These are not the actors in the show, these are the real people that this perfomance is based on.Photos credit Jonathan Barkey/pbase
I received an email about this performance at Joe's Pub on Friday, September 10th. It's a precursor to "In the Footprint" which will happen at the Irondale Center in Fort Greene in the fall. Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards explores the many voices of an urban community facing industrial-sized growing pains. This particular performance on Friday includes monologues taken from interviews with Brooklyn residents, community activists, and politicians, including Marty Markowitz, Bertha Lewis, Daniel Goldstein, Jonathan Lethem and Letitia James.
The details:
Let Me Ascertain You: Atlantic Yards Friday, September 10 at 9:30 PM Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater 425 Lafayette Street, New York Tickets: $15
I don't know about you, but shouldn't we be paying for better schools and keeping the libraries open? Here is an excellent short touring the new Yankee, Shea and future New Jersey Nets Stadium in the Atlantic Yards. Showing how the stadiums really ARE NOT revitalizing the neighborhoods they take over.
OK here is the official scoop on just what is going to happen to Freddy's Bar & Backroom from Bar Manager, Donald O'Finn. They will be moving but will continue business as usual by not only providing what bars provide but a community space for art,music, diorama making, knitting, comedy etc. etc. AND we won't have to look at that depressing blight anymore. AND they are moving closer to F.I.B headquarters. See you there!
From the bar's official press release:
FREDDY’S BAR DECLARES VICTORY: FREDDY’S BAR IS MOVING, BUT NOT CLOSING.
April 30th will be the last day of business for Freddy's Bar.
Freddy's Bar, 485 Dean Street (Corner of 6th Avenue) Brooklyn, NY
Freddy's Bar is not closing, it's moving. We are presently in negotiations with a landlord who is not a billionaire at 4th Ave and Union Street.
We will be having a Victory party on April 30th to celebrate what the little guy has been able to do in fighting a billionaire and the corrupt government agency that he controls. We feel we have dealt fatal blows to Ratner's organization. The nets will not be sold to an international criminal, because the NBA can't afford to be associated with organized crime.
Freddy's Bar is not giving up the fight, we stand in solidarity with Prokhorov's sanctions-busting victims in Zimbabwe, and with the people of Yonkers who are paying the price for a Ratner bribery scandal. We will continuing to stand against the corruption that has dominated our lives for the last 7 years, and are looking forward to moving out from under this sword of Damocles.
Forest City Ratner will leave Brooklyn a thousand years before Freddy's Bar does. . . they have missed mortgage payments on their Metrotech Center, and the Yonkers and Zimbabwe sanctions busting scandals are criminal acts. The question is will they run out of money first, or face prosecution first. I am sure that both will happen.
The move is about the employees, and the business. We're little guys. We can't run our business into the ground as Ratner has and still survive. We have a lot of mouths to feed and we are not billionaires. The move is strategic. Very soon “Freddy’s Next Bar” will be standing tall, and Ratner will be in rubble, with no stadium, and hopefully with justice and karma finding him. This is a guy who closed a family homeless shelter in the dead of winter.
In order to assure our capacity to keep Freddy's alive in a another location, and keep people employed... we have to move the contents of the bar in a particular timely fashion to "Lock down' the next space, and thus we will not be facing an eviction situation in which a protest by chaining ourselves could happen. The Chains (“The Chains of Justice”) have served their purpose...to raise awareness of corruption, and they will move with us, forever installed on that bar as a symbol of a united community and that community’s power for affecting change.
The owner of Freddy's has had to consider those employed at Freddy's as well as his own situation, needing employment and food on the table. He made a difficult decision to pull out in such a way as to keep the contents of the bar and move it into another location. If we wait for condemnation we might sacrifice too much. I can't yet confirm the location since everything is moving very fast, and it is not locked down yet, but the area we are hoping to secure is on 4th Ave near Union Street.
We hope to open this new space as soon as possible, 2 or 3 months hopefully. The email address will not change... nor the web address.
Freddy’s has been the culmination of everything I am and everything I ever wanted in a bar.
I could not be prouder of Freddy's, it's community, and it’s accomplishments.
Freddy's is not an address, it is an idea.
I’ll See you at “FREDDY’S NEXT BAR”...the first one is on me!
Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse (FBR) was conceived at Freddy’s bar as a BCAT and MNN public access TV show in March 2006. The show’s purpose has always been to provide a forum for the community’s voice, which had no say in the Atlantic Yards project in Prospect Heights , Brooklyn, and to win the fight to demand community input for the local Brooklyn neighborhood, businesses and residents, and to s to p dubious, wasteful, & unsustainable over-development and eminent domain abuse. For the past 5 years FBR has strived to turn the train of eminent domain around by focusing on community leaders, artists, musicians and activists from Brooklyn all against Atlantic Yards. Roundhouse refers to a circular building for housing and switching locomotives, and lent itself nicely to the community’s desire to turn things around. Since its conception FBR has grown to cover other local & national issues threatening everyone’s civil liberties. Issues range from the use of Special Administrative Measures (SAM’s) to incarcerate and to rture U.S. citizens here in NYC, to corporate industrial threats to our water supply; bridging borough, city-wide and national to pics that infringe upon everyone’s constitutional rights and threaten our communities placing these to pics in to local his to rical context and tunneling in to action.
We hope you will join us this Saturday as we say farewell to Freddy’s bar and give thanks to our media endeavors that sprang from Freddy's wondrous backroom."
Another dark twist in the Atlantic Yards project. By way of the Develop Don't Destroy Newletter this bombshell has been dropped in the New York Post over the weekend about Russian high rolling business man Mikhail Prokhorov who "saved" Bruce Ratner's landgrabbing, illegal project in the Atlantic Yards by arriving on the scene in last fall and invested heavily in the project. Prokhorov is a 44 year old billionaire who is seeking a majority stake in the Nets and a 45 percent stake in the Barclays Center arena, which they want to be future home of the team and "centerpiece" of the Atlantic Yards plan.
Apparantly Democratic Representative, Bill Pascrell Jr., of the Ways and Means Committe has found out that Prokhorov owns several companies doing business in Zimbabwe, a country that violates human rights and forbids American citizens and companies from doing business there. If this is true, this goes way beyond any local corruption, this is big time international "international sanctions busting".
Will an investigation lead to Prokhorov leaving the Atlantic Yards project? We can only hope! The whole project has reeked of corruption from day one yet somehow is a project funded by the taxpayers who will end up with nothing but a sports complex instead of a neighborhood.
Cesse LaGuerre of Freddy's Brooklyn Roundhouse has put together this video covering protest actions which have happened in the last 5 months around the Atlantic Yards area. There is footage of the protests on the day of the "ground breaking" as well as all the events that happened at Freddy's Bar & Backroom.
Atlantic Yards Bobbleheads take on Cuomo over Tainted Campaign Contribution
"One week ago, Thursday, March 11, 2010, the controversial groundbreaking for the Atlantic Yards project took the headlines. Yet, all Brooklyn politicians except the borough president avoided the ceremony. This is the first public indication that the political tide is turning against developer Bruce Ratner.
Nine bobbleheads, seen last week on television and in the top five political pictures in the The New York Times and the Washington Post, will be calling on Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo will be asked, by the bobblehead likeness of himself, to do his job for the people of New York by investigating Ratner. It's a slam-dunk because the evidence is nine blocks up the street at the Federal Courthouse. But first, Cuomo must return the $5,000 contribution he has received from Bruce Ratner. This contribution gives the appearance that Cuomo is favoring Ratner by his unwillingness to indict Ratner for allegedly participating in a conspiracy to bribe a city council member in Yonkers.
Ratner has received favors from the government, including land, subsidies, and--apparently--immunity from prosecution. But the bribe Forest City Ratner allegedly paid in Yonkers could lead to the end of Bruce's career now that Brooklyn politicians have largely abandoned Ratner and his Atlantic Yards project. It is huge. And the bobbleheads (3 ft tall photo-realistic heads of NY's leaders) want to help Attorney General and possible future Governor Andrew Cuomo move the case forward.
THE DEMANDS FIRST: RETURN RATNER's DONATION: Cuomo has accepted campaign donations from Ratner, and this gives the appearance of gross impropriety, since Cuomo has dragged his feet in investigating and indicting Ratner despite evidence (cancelled checks) held by the U.S. Southern District Court just up the street from Cuomo's office.
SECOND: GET THE ALLEGED BRIBE CHECKS FROM THE FEDS AND INDICT RATNER: According to the federal indictment against City Council Member Sandy Annabi and her alleged co-conspirators, the "corrupt payments" allegedly came in the form of paychecks for a no-show job to a relative of Annabi.
Annabi is charged with changing her vote on Ratner's $631 Million Ridge Hill project which overrode the Westchester County Planning Board's rejection and let the massive project go through. The allegedly tainted vote has not been annulled, and the project that is the subject of the bribery allegations is continuing, although at least one anchor store, Saks Fifth Avenue, has pulled out since the start of Annabi's trial.
At Thursday's noon press conference outside of 120 Broadway, Bobblehead Cuomo, and others, will remind Atty. General Cuomo that you don't let Mr. Big go free so you can catch the little fish. And you don't keep donations from someone who has allegedly provided evidence that he and his company bribed a public official."
WHAT: Bobblehead Lunch Hour Press Conference
WHO: Bobbleheads of Governor Paterson, Former Governors Pataki and Spitzer, Senator Charles Schumer, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Mikhail Prokhorov, Bruce Ratner, Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
WHERE: Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Office, 120 Broadway, Manhattan. Outside.
From a message from the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods:
"PROTEST! SHOW UP! BE HEARD!
The Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods today called on its dozens of member organizations and the tens of thousands of community residents of Prospect Heights, Ft. Greene, Park Slope, Clinton Hill, Crown Heights, Bedford Stuyvesant and Boerum Hill, and all citizens disgusted with the abuse of public process that is called Atlantic Yards, to show up for a protest to the “groundbreaking” scheduled for March 11, 2010.
From the Call To Action message:
“To all CBN members, Brooklyn residents, NYC residents, fellow advocates for good government, and everyone disgusted by taxpayer abuse, corporate welfare, and sham politics:
The poster child for everything wrong with development in New York State today, Forest City Ratner’s disastrous Atlantic Yards project, is scheduled for a sham groundbreaking tomorrow. We must ALL show up to protest this
The Shams and the Shame The AY process has been a sham since before day one.
Sham #1: Six years ago, in violation of every development requirement for an open bidding process, Mayor Bloomberg, Boro President Markowitz, and then Governor George Pataki announced a development to be called Atlantic Yards. After the first howls of protest at this dismissal of process, a sham Request for Proposals was circulated. The winner? The previously annointed Forest City Ratner. Sham #2: The Starchitect. In an attempted gloss on the mostly hideous buildings previously inflicted on Brooklyn, FCR announces the miraculous Frank Gehry would be the sole architect. Gehry, who had never engineered a single skyscraper, designed at least four iterations of his unworkable designs before being canned. Sham #3: FCR announces significant community support with the unveiling of a document signed by 8 organizations, 5 of them formed by FCR and all of them receiving payments from FCR. This was called a Community Benefits Agreement. All good government groups have already labeled this sham a SHAM, earning Atlantic Yards another star on its Poster Child of Bad Development scoreboard. (…Skipping ahead…) Sham #167: Politicians and prosecutors ignore FCR’s involvement as what some have describes as an unindicted co-conspirator in Yonkers’ Ridge Hill (a development by Forest City Ratner) bribery scandal which has resulted in FBI indictments of Yonkers city councilmembers for allegedly soliciting and accepting bribes from “Developer #2,” identified as Forest City Ratner. Sham #168: FCR maintains it will break ground on another building in addition to the George Foreman Grill-like arena during the current year, even though no architect has been contracted and no designs exist, a process that generally takes a minimum of 2 years. In a related Sham, the new head of the Municipal Art Society blesses the arena and says his firm would be happy to be considered to design towers for Atlantic Yards. Sham #169: Governor Paterson defends continuing the money pit of the public subsidy sucking Atlantic Yards project, despite his own warnings of imminent Depression status for New York. He said we wouldn’t be able to see if it was a good project or a bad project until we wait another 10 years!
Is that a good enough evaluation to close schools and hospitals to balance a budget that showers public subsidies on a billionaire from Cleveland, and a Russian billionaire-“oligarch”, for an unnecessary arena and NO PUBLIC BENEFITS?
THIS CANNOT CONTINUE! THE PUBLIC MUST TAKE BACK THE PUBLIC PROCESS! MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD! SHOW UP! PROTEST! "
March 11, 2010 12:30 PM Gather at 6th Avenue and Dean Street, (in front of Freddy’s)
On the eve of Ratner's ceremonial groundbreaking, the Kings County Cinema Society, "an informal organization devoted to the unfettered, unbiased love of film and the moving image in the borough of Brooklyn , and occasionally beyond" presents:
Locally-made docs at Freddy's, screening 3 Brooklyn made docs which include footage and clips from "Battle of Brooklyn" a doc about the Atlantic Yards.
Michael Galinsky will be on hand with interview footage and clips from a rough cut of their investigation into the politics of the massive Atlantic Yards/ Barclays Center development, Battle of Brooklyn.
Wednesday, March 10 Wed. 3/10, 8:30pm SHARP.
Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, 485 Dean St. @ 6th Ave , 2/3 to Bergen , any train to Atlantic Pacific. Freddy's Backroom.
P.S- There is going to be a rally on Thursday during the groundbreaking, gather at 12:30 at Freddy's, read about it here.
This could very well be the last art show held at Freddy's Backroom as the wrecking ball of Bruce Ratner looms over their roof. Please come and show your support for this neighborhood institution which is not only a bar but a place that has been host to a plethora of creative artists.
Freddy's you shall be missed!
From Freddy's press release:
13 Years of Art in Freddy’s Backroom: What is Gone is Not Forgotten Sunday, March 7th 6pm.
Freddy’s Bar and backroom responds to New York State Supreme Court Justice Abraham Gerges ruling that will allow the condemnations to move forward on the building that houses Freddy’s Bar on Dean Street by holding an art retrospective of 13 Years of international as well as local art exhibited in Freddy’s backroom. (This will still give us months to continue the fight, we will never die.)
From Painting to Video to the Museum of Drunken Art, this show will exhibit a wide variety of Fine Art from Freddy’s finest artists. Proceeds will go the “Hand Cuff Fund” for the Chains of Justice that were installed into the physical Bar at Freddy’s on 12/20/09.
Artists: Katie Welty, Margot Spindelman, Steve Pauley, Nancy Drew, Lisanne McTernan, Donald O’Finn, Steve DeSeve, Dirk Richarson, Dan Sagarin, Peter Teraberry, David Strome, Andy Friedman, Haynes Atkins, and Tim Harrod.
New York State's planned seizure of the property slated for the Atlantic Yards was put on hold at yesterday's condemnation hearing. Go to The Atlantic Yards Report and No Land Grab for detailed information.
I also received a missive from Fightin' Freddy stating that the call-a-thon and letter writing campaign has gotten to Judge Gerges and will continue thru Monday.
Info at the bottom on where to send and where to call.
Excerpts from the latest press release:
Subject: Surprisingly Great Day In Court Today! To WIN we need YOUR DIRECT ACTION: CALLS AND LETTER WRITING
"Today Judge Gerges DID NOT bang the gavel and give everything to Ratner. He read about the homeless shelter closing in the papers, he showed 85 letters to the court. These things are having an effect. The other side will write letters, too, and we need to have way more than them if we are going to save the Family Shelter, Freddy's Bar, and the neighborhood. so . . . . .
Calls: Ratner provided evidence used in an indictment by the feds that he bribed a city councilmember in Yonkers through a conspiracy. THE COUNCIL MEMBER HAS BEEN CHARGED AND IS STANDING TRIAL YET RATNER HAS NOT YET BEEN INDICTED. We need to make it clear to the Attorney General, the Westchester D.A. and the US Court that the delay in indictment is going to have an adverse affect on the NY State Supreme Court Eminent Domain Case that will tear down the Pacific Dean Family Homeless Shelter and much of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood. Call Today, and Monday. But start Today. We WILL save the shelter!
CALLS - Go here and here for info on writing a letter.
I received an urgent press release from the Fightin' Freddys this morning regarding how a call to Attorney General Cuomo's office might help their cause to get Bruce Ratner "indicted by this Friday, Jan 29, or he will walk into the eminent domain hearing with a clean slate. And that will influence the proceedings."
"Your call will help provide the right pressure at the right time to give Judge Gerges a reason NOT to rubberstamp the state's eminent domain grab in his court tomorrow, Friday the 29th.
Call the Attorney General's Office at 212 416-8750 Office of Criminal Prosecution. Calls should be done today by 5pm.
Click here for the full on press release with cheat sheets on what should be said.
Coverage of yesterday's attempt to arrest Bruce Ratner in here.
Singer Crystal Waters, Councilmember Letitia James, Develop Don't Destroy founder Daniel Goldstein and Senator Velmanette Montgomery at Freddy's last week. (Click here for FIB's coverage on that.)
The fight continues to keep the Pacific Dean family shelter (located in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards) open with a community groups, homeless advocates and political leaders going directly to Bruce Ratner's office on Wednesday at noon.
All are welcome to participate.
Excerpts from the official press release.
Subject: Homeless Family Advocates to Arrest Atlantic Yards/Barclays Center Developer Bruce Ratner. Will Bring Ratner to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Office for Indictment on Bribery Charges, Coumo Will Also Be Asked to Return All Campaign Contributions From Ratner and Indict By Friday, January 29th.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
What: Homeless Family Advocates to Arrest Atlantic Yards/Barclays Center Developer Bruce Ratner. Will Bring Ratner to Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's Office for Indictment on Bribery Charges, Coumo Will Also Be Asked to Return All Campaign Contributions From Ratner and Indict By Friday, January 29th.
When: Wednesday, January 27th 12:00 Noon, 2nd location at 1PM Where: Forest City Ratner Headquarters, 1 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY
Who: Homeless Family Advocates as detailed in copy
"A number of community groups, homeless advocates and political leaders will go to Bruce Ratner's office on Wednesday, January 27th at high noon to perform a citizen's arrest of Mr. Ratner. While we would rather arrest Ratner for the moral crime of closing a desperately needed family homeless shelter on Martin Luther King's birthday, and during Haiti relief efforts, we will instead be arresting him to stand charges of bribing a public official in the State of New York, where such activity is against the law. Our aim is to get the Pacific Dean Family Homeless Shelter re-opened until Spring. To this end we intend to see Ratner charged before this coming Friday's hearing that could give Ratner control of the facility, which he plans to tear down to make a parking lot for the Barclays Center stadium. This is possible because of a loophole created in New York State's eminent domain law by the Supreme Court's Kelo Case that allows states to take property from one person and give it to another. 43 states have changed their laws to prevent person-to-person transfer by the state, which is a type of eminent domain employed by the Soviet Union and wartime Germany, and which was illegal in the U.S. until 2005. We believe it is important that Judge Gerges, the man who will make the decision whether or not Ratner gets the shelter and the neighborhood, know what kind of heartless and shady person he is dealing with. The lack of an indictment by Attorney General Cuomo will have a clear influence on Friday's hearing, and it must be corrected. Nobody is going to physically abduct Mr. Ratner. We are informing him that we expect him to surrender to a police officer, in our presence, and go with us to be charged by Attorney General Cuomo. We will also be asking the Attorney General, who is now running for Governor, to give back the campaign contributions he has received from Ratner so that there is no appearance of impropriety associated with the delay in bringing an indictment. Should Ratner elude us we will request that a warrant be issued immediately for his arrest, and that he be extradited from any place in the world that he may choose to run to. "
"You don't have to be a homeowner to be a victim of Eminent Domain," said pop star Crystal Waters at a rehearsal for the Saturday, Jan. 16th rally at Freddy's Bar, just down the street from the Pacific Dean family homeless shelter that the State of New York wants to now tear down on behalf of Barclays Center and Forest City Ratner.
Groups associated with Councilmember Letitia James office are having a vigil to see if their request to Governor Paterson, to enact a moratorium on Eminent Domain in New York State until the legislature can revise the law that, since the U.S. Supreme Court's controversial Kelo decision has devastated the lives of many homeowners, renters, and now homeless children and their parents, will be honored.
Closing a family shelter that serves the African-american and Caribbean-american communities, in the winter, on Martin Luther King's birthday, with the crisis in Haiti going on has stunned and angered many in the surrounding community.
We will be waiting until midnight on Martin Luther King Day to see if the doors of this much needed shelter will re-open until the spring, when the weather is kinder to Brooklyn's homeless families with children.
Remember this song? "She's homeless (la da di la di la"")or the proper name "Gypsy Woman"?
From City Councilmember Letitia James:
"I don't know which is colder, Brooklyn in January, or what the Barclays Center/Atlantic Yards project and the City and State of New York are doing to the homeless families on January 15. Keep this shelter open till it's warm out."
"The Barclays Center is having the city close the shelter, and having the state take it by eminent domain in the dead of winter, and on Martin Luther King's Birthday. This is wrong and unnecessary. Nothing will be built in place of the homeless shelter for decades…if ever. Replacing beds for our city’s most vulnerable -- with a parking lot-- is simply unconscionable,”
Yes it is unconscionable...
The Pacific Dean shelter has beds for 88 families ranging from couples to families with small children. It is scheduled to be shut down by the City of New York, and condemned by Eminent Domain by New York State at the request of Barclays Bank's Barclays Center basketball arena and its developer Bruce Ratner on January 15. Since Barclays is in England, and has no branches in New York, she is asking Barclays to have a heart and ask the City and State of New York to keep the shelter open, at least until spring so families that become homeless in New York's cold winter will have an indoor place to sleep. We need to think of all the homeless, and especially the kids out there in the cold this year.
Crystal Waters will perform her song, Gypsy Woman (She's homeless), with local homeless people to raise awareness of what the Barclays Center is doing, and to encourage the bank to ask the City and State to keep the shelter open till Spring, when the weather warms up.
I think I am still in shock that Fox News is sympathetic to Freddy's cause hence the delay on posting this from yesterday morning's Fox & Friends morning show where bar manager Donald O'Finn and film maker/Freddy's regular Steve DeSeve eloquently state the case. Eminent Domain is wrong!
F.I.B attended the toast to George Will at Freddy's Sunday afternoon. Patron turnout was high in support for the boycott on Barclay's Bank and the belief that Bruce Ratner may end up behind bars for his involvement in a development project in Yonkers where bribery played a role. Click here to read coverage on that in the New York Observer.
Go to Eminent Domain Revolt to see lots of video coverage Sunday's event at Freddy's.
Also! Bar Manager Donald O'Finn and film maker Steve DeSeve will appear on Fox TV tomorrow morning (Monday)to let the world know about this land grab(amongst others) that should be made illegal. The duo will appear on Fox & Friends between 7 and 10 am. Strange times when a conservative writer such as George Will and a conservative television station such as Fox are taking an interest in our fair borough. (and why shouldn't they?)
Bruce Ratner is already forcing a homeless shelter that houses 88 families out because the owner does not want to sell his building. They have to be out by January 15th so he can store his construction vehicles at that site, even though he has no plans to build for a few years. Click here to read the story and see how you can help.
Soooooooooooooo.........
Freddy's Bar is retaliating by attempting to start a boycott of Barclays Bank starting on Sunday. The staff and the patrons of Freddy's even got The Washington Post's attention! George Will wrote an angry column comparing the loss of a Brooklyn neighborhood liberties to the Battle of Brooklyn during the revolutionary war. Like the revolutionary war, Freddy's has declared a war on the British. No not the whole country silly! Just the British owned Barclay's Bank who is involved in this boondoggle. Click here for all the details and links you need.
Here is an excerpt from the extremely detailed press release sent to me by Eminent Domain Revolt:
"Eminent Domain Revolt has been declared in our neighborhood and we are overthrowing the rule of the Real Estate Royalty who keep outdated laws on the books and use the government to do their bidding. We are up against a real estate company that is the second biggest political donor and lobbyist spending force in the state. The law must be changed. Period."
Please come to Freddy's on Sunday at 2pm to toast George Will and drink in solidarity with Eminent Domain Revolt! Handcuffs will be on hand should a situation arises where handcuffing to the chain of justice is in order.
Click here for the details and please pass the word on!
When: Sunday, January 10, 2pm.
Where: Freddy’s Bar & Backroom 485 Dean Street (corner of 6Th Ave), Brooklyn, NY
F.I.B passed by Freddy's as a 9 foot guillotine constructed of Pabst Blue Ribbon cans symbolically decapitated Eminent Domain in a suit. Manager Donald O'Finn spoke as did the grim reaper who questioned the cold war and called Bruce Ratner a "traitor to the country" by collaborating with one of the richest men in Russia to "take Americans from their homes". A dapper Gangs of New York style Undertaker declared "bar vs. banks" smackdowns coming to a "corner near you" before the decapitation.
My pal Brian Berger from over at Who Walk in Brooklyn is on a panel discussing "Eminent Domain Abuse" tomorrow night at the New York Public Library. Check out the related photography exhibit while you are there, details at the bottom.
Brian has also recently reported about that little known Brooklyn neighborhood near the Jackie Robinson Expressway called "Highland Park" over at Kevin Walsh's awesome Forgotten New York site!
Here are some details on what you can expect....
What is the American Dream? Does it mean having a “better life” by creating a home and a community, living together for generations, building and tending relationships to one another and to a place? Or do we create a "better life" by moving up, moving out, removing the old, replacing with the new?
Between 1949 and 1973 urban renewal, a program of the U.S. government, bulldozed 2,500 neighborhoods in 993 American cities and dispossessed one million people. Roots got cut, neighbors and families became separated, languages and cultures were destroyed, and social bonds were broken.
The current exhibition at The New York Public Library,Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City through August 29, features the work of five contemporary New York–based photographers—Thomas Holton, Bettina Johae, Reiner Leist, Zoe Leonard, and Ethan Levitas—whose works intersect and resonate with current concerns about the reorganization of urban space, and its public use, in New York City. Artist Glenn Ligon offers the literal narrative of his own housing in the city. In addition to proposed regulations that threaten First Amendment rights to photograph in public places thus becoming a form of privatization of public space, questions also arise with the current private/public arrangements that characterize much of modern urban development, particularly the legal power of eminent domain, or the taking of private property for public use.
Marshall Berman, Professor of Political Science, City College and the Graduate Center; Mindy Fullilove, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Public Health at Columbia University; Tom Angotti, Professor of Urban Affairs & Planning at Hunter College; and Brian Berger, photographer/blogger, will discuss the use of eminent domain and how urban renewal is changing the cityscape of New York City. Filmmaker Michael Galinsky will moderate.
The Atlantic Yards, a hotly contested developer driven project in Brooklyn, will serve as a focus through which the evening will begin. A short trailer from the film Battle of Brooklyn, directed by Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, will portray the arguments of some of the main players in this current eminent domain debate.
After a summary of how the use of eminent domain is shaping our City, an open discussion with the audience will address what all of this means for the future of NYC.
Starts at 7pm at the main branch on 5th Avenue, Manhattan.
Clilck here for details about the talk. Click here about the photography exhibit.
These are not the actors in the show, these are the real people that this perfomance is based on.Photos credit Jonathan Barkey/pbase
Posts
