DailyHeights

I tried all morning to come up with a clever way to analogize the developer’s most recent scam, but it never came, so I’ll just say that this is shameless — even for Bruce Ratner.

Fans For Fair Play, a group fighting the Atlantic Yards project, reports that Ratner wants to give free Nets tickets to people without jobs. Scott Turner writes on the Web site that 1500 tickets are being offered over the next two months, or the next 18 games. If you do the math, that boils down to only 83 tickets a game. Says Scott:

“Offering Nets tickets as an inducement is a lot like paying someone with Monopoly money. The team, gutted of star players in a desperate bid to land LeBron James two years from now, is mediocre at best. Pre-season prognosticators don’t have New Jersey even making the playoffs.”

There has been little to no coverage of the ticket scheme. A Google News search today turned up only one item, a USA Today blog post applauding the effort.

Add your two cents at Brooklynian.com: http://www.brooklynian.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=46186

A topic that has generated a lot of discussion at Brooklynian.com, the Atlantic Yards development project, was mentioned today in an article in Pro Basketball News:

“While current developments suggest that the $3.5 billion Atlantic Yards arena project is in doubt, the mere prospect of a LeBron [James] defection to Brooklyn should ensure that it remains on course for completion.”

The article is somewhat misleading because the arena is only one small part of the $4 billion project at Atlantic Yards. The cost to build the arena – which would serve as a new home for the New Jersey, er, Brooklyn Nets – has been estimated at $960 million.

The future of the building is still up in the air, no matter what our old friend, developer Bruce Ratner, says. It’s no secret that he still needs to find investors to back those tax-free bonds the federal government recently cleared for him. And we don’t think NBA superstar LeBron James will be enough to convince weary investors to help move the floundering New Jersey Nets to a new home in Brooklyn.

The story, however, shows just how many people are following the progress (or lack thereof) at Atlantic Yards.

Mark Griffith, a community activist in Brooklyn, is monitoring the project. Griffith laments in an interview today with the Brooklyn Rail:

“What I don’t like about Atlantic Yards is that it didn’t start with a conversation. No one said, ‘We’ve got this land here that’s been underutilized, how do we fulfill its greatest potential? How do we build on it and develop it in a way that’s going to build the surrounding community, that is going to be respectful of the surrounding community, and is going to be healthy environmentally, physically, economically, and that’s going to include a lot of different people in the revitalization of this area?’”

Griffith warns that if the project falls by the wayside, Atlantic Yards will no doubt slip further into blight. That’s a frightening but very real scenario because, as I say above, the future of the arena is uncertain. Moreover, Ratner told the Times (in March!) that construction of the residential complex, the meat of the project, will be on hold “for years.”

Our solution? One word: park. If you want a third term, Mr. Bloomberg, take it back and turn it into a public park.

Discussion about the Atlantic Yards project continues on Brooklynian.com.

“Did anyone hear about the Bloods’ initiation that’s supposed to take place today? They are supposed to kill 31 women. Is it real or a hoax?”

This question was posted at Brooklynian.com on Halloween. The consensus was that the story was a hoax, and not surprisingly, that turned out to be the case. Many of those that commented on the site all seemed to have heard a version of it when they were kids.

Nevertheless, the fake story inspired real fear. A couple teachers wrote in to say that there were very few girls in their classes on Halloween. That says a lot about the power of urban myth, but it also raises an important question: What should we be afraid of? This, after all, is Brooklyn, and while it’s not Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, there are very real dangers here.

Take, for example, the Trinitarios gang. According to an article in the Nov. 2 edition of the Times, this Dominican gang has been terrorizing south Williamsburg since last summer. The Trinitarios are responsible for four machete attacks in less than two months, and in late October a young man was spotted with one during a shootout in which a 5-year-old girl was hit by a stray bullet.

An incident that for most of our readers occurred closer to home was a robbery at gunpoint in which the victom was accosted in the lobby of his own building, reports The Brooklyn paper. In Clinton Hill and Fort Greene, the police department reports that robberies have spiked from 7.6 percent last year to 18.6 so far in 2008, also in the paper.

Most shockingly, a cardboard box of bloody human remains was found in Washington Park last month. One man told the paper that the discovery reminded him of Brooklyn in the 1970s, when one morning he walked out his front door to find a dead body hanging from a nearby lamppost.

That last one actually sounds a bit like a hoax.

To partcipate in the discussion, visit Brooklynian.com.

One important piece of news lost in the din of election coverage was the federal government’s decision to free up millions of dollars in tax-exempt bonds for the Forest City Ratner (our old friend Bruce) development project at Atlantic Yards.

The ruling gives Ratner access to $800 million in tax-free money to proceed with the construction of a new arena for the New Jersey Nets. The arena is only one part of a controversial $4 billion boondoggle that seeks to transform the yards into a sprawling commercial and residential complex.

But the joke may be on him — not to mention city and state officials that have blown taxpayer money fighting for him — because Ratner still needs to find investors willing to back the bonds. Jay-Z or no Jay-Z, the Nets were a hard sell before the market took a nose dive. With the economy writhing on the table right now, it’s going to be even more difficult to convince people to invest money in a basketball team that went 34-48 last year.

This story, however, has less to with a mediocre NBA team than it does a disreputable Bloomberg administration that snapped up Atlantic Yards by way of eminent domain, then handed it over to a private developer. We think the project has a lot to do with the mayor’s yearning for a third term. This is his legacy, and he wants to ensure its future is secure before he leaves office.

The Atlantic Yards saga will be an important story in the coming year, and Daily Heights will be keeping close tabs on it.

For now, visit Brooklynian.com to participate in the discussion.