GOAL! The rumors were (sort of) true! Hockey is really coming to Brooklyn...for at least one game. Yup, despite concerns that the Barclays Center was too small for regulation hockey, the much-maligned Atlantic Yards stadium has announced that on October 2, 2012 the Islanders are going to play the New Jersey Devils. In Brooklyn! more ›

Following in the footsteps of Jay-Z, famous Italian tenor Andrea Boccelli will sing at the Barclays Center next year. And the Post notes it's quite the coup for the under-construction arena, since Boccelli had been performing his annual holiday show at Madison Square Garden. Bocelli said in a statement, "It’s always a pleasure for me to play in New York, but I’m particularly excited to perform in Brooklyn for what will be my only 2012 performance in the city that has given me such affection." more ›

Intern labor makes the word go round, and though you may not have to pay them, bones (college credit, coffee mugs, a Koosh ball that may or may not have been tossed by Rosie O'Donnell in 1998) must be thrown their way. However, according to a lawsuit filed by six "demolition interns" against Forest City Ratner, the developer promised them jobs and union cards for their participation in a 15-week "apprenticeship course" on their Atlantic Yards project, but they ended up with nothing. "What they did was wrong and misleading," one of the apprentices tells the Brooklyn Paper. Beware of an internship that's shorter than a semester! more ›

The former dean of NYU's Schack Institute of Real Estate, and Forest City Ratner's ex-point man on the Atlantic Yards project, has abruptly resigned his unpaid post as the head of the city's Public Design Commission. Sources tell the Post that 57-year-old James Stuckey, who claims he left NYU a few weeks ago for "health reasons," allegedly quit because of repeated sexual harassment claims. "All I can say is I left for health reasons and there's really nothing to say," Stuckey told the Post. Is "hot blooded" a health condition? more ›

Daniel Goldstein, the Brooklyn gadfly who made a name for himself in his relentless and ultimately losing battle against developer Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project, was ultimately forced out of his home in Prospect Heights through eminent domain. True, he won a $3 million settlement from Ratner when he finally agreed to move, but, ironically, he's now in a nasty fight in his new neighborhood, where his neighbor is on the warpath over an extension he wants to build on his Park Slope house. Is he his own Bruce Ratner? more ›

Hey, those rumors that the Islanders, our local soon to be stadium-less hockey team, might be coming to Brooklyn may have an ounce of truth to them. Now that the team won't have a new arena in Nassau to kick around people have been wondering if the Islanders would make a move to join the Nets at the opening-soon-enough Barclays Center over the Atlantic Yards. And it does seem that they are interested! Over the weekend Newsday confirmed that Bruce Ratner and Nets CEO Brett Yormark met with NHL officials at the league offices in Manhattan last week. more ›

Forest City Ratner, the developer behind the controversial Nets arena currently rising over the Atlantic Yards, seems to have expanded its "rodent control program" to help neighbors dealing with "a rat tsunami." Their solution? Free trash cans! Better than nothing, we guess. more ›

With Nassau County voters rejecting a proposal to use $400 million of tax-payer money to build a new hockey arena for the Islanders, the team appears to be headed for a divorce with Long Island. But it seems that they'll have a lot of suitors vying to be their next home—and number one on that list may very well end up being Brooklyn, in the Barclays Center at Atlantic Yards. more ›

Just when you thought it was safe to tune out the never-ending legal saga surrounding the controversial Atlantic Yards development, along comes a Supreme Court judge to bring it all bubbling back to the surface. Today New York State Supreme Court Judge Marcy Friedman ruled against the Empire State Development Corporation, the governor-controlled entity that shepherded the project through very choppy waters. The crux of the ruling is that the ESDC's environmental review of the project only examined its impact over a decade. Now, of course, the build-out is estimated to take a quarter century. more ›

Russian billionaires and bleak buildings aren't the only things the Atlantic Yards project is bringing to Brooklyn: the construction is reportedly stirring up a large rat colony, some of which are "the size of cats." At a recent meeting to address the issue, two Downtown Brooklyn residents said that the rats got into their cars' engine blocks, "leaving behind chicken bones and aluminum foil, all the while chewing on the wires." One neighbor tells City Room, "We don't have a normal rat problem, we have a rat tsunami." more ›

Last month the Park Slope set got all in a tizzy over a new venue, Prime 6, which was hoping to play hip-hop music. Petitions were written (and questioned) and lots of people made a scene at a community board meeting. But now that is all over—Prime 6 and its angry neighbors have come to a compromise. more ›

Prime 6, the forthcoming Flatbush Avenue restaurant-lounge that's got Park Slopers in a tizzy, is back in the news after last night's community board meeting. You'll recall that at the start of March one Park Slope resident made waves with a petition urging the club to promote indie musicians, not hip hop artists. Others, however, seemed more concerned about the joint's 46-seat back patio, which the owner initially asserted would stay open until 4 a.m. in the summer. Now he's agreed to close it at 1 a.m., but the locals still aren't satisfied; they want Prime 6 to move the party inside at midnight on weekends. But the owner's not having it. more ›

A group of Park Slope residents have a petition going around demanding that a big new restaurant and bar on the corner of Flatbush and Sixth Avenue change its programming from hip-hop to "indie local artists." The petition's author fears the club, called Prime 6, will drive up crime with its hippity-hop music. And this has nothing to do with race! As the petitioner explains: more ›

Marty Markowitz, and most of Brooklyn, has been hoping Apple would soon notice the borough's enticing calls, and set up shop in in one of its many tech-friendly neighborhoods. There have been rumors of the company moving to Williamsburg in the past, but with no follow through Marty's been reduced to begging (it is rather embarrassing that Staten Island got one first). Now the Observer reports that the white whining may have worked, a source tells them the company has set their sights on a location near the proposed Atlantic Yards arena in Brooklyn. more ›

Earlier this week, it was reported that the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will be skipping town to Jersey for the time being. But Brooklyn Paper reports today that the circus will soon have a new home in Brooklyn—at the Barclays Center. One of the productions of the “Greatest Show on Earth” will take up residency at the future home of the Nets in March 2013, about six months after the arena is slated to open. more ›

Opponents of the Atlantic Yards have won their first major court victory against the state agency that oversees construction—but the ruling will likely have zero impact on actually delaying the project. A state judge ruled yesterday that the Empire State Development Corporation "purposefully withheld information on the project’s timetable to avoid having to reexamine the project’s negative impacts," according to a copy of the decision obtained by Brooklyn Paper. Specifically, the ESDC only analyzed developer Bruce Ratner's discarded 10-year construction plan as opposed to the more realistic 25-year plan because "a true analysis would reveal that the project will create the blighted conditions that the state said Ratner’s project would remedy," according to opponents. more ›

Shaquille O'Neal chatted with NJ's Herald News about the Nets, whom the Celtics are playing tonight at the Prudential Center in Newark, and guess what, he has an opinion of the team moving to Brooklyn! Shaq said, "I would have liked to see the new owner get with the guy who built the arena and keep the Nets [in Newark]. I don't want to see the team go to Brooklyn. Maybe the two heads can get together, they can do that and I can come down there and become general manager." more ›