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 ›

Two days before the official ground-breaking for the long-delayed Atlantic Yards megaproject, developer Bruce Ratner and the New Jersey Nets unveiled renderings of the interior of their planned Brooklyn basketball arena. After scrapping an original design by Frank Gehry over financial concerns and nixing a second design by the firm Ellerbe Becket after it was derided for being too dull, Ratner tapped Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects to draft up a new plan for the arena, which is dubbed the Barclays Center. more ›

Barclays CEO John Varley made his case for high executive pay, saying at London's St Martins-in-the-Field church that "profit is not satanic...Talent is highly mobile. If we fail to pay or are constrained from paying competitive rates then that talent will move to another employer," and later said in an interview, "Is Christianity and banking compatible? Yes. And is Christianity and fair reward compatible? Yes." Other bank executives have also been at other London churches to make their pitches—Goldman's Brian Griffiths said, "The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest. We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all." We can't wait until American execs try that here! [Via Daily Intel] more ›

With four major sports complexes crowding a 30 mile radius, and another on the way to Brooklyn as part of the embattled Atlantic Yards project, owners are now facing the sobering prospect of one day fighting to fill nearly 100,000 seats, 365 days a year. Mark Rosentraub, a professor of sports management at the University of Michigan, tells the Times, "The market is saturated... Five arenas is not going to work. I don’t think four works, even in a market as large as New York. There’s competition in every direction and there aren’t enough events." Of course, there's been heated debate for years over whether these government-subsidized stadiums—often sold as snake oil panaceas to foundering regional economies—actually contribute much to the community. (Here's one great article on the subject.) Now arenas are hemorrhaging money across the country, the Times reports. But this is New York, and there's always room for one more! Developer Bruce Ratner, demonstrating a vampiric ability not to die from a thousand cuts, scored some major victories last week, and is rushing to break ground on his Brooklyn monstrosity before the end of the year. more ›

Today the MTA board is expected to approve a deal to sell the naming rights to the sprawling subway terminal at Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street in downtown Brooklyn to Barclays, the London-based bank that has also bought naming rights to the embattled Nets arena project, which might one day actually exist nearby. It's been five years since the MTA first welcomed proposals from corporations interested in buying station naming rights, and on Monday the authority quietly revealed that Barclays was the first taker, for $4 million, to be paid in yearly installments of $200,000 a year for 20 years, according to the Times. more ›

It's another pivotal week for developer Bruce Ratner's embattled Atlantic Yards project, which recently received a major redesign that forsook Frank Gehry's glitzy arena designs for a big brick shithouse (pictured). At a public meeting this morning, the MTA's finance committee reviewed "a revised agreement" with Ratner, who still needs to pony up for the MTA's Vanderbilt Rail Yard land in order to move forward with the project. more ›

When we derided the bait-and-switch redesign of developer Bruce Ratner's Nets arena as "a banal homage to any number of unremarkable field house arenas across America," some readers accused us of snobbery. But isn't that the same anti-elitist attitude that gave America eight years with a simian president just because the knuckle draggers found him folksy? That's not to say Gehry's scrapped design was the Obama of arenas, but you can certainly imagine, say, Sarah Palin feeling right at home watching some arena football in this eyesore (above). And Nicolai Ouroussoff at the Times gets it: more ›

After talk that Barclays would keep many Lehman Brothers employees on after buying the bankrupt firm's broker-dealer business, the AP reports the British firm "announced Monday that Lehman Brothers has begun to re-open for business under the ownership of Barclays Capital." However, according to the Post, "about 10,000 Lehman employees of the units that Barclays is buying were sent letters stating there will be no guarantees they will keep their jobs" and many are being interviewed. More: New York magazine has an article about a Lehman trader coping with "income shrinkage" and the Sun finds the NYC pension fund "lost $200 million since June from the collapse" of Lehman, Merill Lynch and AIG. more ›

Now that Barclays is buying Lehman Brothers' broker-dealer business, the British firm is also getting Lehman's Seventh Avenue headquarters. The NY Times has a great story following the building's history: It was originally built for Morgan Stanley, but MS decided back out before it was finished and Lehman bought the building four weeks after the 9/11 attacks. The Partnership for NYC's Kathryn Wilde said, “Barclays has had a rather modest presence here, so this is a big new commitment to New York. Given the role that many of our New York-based firms have played in building London’s presence in the world’s financial markets, it seems like a good quid pro quo.” Barclays will also have another marquee NYC address for its name: The Barclays Center where the Nets will play at the Atlantic Yards. more ›

As speculated earlier this morning, U.K-based Barclays has reached an agreement to acquire a large chunk of Lehman Brothers' U.S. operations, which, according to the Financial Times, "perform securities underwriting tasks, provide merger advice to lucrative clients, and conduct trading." Though the cost of the deal is unclear, it's expected to quickly boost Barclays' U.S. presence by enabling the bank to assemble a pre-existing American investment banking business. As for the tainted Lehman Brothers assets, the Journal notes that Barclays could potentially could leave behind Lehman's troubled assets "at the parent level." Shares in Barclays fell 12% in afternoon London trading today, which is consistent with other nosediving UK financial stocks. more ›

Lawsuits from community and environmental groups, a tanking economy, and outcry over slavery money aren’t stopping Forest City Ratner from pushing forward with the $950 million Barclays Arena in Brooklyn, possible future home of the New Jersey Nets. Yesterday a luxury suite showroom opened in the New York Times building as an attempt to woo big-ticket investors and shift public opinion. more ›

Bronx legend Clive Campbell, who as DJ Kool Herc is widely credited as one of hip-hop’s founding fathers, is not suing Jay-Z, developer Bruce Ratner and Barclays bank, as previously reported by the Observer online. The $5 billion lawsuit is being brought by a much less famous Brooklyn activist also named Clive Campbell, and the mix-up is probably a big publicity boon for his lawsuit, as it echoed far and wide across the internets before the Observer corrected it. Campbell is demanding the money as slavery reparations because of Barclays’ history with the slave trade; the bank has secured the naming rights for the controversial Nets stadium Ratner is trying to build at Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards, which would be part of a bigger residential development. more ›