Cozy. (Matt Chaban)

Atlantic Yards living. (SHoP)

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. 

"This may be the means and method to create more opportunities for construction that would not have existed if it were not for this technology," Gary LaBarbera, head of the New York City Building Trades Council declared from the dais.

Mr. LaBarbera has become an unlikely ally for the development, considering many union jobs were promised when this project came along, and a good deal of the savings modular offers is through limiting the most high-cost jobs of certain union workers. The units will still be constructed in a union shop at a factory, but using lower-paid workers. Still, Mr. Labarbera seemed pleased that what he touted as 125 new union jobs, even if they were low-paying, were better than none at all.

B2. (SHoP)

Plus, there are the other opportunities this new technology opens up, not only making unfeasible projects buildable, thanks to the estimated 30 percent savings, but it could also convert non-union jobs to unionized ones. Bruce Ratner, Mayor Bloomberg and Borough President Marty Markowitz all cheered on the possibility of modular housing becoming a booming export from Brooklyn and elsewhere in the city. "It's a whole new industry, born here in Brooklyn," Mr. Markowitz proudly declared.

"Many of the guys working on these types of projects are the same ones who could be living in these units," Mr. LaBarbera said.

Having seen them now, would you?

That's one big loop hole. (Getty)

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.

"The city is still in the process of determining the assessment and until that is concluded we will not comment," Forest City spokesman Joe Deplasco told The Observer when asked about the discrepancy.

After a day of phone calls, we couldn't figure it out either. Forest City is not paying taxes on the property, but is instead engaged in a convoluted PILOT scheme, part of an effort used to skirt a 1986 IRS ruling that prohibits the use of tax-exempt bonds for sporting venue financing. But hey, anything to bring pro sports back to Brooklyn after half a century in the wilderness.

It does not appear the assessment hijinx has much of anything to do with the PILOT payments, though no one associated with the project or otherwise has much of an idea why Forest City would do this. It owes $55 million on the PILOTS, and by devaluing its property, would not be able to pay them.

Whatever the case, you would think Forest City had gotten enough favors from the public kitty. Apparently not. But rest assured, while we try and figure out what is actually going, one thing remains clear: Bruce Ratner is up to his old tricks as usual.

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

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 not be there, but extra buses should be. Here is the mayor's full statement on the game.

At my recommendation, the NBA has cancelled tomorrow night's game between the Nets and the Knicks, it was supposed to be the first Nets game in the new stadium. now the first Nets game will be Saturday at 7:30 at the Barclays Center, when the Nets play the Toronto Raptors. This game will be rescheduled, the NBA will be working with the city to provide extra bus service for Saturday night because the subways may not be back after that. There's plenty of mass transit, that's one of the beauties of the Barclays Center, unfortunately, we just didn't count on Sandy.

Hopefully Sandy doesn't come along very often.

We're sorry about the game, I was personally going to take both my daughter and Diana, we were looking forward to it, it's a great stadium, it would have been a great game, there's plenty of mass transit, but our police have other things to do. Lots of fans are going to be disappointed, the fans are disappointed, you should know the fans wanted to play, but I did talk to the NBA and recommended, asked them to cancel the game, it's all up to me.

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

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.

At a press conference inside the Barclays Center's trademark Geico Atrium this afternoon, an NPR sports reporter (rather than all the assembled metro hacks like us) was the only one to ask Mr. Ratner about the impact of the deal on the rest of Atlantic Yards, and what Mayor Bloomberg thought of the project's development, or lack thereof.

"This deal doesn't affect the housing, and I announced at our last press conference opening this place up that on December 18th we will have the groundbreaking for our first building, which is 50 percent affordable," is all Mr. Ratner would say.

The mayor then stepped up to the mic and let 'er rip. "Of course we want to get things done quicker, but given all of the angst that Bruce had to go through, the fact that the housing is a little behind schedule isn't the least bit surprising," Mayor Bloomberg said.

He then proceed to place the blame on everyone but Mr. Ratner, most notably with the locals who sued Forest City to prevent the seizure of their homes. "Those people that tried to stop the project or delay the project are the ones that really caused all of that," Mayor Bloomberg said. "The marketplace also wasn't terribly helpful."

A post on Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report reminds us, with this handy graphic, that at the outset of the project not only was the arena due to have opened three years ago but also six of the 13 apartment towers would also be finished. As recently as fall of 2010 Mr. Ratner was promising construction of the residential buildings to have commenced by some time last year. He is finally dead set on this year, but it seems as though he has arrived at that point of his own choosing, no one else's.

Mayor Bloomberg believes that is just fine. "There's a lot of good indicators that say that Bruce will be able to build and get it done reasonably expeditiously," he said. "Would it have been nice if it was done earlier, sure? But the real world is what it is."

After the press conference, reporters tried to ask Mr. Ratner if he had made a final decision on whether the first apartment building would be built modular or not. "We're not talking modular today," he responded curtly. Maybe that is because he still does not have financing for the tower, as Mr. Oder reported.

Welcome to the real world, indeed.

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

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.

We had initially asked Mr. Hindy why we could not seem to find any of his wares at the Barclays Center, and if his failure to buy a sponsorship (a very common practice among brands at the arena) had anything to do with it. Here is his response.

Matt,

We did not do any advertising in the new arena.  The big breweries did.  The asking prices were way beyond our ability to pay.

But we expect to have a good presence there, in bottles, cans and on draft.  We did purchase a suite and we enjoy Brooklyn Lager and Brooklyn East India there.

You are correct: I did strongly and publicly support the Atlantic Yards project.  I did not expect to be a big public supporter; I sort of stumbled into it.  The Brewery did a Nets promotion soon after the project was announced.  It was a family event, with Daryl Dawkins and the Nets dancers.  People brought their kids and got free hats and t-shirts.  It was fun.

The next day, some of the more radical opponents of the arena called for a boycott of the brewery.  The bar Freddy’s, which was bought out with imminent domain (at a great price), made a big show of throwing us out.  Some bars in Flatbush and Park Slope still will not carry our beer because of the controversy.  Not to whine, but it hurt because we have put a lot back into this community.

I did not back down and ended up writing an op-ed in Metro defending the project.

I think it is a great thing for Brooklyn, and I think the housing will be a big success.  Brooklyn needs all the economic activity it can get.  Brooklyn lags behind other parts of the city and state.  Those people who pooh-pooh the new jobs, part- and full-time, do not know how important those jobs are for the people of Brooklyn.

When the arena opened, I sent Bruce Ratner a note congratulating him.  He replied with a nice note thanking me for my support, which he recognized led to personal attacks on me and the company.  Ratner’s Metrotech, Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Yards are the biggest developments in the history of Brooklyn.  I believe they make Brooklyn a better place for all of us.

I know this was all a very small footnote to the development of the project, but it was a big deal for us at the Brooklyn Brewery.  We definitely suffered some collateral damage.

But the brewery grew rapidly in the past decade in spite of that, and we will grow 30% this year.  We hope to end up among the top ten craft brewers in the country.  (Last year, we were #13.)

Steve

Y'all thirsty? (Matt Chaban)

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.

That is not exactly true. If we wanted a root beer float from precious Cobble Hill soda shop the Farmacy, there they were, 8 bucks a pop. (Get it? Pop? Forget it. You must not be from the Midwest like the rest of us in Brooklyn.) There were Budweiser taps as far as the eye could see, even a few Budweiser-branded Eighteen|76 bars, named for the year of the bubbly brew's inception. There were also rolling Stoli carts sprinkled throughout, reminiscent of the cocktail setups at a wedding reception or the basement of a frat house, with the lines to match.

And there was the expertly curated local food offerings—Calexico, L&B Spumoni, Fatty 'Cue, Cafe Habana, Nathan's—but that only threw into starker contrast the absence of any Brooklyn libations. It is not only the fact that Brooklyn has become home to numerous notable craft brewers and distillers but also the fact that one of them, Steve Hindy of the Brooklyn Brewery, very publicly defended this project for some time, even garnering boycotts from some of the haughtier establishments in the borough. His wares, despite much publicity to the contrary, were nowhere to be found.

There was another problem, as this reporter and his wife swilled a $10 Stella Artois (cheaper than many Manhattan bars, come to think of it). The tickets said the show started at 8 p.m., we had gotten here at 7:35 to be sure we had time for some delectable dinner, which cost a pretty penny, but then again it always does at arenas anymore, and at least the food was generally very good. Around 8, when we asked a very polite usher (everyone was trained by Disney) when the show might start, she said in about 40 minutes. In the end, Jay-Z would not take the stage for another hour and a half.

It is not that this is terribly rude, or that we are terribly un-punk enough not to deal with it. Promise. It is not that, as The Observer was later informed, Jay-Z, no matter where he plays, always likes to take his time, let the excitement built, let the stragglers arrive, let the DJ work his magic, calling out for Brooklyn in the HOUSE? This did not bother us.

What did is that Jay-Z is a part owner in the massive, beautiful, unusual venue we were now inside—and my wife could not shake the feeling that we and the 18,000 or so other fans and affiliates all here to see one man were somehow being made to wait by him so that people might buy more $10 beers, more $13.75 mass artisanal sandwiches. As he relaxed and we waited, the crowd was lining HOVA's pockets.

Don't forget, as Bloomberg food critic Ryan Sutton recently noticed, water is more expensive than soda.

The next day, The Observer inquired with a Barclays Center spokesman about the whole thing. He said the organization had no interest in disclosing whether or not Jay-Z was indeed taking a cut of the concession sales, either as a performer or as a miniscule partner in the operation.

As for the lack of Brooklyn Brewery beer, of Six Point, of Kings County bourbon and Breuckelen Gin? "They have Brooklyn Larger in bottles and cans (they are poured into cups)," the spokesman wrote in an email. But we protested. We looked, there was none. Maybe at one of the bars that we missed, but what about the rest? "I suggest you go back, drink less, and look more closely for the beverages you desire," he responded.

To be sure, The Observer checked with Steve Hindy, proprietor of Brooklyn Brewery, just to be sure of what was going on. Basically, the arena purchased the beer and was working out where to put it still—not every kink had been worked out by opening day, and those who paid the right sponsorships (Mr. Hindy said he could not afford them) seemed to be getting the most attention. We also noticed the Kosher Kiosks had yet to be set up yet. Still, many of the luxury boxes had been outfitted with the craft brews in their mini fridges, one of Mr. Hindy's associates told us. Figures.

Even if he was elbowed aside for the time being, given second-tier status despite being the hometown favorite, Mr. Hindy's love for the project remains.

"Ratner’s Metrotech, Atlantic Terminal and Atlantic Yards are the biggest developments in the history of Brooklyn," Mr. Hindy said. "I believe they make Brooklyn a better place for all of us. I know this was all a very small footnote to the development of the project, but it was a big deal for us at the Brooklyn Brewery. We definitely suffered some collateral damage. But the brewery grew rapidly in the past decade in spite of that, and we will grow 30% this year."

Did we mention the show was—like the arena—unlike anything we had ever seen? Not life-changing, a little too slick, perhaps, but still certainly not the kind of thing one gets to experience on a regular basis. Unless you're a season ticket holder. Guzzling glitches aside, totally worth it.

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

Burning down the house that Ratner built. (Wayne Bailey)

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.

“We are here to remember” said Rev. David Dyson of the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, “and pray for the families that have lost their homes. For the families that still are in need of homes, in need of good paying jobs and a city in need of accountable development…We’re here because this cannot be the model for development in this city. Back door deals. Using the state to seize peoples homes. Forking over millions in tax payer dollars for a private development and putting our communities at further risk.”

Under the Barclays Center's impressive looking oculus, a giant rusted hoop jutting out over the arena's wide plaza and backlit by the neon glow of corporate sponsorship and advertising, the opposition took its turn to fire back at the project, starting with the bank itself. “This arena has been centuries in the making,” said Rev. Clinton Miller of Brown Memorial Baptist Church and the Committee for Arena Justice, “we recognize that Barclays was the same bank that financed the Holocaust. Barclays was the same bank that financed apartheid in South Africa. The same Barclays that financed the trans-Atlantic slave trade. This arena has to be prayed over. This space has to be consecrated. Promises have been made. Promises have not been kept. We pray for peace in this space. And we pray that one day brooklyn can be united again.”

Some people were enjoying themselves last night.

The arena, at once the public excuse for and most anticipated part of the Atlantic Yards project, was always a small part of the overall development. It is the next phase of 14 proposed residential towers, two of which will crown the south end of the Arena itself, that is the oppositions real, or at least its remaining, source of concern.

“I just want to make it clear that this press conference and all of our activites this week is not about sour grapes about the arena,” said Candace Carpenter, DDDB's legal director and spokeswoman, “It’s built. We understand that. We will live with that and people will enjoy it to the best they can...But we are talking about what we were promised. We are talking about the entire area behind this arena that is now laying fallow, which belongs to Forest City Ratner for as long as he wants.”

In other words, candles or not, the opposition is going nowhere fast. As Lumi Michelle Rolley of nolandgrab.org said, “If you can make it harder for another developer or politician to dream up a scheme like this. It’s worth it.”

With this in mind it is the promises that have been made during this projects long history that the various groups are watching closely. Because Forest City Ratner is often a slippery opponent to tie down. Consider the 10,000 jobs, which were meant to materialize from this development. A promise which was printed on PR fliers delivered to local area residents and on promotional materials released in December 2003. Materials that listed return mail addresses for Atlantic Yards, 1 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, (a Forest City Ratner-owned development) the home of Atlantic Yards Development Company, LLC, a Forest City Ratner-affiliated company, and Geto & de Milly, Inc, a lobbying and PR firm listed in the employ of Atlantic Yards Development Company, LLC. It’s within this kind of climate of obfuscation that the opponent community organizations have committed to working.

Likewise the promise of low and moderate income housing has also been an elusive goal. "After delaying construction of the project's first residential building for two years, Forest City is now taking advantage of scarce government affordable housing subsidies to primarily build studio and one-bedroom apartments for more affluent tenants," quoted Michelle de la Uz, Executive Director of the Fifth Avenue Committee, within the press release. "It's not what Brooklyn was promised and certainly does not meet the critical need for housing affordable to Brooklyn's working class families."

In one case, at least, the opponents do have the courts on their side. A State Supreme Court ordered supplemental environmental impact statement, which followed on the heels of Forest City amending their project timeline from 10 years to 25 years. An ordered remediation, which Forest City strongly opposed.

“What they proposed in their original EIS (environmental impact study)” said Gib Veconi of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council “was the most dense residential development in North America. It was more than two times as dense as the next one, which is in Harlem...It was so big that it was a license to build almost anything, without having to comply with new york city zoning and they could take as long as they wanted. It’s unbelievable. It’s probably the best real estate deal thats happened in New York City since Peter Minuit bought the island of Manhattan from the Lenape indians.”

It was Rev. Miller who closed out the nights vigil, quoting Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? We ask the question what does it profit a borough to gain this 1 billion dollar arena. So we pray that Brooklyn does not lose it’s soul, lose it’s character,” adding, “For those of us who know better, this will always be Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street.”

Ads and anguish. (Kit Dillon)

And back they came on Friday. If Thursday night's vigil was somber and reverent, Friday's rally was energetic and full of rage. In addition to the sundry locals and ex-locals, protestors and hipsters and hippies there were some dressed as vampish millionaires. Billionaires for Barclays, rather than Bush. Some tropes never die. They resumed their position under the Arena’s electronic billboard inside the oculus, sponsorships still splashed across it.  The location adds an interesting Choose Your Own Adventure element to any protest staged there as ads for American Express, McDonalds, Foxwoods, and a history lesson of Barclays Bank (sans the parts about apartheid and fixing LIBOR rates and the like) stream across overhead.

It was Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn who reaffirmed the cry that the arena was just the beginning. “In this neighborhood we were told that this project was needed to stem the tide of gentrification in central Brooklyn," he said. "This arena is a gentrifying machine.”

"In the first tower of 14 proposed and approved residential towers, of the 380 units, nine will be affordable to Brooklyn families," he continued "That is pathetic.” (The numbers are open to interpretation. Forest City has promised to make 50 percent of the first tower affordable, but it is across a range of income bands. Those nine units are for a family of four making between $24,000 and $33,000 a year, the next 63 are reserved for families making up to $41,500, while those making up to $83,000, $116,000 and $133,000 annually each have 36 apartments per income band.)

But the fears of New York surrounding Hurricane Barclays may have been much like fears of New York surrounding another recent hurricane warning, memorable more for it’s bluster than it’s blow.

To date Jay-Z has given three concerts in a staggering series of eight nearly back to back shows (he is taking one night off on Oct. 2, which seems a rational step for a 42 year old man) and so far they have gone off with only minor hitches and no major traffic jams.  There did seem to be an unconfirmed police ramp-up on Saturday to help control the after show crowds that poured across Atlantic Avenue, either unknowing or uncaring of the Escher like crosswalks that zig-zag across the strange intersections created by the arena and the confluence of so many major streets.

Likewise there were sporadic reports of idling limos and tour buses encroaching on the once quiet residential side streets.  A quiet, which is in all likelihood a thing of the past for this neighborhood. Then again, Park Slope is still a part of New York.

All in all, the predicted storm of Barclays—traffic emergencies, feral and inebriated crowds—did not materialize even as 19,000 people converged onto Atlantic Avenue Pacific Street Barclay Center station.

Not that Barclays didn’t find a way to reach out and perturb a greater Brooklyn by firing a not insubstantial, FAA-permit-required laser at the Prison Ship Martyrs Monument in nearby Fort Greene Park. It was a move that makes sense in it’s necessity (you can’t have a laser just shooting anywhere it pleases) but staggers in its acute cultural and historical insensitivity. It was a direct hit that was reported both by Norman Oder and the Post. “You wouldn’t want to see a laser on the Vietnam Monument in Washington," Ruth Goldstein, founding chairwoman of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, told the tab.

It was new new Brooklyn taking a shot at old new Brooklyn and old old Brooklyn all in one single, surprising, impressive, incipient millisecond.

What do you see?

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, has compiled the best answers.

Among the most evocative descriptions were comparisons to things found in the animal kingdom, "a rotting turtle," "a burping clam," "a toad sticking out its tongue" and "a rusty alligator skull with a pronounced underbite." Note that none are particularly complimentary.

Some people did have some sort of nice things to say about the arena's looks, calling it "a grilled cheese sandwich," a hell of a lot better than a ditch full of LIRR trains" and "in fifty years, if it is still standing, it will be called 'Iconic.'" Possibly the descriptor "Richard Serra meets McDonald's" could be said to fall into this category as well. If you focus on the Richard Serra half of the equation.

Of course, this wouldn't be Atlantic Yards if at least some of the responses didn't tackle the circumstances of the arena's birth, like one readers' bitter bon mot: "corrupt corporate design trying desperately to look hip."

Our personal favorite was koan-like: "It looks like the center of a Barclay."

kvelsey@observer.com

His hoopiness (Getty)

So Barclays's Bruce Ratner told Charles Bagli today. "We've kept every single promise we've ever made," he insists. So be it.  In typical fashion, the Times scribe cut the Brooklyn developer down to size without so much as uttering a nasty word against him, as he has done to so many big builders and outsized egos over the years.

We could count the ways in which Mr. Ratner has broken his promises over the years, on jobs, housing, subsidies, timetables, architects ... the list goes on and on, but we'll leave that up to Norman Oder. After all, Mr. Ratner qualifies his promises in the conditional, adding, "We’ve built the arena. They said we’d never build it. And I’m going to build the affordable housing." Fair enough.

Better still, let's let Mr. Bagli himself count the ways in which Mr. Ratner has snookered the city over the years. His writing is as understated as Mr. Ratner's work is bombastic. While the story contains almost no news, it so beautifully and articulately chronicles what transpired at the intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, it is a wonder the project was actually realized. And yet it also makes clear there was absolutely no other outcome possible. This is Bruce Ratner, after all.

To wit, one small revelation that encapsulates much of the story comes to light:

His willingness to change plans —abandoning an expensive Frank Gehry design and building a smaller railyard—solidified his reputation for promising anything to get a deal, only to renegotiate relentlessly for more favorable terms. In separate encounters in meetings over the Atlantic Yards project, Mr. Ratner loudly berated Rafael E. Cestero, then the housing commissioner, and Seth W. Pinsky, president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation, after not getting his way.

These are ostensibly two of Mr. Ratner's allies on the project, and two of the toughest guys in city government. And there he stood. No wonder he is still standing after "the most difficult, bruising development project I’ve done, or could even imagine doing," as Mr. Ratner puts it to Mr. Bagli.

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

A Barclays Center cake! Yum. (Kit Dillon)

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. Once, stadiums were built around the sports teams they housed—the Celtics and The Garden, the Mets and Shea Stadium—and in a sense Barclays Center has been built around the Nets too. Inasmuch as the VIP entrance and lounge is built in and around the Nets locker room entrance and their goldfish bowl of a practice court, for all those without tickets to gaze in. The Nets are the spectacle here, but they take a backseat to the stadium's namesake.

The point is only reinforced by the Nets' unusually austere, and reportedly Jay-Z-selected, team colors, black and white. It’s a design choice that seems only to  highlight the piercing electric blue of Barclays bank. A blue that is absolutely everywhere. A point that The Observer pointed out to SHoP partner Chris Sharples during a tour of the arena his firm helped design. He seemed to agree. “They certainly got their money's worth,” the architect said of the bank. With $400 million invested over the next 20 years, one would certainly hope so.

On the grandstand, all the expected VIPs took their turns thanking one another for their own amazing achievement. The seventh-richest man in Russia, Nets owner and playboy Mikhail Prokhorov, was there, of course, to thank Jay-Z, who was not. Mayor Bloomberg came to thank New York and asked, as monotone as the building he was standing in, “Is Brooklyn in the house?” After some polite applause, he answered, almost to himself, “I thought so." He proceed to echo comments he made just the day before on the High Line, the justification for every project today: "Great cities change, and great cities grow, and that's always been true of New York."

But it was Charles Ratner, the chairman of Cleveland's own Forest City Enterprises  and cousin of the man behind the Barclays Center, Bruce Ratner, who thanked Barclays most openly for being so steadfast a partner even in these difficult economic times. "Can't say enough about Barclays bank," he crowed. One can only imagine that it is easier to remain steadfast in troubling economic times when you're helping to manipulate international interest rates.

Singlehandedly bringing hope back to Brooklyn, Bruce Ratner declared, "Championships will be won here!" He does know which team he bought, right?

Outside the arena, the people looked in. Some of them wearing oversize masks of Mayor Bloomberg and Marty Markowitz's faces, others handing out leaflets asking where the union jobs they were promised were. There were two men trying to draw attention to the traffic nightmare that is predicted when stadium events and rush hour converge on Atlantic Avenue. Not a few of these protesters used to call this plot of land home.

Inside, with the press, the great men and rich men, a long ribbon was cut and two loud bangs sounded out. Trails of long paper streamers shot into the air around Geico Atrium. They were blue and white. Not to color of the Brooklyn Nets, but of Barclays bank.