There Are Only Two Certainties In Real Estate: Eminent Domain And The Economy

Well, it’s a good thing they rushed to tear down all those people’s homes:

The slowing economy, weighed down by a widening credit crisis, is likely to delay the signature office tower and three residential buildings at the heart of the $4 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, the developer said.

“It may hold up the office building,” the developer, Bruce C. Ratner, said in a recent interview. “And the bond market may slow the pace of the residential buildings.”

Mr. Ratner, chief executive of Forest City Ratner, did not specify the kinds of delays possible, but suggested that construction could be put off for years. His comments are his first public indication that the darkening economy has slowed the ambitious project, spanning 22 acres at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues.

The developer did say he was confident about starting construction on a $950 million basketball arena for the Nets by the end of the year. The arena was to be surrounded by the office tower, known as Miss Brooklyn, and three residential buildings in the first phase of the project.

But Mr. Ratner has yet to secure an anchor tenant for the Miss Brooklyn building, and now plans to phase in the residential buildings slowly.

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

In The Face Of Gentrification, Some Prefer To Keep The Neighborhood Desolate And Uncompetitive

The complaints about Water Taxi Beach, the Hipster Guantanamo temporary-ish waterfront attraction that was established a couple of summers ago in a desolate corner of Long Island City, seem to be coming from the restaurant across the street. You don’t say:

Despite the official and popular support it has gained, at the request of the owner of Water Taxi Beach, a special meeting was held in early March to air and answer charges that the ferry terminal and summer resort on the shore of the East River in Long Island City is a public nuisance. The charges, dealing mainly with drunken and disorderly behavior, are so strong they threaten the continued life of Water Taxi Beach during the summer months.

. . .

. . . detractors said, when the sun goes down on summer weekends, trouble begins, particularly toward and into the early morning. An alleged source of disruption is P.S. 1, the Museum for Contemporary Art, which holds weekend events in its yard on Jackson Avenue. When they are concluded, according to this version of events, many of the celebrants go looking for further alcoholic consumption down at Water Taxi Beach and other places in Hunters Point. WTB gets the main share of attention because it can handle hundreds of persons at a time.

The complaints came mainly from workers at the Waterfront Crabhouse, at 51st Avenue and 2nd Street. They said that many persons, several of them barely qualified to drink legally, come up from the beach and into the restaurant to use the restrooms or to continue drinking. If refused service or told the restrooms are for patrons only, they often become obstreperous and present a problem for Crabhouse security personnel, the restaurant’s workers, mainly women, told the meeting. One of them said she has endured incidents where young drinkers have come toward the restaurant “in droves” and yelled insults she described as “extremely vile” at her. She related being on a smoke break one night when one inebriated man tried to relieve himself in her ashtray.

. . .

[Water Taxi Beach owner Tom] Fox had a few things to say, both in his defense and about changing the situation. He admitted it was bad, though not as dire as his critics believed it was. He said he would move up last call on Saturday and Sunday mornings from 4 a.m. to 2 a.m. and have the place closed and dark by 3 a.m.

Location Scout: Water Taxi Beach.

This As The Declining Number Of African-Americans In Major League Baseball Reaches A Crisis Point . . .

Ah, how I’ve missed hearing the mellifluous combination of “Uncle Tom” and “sellout”:

Amid shouts of “Uncle Tom” and “sellout,” the City Planning Commission yesterday approved a controversial rezoning plan for 125th Street that would create condos, more performing-arts space and a 21-story office tower with such tony tenants as Major League Baseball.

The plan was approved 11-2 and now goes to the City Council.

When the vote was over, opponents booed and Michael Henry Adams, an architectural historian and author of “Harlem Lost & Found,” began a diatribe against the commission’s chairwoman, Amanda Burden.

“You’re a rich, rich, rich horrible person. You’re destroying our communities. You’re a rich, rich socialite. You’re a rich, rich socialite. How dare you! You’re destroying Harlem. You’re getting rid of all the black people,” he screamed.

He was ejected.

Earlier: All Bloomberg Needs Now Is To Give Kanye An Opportunity To Say That He Doesn’t Care About Black People.

Welcome To Another Episode Of When Dogs Get Owned By City Dwellers Who Shouldn’t Really Coop Them Up All Day In Too-Small Apartments . . .

. . . and then attack:

Tyrus, a 7-year-old, 60-pound female pit bull who lives in Apartment 708 in the former Olcott Hotel at 27 W. 72nd St., has run up a $90,000 tab, the building’s residents charges.

The condo is suing her owner for the amount, accusing Tyrus of chasing tenants, defecating in the halls, nearly killing a Pomeranian, and mauling several other pets.

Neighbors call the dog a “lunatic” who stalks the halls, leaving residents and management of the Upper West Side condo terrified.

They claim the owner never walks her but instead lets her out alone in the hall, where she goes to the bathroom and roams free.

“Every time I enter or exit my apartment, I am fearful that the dog in Unit 708 will be loose . . . or will attack,” wrote a neighbor as part of the suit filed late last month in Manhattan Supreme Court.

The owners of Pumpkin, a 4-pound Pomeranian, said they were walking in the seventh-floor hallway on Jan. 31, when Tyrus leapt through of an ajar apartment door and lunged at them.

“She knocked me to the ground and started eating my dogs,” said Elisa Schindler, who along with her boyfriend, Larry Frankel, was with Pumpkin and two other Pomeranians, Sugarplum and Marshmallow.

Frankel threw his jacket over Tyrus. But, he said, the attack stopped only after a visitor came out of Apartment 708, grabbed the pit bull and went back inside without a word.

Blood and fur coated the corridor after the attack, Schindler said. It took three surgeries and about 100 sutures to save the nearly eviscerated Pumpkin.

“I would have been mauled, except my boyfriend pulled me into my apartment and wouldn’t let me save my dog,” Schindler said.

The couple called 911, and responding cops hauled the visitor out in handcuffs. He was charged with possession of cocaine, a police report said.

All Bloomberg Needs Now Is To Give Kanye An Opportunity To Say That He Doesn’t Care About Black People

With any luck, this should make that ridiculous VP talk go away as well:

The street may not be much to look at now, say people who grew up in Harlem during the 1950s and 1960s, but back then, 125th Street seemed like the bustling center of the world.

At Moore’s book shop, a lawyer named Thurgood Marshall was often seen browsing through volumes of African-American history, while at the corner of Lenox Avenue, Malcolm X could be heard proselytizing as a young boxer named Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, listened intently among the crowd.

Up the street, Aretha Franklin or Stevie Wonder performed periodically at the Apollo Theater, and Fidel Castro once conferred with Nikita Khrushchev over lunch at the Hotel Theresa. Blumstein’s may not have been Macy’s, but it did have black mannequins and, at Christmastime, a black Santa Claus.

The street has long been in decline, though national chain stores like Starbucks have taken an interest in it more recently. Now the Bloomberg administration has proposed the most sweeping zoning changes for the street since 1961, when there was a citywide rezoning and 125th Street was at the heart of African-American cultural life.

The rezoning, which is expected to be approved by the city’s Planning Commission in the coming weeks, is part of package of city plans that call for the thoroughfare to be transformed from a low-rise boulevard lined with businesses like hair salons and buffet-style soul food restaurants into a regional business hub with office towers as high as 29 stories and more than 2,000 new market-rate condominium apartments, as well as hotels, bookstores, art galleries and nightclubs.

The corridor between 124th and 126th Streets from Broadway to Second Avenue would be rezoned, which could ultimately force out more than 70 small businesses and their 975 workers and might lead to the razing of some of the street’s century-old buildings.

. . .

“This would be signing Harlem’s death warrant,” said Craig Schley, executive director of a group called VOTE People, which opposes the rezoning. “It is part of the continuing ‘Katrina-fication’ of Harlem, carried out with a pen instead of a hurricane. They intend to remove people in this area, plain and simple.”