Neil deMause: The Website

More on the great Brooklyn supermarket showdown, this time with more thoughts on what the conflict means for hopes of a livable city:

The scene on Fort Greene’s Myrtle Avenue on Thursday was certainly bursting with cheap irony: John Catsimatidis, the billionaire supermarket czar and likely 2009 mayoral candidate, being protested by local residents for taking away their only neighborhood supermarket. Catsimatidis, you see, is also a developer, and had torn down a strip of stores including an Associated (no relation to Catsimatidis’ Gristede’s chain) to make way for condo towers. Two years later, the site is still an empty lot; to add insult to injury, the demonstrators charged, the builder is now backing away from promises that the new buildings would include affordable housing.

If you live in one of the city’s supermarket-enriched zones, this might seem amusing — crying over Penn Station or Yankee Stadium is one thing, but an Associated?… [read more]

I report from downtown Brooklyn on the supermarket king who tore down a neighborhood’s only supermarket to make way for luxury condos. (Also: pictures of cute kids!)

It’s undoubtedly not how John Catsimatidis, the billionaire Gristede’s owner and rumored 2009 mayoral candidate, would have liked his bespectacled, slightly pudgy face get public recognition: aloft on a pole held by a Brooklyn pre-teen, beneath the words “SHAME ON YOU!!”

The occasion was a protest by Families United for Racial and Economic Equality (FUREE), the Brooklyn-based low-income group, over a much-delayed development project that Catsimatidis has in the works on Myrtle Avenue in Fort Greene… [read more]

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center site is hideously behind schedule, but the bigger problem is what the city will end up with when it’s finally done:

Last week’s Port Authority report on progress (or lack thereof) at ground zero was a great moment for fans of political schadenfreude, with news of how virtually every aspect of the rebuilding is a shambles, with the new PATH station and 9/11 memorial massively behind schedule, and the whole project more than a billion dollars over budget. Meanwhile, the Cortlandt Street IRT station turns out to be inconveniently located mere inches from where two new skyscrapers are set to be built — who knew?[read more]

A look ahead to Saturday’s Mermaid Parade, which itself is looking ahead to Tuesday’s public hearing on the future of Coney Island:

Coney Island’s annual Mermaid Parade isn’t usually a place for broad political messages, except when reclaiming pasties as a symbol of women’s empowerment can be considered political. These aren’t normal times, however. Last year, as the battle over Thor Equities’ plan for beachfront condo towers heated up, the “Save Coney Island” section was a small contigent of the festivities; at this year’s parade, stepping off tomorrow at 2 pm, expect it to be the major theme.

First off, it will undoubtedly be the first time that the hundreds of thousands of gawkers there to take in the sights will be handed flyers for a city scoping meeting…

It’s hard to find much to add to a story that begins with a young couple trying to evict 15 families so they can turn their apartment building into a mansion, but I give it the old college try anyway:

The Battle of 47 E. 3rd St. - the five-story East Village tenement whose landlords want to turn it into a private mansion - has everything: a five-year legal battle; architectural plans for remaking entire apartments into a home gym and nanny’s quarters; tenants and landlords duking it out by plastering dueling Web addresses (economakis.com and 47e3.org, for those interested) in their windows… [read more]

A brief item on the Voice site on a Coney Island fixture quitting the local development board in protest of the city’s revised plans for redeveloping the famed amusement strip:

Six weeks after Mayor Bloomberg abruptly revamped his Coney Island rezoning plans to include fewer outdoor amusements and more 30-story hotels, Sideshows by the Seashore director and “mayor of Coney Island” Dick Zigun has quit the board of the Coney Island Development Corporation, the city-spawned agency in charge of the redevelopment plans.

“The [original] CIDC Plan promised a world class tourist attraction with an entertainment core: lots of rides complimented by year round nightclubs and enclosed waterparks,” wrote Zigun in his resignation letter, which he posted to his own Coney Island USA’s message board… [read more]

In which I consider the latest rumors that the New Jersey Nets could be headed to Newark instead of Brooklyn, and whether that might not be best for Brooklyn in the long run:

The recent news that a group of New Jersey investors may be working to buy the Nets and move them to Newark didn’t exactly set off shock waves in Brooklyn, which would be jilted as the team’s new home.

Despite all the hoopla surrounding the announcement nearly five years ago that the Nets would be coming to Brooklyn — developer-turned-owner Bruce Ratner cavorting in World B Free’s too-big hat, borough president Marty Markowitz sobbing, “Those tears of joy are swelling up in me — I just can’t wait!” — it’s been hard to find many locals who are waiting with bated breath for the team’s arrival… [read more]

Another not-entirely-accurate headline by the crack editorial team at Metro NY - the issue with Coney Island is that the city is letting developers’ will take precedence over its own, which is symptomatic of a deeper problem:

Over the past week, details have begun to trickle out about the city’s revised vision for Coney Island — and if you prefer roller coasters to Chuck E. Cheese, you’re likely to be disappointed. Under the latest rezoning plan, the proposed “amusement district” would be trimmed to a 9-acre strip along the boardwalk (down from 15 acres in the city’s previous plan), while much of the stretch from Nathan’s to the Cyclone would be filled with stores and hotel towers.

The reason, explained city officials: Local landowners (read: developer Thor Equities, which has bought up much of Coney Island in hopes of building condos) wouldn’t go along with the original plan… [read more]

Or you can just read today’s Dilbert, which makes the same point in fewer words.

The city of New York has revised its ambitious rezoning plan for Coney Island, and some locals are starting to fear that the changes are a sellout to developers:

When the city Economic Development Corporation announced last week—via a New York Times article by Charles Bagli—that it was revamping its years-in-the-works rezoning plans for Coney Island, much was still unclear about the details, beyond that the zone reserved for outdoor rides would shrink (from 15 acres to 9) and more buildings would be allowed in the traditional amusement district between the Cyclone and Nathan’s.

A week later, Coney denizens have started to get more details on the EDC plan—and several now worry that the city is preparing to destroy Coney Island in order to save it… [read more]

The Wall Street meltdown could have unforeseen pitfalls for New York taxpayers, thanks to past city development deals:

Well, that was quick. In the one week since Bear Stearns suffered its total existence failure, stories of developers bailing on office-tower projects came fast and furious: First J.P. Morgan Chase rethinking its building on the former Deutsche Bank building site, then Bruce Ratner admitting his Frank Gehry-designed “Miss Brooklyn” skyscraper would be delayed indefinitely (though he insists he’s going ahead with the accompanying Nets basketball arena)… [read more]