Thursday, March 11, 2010

Ratville Rises

The groundbreaking – what an evocative word – for the “Barclays Center” is today. This is a mega-development that, through an outrageous taking of public space by eminent domain for private wealth, promises to utterly transform downtown Brooklyn, making it a wide-swath of ugly glass towers, another fucking mall, and mucho parking centered on a triumph-of-the-will arena.

The re-branded Atlantic Yards project is named for one of the big pirates of international finance, developed by a politically-juiced junk developer (MetroTech anyone?), and being built for a sports franchise owned by a Russian oligarch-mobster. This combination is enough to make you puke. Ladies and gentleman, the Mothership of International Capital has landed, sucking up the commonwealth into its maw and telling democracy to go fuck itself.