Freddy’s in Brooklyn is a happening place that has been named one of the city’s best bars by the Village Voice, Esquire, and The New York Times. Unfortunately, Freddy’s—and the surrounding neighborhood—is smack-dab in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards project, a multi-million-dollar, 22-acre development that is intended to create “an urban utopia” in the language of developer Bruce Ratner, and a new, publicly subsidized home to Ratner’s Nets, who currently play NBA basketball (if you can call it that) in New Jersey. But don’t mistake Atlantic Yards as one more instance of the market-driven transformations for which New York is rightly famous. It’s actually the latest case of eminent domain abuse, where private property is seized by the state on dubious grounds and then immediately handed over to private interests for private gain. In this case, the Empire State Development Corporation has designated the thriving area as blighted to facilitate the taking of privately owned houses and businesses without having to pay full market value. Ratner, whose partners in the venture include rapper Jay Z and the Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov, stands to pocket hundreds of millions of dollars on the deal, all thanks to the brute force of the state. This week, a Brooklyn Supreme Court ruling tossed out the eminent domain objections of residents and property owners who had held out for six years and Ratner plans to break ground on the site on March 11, if not before. The workers …
I know Both sides are bad We need all 600+ Politicians out of the office and new PRO Constitutional, freedom loving folk in office to replace the corruption and we need to find a way to keep it from happening again 5 generations down the road.
Is this”the rest of the story”? From Wikipedia:
Clearance was given on June 23, 2008, when the Supreme Court of the United States refused to hear an appeal of the eviction notices and in November 2009, the project cleared what the New York Times called the “final major obstacle” when the New York Court of Appeals dismissed a challenge to the project’s use of eminent domain.[5] When the project was announced at the end of 2003, the basketball arena was scheduled to open in the fall of 2006.
Just vote for the libertarian candidate instead of “holding your nose” – it’s not a horse race remember!
Jay Z is a cretin.
My God. What have we done to our country. The Gov. does not protect the citizens anymore.
The Bill of Rights has become a pry bar against the people used by the federal government. I would swear that it was to protect us from the government. The funny thing is that the US is still the most free nation in the world. Kinda makes me sad that we are falling from what we once were. It would be nice if the supreme court would throw an assist against this private venture.
@iron1215 Nope. America is a Corporatocracy. Ruled by corporations for corporations. How can they see who they’re hurting past the dollar signs in their eyes?
The owners do not even pay for the building of the stadium, tax payers do. Chuck Schumer sucks, and Jay-Z lol is a phonie.
Insanity. No one wants to return to the days when Robert Moses could do whatever he wanted with whatever land he wanted. But this is the other extreme. We can’t build things anymore because a few people are in the way. Compensate them fairly, but get them out of the fucking way!
It’s not your land, you have no right to steal it from them.
Well, not exactly the most free. 8th according to the index of economic freedom. Not sure on the civil liberties side, but we’ve no doubt been dropping there too.
The fact that as screwed up as this country is, we’re still top 10, is a sad statement about the world.
jay z = mason
TheLastBrainLeft,
Your user name is incorrect, It should be NoBrainLeft. If it were your bar you would be crying like a little girl. The wealthy/power hungery pricks in the U.S. have a self absorbed mentality that gives them the idea they can walk over anyone and chaulk it up to progress. That is BS, it’s greed plain and simple.
Look up the definition of facism. I think that is the word that applies to our new form of government.
Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, is a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to organize a nation on corporatist perspectives; values; and systems such as the political system and the economy. Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right of the conventional left-right political spectrum, although some scholars claim that fascism has been influenced by both the left and the right.
@TheLastBrainLeft There’s no reason to use eminent domain for any project like this. There are always plenty of landowners willing to sell if the price is decent. Why can’t they try locating the stadium a block away, or in the Bronx, or somewhere in Queens? Surely, somewhere in New York are property owners willing to sell a large enough piece of land.
Great job freedom fighters !
Steve coined it well “What we have going on here is wrong on top of wrong multiplied by extra wrong.”
“Move the Nets outa Jersey? Tell the Nets to keep lookin’… Relocate them to HELL! We don’t want ’em in Brooklyn!”
Thanks for the vid
This is terrible..taking away their private property for the private gain of the stupid Nets and their owners?
Plus not to mention any other businesses and homes that are located here. And I’m sure they aren’t being compensated correctly.
Wow money can make the illegal aspect of anything go away…Jay Z is a bitch for doing this to his own community
Oh please this makes it sound like they will just get flat kicked out, they would be substantially paid for the property. One bartender is out of work for a little while while the bar relocates elsewhere and a hundred other people get jobs at the stadium center.
The whole “movement” is a bunch of rich people who don’t want extra traffic near their precious multi million dollar brownstones. Cry me a river.
@kiwanukaz why should they have to relocate ???
That’s sad. They lost.