The Gowanus Lounge: The Morning After: Dr. Ratlove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Atlantic Yards:
The only real difference between Atlantic Yards and a story we could have written 20 years ago is that Brooklyn has been hornswaggled largely on the basis of "affordable housing" rather than jobs. As such, Atlantic Yards is a reflection of the desperate affordable housing situation in New York City. A developer could probably site a nuclear waste repository in the borough if he promised to build a few thousand apartments on top of the storage caverns, swore up and down that the radiation would only amount to a few extra dental x-rays a year and produced an "independent" consultant's report that concluded "Don't Worry, be Happy."
The fallout of the Altantic Yards decision--and the unwillingness to make any significant reductions in density or to fully address impacts from traffic to pollution--will change Brooklyn in fundamental ways. Start with a decade of massive construction projects at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. Then, consider the impact of block upon block of highrises, and you begin to get the picture of the legacy that Gov. Pataki, Mayor Bloomberg, Empire State Development Corp. Chair Charles Gargano, Borough President Marty Markowitz, developer Bruce Ratner and all of the other officials, both public and private, who pushed this development through will leave to our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. We're not convinced that in 25 years they'll be saying "Go Nets!" so much as "Screw this traffic."
There are those that are cheering yesterday's decision as a victory for jobs and housing and as a return of big-time professional sports to Brooklyn. In its own way, Atlantic Yards will bring those things. But at what cost? Brooklyn's soul has been sold to achieve those goals. And, now, we're going to have to deal with the consequences.
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