P19 REAL ESTATE The night HOME SMART our rabbit SERVICES P20 DELIVERED A ‘model’ bride THROUGHOUT died BROWNSTONE BROOKLYN mom EMPLOYMENT SEE CENTERSPREAD BROOKLYN’S REAL NEWSPAPERS Including The Brooklyn Heights Paper, Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Paper, DUMBO Paper and the Downtown News Published every Saturday — online all the time — by Brooklyn Paper Publications Inc, 55 Washington St, Suite 624, Brooklyn NY 11201. Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © 2006 Brooklyn Paper Publications • 22 pages •Vol. 29, No. 19 AWP • Saturday, May 13, 2006 • FREE MEET MISS B’KLYN INSIDE Gehry lightly tweaks THE BROOKLYN By Gersh Ratner’s ‘Yards’ plan, ANGLE Kuntzman says boro wedding Ratner’s inspired tallest tower By Gersh Kuntzman The Brooklyn Papers The “bride” will wear aluminum. poster Architecht Frank Gehry unveiled slightly slimmed down towers and an update on the classic Brooklyn stoop, in fresh renderings for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development revealed Thursday. He also told how he came up with the design for the project’s girl is most controversial building — the 62-story “Miss Brook- lyn Tower” — likening it to a bride. Opponents of the 22-acre, $3.5-billion project were unimpressed. unhappy “It’s a Frank Gehry sheen on repudiated, 1960s-style urban renewal,” said Daniel Goldstein of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn. AHARA MEER IS STILL ANGRY. Prospect Heights resident Patti Hagan quipped, “I Place a copy of Bruce Ratner’s recent At- guess this is the ‘Ratner/Gehry Diet,’” calling the slim- Slantic Yards mailing on the table, and down miniscule compared to the weight the project put she’ll put her handbag over it. Show her the on in since its initial unveiling in 2002. pictures of happy Brooklynites smiling for Rat- / Julie Rosenberg Discussing “Miss Brooklyn,” which would sit at the ner’s cameras and she’ll cringe. intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, Gehry Meer, you see, is one of those smiling said, “When we were studying Brooklyn, we happened Brooklynites — except that she doesn’t support upon a wedding, a real Brooklyn wedding. And we decid- / Jori Klein Ratner’s plans for Atlantic Yards. ed that ‘Miss Brooklyn’ was a bride.” So she’s definitely not smiling. Gehry showed off the renderings at a packed press Meer, a sometime actress with a “No emi- Papers The Brooklyn conference at Ratner’s Atlantic Center Mall, where a nent domain” sign in her Prospect Heights win- Sahara Meer doesn’t support Bruce Ratner’s large third-floor space was converted into an “Atlantic Atlantic Yards development, but was fea- dow, was between paying gigs when she be- Yards Information Center.” tured prominently in his latest propaganda. Papers The Brooklyn came a “poster girl” in Ratner’s Atlantic Yards The renderings of Miss Brooklyn showed a shimmer- propaganda campaign. ing, wavering, aluminum-clad tower, with a 120-foot It was a day like any other day last summer, mega-development that actually made the glass-walled atrium called “the Urban Room,” a hotel in when Meer got an email from a photographer 19,000-seat basketball arena disappear into a the first few floors, dozens of stories of office space, and Designers bust out friend asking whether she’d pose for a “day in lush green meadow. residental condos up top. the park” photo spread. The photos were being “I admit I have no one to blame but myself,” “She’s a bride with flowing veils,” Gehry said. “OK, I As part of BK Fashion Week(end), May 5-7, in DUMBO’s Tobacco Warehouse, up- shot by the Getty agency and would be sold as she said. “I signed the release. I got my $100 got carried away. But if you’d seen that bride, you’d un- and-coming designers unveiled their latest collections. On Saturday, Lopeti Etu took stock photos — the kind of generic, “happy” [for the shoot]. But I’m still mad at Ratner.” derstand. I fell in love with her.” “a stab at sexism and the war” with his exaggerated, bomb-shaped top (above), cre- shots you see in dating service ads or when Meer called her experience “the seedy un- Another building, also near the corner of Flatbush and At- ated for the H.O.R.R.S. line from recycled clothing. For a glimpse inside this private newspapers need that hard-to-find image of derbelly of Ratner’s marketing campaign.” lantic, was reduced in size by 165 feet, but Gehry and his de- event, see GO Brooklyn on page 9. people without a care in the world. “What, he couldn’t find actual people to signers said that the differences between the latest designs Meer said she spent five hours being pho- smile for his cameras? He needed to buy stock and earlier renderings are not just a matter of size. tographed. “It was fun, and it was a pretty good images of people having fun?” deal because I’m an actress and they offered to The greater irony of Ratner’s flyer is that the See GEHRY on page 18 let me use the photos, too,” she said. people in the pictures, smiling and enjoying She had virtually forgotten about that day — their lives in Brooklyn, actual send a subtle until the phone rang last week. anti-Ratner message: “Don’t change a thing, “Why the hell are you doing posing for Mr. Ratner. We like things the way they are. After big fire, Bruce Ratner?!” a friend asked. That’s why we’re smiling.” Huh? Meer said she wants to channel her anger Meer later received the “Atlantic Yards: A and is now volunteering with Develop Don’t Vision for Downtown Brooklyn” pamphlet — Destroy Brooklyn. which not only featured her photo, but even “And one thing is for sure,” she added, “I’ll Chase backs out featured a deceptive rendering of the sprawling never do stock photo shoots again.” By Ariella Cohen The Brooklyn Papers EXCLUSIVE Chase bank has pulled out of deal to open a branch in a converted DUMBO nity,” said a former resident of 247 Water St., industrial building owned by the same a DUMBO loft building. “Then, he evicted developer whose Greenpoint warehouse us two days before Christmas [2004].” burnt down last week in a suspicious fire. A suspicious blaze later gutted that build- Negotiations to open a branch at 68 Jay St. ing. The fire’s cause was never officially de- ended abruptly on Friday — just hours after termined, but Guttman’s insurer, Alea North the Greenpoint blaze had been linked to four America, refused to pay for damages on the other deliberately set fires on properties grounds that Guttman’s claim was fraudulent. owned by the landlord, Joshua Guttman. The building remains vacant, its windows Chase declined to comment on how the covered with unsightly plywood. ongoing investigation of the arson-afflicted Nearby, at 50 Bridge St., tenants are suing landlord affected the bank’s decision — but Guttman for ignoring building and safety the bank’s broker admitted it was a factor. codes when he converted the 19th-century “It’s never any one thing [that ends lease factory into luxury condos. negotiations],” said broker Faith Hope Con- “We thought we were getting a good price solo. “Let’s just say [other spaces] are more on our apartment, but the problems were struc- desirable right now.” tural,” said Darren Karp, a condo owner. “To Architect Frank Gehry unveiled tweaked renderings of his designs for Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic The centerpiece of Gehry’s design is “Miss Brook- In DUMBO, Guttman owns at least a half- fix the problems, you’d have to tear down the Yards mega-development (above), which feature slightly thinned towers that still rise above the lyn,” a shimmering, 62-story skyscraper that, he dozen large warehouse properties, which he condos and reconstruct them again.” famed Williamsburgh Bank Building (far left) and neighboring Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. says, was inspired by a “real Brooklyn bride.” rented as residences in the 1980s and ’90s. Karp was not surprised to hear that Chase Though such conversions were illegal, they had pulled out of the 68 Jay St. deal days af- did play a large role in transforming the once- ter the suspicious fire in Greenpoint. gritty neighborhood into its current and future “The guy is a complete criminal. No bank identity as a post-industrial Babylon. should rent from him,” he said. “He rented us really great lofts and let us Guttman and his lawyer declined repeated Censored art students stay until we had built a really great commu- requests for comment. could find new home By Ariella Cohen closed the very next morning after Works in the exhibition included The Brooklyn Papers Brooklyn Borough Parks Commis- the usual contemporary coterie of sioner Julius Spiegel declared it video art and abstract installations They courted controversy, “inappropriate.” as well as a sculpture of a hand they got it, and now they don’t He told the artists that some of holding a penis, and a painting of a know what to do with it. the controversial works violated a man’s torso with an accompanying A group of student artists who six-year-old verbal agreement he narrative about a homosexual en- were kicked out of a city-run has with the college to use the war counter involving a man named gallery because their works were memorial for art shows. Dick Cheney. “inappropriate” haven’t decided Spiegel refused repeated re- World War II veterans hailed whether to accept a DUMBO de- quests for comment from The Spiegel’s decision to lock out the veloper’s offer to host the show in Brooklyn Papers — but his boss, student artist.