New York — Does Oscar the Grouch have room in his trash can for Big Bird and Elmo if they're thrown out in the street?
Brooklyn is the home of Sesame Street, a place where creatures of all backgrounds manage to live together peacefully. The real borough is an irascible place where, earlier this year, a developer secured a deal to import the New Jersey Nets basketball team, bringing Brooklyn its first professional sports franchise since the Dodgers fled in 1957. Bruce Ratner, who made his money building ugly shopping malls, lined up partners like the rapper Jay-Z, and hundreds of millions of dollars in government subsidies, for an arena and other development that would cost about $2.5-billion (U.S.)
There are two problems. More than 1,000 people will be kicked out of their homes under the state's power of eminent domain. And urban designers say the project will totally change the unique character of Brooklyn.
If you're wondering why you haven't read much critical press coverage of the tussle in the New York Times, it could be because Ratner's company, Forest City Ratner, is partners in developing the Times's new headquarters.
And a glance at Ratner's plans suggests the critics are right. Along with the 19,000-seat arena, Ratner wants to throw up 17 high-rise towers that would offer 2.1 million square feet of office space and 4,500 apartments filled with imported office workers and residents, including a 186-metre anchor tower that would become the tallest building in the usually low-slung Brooklyn. Prospect Heights, the neighbourhood where Ratner wants to put the arena, is characterized primarily by four-storey brownstones, some of which are more than 100 years old.
Canadians may not be surprised to hear of a very familiar man in the eye of the storm. Frank Gehry, who seems to be everywhere these days, including the liquor store where his bottle for Wyborowa vodka can be found, has contributed a design for the arena that would feature a hulking mass topped by huge curved titanium sails.
He's apparently not tired of New York, even if his grand plan for a 120-metre-tall Guggenheim in lower Manhattan was killed last year for lack of funds. Gehry is also on board to co-design a new home for Theatre for a Young Audience, around the corner from the planned arena.
But not everyone loves his California-influenced designs. "Mr. Gehry was a poor choice for a number of reasons, but I understand the PR value of his name," said Jezra Kaye, a spokesperson with the grassroots organization Develop — Don't Destroy, which is fighting Ratner's proposal. "The kindest thing I can say about Mr. Gehry is that he has no idea what Brooklyn is about."
This afternoon, people from around the neighbourhood will hold a block party and rally to prove that their community is already vibrant enough, that it doesn't need any artificial stimulation, thanks anyway. If the party is like any other street festival I've seen in Brooklyn, it will be a raucous celebration of the borough's diverse face, which is wildly multicultural and straddles almost all conceivable socioeconomic lines (though it's unlikely the Orthodox Jews from Williamsburg will show up on a Saturday afternoon). It will be a vivid example of the little guys fighting a faceless corporation, an example fit for Sesame Street.
All of this would be enough controversy to keep most cities occupied. But New York, always casting a nervous eye over its shoulder to make sure it outdoes every other city, is actually engaged in two epic battles over proposed stadiums. The mayor and some heavy business interests want to build a football palace on the West Side of Manhattan as a lure to finally bring home the New York Jets from a two-decade sojourn in the desert (otherwise known as New Jersey's Meadowlands).
Maybe you can't see the wisdom in spending $600-million of government money on a $2.8-billion stadium that would house all of 10 Jets home games a year. But the Jets are just a Trojan Horse. The stadium is really intended to serve as the centrepiece of a bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics, a pet project of powerful Deputy Mayor Daniel Doctoroff. That's why no one expects the city's environmental-impact study, due perhaps as early as Monday, to cast any shadows over the project.
Critics of the West Side stadium say they are like their Brooklyn brethren, Davids fighting a greedy Goliath. But the fight in Manhattan is actually a little more evenly matched. The New York Association for Better Choices, which objects to the stadium, counts the well-heeled media company Cablevision as a supporter. Cablevision, you see, owns Madison Square Garden, which would suffer from the competition presented by another concert venue only a few blocks away, so it is pouring money into a local TV campaign to quash the stadium.
Big Bird could sure use a friend like that.
