Riders Alliance hold public assembly for their transit plan and claim it's a private event as they try to kick out a commuter activist

What happened to public space for people???

Freedom News Network has an even better angle of the bullying by Fascist Riders Alliance

Here's Fascist Riders Alliance again trying to oppress this genuine riders advocate from filming a car they were using to get to their public assembly private events. Funny with all their talk about transit equity and demands to people to give up their cars, they cruise around from town to town contributing to car culture and traffic congestion

That woman, who appears to be RA's executive director Betsy Plum's muscle and chaffeur, seems to be confused because license plates and the cars they are affixed to is actually public information.

Infernal amplified chanting heard for blocks by Barclays Arena

No need to worry, Saudi Arabia is our "ally" and are a great and reliant customer of our beautiful weapons. And Al Qaeda wound up being very useful too as proxies in Syria and Yemen. I think our derelict mayor and quixotic presidential candidate would call this vibrancy in action.

Yet another stadium planned for Queens

From Bloomberg:

The New York Islanders are in talks with the owners of baseball’s New York Mets about building a hockey arena adjacent to Citi Field in Queens, people with knowledge of the discussions said.

Willets Point is emerging as a persuasive alternative to the team’s current home at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center if the Islanders’s owners and arena officials can’t agree on a series of hockey-specific improvements, said the people, who asked for anonymity because the negotiations are private.

The team’s first season at Barclays Center, which is owned by Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, was marred by poor reviews from fans, who complained about obstructed view seats, and from players, who who said the quality of the ice was sub-par. The team’s owners also realized they couldn’t make as much money as their league counterparts, most of which play in bigger arenas.

The Islanders, who are owned by Value Retail Plc founder Scott Malkin and Jonathan Ledecky, and Sterling Equities, which owns the Mets, have been discussing a possible move to Queens for months, said the people.

What about those ramps? Affordable housing? Hmmm...

Living near Atlantic Yards is no picnic

From the Daily News:

Welcome to life in the shadow of Atlantic Yards, the ambitious and divisive $4.9 billion real estate project that includes 15 high-rise buildings that will eventually tower over central Brooklyn as well as Barclays Center, the rust-colored 18,000-seat home of the NBA’s Nets and the NHL’s Islanders. When developer Bruce Ratner and his political allies — most notably then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Gov. George Pataki, Ratner’s Columbia law school classmate — unveiled plans for a massive real estate project anchored by a Nets arena in 2003, they promised it would be a powerful economic engine that would bring jobs and affordable housing to the borough.

Community activists and longtime residents, however, say many of the promised benefits have yet to materialize — but the headaches and hassles they feared would be generated by the project, renamed “Pacific Park” in 2014 after years of controversy, have arrived right on schedule.

Howard and other residents say the neighborhood feels like it has been taken over by an occupying army. Noise from the construction sites around the Barclays Center is deafening, sometimes roaring on from dawn until well into the night. Traffic is snarled on streets narrowed by construction fences and clogged with trucks. The rat population has boomed and dust and diesel emissions foul the air. Confrontations with the 1,700 workers employed at the construction sites near the Barclays Center and the thousands of fans who regularly attend Nets and Islanders games as well as other events are all too frequent, the residents say.

It pays to be a friend of Bill

From the Daily News:

A key player in Mayor de Blasio's drive to lure the Democratic convention to Brooklyn is seeking $90 million in tax-free bonds to refinance one of his already-subsidized properties.

Bruce Ratner - who developed the Barclays Center where de Blasio hopes the convention would be held - requested the city-backed subsidy from a quasi-governmental agency controlled by the mayor.

If approved, the tax-break will cost the city general fund nearly $1 million in tax revenue and create not a single new job. A hearing is set for Thursday.

Ratner and Maryanne Gilmartin, CEO of his firm, Forest City Ratner, are both members of a committee of movers and shakers de Blasio formed two months ago to raise money for the Democratic convention bid.

Ratner and his associates have raised thousands of dollars for de Blasio's political campaigns in recent years. That includes $10,000 via a Ratner-sponsored 50th birthday party for de Blasio at the Waldorf in 2011. A top Ratner executive raised another $13,600 as a "bundler" for de Blasio in 2013, and Forest City Ratner lobbyists have raised thousands more.

Mayoral spokesman Marti Adams said the deal will be a wash for taxpayers because Ratner will pay a fee to handle the financing. Ratner officials put the fee at $963,000. The money goes to the quasi-governmental Economic Development Corp., not the city’s general fund.

Illegal cabbies threaten green cabbies

From the NY Post:

Illegal livery drivers see red when they spot green.

The scofflaws are bullying the outer-boroughs’ new green-taxi operators — kicking, smacking and spitting on the apple-colored rides to scare them from what has been their prime turf, legal workers told The Post.

The illicit drivers “have been making violent threats — kicking cars and banging on widows,” said Jenny Ahmed, who runs a green-taxi base in Brooklyn. “They think they’ve been there longer and it’s their turf.”

At least three of Ahmed’s drivers have suffered through car-whackings and threats from angry drivers since the green-taxi program launched in August, she said.

Fights have flared up in front of the Target store on Flatbush Avenue near Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

One green-cab driver was forced to give up a prime parking spot near the Atlantic Avenue Terminal after a black-livery-car operator spat at him, the driver said.

Ratner a big DeBlasio donor

From the Daily News:

Housing emerged as an issue in the mayoral race Monday when Bill de Blasio came under withering attack for the lack of affordable units in the Atlantic Yards development rising in his Brooklyn backyard.

De Blasio, who has focused his campaign on income inequality, has been uncharacterically quiet on the failure of developer Bruce Ratner to build 2,250 units of affordable housing promised as part of the project, mayoral rival Joe Lhota charged.

“He was silent because he was bought,” said Lhota, standing across the street from the gleaming Barclay’s Center, the anchor of the $5 billion development.

“The people who built the Barclay’s Center and promised to build all of the affordable housing have given contributions to him over and over again.”

As a City Council member from Brooklyn and then as the city’s Public Advocate, de Blasio bucked neighborhood opposition and supported the controversial project.

Ratner has received tax breaks and loans worth more than $760 million to build the project, which is supposed to include the 2,250 units of affordable housing. But nearly eight years after the project was approved, the first 181 affordable housing units won’t break ground until next year. And there is no concrete timetable for the other units.

Ratner and his associates at Forest City Ratner Companies have raised more than $73,000 for de Blasio’s campaign, records show.

Meet the soon-to-be boss, same as the old boss. The rest of the real estate community is also throwing huge wads of cash at BDB.

Arena owners battle on Long Island

From Crains:

Out on Long Island, it is shaping up as the heavyweight bout of the decade—the Knockout in Nassau County. It's a winner-take-all contest in which the prize, potentially worth hundreds of millions of dollars over the coming decades, is the right to rebuild and run the badly faded Nassau Coliseum.

In one corner stands a team captained by Madison Square Garden Co., a squad led by hometown heroes James Dolan and Scott Rechler, aided by MSG Chief Executive Hank Ratner. The Dolans control the island's biggest cable television network and newspaper, while Rechler is the island's largest office landlord. In the other corner is the Barclays Center team. Call them the Brooklyn Globetrotters, coached by developer Bruce Ratner with a bench that includes Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov and Jay Z.

Round 1 in the contest kicked off in May, with the announcement of four bidders, which was narrowed to just two the following month. Final proposals for the 63-acre property in Uniondale were submitted on Aug. 9. Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano is expected to announce a victor any day.

Both sides are aggressively swinging for the prize, which includes a share of ticket sales to events, dinner bills, bar tabs and receipts from the shops that both bidders plan to erect around the arena. The winner will control the property for 20 to 30 years.

Local officials say they are delighted at how the bout has shaped up—especially after two previous taxpayer-financed attempts to revamp the Coliseum went nowhere. Those setbacks prompted the Islanders hockey team to skate off to the Barclays Center, which will be its home as early as the 2014-2015 season.

"We're thrilled we have two industry giants prepared to reinvent the Coliseum," said Mr. Mangano.

For MSG, the contest is an opportunity to add another gem to the crown of its ever-expanding entertainment-venue business, which includes managing Radio City Music Hall, the Beacon Theater and the LA Forum. For Barclays, coming off a blockbuster inaugural year at its downtown Brooklyn arena, winning the Coliseum contract could mark the first step toward the launch of a business that not only competes with the Garden in New York City but around the world.

"A decade of kickbacks"

From the NY Post:

Forest City Enterprises, the real-estate behemoth whose subsidiary built the Barclays Center, has taken pay-to-play to new levels, an explosive new report charges.

The company has gotten indirect government subsidies totaling $2.6 billion over the last decade — or 23 percent of its $11.4 billion in revenues over the period, according to the report.

At the same time, the company and its subsidiaries, Forest City Ratner — which developed the Atlantic Yards, site of the Brooklyn arena — spent $23 million on political campaigns, according to Cause of Action, a nonprofit that conducted a detailed investigation of Forest City.

The oversight group accuses the company of a “decade of kickbacks” and coordinating its campaign contributions, and says it is investigating multiple companies that use “political connections for profit.”

In key election years, 85 percent of the company’s political contributions went to candidates where the company had real-estate projects, the group found.

Looking just at New York City, Forest City has spent $5 million on lobbying between 2002 and 2012.

Tell us something we don't know.

Atlantic Yards destruction not yet over

From the Daily News:

Forest City Ratner is chopping down 20 trees on Pacific St. between Carlton and 6th avenues to clear the path for more construction at Atlantic Yards - but has no plans to replace them anytime soon.

Residents are up in arms over losing the foliage.

“There's already not enough green space,” said Christine Schmidt, 59, who lives in the Newswalk building, which overlooks the trees.

In 2008, the Parks Department gave FCR permission to remove the trees as well as 66 others in the area around the Barclays Center and housing development footprint.

FCR officials have vowed to replace the trees, which will be chopped down in the next few days.

But critics note it could take decades before the final project is completed, and the trees can be placed anywhere in the development, leaving Pacific St. bare.

Barclays jobs a bust

From DNA Info:

Mayor Michael Bloomberg listed the Barclays Center's economic impact at the top of his administration's achievements in his State of the City speech Thursday, but most jobs at the new arena are part-time and don't come with benefits, arena officials said recently.

Bloomberg highlighted the 2,000 permanent jobs created by the new arena in his final State of the City address, which was delivered at the Barclays Center. The mayor noted that some 30 percent of Barclays Center employees are, like part owner Jay-Z once was, residents of public housing.

All told, 75 percent of the arena's employees are Brooklynites, Bloomberg said.

But of the 2,000 positions, only 100 are full-time jobs. The rest are part-time positions that don't offer health insurance, said Forest City Ratner Companies spokeswoman Ashley Cotton at a recent public meeting about the arena's impact on the surrounding area.

Gib Veconi of the neighborhood advocacy group Brooklyn Speaks said that while the jobs are a welcome change for unemployed Brooklynites, the number and quality of jobs at the Barclays Center don't measure up to what was originally promised, and pale in comparison to the amount of public subsidies the arena received.

The city's Independent Budget Office has calculated that the arena received about $750 million in direct and indirect taxpayer-funded subsidies, Veconi said.

"If you divide that by 2,000 jobs, that's $375,000 a job," Veconi said. "When you look at it in that light, does that seem like it measures up to what the public put into the project? No. You would hope that we created permanent full-time jobs that could support a family for $375,000 of the public's money."

Barclays also laid off a boatload of people recently, with another wave of layoffs coming.

So why should we trust the jobs claims of those pushing stadiums and shopping malls in Flushing Meadows knowing this info about the huge arena that was built in Brooklyn? McJobs are McJobs.

DOB asleep at Barclays Center

From the NY Times:

Their vision called for an edgy, urban design that would stand apart from the clamshell look of arenas elsewhere.

The weathered steel panels and swooping canopy of the Barclays Center, the new home for the Brooklyn Nets, have served notice that brawny, once-industrial Brooklyn is back in the big leagues.

But with innovation has also come headaches.

The fabricator for the 12,000 steel panels — no two alike — abruptly shut down midway through the job.

The panels have occasionally dripped rusty orange blossoms onto the sidewalk.

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. The arena ultimately opened on time and it survived Hurricane Sandy’s winds a month later.

After examining every joint, engineers determined that only 8 percent of the 23,351 weaker bolts needed to be replaced.

But the issue has led to questions about communications between regulators and the arena’s developer, Forest City Ratner.

The New York City Buildings Department said its inspectors had not been told about the problem with the bolts.

“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.”

Islanders moving to Brooklyn

From the NY Times:

The New York Islanders, who have played on Long Island since they began play in 1972, will move to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, officials with knowledge of the deal said on Wednesday.

The deal was to be officially announced Wednesday afternoon at a news conference at the new arena in Brooklyn with Charles E. Wang, the owner of the Islanders, and Bruce Ratner, the owner of the Barclays Center.

Under the 25-year agreement, which has to be officially approved by the National Hockey League, the Islanders would move to the Barclays for the 2015-16 season.

The Barclays is already home to the Brooklyn Nets basketball team, which moved from New Jersey, and adding a hockey team would represent a major coup for Mr. Ratner. But unlike the Nets, the Islanders would keep New York in their name.

One less thing to threaten Flushing Meadows.

There are some who think Bloomberg is a master urban planner

From WNYC:

Justin Davidson, New York magazine’s architecture critic, looks at the ways development has changed the city’s character during the Bloomberg years. We’ll take calls on how neighborhoods have changed through new zoning, historic districts, and new construction in the last decade.

Weigh in: Has New York become a city of generic glass towers? Does protecting historic buildings and neighborhoods preserve the city’s character or hamper development?

Listen to just a snippet of the interview and you'll quickly realize that Davidson is pretty clueless. Here's urban planner Michael D.D. White's analysis and response to his remarks:

Before the “Barclays” Center there was “no character” at that site?

The plan for Atlantic Yards mega-project “flows from” a “Gehry design” that developer/subsidy collector Forest City Ratner is “legally” obligated to follow?

Davidson is carelessly promulgating misinformation that’s in service to the Ratner narrative. He does so notwithstanding a level of scrutiny he gave to Manhattan’s comparable, but overall smaller, Hudson Yards only a week ago which level of scrutiny is entirely inconsistent with such ignorant assessments.

In describing the “Barclays” site as previously having “no character” Davidson describes it as a single block that was at the triangular intersection of two large trafficked avenues. That’s what it is now: It's not just a “block” but a newly created superblock created out of what were previously three blocks. Previously, it wasn’t just between two avenues: Previously, Fifth Avenue and Pacific Street flowed through that now superblock block to define those three individual, separate blocks.

And if Davidson is to consider his own point that preserving a neighborhood means paying attention to “the economics of it” and “the character” of a neighborhood (presumably with respect to its interwoveness with the rest of the city), then he should note that what was cleared away at the “Barclays” site just to make way for arena included, but was not limited to, Freddy’s, a neighborhood bar and music venue, and two large newly renovated condominium buildings. Freddy’s was an anchor and a gathering place generating neighborhood connection. The two condominium were also more important than just what they were themselves: They set the tone and example for development that was taking off in the neighborhood, something the Ratner organization elected to wipe out because it was competing with its own properties which Ratner wasn’t developing at the time.

Getting back to Queens, at about 14:40, Paul Graziano, the planner who designed most of the downzonings in Queens, weighs in on Davidson's assertion that Queens downzonings are a bad thing. He mentions the 1961 zoning maps that have been in place until recent years when the rezonings were completed. They based zoning pon the prediction of a buildout of 12-16M people. That type of density transposed on neighborhoods of 1 and 2 family homes were a recipe for disaster.