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Frank Gehry's design for the Brooklyn Nets Arena at left, Ellerbe Becket's new design at right
Now that Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner has kicked renowned architect Frank Gehry's design for the (potential) future home of the Brooklyn Nets aside for a less expensive design by way of Kansas firm Ellerbe Becket, it's time for politicians to weigh in. Mayor Bloomberg said he understood the economic realities that Ratner was facing; the Post reports that he said on his radio show, "I think Ratner came to the conclusion, in this day and age, you just cannot finance something as complex to build. There's no such thing as a straight wall with Frank. Frank is into curves."
Gehry's design would have cost $1 billion, while the Ellerbe Becket design could be around $200 million less. Bloomberg did pump Gehry up, also saying, "Frank Gehry, who is a genius, designed a spectacular [arena]." The Post also notices that Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz seems to have backtracked on his statement that the Gehry design is "world class"—now the Beep says Gehry's design is "too ultra-modern...I think the new design is actually better for Brooklyn."
And the Post's Steve Cuozzo laments the end of the Gehry design, "SO sad. So irreversible. And so inevitable... The new arena design now on the table bears as much resemblance to Gehry's as a Dumpster does to his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao." He lays blame (credit?) for the Gehry structure's demise on the "Orwellian-titled" Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn for stalling Ratner's Atlantic Yards development for the past four years. DDDB writes, "While Cuozzo is correct that dumping Gehry could be devastating for the Atlantic Yards project (though his hyperbole that the project is dead is Orwellian), his Orwellian doublethink, newspeak makes milk come out of our noses, full speed. "
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"Beep says Gehry's design is "too ultra-modern...I think the new design is actually better for Brooklyn."
Since when does a fool make architectural or aesthetic rulings?
How about who gives a fuck about a bunch of oversized gorillas playing a stupid game based on a peach basket placed above their heads? Let them stay in Jersey. They deserve what they be.
Regardless of whether you wanted an arena in Brooklyn or not, an arena is going to be built. So what did the anti-development guys get for their efforts? A piling up of costs to the point that a bland hangar will be built instead. Is that something to be proud of?
In New York, anti-developers are always exercising their power just as Orwell said, for the sake of exercising power. Nothing gets built without a fight and, in the end, we are all poorer for it.
Anyone here old enough to remember the Westway fight? We could have had a great waterfront all along the west shore of Manhattan, instead we got a pencil thing park with a highway cutting across. Supposedly it was the striped bass they were defending, as if that fish could not nest anywhere else along the hudson and on the Jersey side.
The fights in the 1950s and 1960s against the Rober Moses cross-town highways led to some people acquiring power and a patina of respectability. It is that power that they refuse to let go. If they don't fight they lose it, so they live to oppose.
Have you seen the renderings of the Moses expressways that were never built? They would have been disastrous. As valuable as real estate in Manhattan is (and continues to be even in this recession), we would have lost enormous swaths of it to highways, including something like 14 entire blocks of Midtown. Soho as we know it wouldn't exist today. Cities with highways cutting through them call them terrible dividers, slicing neighborhoods apart. And for what? So people from Queens and Brooklyn can get to Jersey faster?
As for Westway, there's a good chance it would have turned into New York's own "Big Dig," years past schedule and billions over budget.
Back on topic, if Nets Arena never gets built, it'll be no great loss.
Only $200 million less for a crappy cookie-cutter olde-timey arena? I mean, they are planning to floor it with sawdust, aren't they?
Good job DDDB, thanks for the boring arena. >:0
Stadiums and Arenas actually have a negative effect on the economy. Look at the area surrounding yankee stadium. it's all 'hood' and stuff.
I'm not opposed to the arena or the high-rises, however Ratner could have built—a long time ago—whatever he wanted on or above the rail yards.
If he wanted to expand his plan, he should have approached any of the adjacent property owners and asked them directly if they'd be willing to sell.
The misuse of eminent domain means that Atlantic Yards, as is, is development from above and by fiat. It is not what Ratner's neighbors choose to do or do by themselves.
We can only hope and dream that the new design is as genius as Ratner's other projects?
Have you been inside the beautiful Atlantic Center?
It's a masterpiece of planning and design.
The way that they fit 4 crappy stores into one gigantic mall and the way it takes 20 minutes to walk from one store to another is brilliant.