http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/developer-seeks-to-defer-payments-on-atlantic-yards-site/?hp
Excerpt:
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as expected, has offered the developer Bruce C. Ratner, a break on the sale of the Atlantic Yards site in Brooklyn.
Mr. Ratner had agreed to pay $100 million to the authority for a nine-acre site where a railyard is located, but with the economy slumping, the developer had asked to defer some of the payment.
Me: I wouldn’t want to waste too much breath on a corrupt process that has come off the rails (no pun intended). However, as an honest person who lives in New York City, watching this deal go down while the Republicans and Democrats have a cosmic pissing match upstate, it is hard not to see New York State as a gigantic toilet where rich developers get what they want and normal folks get it up the ass.
There’s no hesitation in raising fares on subway riders, and there’s no hesitation in allowing Ratner out of the deal he made with the MTA but can no longer afford. They are a match made in heaven. The MTA should be dissolved and Ratner should throw in the towel on this ill advised attempt to stuff his no good basketball team into a Kentucky Fried Chicken Box style arena in the middle of Brooklyn.
How do you look at this deal and say the fix is not in?
