With the sale of the Nets complete, one of the three major hurdles to moving the Nets to Brooklyn is behind Ratner. Number 2, getting the MTA to release the land, is a no brainer. The 3rd, getting the state to invoke eminent domain over the three blocks of brownstones in the way of stadium's plans, is obviously the most controversial and questionable step left.
A more ethnically, economically and commercially diverse crew would be hard to assemble, even in New York City. Within the three-block chunk imagined for demolition, there are artists and auto body shops, a world-famous violin builder, a cherished neighborhood bar and a small company that makes hats for church ladies.
Meanwhile, Mary Markowitz calls the opportunity "exciting ... It Brings Brooklyn back to the big leagues." Ah, excuse me, wasn't Brooklyn already the country's 4th largest city? That's fairly big league. My predictably "urbanist" response should be anti-stadium, but I'm torn. Obviously, I'm not in favor of tearing down brownstones, and like William Rhoden, I don't think this has anything to do with nostalgia and the Dodgers. I am the most nostalgic person you know (or don't know), and my Dad grew up a Dodgers fan in the Bronx. They left Brooklyn just as he was getting old enough to go to games by himself, so not even Jay-Z's Brooklyn Nets would begin to heal that wound. (Moving the Mets to Sunset Park, on the other hand....)
But I'm excited at the prospect of living so close to what might be Gehry's crowning achievement as an architect, and the end result would be not only a new stadium, but the eyesore that is the Long Island Railroad yards partially transformed into public park space and 4,500 new apartments. I'd love for a left-leaning think tank to study the effects that 4 new apartment towers right on top of the Times Square of Brooklyn (there, I said it) would have on gentrification of the outlying neighborhoods. If the new living space lets some of the older and further out neighborhoods retain their identity, are't three blocks in Prospect Heights a price we should consider paying? Of course, I don't know anything about this, and there's an equal chance that these new developments could accelerate gentrification, or cause a dramatic depreciation in property values in Prospect Heights, Fort Green and Park Slope which would set Brooklyn's economic resurgence back 15 years. That's why there should be a study.
Recent Comments