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An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

By Matt Chaban 12/18/12 12:38pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Cozy. (Matt Chaban)

Would You Live In This Giant Steel Box? Atlantic Yards’ First Modular Tower Breaks Ground

Well, modular is here, and it’s real. After decades of dreaming by architects, an unlikely patron, developer Bruce Ratner, has made it possible to build a New York City building in a factory, assembling the units on site. Instead of cars, we will now be rolling apartments off an assembly line.

New Yorkers got their first look at the product, too, or at least the “chasis” around which these units will be built, at a ground breaking for the first Atlantic Yards residential tower, B2, nestled up beside the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.  Read More

By Kit Dillon 11/20/12 5:38pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

That's one big loop hole. (Getty)

Bruce Ratner Thinks His Billion-Dollar Barclays Center Is Only Worth $111 M.

When Bruce Ratner said, in a press release issued by the arena, that Barclays Center made “the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues…one of the greatest crossroads in New York.” He was speaking metaphorically, because great as it may be, it’s not actually worth much at all. Not in cash money, anyway.

It turns out Brooklyn Events Center, a subsidiary of Forest City Ratner, filed a petition on October 22nd to challenge the arena’s current $741 million valuation by the city’s Department of Finance, according to DNAinfo. Instead, Fores City argues that, by its own estimates, the Barclays Center was worth a paltry $111 million—a $630 million difference in opinion, for those keeping score, with millions of dollars in tax revenue in the balance as a result. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/31/12 3:31pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

The Barclays Center, empty another night. (Forest City Ratner)

Nets Dunked by Sandy: Mayor Bloomberg Cancels Thursday’s Nets-Knicks Opener at Barclays Center

Mayor Bloomberg just said that he—not the Nets, not the NBA—made the decision to cancel tomorrow night’s opening game at the Barclays Center between the now-crosstown rivals, the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks. Instead, the first game will be Saturday night against the Raptors, and the hyped-up subway access to the arena may Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/24/12 4:31pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Those towers? Still on except for one. (SHoP Architects)

Islanders Move to Brooklyn Will Not Make It Any Easier for You to Move to Atlantic Yards

Some good news for Bruce Ratner today, but probably not for the neighborhood or the folks who want to move into the developer’s promised apartment towers at Atlantic Yards. The Islanders will mean more crowds roaming the streets of Prospect Heights and Fort Greene before and after games, and more revenue for the Barclays Center, but this will not help speed up construction of the long-delayed apartments, according to Mr. Ratner. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/08/12 4:43pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

When you're smilin', the whole borough smiles with you. (James Hamilton)

Brooklyn Brewery Founder Steve Hindy Still Loves the Barclays Center After All These Years

Even though the Barclays Center has yet to fully stock his beer, Brooklyn Brewery boss Steve Hindy still loves the project, as he makes plain in this email to The Observer, which we excerpted in the previous story. Even when people were hating on him for supporting the project, Mr. Hindy stood by it, and he believes prospered because of it. He covered a lot of territory in his note to us, so we figured why not post it in full. Read More

By Matt Chaban 10/05/12 6:49pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

As James Murphy once sang, "I was there." (Matt Chaban)

Jigga Scam: No Brooklyn Booze But Plenty of Time to Run Up the Tab at the Barclays Center

The Barclays Center is open, and like Brooklyn’s favorite son who has been performing there all week, the arena lives up to the hype. It may not be universally loved, for its tortured past or rusticated design, but there is no question the Barclays Center is one of the most unique and interesting sports venues in the world. It is certainly the most exacting, with every inch of the place being burnished and detailed. It is like a Swiss watch—everything in its right place—albeit a Swiss watch with a discrete EmblemHealth logo on its face, the kind of thing handed out for a Christmas bonus. You eagerly wear it and just hope no one wants to see the thing up close.

One thing was out of place, though, when The Observer took in Wednesday night’s packed Jay-Z concert: drinks, drinks everywhere, but not a drop from Brooklyn. Read More

By Kit Dillon 9/28/12 8:22pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Looks promising, but where are the promises unmet? (Wayne Bailey)

A Party, a Vigil, a Protest, a Concert: the Festivities and Fanaticism of the Barclays Center Opening

Last night two very different events marked the grand opening of the Barclays Arena in Brooklyn.

Inside it was the beginning for Jay-Z’s newest 40/40 club location, with a party full of the glam and circumstance one would expect, drawing celebrity notables like Rihanna, J. Cole, ?uestlove, Adrienne Bailon, Tyson Beckford, and Lyor Cohen. Jigga man himself told MTV, “A guy stopped me in the hallway and said, ‘Man this is a great thing for New York City.’ And that’s what the whole thing was about.”

Outside, The Observer could count about a 150 people gathered who seemed to disagree. They had come from the ever-varied and ever-vocal community organizations that have been attacking this project since it showed up on their doorstep, a flurry of rage and acronyms: Brooklyn Speaks, the Brown Community Development Corporation, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn (DDDB), Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), and the Fifth Avenue Committee (FAC), along with chapters of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

They came for a candlelight vigil to mark an end not to their cause, no, but to this chapter of the fight. Though whether turning the page to reveal a new chapter, or the epilogue, remains to be seen. Read More

By Kim Velsey 9/27/12 7:30pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

What do you see?

Times Readers Think the Barclays Center Looks Like a Grilled Cheese Sandwich and a Burping Clam

We know a lot of things about the exterior of the new Barclay’s Arena: that it was designed by SHoP Architects, that its rusty shell is no accident, but the result of a labor-intensive process to produce what is known as “weathering steel,” and that no matter what it looks like, the arena’s very existence will invariably cause some Brooklynites’  faces to contort with pain.

But what do New Yorkers—aside from the question of eminent domain and the as-yet unbuilt affordable housing component and the hordes of drunken tourists expected to start puking behind parked cars any day now, and all the other things that can cloud one’s vision—think about the aesthetics of the place? The New York Times, in one of its charming, “ask the readers” segments, Read More

By Kit Dillon 9/21/12 1:48pm

An Arena Grows in Brooklyn

Will anyone be wrapping about "blue and white, blue and white, blue and white" any time soon? (Kit Dillon)

The Barclays Center: Built for a Bank, Not for Brooklyn or the Nets

Welcome to the grand opening of the Barlcays Center—through the Calvin Klein VIP entrance, past the American Express box office and into the Geico atrium—the sometimes home of the Brooklyn Nets. Because in truth, this is the bank’s home and everybody else are its guests. Today it is the press corps’ turn, and we have been welcomed in the grandest of style. Fresh orange juice, hot quiche and chocolate-covered strawberries abound, though none of the twee Brooklyn food that will soon be sold at the very Brooklyn concession stands.

As one reporter mentioned to another, “Remember the good ol’ days?” Would that be when Brooklyn had a team or when journalists could afford their own meals, or even a few sweet years ago, when this was still a hole in the ground, neighbor fought neighbor and the banks were booming?

Barclays and its backers are certainly aiming for a fond nostalgia at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic. Read More