5/03/2008

The Atlantic Yards Rally

I was a good concerned Brooklyn citizen for the people and went to the Atlantic Yards Rally today. I heard a lot of great, passionate speeches, City Council Member Letitia James gave one of the best. Word on the street is "it's not a done deal". While the people who live in the neighborhood were rallying together, on the other side of the yards were loud, pro-atlantic yards union workers rallying, supposively paid. My friend Sabine, wandered around with a video camera for an hour asking them if they were paid and no one said "yes" so I do not want to assume but why would anyone from Long Island take their Saturday afternoon to do this if they weren't on the clock? Anyway much later after the rally I was walking down 5th Avenue and ran into some friends in front of O'Connors. Many of the pro-Atlantic Yards union guys were drinking in there, you know I tend to get along with these types better than "hipster" types so I was able to find out whether they got paid to be there. They see it as a big joke and were jokingly saying "we want to displace you". Most are born and raised in the city and live in the burbs so they just think it's time for people to "get out" as they have. It's not a big deal to them.

On another note, I was really interested in hearing in what our local councilman Bill DeBlasio had to say as he was suppposed to be there. I got there about 20 minutes late and as far as I know, no one saw him. DeBlasio was once pro-Atlantic Yards now all of a sudden he is upset about the "lack of affordable" housing, like they really would have any! Because in his world "affordable" is an income of $90,000 a year! His credibility just keeps going lower and lower with me. I heard him on WNYC the other day talking about his regrets of being pro-Ikea in Red Hook, all of a sudden it dawned on him that building a box store on the Brooklyn waterfront was sort of a bad idea. It's like, why does he even bother to say that? IT"S BEEN BUILT STUPID!!!

1 comment:

NoLandGrab said...

As far as I know, Bill deBlasio had told rally organizers in advance that he had a conflict and would not be able to attend.

Good point about IKEA -- deBlasio is not going to win any friends amongst those who opposed it by bringing it up now, and those who don't really care wouldn't remember it anyway.