If you’ve been too busy to get involved with the Atlantic Yards project, unmotivated, or perhaps on the fence…now is the time to say “Whoa! Time out!”

As originally proposed, the Atlantic Yards project would overwhelm surrounding neighborhoods, further clog already overburdened streets, create outdated superblocks that deaden street life, overtax public transit, streets, water and sewer infrastructure and create eight acres of “temporary” parking lots that could blight Brooklyn for decades.

But now it’s even worse.

Recently, developer Forest City Ratner acknowledged to the New York Times that it doesn’t even have the resources to construct the signature first phase of the project that would surround the arena.
Now the arena will not be nestled in dramatically designed residential and office buildings. Instead, it will be surrounded by vacant space or more temporary parking, creating a dead zone where vitality was once promised. It’s so bad that New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff (a previous supporter of the project) called it a betrayal of the public trust and a creator of new blight. He even called upon architect Frank Gehry to walk away from Atlantic Yards entirely.

Of course, New Yorkers can’t walk away. Even though plans have changed, buildings are being destroyed to make way for acres of -- nothing. New Yorkers have seen too many holes in the ground dug to advance grand plans that can’t get off the ground. Atlantic Yards is the only large-scale project in New York City that has no mechanism for local involvement. The amount of the project's subsidy has been estimated to exceed $2 billion. But believe it or not, Forest City says it's looking for even more public funds to build Atlantic Yards.

It’s time to call a time out on Atlantic Yards before more demolitions, displacements, and disruptions scar our neighborhood, and more tax dollars go into a hole that doesn’t seem to have a bottom.
Join the sponsors of BrooklynSpeaks.net, the Council of Brooklyn Neighborhoods, Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, Assembly Members Hakeem Jeffries and Joan Millman, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery, NYC Council Members Letitia James, David Yassky and Bill de Blasio and others at a rally next Saturday, May 3rd at 2 PM at on Pacific Street near Carlton Avenue to demand Governor Paterson call “Time Out” on Atlantic Yards.

If you only come to one Atlantic Yards rally, make it this one.