I'm Seeing Green

No Photograpahy, Please, We're Americans

Except where explicitly posted, you have the right to take a photograph from any public place.

Sounds quite unequivocal, doesn't it? But this right is being undermined, mostly by over-zealous authorities, and, of course, our omnipresent Homeland Security.

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Locally, the Atlantic Yards footprint is becoming a photographer-harassment zone. Just ask Adrian of the blog A Brit in Brooklyn, or Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report who has been stooped and questioned several times while near Ratner's hole-in-the-ground. Mostly by private security, of course, but the police are only a call away. Oder on being stopped:

"Though I asked for more of an explanation, Sgt. Jones of the 77th Precinct (right) said he didn’t have time to provide one, and forcefully but not roughly gripped my arm and walked me across the street."

New York City has also tried to prevent photography in the subway

And then there's this good read from Bruce Schneier's  The War on Photography:

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it's a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

Another Way for Atlantic Yards?

From John Massengale's blog as to the right way to develop Atlantic Yards; his point is that development does not have to done on a mega-scale, with one developer (in this case, Ratner,) doing it all. Why not parcel it out to small developers who would  create individual buildings in context?

As he says, "Robert Moses was wrong. Jane Jacobs was right"

RICHARD BRODSKY and I have been saying the same thing: why aren't more people listening to our words of wisdom?

The Atlantic Yards and Hudson Yards sites are being developed in the wrong way: instead of selling them to mega-developers like Forest City Ratner and Tishman Speyer (who are both having trouble coming up with the cash), we should develop them the way New York was traditionally developed. That means platting the streets and blocks, and selling lots on those blocks. No eminent domain would be involved.

If the New York City Planning Department decides the highest and best use for the land being sold is rowhouses, they can sell lots sized and coded for rowhouses. If they want office towers or apartment buildings, they can sell lots sized and coded for those. Obviously a modern office building requires a larger lot than a rowhouse, and its lower floors should be coded for retail. If the market changes, the lot sizes can be changed if the codes are properly done.

Of course, rowhouses aren't what should be built on either of the railyard sites, because the infrastructure to build over the yards is too expensive: you need larger buildings to share the expense. And Atlantic Avenue is a wide and important street that should be shaped by taller buildings on both sides of the avenue.

The Unity Plan, an alternative to Ratner's mega-project, would involve multiple developers [image from website]

Where was the Project-Killer when you needed one?

This story in the NY Times is actually about  a proposal to build a tunnel between Long Island and Westchester . It would be "the longest autos-only tunnel in the world and the first to be privately built in the United States." But somewhere buried in the story is this quote:

"Here are two other issues. The first is whether the civic technology for killing projects is so much more refined than the technology for building them that you can’t attempt a project like this anywhere near high-dollar neighborhoods in the Northeast."

The implication being that we sort of lack a civic will to build large projects, but that the NIMBY-like groups wield all the power to stop such projects.

Now if you think about, say the Atlantic Yards project, you will note that it does not conform to this paradigm.

It did not go through the standard bidding procedures, it does not have to conform to New York's Uniform Land Use Procedures, it was selected over an alternate plan (Extel) which would have been more in scale with the community, it would be "densest residential community in the country," and it proposes to use eminent domain to eliminate the few holdouts who stand in its way.

Yet it is proceeding nonetheless.

Would that the above "technology" could have been called upon when the Atlantic Yards mega-project went down its badly planned path and could've killed it.

AY Events

Isabel Hill's documentary, Brooklyn Matters is to be shown  at the Old Stone House, "a modern reconstruction of the Vechte-Cortelyou House, a 1699 Dutch stone farmhouse with important ties to American history."

5th Avenue btw 3rd and 4th Streets Brooklyn, NY 11215.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 7 pm

“A powerful documentary by a well-respected filmmaker, Brooklyn Matters is a must see for all New Yorkers who care about the future of their neighborhoods and the role that public policy and process plays in determining that future.”

Benefit concert for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn Live at the Brooklyn Lyceum Thursday. November 8. Doors open at 7pm Featuring Grammy-winning band The Klezmatics special guests: Kakande & the Demolition String Band download a concert poster [pdf] or [gif]

The Brooklyn Lyceum 227 4th Ave (Corner of President St.) Brooklyn, New York R-Train to Union Street (Directions) For More information call: 718.362.4784

Unity Revealed, Kids for AY

The Unity Plan for Brooklyn's Vanderbilt Yards

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Please join us for the presentation of UNITY
A realistic, community-sensitive proposal for the development of Brooklyn's Vanderbilt rail yards.
Press Conference 11 AM, Monday, September 24th
Presentation by project designers Marshall Brown, Ronald Shiffman, and Dr. Tom Angotti.

Community Forum 6 PM, Monday, September 24th
Presentation and Q&A with Marshall Brown and Dr. Tom Angotti
The Soapbox Gallery
636 Dean Street (between Carlton and Vanderbilt Avenues)
Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, NY.

A fund raiser for Develop Don't Destroy, but bring the kids:

Things to Do and See

Green Brooklyn 2007:

The 3rd Annual Green Brooklyn Conference, coordinated by Brooklyn Center for the Urban Environment, is Brooklyn's largest showcase of green and sustainability issues, programs, and products.  A full day fair and symposium, Green Brooklyn brings together the community, businesses, nonprofit organizations, and government agencies to share ideas with the public about how to live greener in our everyday lives.

Friday, September 21, 2007, 11 am- 4pm, Brooklyn Borough Hall, Brooklyn, NY; Free and open to the public

Green Brooklyn 2007 will feature workshops and discussions led by several of the city's preeminent leaders in sustainable design, green manufacturing, transportation alternatives, energy efficiency, environmental education, and sustainable food.

Video presentation on Atlantic Yards [futureperfectbrooklyn.org]; three different scenarios comapred with the present:

The architectural future of Brooklyn's 'Atlantic Yards' reveals itself in an interactive installation that compares 3D renderings with video imagery of the neighborhood as it currently exists. As people move towards the screen, the vision of the architects dissolves into drawings by local children, contrasting what our children imagine with what we actually build for them. Audio of residents calling to talk about the issue of development provides local opinions on the controversy surrounding the Atlantic Yards. work by: Ed Purver, Ariel Efron, & Christian Croft.

Brooklyn Matters documentary:

"A must-see documentary about the Atlantic Yards Project," showing at  P.S. 56 Lewis H. Latimer School
170 Gates Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11238.

Continuously from:

5pm-8pm Thursday September 20th 2007.

Atlantic Yards

Following up on my Atlantic Yards walk of last week, where I'd met photographer Tracy Collins: his wonderful pictorial essa on AY has been noted by noLandGrab here. In his words, "...my home would be less than a block from the nearest hi-rise building [...] My neighbors and I will have to live with decades of construction and the consequences of whatever gets built. I'd love to have a reasonable, rational and attractive development built over the rail yards. Who doesn't? But if Atlantic Yards in its current form is what is actually built, I fear that the neighborhood in which I chose to make my home will not be merely transformed, but will be replaced."

[De]Construction of The Neighborhood

By Tracy Collins
Hardcover, $40; Softcover, $25 AtlanticYardsPhotoBook.com        [click on photo for detail]

Photographer Tracy Collins has been posting his dramatic images of his neighborhood-in-flux on flickr, as Bruce Ratner's controversial Atlantic Yards project is not only transforming the footprint of the project, but looms over the surrounding blocks.

Now, Collins has organized these images into a book that provides a snapshot of a neighborhood on the precipice of dramatic change.

With a simple neighborhood map outlining the footprint and showing the location of all of the images, the photos speak for historic buildings set to be demolished and their neighbors, which will remain to endure and bear witness.

In addition to buying this wonderful book, you should catch a screening of Brooklyn Matters, the documentary on Atlantic Yards, which shows Jun 13th at 87 Lafayette St., Fridays in June at Spoke the Hub, 748 Union St., and other places.

“Brooklyn Matters is a remarkable film that slowly, quietly, calmly reveals the extreme ugliness at the heart of one of the most ill-conceived mega-development schemes in New York history.”
-Francis Morrone, Architectural Historian.

Walking the Walk at Atlantic Yards

Much as I have seen the footprint, checked out out the written word and examined the photographs of this much-discussed project, there's nothing like walking the walk to bring home the reality of this monster development and its attendant inequities.  A picture may be worth a thousand words; this walk was worth at least several dozen pictures.         [photo by Dave Kenny]

I think if only more people were to familiarize themselves with some on-ground knowledge, there surely would be more opposition to this project.

Some of the things that struck home to me were:

Firstly I wonder how many know that one of the reasons for demolishing serviceable buildings early in the project is to create parking lots for the construction workers and space for staging materiel? Over 3,000 workers are expected on an on-going basis for 10 years, and up to 10,000 at times. Do you expect the construction workers to truck-pool? I think not. Perhaps Ratner could setup a shuttle bus service to different parts of Brooklyn and Queens (after all, the expectation is that these are all "local workers,')? Why is something like that which could mitigate some of the negative effects of the project not considered?

Secondly, the definition of "blight." Blight is in the eye of the beholder. Several explanations of blight are used to justify the use of eminent domain to force the owners in the AY footprint to sell; among the more peculiar is "lots that are built to less than 60% of their allowable FAR (Floor Area Ratio, describing the extent of what can be built)". In other words, it's, say, a small brownstone with a large garden may be considered blighted because it could have been a large apartment building fully occupying the land. By that token, as AY Report states, the low-rise Atlantic Center Mall itself is blighted.

Thirdly, walking around on the ground and having the sheer size of the sixteen towers pointed out to you makes for a striking reality. Here's a group of perfectly respectable, if somewhat ratty, brownstones and low industrial buildings, for example; they will be replaced by a 260 foot tower several hundred residents. Much easier to visualize if you're actually standing there.

In the meanwhile, go see the documentary Brooklyn Matters, which is about the Atlantic Yards project.  Screenings are Spoke the Hub 748 Union St., Jun 8,15 and 22 at 7pm; at 322 Union Ave. June 3 at 7, Fifth Avenue Committee 621 DeGraw Jun 19th 7pm, and 1320 8th Av on Jun 21 at 7pm with panel discussion to follow.

Sideways Costs

Externalities is a favorite catch-word among environmentalists. One used to say side-effects, but that is probably too general a term, and the desire to have one's own jargon is irresistible (think "collateral damage" and "friendly fire.") The fact that you have to explain it to the uninitiated seems to be irrelevant.

The externalities of the Atlantic Yards project should have been well addressed by the Environmental Impact Report, which after all cost millions of dollars and resulted in thousands of pages of testimony. But to the lay-person (and I almost include myself in that category in spite of having a planning degree because I lack the patience to wade through said thousands of pages of obfuscation,) some seem to be obvious. When the DOT proposed to change 6th and 7th Avenues to one-way traffic two months ago, there was widespread public agreement that Atlantic Yards traffic mitigation (in spite of vigorous denials by the DOT.)

But this one is clear and conceded; from DDDB, "Ratner Will Increase Your Electric Bill. Shocking,"

NY1 is reporting that at a state assembly hearing on a record Con Ed rate hike, ConEd officials said that big projects such as "Atlantic Yards" are necessitating a rate hike that will be at least 17%. But that's news to the Empire State Development Corporation which shockingly said, basically, "Atlantic Yards and the electric grid? No problem." In the state's Environmental Impact Study for Atlantic Yards, completed last December and now under litigation, the Infrastructure Chapter (11) stated:

The proposed project would increase demands on electricity and gas. However, relative to the capacity of these systems and the current levels of service within New York City, these increases in demand would be insignificant.

but: Con Ed came before a State Assembly committee to explain the rate hike. Officials argued Wednesday the system is strapped and that massive projects like the Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn will burden the system even more..[emphasis added.].

Another example of this might be that there has been little examination of how AY may affect the local schools; perhaps Ratner intends to rent only those without children? More likely, it is assumed that the city will pick up the costs of expanding or creating addditional school space.

Time Will Tell

Nice graphic in this Atlantic Yards Report note on the construction timeline of Atlantic Yards. If nothing else, it emphasizes the duration of the construction disruption that will result. As Ratner already wants to tear buildings down to create a mammoth parking lot for staging materials and parking construction vehicles, we can see how very large projects take on a life of their own, and local concerns be damned. A "temporary" parking lot that exists for 12-15 years is almost as bad as a permanent scar in the ground; at the Unity 2007 charrette there was a mention of a similar "temporary" parking lot for a project in the Bronx that stuck around for forty years.

[Click to enlarge]

Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards is supposed to be completed in a decade, by 2016, according to the construction schedule included in the Atlantic Yards Final Environmental Impact Statement issued by the Empire State Development Corporation.

Graphic designer Abby Weissman has combined elements of the construction schedule with the Atlantic Yards site plan. Time will tell whether it's a valid reference or a fantasy.