immediately nearby, though no one expected to hear and feel the bass in their homes. (I'm still waiting for some official word on that. What happened to promised "transparency and sharing details as we go"?)

Fewer people are flooding residential streets, as fewer cars are looking to park, though there has been a significant increase in idling livery vehicles or, as noted in the brief video below shot at a bus stop on Bergen Street west of Carlton Avenue, vehicles violating parking regulations.



That may change as weather gets colder, older/family crowds wish to drive, and the prices at parking lots adjust to the market.

It's also open to question whether it's sustainable for the city and arena operators to provide the enormous amount of police, traffic officers, and pedestrian managers to make sure everything works--including waving traffic through red lights and closing Atlantic Avenue (which was never planned or disclosed).

After the show

Post-event fans have not flooded neighborhood streets in Prospect Heights, and to the extent they have done so elsewhere--such as going north through Fort Greene to subway stops and more, they've been reasonably quiet, as I and others have observed.

After the show Monday, 10/1/12, on row-house Fort Greene Place between Hanson Place and Lafayette Avenue, I saw regular foot traffic on the way to the G train, but people were going home, not partying, and most were quiet. The loudest person was the t-shirt seller on Fort Greene Place just north of Hanson--surely annoying to those in the residences nearby.

The video below begins just past 11 pm, and tracks foot traffic across Atlantic Avenue, which begins before traffic is stopped. Then I follow people up to Fort Greene and back. There's intermittent honking.




The impact on main streets

The main impact has been on larger Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, and the Modell's store near that intersection, which blares music loud enough to be heard blocks away, has generated complaints.



An incident on Flatbush

There has been an increase of fans on Flatbush Avenue after events and at least one ugly incident, as reported to me by a Prospect Heights resident: at 12:50 am, Sunday, Sept. 30, at Flatbush and Dean Street, she saw six men:

coming toward me, beer bottles in hand. One guy, who seemed fairly looped, walked into Flatbush Ave & started yelling. Then he came back onto the crack-riddled sidewalk, jumped in front of me, thrust his beer bottle at my face & yelled "Do you like the NETS?" I smiled & said "No, not really." Whereupon he grabbed me at the back of my neck & shoved me around. That was when one of his pals pulled him away. 

Cops are investigating.

Tight squeeze for limos

As shown in the video below, black cars/limos don't have enough spaces to wait for their clients, so they fill a traffic lane on Atlantic Avenue. The video below was shot about five minutes before the concert let out 10/1/12. After the video was shot, cops began to wave some of vehicles down the block.



The impact on neighborhoods

The question is what's next. There are several major pieces of property on and near Flatbush Avenue that have changed hands or are expected to do so, and those spaces surely will become arena-related outposts. Hence concerns like the ones expressed below.

An elegy for Brooklyn

In the Huffington Post, Jay Michaelson offers An Elegy for Brooklyn, in the Shadow of Barclays:

North Park Slope, where I live, is now literally in the shadows of the Slug (as some of us call it). And now, we will be overrun almost every night by cars searching for parking, by drunk fans spilling out of the center late at night, and, eventually, by large-scale commercial development to give them a place to eat and drink.

But let's take a moment to remember what's here now, on October 02, 2012, right before it disappears.

North Slope and Prospect Heights are multi-ethnic, multi-class neighborhoods.... All this will soon be gone. No neighborhood can withstand an onslaught of a Barclays Center and all it brings with it. Already many businesses have been forced out by increased rents, and we know what they will be replaced by: the same chain-restaurants and sports bars, the same monotonous culture (if that's the right word) of expensive skyboxes for some and cheap thrills for the rest.

A trip to the subway

The video below was shot at about 11:30 pm, about 25-30 minutes after the Jay-Z show let out, so after the main surge. The trip through the plaza and to the subway was pretty simple, and trains arrived shortly on both sides of the Q track.

The main problem, it seems: a lot of people don't have MetroCards, so the lines are long at the machines and at the service booths.



"How to Steal a City"

In the New York Observer, Kevin Baker (whose brother-in-law represented plaintiffs in the Atlantic Yards eminent domain case) writes How to Steal a City: Bruce Ratner and Co. Just Rolled Brooklyn (a headline that echoes Umar Jordan's "Brooklyn got played"):

“So, how did we get here?” an “almost giddy” Mr. Ratner asked at the Barclays ribbon-cutting.

Good question. The answer is that it’s all too typical of how we live now, a game of bait-and-switch that is slowly reducing New York to the level of any other American city, while simultaneously robbing the people who live here.

Barclays Center food: not as good as MSG

BloombergBusinessWeek offers a surprisingly mixed review of the arena's food offerings: Nets’ $1 Billion Home Hawks Great Cuban, Bad Beer: Review:

Finding a Brooklyn brew at this Brooklyn stadium, whose concessions are run by the Chicago-based Levy Restaurants, is more complicated.

I’ll forgive such Second City influences because much of the grub is good enough. With Greenpoint tacos and Smith Street brats, Barclays Center is a respectable, if not necessarily memorable, tribute to Kings County’s diverse food scene.

Still, there’s something distinctly unsettling when the stadium outpost of Cafe Habana, a fine Carroll Gardens restaurant, offers only Bud, Bud Light or Coors Light. ($7.50- $9.50).

..Barclays isn’t quite the ambassador for New York food as is Citi Field or Madison Square Garden. But it gets the job done.

Note that reviewer Ryan Sutton did not evaluate the desserts, including Junior's Cheesecakes and Blue Marble Ice Cream, which likely would have improved the arena's grade. (Quality control is surely easier.) Perhaps Borough President Marty Markowitz is already complaining.

The Dodgers are coming (back)

From the Wall Street Journal, 10/2/12, Nets Calling on Brooklyn Dodgers:

But the Nets also have been doing some digging into the past. Team officials have been reaching out to former members of the Brooklyn Dodgers to invite them to the Nets' season opener against the Knicks on Nov. 1 at Barclays Center.

Ralph Branca, who pitched for the Dodgers over 11 seasons, winning 21 games for the team in 1947, said he recently received a phone call from Barry Baum, the Nets' senior vice president of communications.

Branca said Baum told him the team would send a car service to chauffeur him to the game from his home in Westchester County. Baum declined to comment.

It doesn't look like they'll get the iconic but reclusive Sandy Koufax to show, however.

The article doesn't mention plans to restore the Ebbets Field flagpole at the Barclays Center plaza.

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