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A Little History Lesson:
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Walter O'Malley, the President of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, tried to get Robert Moses to approve the building of a giant domed stadium at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic in the 1950s.
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"As O'Malley told it, Moses wasn't buying [the Flatbush at Atlantic site]. "I just don't want to see a baseball field in downtown Brooklyn at all," he said. "The streets will never handle all the cars. Your domed stadium would create a China Wall of traffic."
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"Where would you prefer that we relocate?" O'Malley recalled saying, Moses replied, "I have a lovely land parcel in Flushing Meadow, at the old World's Fair site in Queens."
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Walter O'Malley looked steadily at Robert Moses. "If my team is forced to play in the borough of Queens, they will no longer be the Brooklyn Dodgers."
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Dodger Stadium finally rose, sans dome, in 1962, but the setting was 2,500 miles west of Flatbush and Robert Moses. Los Angeles gave O'Malley 307 acres and half the mineral rights to whatever lay below. I didn't ask him if he intended to drill for oil. He never had to."
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| Excerpted from: The New York Times op-ed piece, Will Travel for Stadium, by Roger Kahn, 6/11/05. |
| For more relevant and historical information read the Wikipedia article on the Atlantic Yards. |
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A QUESTION: If the "community" organizations who signed the "Legally Binding Community Benefits Agreement" are all legitimate why do only two of these "groups" have websites? Many have received large amounts of money from Ratner as well. They all have neat acronyms though.
Click here to read the CBA (the Community Benefits Agreement) signed by the eight "community groups." Some of them were allegedly created by Ratner. (Adobe Acrobat is required.) |
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| Here are the only two "community groups" with websites we could locate via Google: |
| ACORN - Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now - a legitimate organization which has done some good work in the past. |
| BUILD - Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development - a new organization with little or no track record that was formed and funded by Bruce Ratner -- with help from convicted former-assemblyman Roger Green - whose son works for Ratner. Their website quotes Christian scriptures which may offend some people. (We guess they are not an inter-faith open-to-all organization.) |
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| Here are the organizations whose websites we could not find: (if you have their URLs let us know) |
| AFCB - All-Faith Council of Brooklyn |
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PHC - Public Housing Communities |
| DBNA - Downtown Brooklyn Neighborhood Alliance |
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DBEC - Downtown Brooklyn Educational Consortium |
| NYSAMC - New York State Association of Minority Contractors |
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FATHC - First Atlantic Terminal Housing Committee |
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STAY INFORMED!
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Get the latest Atlantic Yards news daily by reading the following websites:
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| To All Block Residents: |
| Join Our Mailing List |
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| The opinions and concepts expressed on this website are those of the individual author(s) and are not the official viewpoint of the organization. Reader corrections and feedback are appreciated. |
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| All contents copyright 2007, the South Oxford Street Block Association. All rights reserved. |
| Contact the Block Association for more information: info@southoxford.com |
| Website design and hosting provided by WeissmanConsulting.com |
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