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Park Slope
Bagels, Bialys and Raspberries
By EMILY BRADY
It seemed like a harmless enough name, but when Ravi Aggarwal decided to call his new shop Arena Bagels and Bialys, he learned otherwise.
Mr. Aggarwal's two teenage children had suggested the name after reading online about the planned new home of the New Jersey Nets. He thought it was a smart idea; the shop is in Park Slope, a few blocks from the site of the proposed Barclays Center arena, part of the Atlantic Yards development.
So, in mid-April, workers installed the name in red letters above the new store on Fifth Avenue near Bergen Street. Soon, however, workers in the space began noticing negative reactions from passers-by.
"Four out of five people that walked by just stood and stared at the sign," said Rich Kahn III, who helped his father install the bagel oven and water kettle. His father added that one sarcastic passer-by remarked, " ‘Oh, yeah, he's going to do good business with that name.' "
On the Block
By JENNIFER BLEYER
Published: October 22, 2006
on atlantic yards development
Developer Said to Cut Size of Brooklyn Project
By CHARLES V. BAGLI and DIANE CARDWELL
Published: September 5, 2006
Facing mounting criticism of its $4.2 billion Atlantic Yards project, the developer Forest City Ratner plans to reduce the size of the complex by 6 to 8 percent, eliminating hundreds of apartments from the largest development proposal in the city, according to government officials and executives working with the developer.
Forest City is also considering reducing the height of the project’s tallest tower, which is known as Miss Brooklyn, to get it under the height of the borough’s tallest building, the nearby Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower, according to real estate executives.
New York Magazine
Mr. Ratner’s Neighborhood
Manipulative developers, shrill protesters, and a sixteen-tower glass-and-steel monster marching inexorably forward. What the battle for the soul of Brooklyn looks like—from right next door.
By Chris Smith
Blight, Like Beauty, Can Be in the Eye of the Beholder
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
Of all the real estate jargon, bureaucratic buzzwords and plain old insults exchanged over the proposed Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, no term has evoked quite such unruly passion as “blighted.”
Ron Shiffman is a professor at the Graduate Center for Planning and the Environment at the Pratt Institute, director emeritus of the Pratt Institute Center for Community and Environmental Development, and from 1990-96 a commissioner on the New York City Planning Commission.