Black Leaders Rip Ratner's $400M Barclays Arena Deal

THE stoop: Heights Lowdown: Will Smith stood me up, local news, p.3 Brooklyn’s Real Newspaper BrooklynPaper.com • (718) 834–9350 • Brooklyn, NY • ©2007 BROOKLYN HEIGHTS–DOWNTOWN EDITION AWP/18 pages • Vol. 30, No. 4 • Saturday, Jan. 27, 2007 • FREE INCLUDING DUMBO Black leaders rip Ratner’s $400M Barclays arena deal Atlantic Yards supporter says Bruce is taking ‘blood money’ of slaves at Nets site; another ally is demanding reparations By Ariella Cohen “All options should be on the table, including The Brooklyn Paper payment for past wrongs and termination of the MORE INSIDE Two black supporters of Atlantic Yards have agreement,” Jeffries said. joined a growing chorus saying that developer Green, a strong supporter of Atlantic Yards, •Editorial and Letters: p. 6 Bruce Ratner betrayed his black allies when he moved last week to distance himself from the nam- •Ratner socks it to locals: p.15 ing-rights deal. He called on Barclays to pay repa- sold the naming rights to his proposed Nets arena •Anti-Ratner movie debuts: p.15 to Barclays, a global banking firm that was found- rations to American blacks for its role in slavery. ed by slave traders and did business with South “Barclays must step up and respond to our com- •Locals slam Barclays deal: p.15 Africa’s apartheid government. munity the way they responded to Nelson Mandela” •Lawsuit’s new angle: p.15 over the issue of apartheid in South Africa, he said. Both Roger Green — a former state Assembly- As part of the $400-million naming-rights deal, •Ratner foes dial for $: p.15 man — and his successor Hakeem Jeffries came out Barclays has said it will pay $2.5 million to repair this week against the Barclays deal. public basketball courts through the borough, but who was active in the anti-apartheid movement two Jeffries said Ratner should consider “termi- Green called that amount, “not enough.” decades ago, said reports on Barclays’ ties to the nating” his $400-million deal, the largest-ever Barclays gave $5 million to a Mandela founda- slave trade and apartheid amounted to “constructive sports venue naming-rights agreement. tion in 2004. The company also funded local devel- criticism” of Ratner’s new business partner. “It would be an understatement to say that this opment projects in South Africa, including public As a result, Green said, he will “ask these com- naming agreement was insensitive and offensive,” sports facilities. panies to respond to our communities.” said Jeffries (D-Prospect Heights). Aspokesman for Barclays declined to comment The sharp criticism of the Ratner deal is a first “Barclays Bank has gained enormous profits es- on Green’s call for reparations. The spokesman also for Jeffries and Green — and put them in a coali- sentially from blood money obtained from the disputed the company’s well-documented connec- tion with leaders who have taken strong stances transatlantic slave trade, which is one of the worse tion to the slave trade, freezing of some Jewish ac- against the project. crimes in the history of the world. Brooklynites and counts in France during the Holocaust, and business The attack on Ratner’s naming-rights deal by New Yorkers of every race and religion should be deals with South Africa’s apartheid government. supporters of the Atlantic Yards project follows concerned about their presence in our borough. ” At a press conference where the Barclays deal was criticism by Councilwoman Letitia James, a proj- Jeffries demanded a meeting with the developer to announced last week, Bloomberg mocked a re- ect opponent, last week. discuss the issue. He hasn’t gotten a call back yet. Roger Green Hakeem Jeffries porter’s question about the bank’s history. But Green, See BLOOD on page 15 Runner quits, ends his Brooklyn dream By Christie Rizk run the entire borough. “He’s a bona-fide Brooklyn The Brooklyn Paper “Brooklyn is enormous.” character,” said the expert in that Perhaps by comparison to department, Borough President Brooklyn’s version of Forrest Iowa City, whose 230 miles of Markowitz, who added that he Gump has hit the halfway mark streets Jarvis once ran. As he hopes “to join him for a run soon.” on his quest to run every inch of learned, however, that’s nothing On Friday, Jan. 19, Jarvis hit Brooklyn’s roadways — but compared to Brooklyn’s 1,599 the halfway mark and started a now he’s giving it a rest. miles of mean streets. much-needed break. Gary Jarvis’s quest to traverse Jarvis had never spent time in He claims he’ll be back on the the length, width and depth of Brooklyn until he moved here to roads in six weeks — but it’s no Brooklyn has been well-docu- be with his girlfriend. Like any longer clear if he’ll make it. Ho / Dennis W. mented — but the enormity of the newcomer, he figured the best “I feel so awful and so tired,” task has, frankly, taken its toll. way to get to know his new said Jarvis, who doesn’t warm up “I didn’t realize how big and home would be to get out. or stretch. dense and concentrated Brooklyn “Talk about not thinking things He’ll turn 41 in May. But his is,” said the Iowa native, who had through,” said Jarvis, whose pres- advancing age isn’t his excuse. Paper The Brooklyn apparently failed to look at a map ence has been noticed everywhere “I guess I’m just a little lazy,” Former Iowan Gary Jarvis, who is running the length of every street in Brooklyn, may before predicting that he could from Greenpoint to Bensonhurst. he said. be abandoning his Quixotic quest. A West Indian-American Carnival dancer in happier times. Sad day for X-ray visions THIS WEEKEND See superheroes in a new light By Rebecca Migdal prescribed notion of heroics and acknowledg- the Carnival for The Brooklyn Paper ing those who are heroes on their own terms. In Peters’s rainbow version of comic book The Brooklyn Paper Bruce Wayne is nowhere to be found. heroes, the Human Torch wears Adidas, while Carlos Lezama, who turned Labor Day In Joshua Peters’s painterly and colorful Captain America is portrayed as a powerful- from a languid holiday into a full-fledged renditions of superheroes — at the Corridor looking Asian man before a barbed-wire-topped carnival of steel drums, Caribbean delica- Gallery in Clinton Hill through Feb. 10 — wall, as if rescuing a child imprisoned during cies, and dancers in skimpy costumes, died Batman is flashing a fierce grin and sports World War II. Spider Woman is made over as a on Monday. He was 83. “bling”-like golden gadgetry galore on his haggard and overworked single mother whose Lezama spearheaded the West Indian- belt. Even the caped crusader’s winged logo face, says Peters, has “a strength that has nothing American Day Carnival from 1967 to 2001, has morphed from the standard decal to a to do with bounding from building to building.” transforming it from a little neighborhood massive bat-shaped gold necklace. “I wanted to take the archetype and put it party to an citywide event attracting more If you’ve ever leafed through a comic book on its ear,” Peters admits. “Black and Asian than 3 million people along Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights. and wondered why so few people of color were heroes are usually tokenized.” “He was a truly great Brooklynite,” said the borough’s cheer- represented within its pages, now’s the time to Peters’s close involvement with the weight- leader-in-chief, Borough President Markowitz. don your cape and fly to see “Up, Up and lifting world was clearly a resource when Herman Hall, the publisher of Everybody’s Magazine, a Away,” an exhibit by three comic book-inspired seeking models for what he calls his “Heroes” Caribbean-American publication, said the Trinidadian-American’s artists that explores the zone between comics series, which was spawned by a vision of influence went beyond the parade, bringing “recognition to the and fine art, with one eye on the color line. Wonder Woman fashioned in the likeness of Caribbean-American community and [playing] a major role in en- Gotham gritty: Joshua Peters’s comic-inspired work, including Batman (above), is on display at Peters, Kyle Baker and Jonn Alex Gonzales Peters’s bodybuilder girlfriend, Jodi Cornish. hancing the quality of life in New York City.” — Dana Rubinstein Corridor Gallery in Clinton Hill. are each, in their own medium, looking past the See UP, UP on page 13 Paper boy delivered Two top prizes for The Paper The Brooklyn Paper Manager Vince “Vinny” DiMiceli — two of The Brooklyn Paper and housing development commonly re- The awards will be presented at the The Brooklyn Paper is proud to announce the Brooklyn Paper’s longest-tenured (and Brooklyn’s real newspaper was rec- ferred to as Brooklyn Bridge Park). SNA’s publishers and editors sympo- its latest edition: Vince Michael DiMiceli was award-winning) employees. The happy family is doing well — if not sleep- ognized last week for editorial excel- And GO Brooklyn Editor Lisa J. Cur- sium, in Tampa, Florida, in March. born at 2:29 am on Jan. 19 at Staten Island ing through the night — in their outer-Brook- lence, winning two first-place awards tis won First Place for Best Arts & En- The Suburban Newspaper Associa- University Hospital. lyn home across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. in the Suburban Newspaper Associa- tertainment Criticism/Commentary for tion represents more than 2,000 daily Weighing in at nine pounds even, the strap- “In an occupation where meeting deadlines tion’s annual competition.

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