29/18 Awp/Bwn

BROOKLYN’S REAL NEWSPAPERS Including The Brooklyn Heights Paper, Carroll Gardens-Cobble Hill Paper, DUMBO Paper and the Downtown News THIS WEEK Published Saturdays at 55 Washington St, Brooklyn 11201. Phone 718-834-9350 • www.BrooklynPapers.com • © Brooklyn Paper Publications • 18 pages •Vol. 29, No. 18 BWN • Saturday, May 6, 2006 • FREE BLAZING BROOKLYN Tuesday’s fire in Greenpoint — Green light project the biggest since 9-11 — sent smoke billowing across the bor- Among the environmentally friendly artists who will be showcasing / Bebeto Matthews ough. For more on the story, their work at Bklyn Designs, May 12-14 in DUMBO, is Nicholas Fur- see page 15. row, whose “Red Light District Lamps” recycle vintage glass lamp- shades and consume only 1- to 5-watts. For more about Bklyn De- signs exhibitors, see GO Brooklyn on page 7. Associated Press NOT JUST NETS • THE NEW BROOKLYN • NOT JUST NETS • THE NEW BROOKLYN Dan Zanes says Zanes’s he doesn’t write Toddler troubadour overtly political songs, but his Blacks new tune, “Wan- Brooklyn der in the Sum- mer Wind,” was sings against Ratner inspired by a vi- blues sion of Brooklyn By Gersh Kuntzman gos frontman has been singing to kids. ner’s track record: Atlantic Center, that, he says, is jeopardized by Bruce Rat- ner’s Atlantic Yards mega-development. blast The Brooklyn Papers But in this fight, he’s playing to the adults. Atlantic Terminal, Metrotech. Is Here are the excerpted lyrics: If you’re under 10, this is your Wood- “I was like everyone else who had heard this the guy we want doing the stock: Children’s folk singer Dan Zanes about the project — busy with work and single biggest development in family and I thought, well, it’s ugly, but it’s New York City?” Take a left on Kane Street And do you think you would — the Bob Dylan of the pre-school set — Another one on Henry Like to wander in the sum- inevitable,” said Zanes, who’s been so And then Zanes issued his has joined the opposition to Bruce Rat- Take a look around us mer wind busy, in fact, that he even let his member- most-damning edict (at least ner’s Atlantic Yards project and will head- For anyone we know We can take the F train Bruce ship in the Park Slope Food Co-op lapse. from the perspective of a Up the hill and down again Right on up to Ninth Street line an anti-project concert next month. When he took the time to consider the dewy-eyed 10-year-old Park Hand in hand Walk on to the park Zanes, a resident of Cobble Hill, be- “nuts and bolts” of the project — the 17 Slope Zanes fan): “Ratner gave We’ll be feeling grand To where the steel drums came a member of the advisory commit- skyscrapers, the basketball arena, the us Chuck E. Cheese. Is that the When we wander in the play Ex-Panther says summer wind Dance around in circles tee of Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn 6,900-units of housing, the thousands of best we can do for our kids?” last month and now hopes to spread his With anyone that we meet cars, the use of eminent domain to con- A spokesman for Ratner declined I’ll take you to the river All this could happen Ratner ‘disrespects anti-Ratner message through song. demn buildings where people are currently to comment. Maybe down to Red Hook On a summer Saturday “My opposition is mostly about saving living — Zanes said he could ignore it no Although Zanes will headline the Eat a few tamales us, denigrates us’ the soul of Brooklyn,” Zanes (pictured more. Saturday, June 3, concert at the Han- Over by the soccer right) told The Brooklyn Papers. “Every- “I thought, ‘Well, I live in Cobble Hill, son Place Central United Methodist games thing I do is about community — in my Basketballs are flying By Dana Rubinstein that’s not going to affect me.’ But this Church in Fort Greene, don’t expect Over by the school- The Brooklyn Papers case, the spirit that comes from making project is not just in ‘someone else’s’ any overt anti-Ratner songs. yard music. That’s what Brooklyn means right neighborhood,” he said. “I’m not that kind of songwriter,” I hear the breeze Is Bruce Ratner’s basketball card a now. That’s why we came here. But Rat- Zanes, who is known by virtually every- said Zanes, who will sing protest Call your name race card? ner’s project is in direct opposition to all one with a kid under age 12, said his job songs like “We Shall Not Be Moved,” High and low That question was raised by two fiery that’s good, soulful and communal about will be to spread the word to “busy, self- “I Don’t Want Your Millions, Mister,” black leaders at an Atlantic Yards forum last Brooklyn. People that we know centered” people like himself. and the more-subtle “Wander in the They say, “Hey there” week at First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn “We need to remember what we love “I tell people: get informed about the Summer Wind,” a classic Zanes yarn And “How’ve you Heights. about Brooklyn and stop this.” entire project and then make up your that celebrates the serendipity of just been?” A centerpiece of Ratner’s project is a bas- Across nearly a decade and on his eight mind,” he said. “Atlantic Yards is every- taking a walk in a low-rise borough Good, good, good ketball arena for his Brooklyn-bound New best-selling albums, the former Del Fue- thing Brooklyn is not. Check Bruce Rat- (see sidebar). Arthur Elgort Jersey Nets. “[He] has the audacity to talk about a basketball stadium, like black people would be impressed,” said Bob Law, a radio commen- tator, Prospect Heights restaurateur and former Black Panther. “Like hoops is something THE BROOKLYN we would really need. “We are really not going to sit quietly and By Gersh allow you to disrespect us and denigrate us Kuntzman Ratner’s glossy fantasyland ANGLE … [This] rings with a kind of contempt for poor people and black people.” OU NEVER KNOW what State Development Corporation of- Law hammered all night on the race issue, you’re going to get in the fice? Nice brownstones, Bruce! which has bubbled up at other forums, but morning mail: a glossy cata- Page 6: Ratner now says his was also the driving force behind the Com- Y Too bad Atlantic Yards munity Benefits Agreement Ratner signed logue, a piece of political literature, project will “provide approximately some junk mail. 3,800 permanent jobs,” down from doesn’t include any of them. with eight minority groups. Or, in the case of Bruce Ratner’s a claim three years ago that 10,000 “[Ratner believes that] because you are latest mailing to thousands of Brook- new jobs would be “created.” poor, you ought to accept any job you can lyn residents, a little bit of all three. Page 8: That smiling woman isn’t get, like, ‘You poor little ignorant Negroes,’” The man who wants to build 17 smiling anymore. Actress T. Sahara Law said. skyscrapers in between low-rise Fort Meer (pictured at left), the woman This project is The Rev. Dennis Dillon of the Brooklyn Greene and Prospect Heights sent out in the picture, told The Brooklyn between Christian Center in Fort Greene joined Law Angle that she posed for the photo in his opposition to Atlantic Yards — but Dil- his latest flyer this week, painting At- Fort Greene lantic Yards as an urban utopia. because she was “between gigs” — lon focused on the type of permanent jobs But it’s just a four-color fantasy. only to find out that the photographer and Prospect Ratner says will be created at the arena. Indeed, the flyer offers no render- sold the photo to Ratner. “That inno- Heights. Calling And he was more circumspect in his rhet- ings of the 17 Frank Gehry-de- cent day in the park [is] one of the oric. signed, Vegas-style towers. Instead, most nightmarish experiences of my it “Downtown” “The black community is not all about it showcases the very low-rise life: I have become Bruce Ratner’s is just an attempt some low-paying jobs that will force us to live elsewhere anyway,” said Dillon, who Brooklyn that Ratner’s project poster girl,” said Meer, who has a to justify 17 would overwhelm. “Stop Eminent Domain Abuse” sign evoked the civil rights movement as a model Deception is lurking everywhere in the window of her Prospect skyscrapers. for black opposition to Atlantic Yards. (see my annotated Page One, far Heights home. “My only hope for re- “We believe, like Martin Luther King did, right), so read the mailing with care: demption is to fight harder. So, that justice must roll down like waters and Page 3: Atlantic Yards will “create thanks, Bruce, for fueling my fire, righteousness like a mighty stream,” he said. thousands of needed apartments, of- my anger, my ire, my hatred of you.” But there was another man of god in the fice space [and] local retail space.” Page 10: Ratner claims that his Wow! He made the arena house who defended the Ratner project Yes, apartments are needed, but if of- community benefits agreement was disappear! Only Ratner “Ratner’s always been fair, just, concerned fice space is so badly needed, why are negotiated by eight local organiza- and compassionate to me,” said the Rev.

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