By Nicola Pring 5/07 3:32pm

bring in 'da noise

via Getty

A Drop in the Bucket: Barclays Center Fined $3,200 for Excessively Loud Concert

Rihanna brought down the house at her concert at the Barclays Center on Sunday night, taking the entire neighborhood with her, according to Prospect Heights residents.

But the loud, booming bass rumblings that disrupted the neighborhood on Sunday night were nothing new for people who live in the direct vicinity of the Barclays Center. These complaints come less than a week after Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner Companies was ordered to pay the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) a $3,200 fine for violations after a Swedish House Mafia concert in early March. Read More

By Stephen Jacob Smith 4/11 3:50pm

Brooklyn Transfers

Ms. Gilmartin's new home is as classical as Atlantic Yards is modern.

Forest City Ratner VP MaryAnne Gilmartin Nets $3.85 M. Slope ‘Stone

When Forest City Ratner executive vice president—and soon to be CEO, once Bruce Ratner steps down—MaryAnne Gilmartin spoke to Westchester Magazine, she was asked for “the most baseless criticism” leveled against her. She responded, “That I don’t really know Brooklyn, so I’m not qualified to develop a project there. I lived in Brooklyn from 1988 to 1993.”

That criticism is about to get a little more baseless: Ms. Gilmartin and her husband, James, just bought a townhouse in Park Slope, according to city records. The couple paid $3.85 million for the four-story, 20-foot-wide brownstone at 113 St. John’s Place, and will presumably be moving from their home in Edgemont, New York. Read More

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 Matt Chaban 11/28/12 11:23am

Prefabulous

6 Photos

Brooklyn Gets Prefabulous

Legoland! Ratner Moving Ahead With Atlantic Yards Tower, World’s Tallest Modular Building

Bruce Ratner did not win out with the tax man this week, but he has secured an even bigger deal with another New York City institution that will be a linchpin for his Atlantic Yards project. Today, Forest City Ratner announced it is going forward with its long-planned intentions to build a modular apartment tower as part of the 22-acre arena-anchored mega-development. The project is made possible in large part through an agreement with the city’s labor unions to allow the 32-story prefab apartment building to proceed.

Modular construction has long been a dream of architects, for its efficiency and control, and now it could be a boon for New York City developers as well, since prefab methods can save 20 to 30 percent from traditional design methods. The only issue is for construction workers. Because the projects are built in factories, even when using union labor, the jobs tend to be less skilled and thus lower paying. Many labor unions had bridled at this, especially since Mr. Ratner had made extensive promises about the well-paying jobs Atlantic Yards would provide. But today the Building and Construction Trades Council announced its support for the development, saying that the prefab builders will get their own division within the labor group. Read More

By Kit Dillon 11/26/12 5:15pm

Atlantic Yards

The profits.

Barclays Center Sells almost $50 Million in Tickets in Six Months, Decides Devaluation is a Mistake

While searching around the Municipal Bond Database (as is our wont)The Observer stumbled upon the quarterly cash receipts of ArenaCo, subsidiary of Forest City Ratner Corporation and the owner operator of Barclays Center.  The reports revealed a whopping $46,866,337.14 in sales from tickets, suites and sponsor installments between April 1st, 2012 and September 30th, 2012.

All of which amounts to just a drop in the bucket of the total $510,999,996.50 PILOT Revenue Bond issue currently being paid off by ArenaCo in payments in lieu of taxes to the city or state. This is good news for the bond holders, who presumably need all the help they can get. After all, their bond holdings are currently being given a BBB- rating, the lowest rating a bond issue can have while still being considered investment grade and one which ranks Arena Co and Barclays Center in the same investment strata as the Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority. 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 10/05/12 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