http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/legal-victory-for-atlantic-yards-developer/?scp=2&sq=atlantic%20yards&st=cse
In the opinion, the court agreed with a lower State Supreme Court decision that the state had acted properly in reviewing and approving the project, which includes an arena for the Nets and up to 6,000 apartments on 22 acres. Still, the project has a number of other roadblocks to clear, including another lawsuit, before it can break ground.
Mr. Ratner, however, was elated. “Once again the courts have decided in favor of Atlantic Yards,” he said in a statement released Thursday afternoon. “This project has been reviewed as thoroughly as any in the city and not it is time to put these cases behind us and get to work.”
Me: I believe Americans have been lulled to sleep by repeated statements about how great our country is when the USA is just as corrupt as any other nation. It may have a manifest itself differently but it is still corruption.
And this brings us to the NYC local issue of Atlantic Yards, a giant shitpile of corruption if there ever was one. If you’re located outside of New York City, you might be able to view this project like you view something corrupt where you live. The Big Dig in Boston, the trailers with formeldahyde in them in New Orleans, it’s all part of a great American tradition.
Mr. Ratner and Mayor Bloomberg will claim that all the t’s have been crossed and all the i’s have been dotted. But every city and state bureau that has signed off on Atlantic Yards has been chock full of political appointees of pro-Yards Bloomberg and and pro-Yards Pataki. Ratner has spread money around New York State like crack in the ghetto.
Let’s face it, these giant development projects are giant jerkoff fantasies by egomaniacal developers and politicians. They can’t stand it when someone opposes them and they will spend infinitely because they can’t stand the idea that they can’t do what they want to do. And this is anti-democratic, another contention of this blog. In this country, money trumps good sense and democracy almost every time.
So congratulations on your legal victory, Bruce Ratner. Every day I hope your lungs collapse and you leave our city and this planet in peace.
