Will Miss Brooklyn Bow Out?

For those of us who try to resist conspiracy theory’s undertow, the March 21 news that all parts of Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Yards project but the arena are “stalled” was a definite blow. No “Miss Brooklyn,” the mixed-use tower set to be the tallest in Brooklyn. No residential towers, containing 6000 market-rate and middle- and low-income affordable condominiums and rentals. And no new, lower-rise neighborhood organized around an eight-acre Olin Partnership-designed park. Instead, Brooklyn might just get the kind of sitting-duck arena that has failed so often in urban settings (see Madison Square Garden, soon-to-be demolished until the same economic crunch that stalled Atlantic Yards did the same to the Moynihan-Penn Station redevelopment).