Brooklyn Deserves Atlantic Yards

By Matthew Lysiak
Serf City

If there ever was a time when Brooklyn was home to the counter-culture, anti-establishment movement, it died long ago—the current prevailing philosophy now
ruling the borough is one of righteous conformity.
Like most philosophies, this one has begun to manifest itself in the form of the steel and mortar called Atlantic Yards, and nowhere this is more evident than in the hypocrisy of Brooklyn residents who have been expressing outrage over Bruce Ratner’s project and its broad abuse of government power. These “activists” should afford themselves a moment for introspection because, after all, this “redevelopment”
is largely of their own making.
Or as some might say, you reap what you sow.
Atlantic Yards is developer Bruce Ratner’s mixed-use commercial and residential development project of 16 buildings, currently in the works around Downtown Brooklyn, and centered on the development of the Barclays Center. 8.4 acres of the 22 acre project is to be built over a train yard that is utilized by the Long Island Rail Road—and the project has been embedded with controversy from the beginning.
First, the project is employing the use of eminent domain to acquire the property Ratner can’t purchase conventionally. Ratner had offered tenants up to $1 million to leave their homes, plus he guaranteed them an apartment in the new
complex at the same rent they were previously paying, but those who have refused Ratner’s offer are being threatened with government intervention.
Another controversial aspect of the development is that the same property that was valued at $214 million in 2005, ended up being sold to Ratner for only $100 million. The sale was made despite higher bids, since the MTA decided to negotiate exclusively with Ratner. All inquiries into the details of the plan have been met with resistance.
Despite the controversy and ongoing litigation, construction
began in February.
Last month the New York Libertarian Party appropriately called for a nationwide boycott of Barclay’s Bank on the grounds that its participation in the Atlantic Yards project is an endorsement of the seizure of private property— but the LP represents a small percentage of reasoned-consistent dissent on the issue.
For most residents who are actively involved with Atlantic Yards, it isn’t private property rights, the estimated $1.1 billion in taxpayer subsidies, or the sweetheart deal that has provoked community outrage amongst Brooklyn’s proud citizenry (although they have opportunistically jumped on each of these reasons when it has become convenient), but rather what appears to be a deeply rooted hysteria about progress in the form of change.
Just listen to the discussions about the Atlantic Yards, which always seem to center on the unspoken concept that a larger-than-life force is invading Brooklyn, pushing our cherished structures, and more importantly, the memories they represent, right out of existence.
Change is coming, and Brooklyn is afraid.
It is becoming more and more apparent that Brooklyn has lost her will and sense of adventure; she fears the future and the progress that comes with embracing technology, and instead looks for comfort in the familiar, through the structures of the past—a living representation of a fear based world-view.
As their old, stale building begins to come down to make way for a newer and improved models, many residents are agonizing like they have lost a child, because in many ways, the security (through familiarity) that the crumbling structures represent evokes powerful emotions—just as the fluid dynamic of the new buildings is almost instinctually a threat.
This misplaced connection to the structures of our past may be the root of the anti-progress fears in Brooklyn, but the erosion of individual freedom is only truly feared by residents on a superficial level.
Residents of this once proud borough will sooner fear Wal-Mart (competition), carbon dioxide (global warming), cell phones (radiation),and transfats (unless it is the Krispy Kreme), then they will the government seizure
of private property.
The “old” Brooklyn that was built on the backs of the tough-minded and hard-working middle class is dead, and has been reborn into a “new” Brooklyn, governed by small intellectual elite that make up the political class—and the vast majority of conformists that prop them up.
To those who live outside of the borough and think this to be an exaggeration, don’t only examine their words, but look at their actions.
Evidence can be found in the zoning measures that restrict property owners from being able to build on their own land, and as zoning has become embraced by local community boards across the borough, with the stated goal always some form of “preserving neighborhood integrity” or to prevent congestion, the results
are always the same—the pricing out of Brooklyn’s residents who least can afford the housing escalation caused by artificial price controls, as well as the continual erosion of liberty.
What was once the Borough of Churches and bars is now the Borough of regulations
and regulations, and the concept of private property has become antiqued.
Still, activists who routinely ignore the constitution and have accepted the premise of collectivism can now be found screaming from the rooftops at Ratner’s government sanctioned abuse of power. Brooklyn voters now find themselves in the moral dilemma that intellectual contradictions often cause, now that their nanny state has come back to bite them. They have embraced the idea of an allpowerful
government and the loss of personal freedoms and; now residents act surprised that
they have an all-powerful government and the loss of personal freedom.
Brooklyn should get used to it; it is of their own making.
On the bright side, there is little doubt that Atlantic Yards will improve the overall fiscal health of Brooklyn, but while concerned citizenry would be wise to embrace the modernization that comes with this development, advocates of personal liberty are left asking themselves, at what cost?
Brooklyn voters who have long considered opponents of eminent domain to be extremists, and have instead chosen to embrace big government over individual
liberty, under the assumption that the government would always be under their
control, would be wise to remember the eternal words of Martin Niemoeller:
“In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t
a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics, and I
didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no
one was left to speak up.”
Or as some are being heard to say today as
their property is being seized, then they came
for Downtown Brooklyn, and by that time…