Oddly Timed 2008 NY Observer Article Pumps Up “Ambition” For The Books- A Pitch To Those Who Would Like to Be Trustees of Brooklyn Public Library, If Not Actually Trustworthy

Found on the Massey Knakal a real estate firm website.  Text highlighted in yellow calls attention to the involvement of one of their brokers.   It is probably just a bizarre coincidence that there is a large ad for Baccarat given that when the Donnell Library was sold it was replaced, in part, by a luxury hotel using using the name.

I came up with a wonderful it-only-takes-a-little-reading-between-the-lines New York Observer article from 2008 about who should consider for themselves the prospect of becoming a trustee of the Brooklyn Public Library.

The article came out in February of that year, just a few months after Jared Kushner, the owner of the Observer (and Donald Trump’s son-in-law) had locked in a deal that benefitted from the sale of the Donnell Library that trustees of the New York Public Library tossed out munificently to the real estate industry.. . . The public, of course, losing out.

Interestingly, I didn’t come across the article on the Observer’s site; I came across it on the site of Massey Knakal, a real estate firm, where they had posted it, highlighting text in the article to show how one of their brokers, Landon McGaw, was participating.

The article starts out saying that maybe getting onto the exclusive NYPL board with Stephen Schwarzman of Blackstone (the world’s largest real estate investment firm plus much more) is out of reach when you are “jockeying for position” in New York,  but “what about Brooklyn” for opportunities?

Answer: “Cue J.P. Morgan, CitiGroup and Goldman, Sachs-and government employees (retired teachers and a Con Ed spokeswoman among them).”  Brooklyn is a borough of “Brooklyn's shiny new condos and brownstone conversions.”

Put into the words on one of the people reported on there is, “a eureka-moment story about . . . .  standing in Grand Army Plaza, the traffic circle outside of Prospect Park . . .  the imposing main branch of the BPL, and thinking, This place is changing. . . . `Why don't I engage the library?'"

Consider this startlingly frank assessment from the article (emphasis supplied):

Buried underneath the earnest and altruistic desire to help the library is, perhaps, a touch of social snobbery, a desire to use the opportunities afforded by the New Brooklyn to further one's station in life.

Then again, that's what nearly all New York-style charity has been about, and it's unrealistic to expect this new group to be any different. And it must be said that the barriers to entry are lower. .

The article spotlights BPL trustee Janet Offensend as being the BPL official leading the charge for the advertised transformation, bringing in a new set of individuals who “love a good party” (one must wonder about whether such phases are code words or dog whistles when buried in with the recitation of a lot of other altruistic claptrap.).  The article tells us about Ms. Offensend:

Janet Offensend, a fixture on the Brooklyn charitable scene for many years whose husband is the chief financial officer of the NYPL, is a library trustee who has helped marshal the Vanguard through its first few months.

What is not noted is that Ms. Offensend’s husband David Offensend, mentioned as the chief financial officer of the NYPL, is the one who arranged the sale of the Donnell Library in a deal benefitting the aforementioned Jared Kushner, owner of the Observer.  If you know that you don’t need dog whistles to figure out much more.

For further documentation about the recomposition of the Brooklyn Public Library Board of Trustees achieved in this era consider the following page of information from Citizens Defending Libraries:

Brooklyn Public Library Trustees- Identified + Biographical and Other Information Supplied

Point of disclosure: I am a co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries, formed in 2013 in reaction to breaking headlines about library real estate deals benefitting developers, not the public.

The Observer article appears on the Observer’s website:

The Observer: Brooklyn's Bookish Ambition, By Doree Shafrir, February 22, 2008

And, as noted, on the site of real estate firm Massy Knackle.

One additional little secret to share: I also found the article because it mentioned Ethan Hawke.  Click for more information here: x

Open Letter To New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan Regarding Non-disclosures By Ginia Bellafante and the New York Times In Connection With Article About Proposed Sale And Shrinkage of Brooklyn Heights Library

The following is an open letter I wrote to the New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan concerning an article for which I was interviewed as co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries by that article's author Ginia Bellafante.

* * * *
To: Margaret Sullivan, Public Editor, New York Times
Public@nytimes.com

Dear Ms. Sullivan,

Subject: Non-disclosure of reporter's connection to significant aspect relevant to article about proposed sale and shrinkage of major Brooklyn Library, that private school will benefit very substantially behind the scenes.

I am writing to call to your attention to and ask for your evaluation as New York Times Public Editor of an article written by a New York Times reporter, Ginia Bellafante, with a slant that may not have been discernable to many New York Times readers, but should be very discernible to those who know the facts concerning the subject as well as I believe Ms. Bellafante did.  Ms. Bellafante's editor observes that the article reflects an "opinion" Ms. Bellafante's formed about a very important public issue, whether a major public asset should be sold for redevelopment, the Brooklyn Heights Library, the central destination library in downtown Brooklyn, proposed to be replaced by a luxury tower with a drastically shrunken library at its base.

The article is: Brooklyn Libraries, Development and Misdirected Fear, July 10, 2015

Ms. Bellafante left out of her article many facts, some might think oddly or preferentially, that would very likely have caused her readers to form an opinion, contrary to her own, and conclude that the proposed library sale and shrinkage is unwise.  Her omissions included leaving out the fact that, quite shocking to many, a private school, Saint Ann's, is benefitting to the tune of what is likely to be tens of millions of dollars if the library is sold and shrunk.  Behind the scenes the possibility of materializing this private benefit for the private school seems to be a significant factor in driving forward this public transaction with its attendant public losses.

More important, in terms of letting readers evaluate the objectivity with which Ms. Bellafante was presenting what she wrote, Ms. Bellafante neglected to disclose to them, something unknown to me when she was interviewing me for the article: that she is a parent with a child in that Saint Ann's school that stands to benefit from the transaction she was writing about.

In addition to Ms. Bellafante not disclosing this herself when she wrote the article, the New York Times thereafter chose not to publish a comment on her article (the article was one that was open for comment) that I wrote that would have filled in this omission.  My comment on the article, provided below, noted that Ms. Bellafante disclosed to me, as she was writing the article, that she already knew about how Saint Ann's, a private school, is getting a significant payday (in a currently undisclosed amount) if the proposed sale and shrinkage of the public's library proceeds. Plus my comment noted that Ms. Bellafante and I had discussed the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for the sale and shrinkage of the library in the background.  I also noted that  Ms. Bellafante did NOT tell me during those discussions that she is a Saint Ann's parent.

The Times decision not to publish my comment was apparently made after my ultimately-not-to-be-published comment was forwarded to Ms. Bellafante's editor who, apparently after consultation with Ms Bellafante, contacted me to say that it was not being published and to explain her view as editor that these things were not of concern.  I do not concur with Ms Bellafante’s editor in this assessment and I am providing our email exchange about this below.

Unfortunately, the publishing of Ms. Bellafante’s article was very well timed to influence an important political vote by Brooklyn Community Board 2 about whether the transaction should proceed and was used as propaganda by those attempting to push the transaction forward.

It would probably be worthwhile to consider chronologically the following concerning Ms. Bellafante’s writing of the article.

On July 6, 2015, the Monday after the 4th of July weekend Ms. Bellafante showed up at a hastily scheduled meeting of the Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee.   Because the meeting was atypically being set up ad hoc at the very last minute with notice not going out to the public until 8:55 PM, Thursday, June 30th (essentially for all practical purposes Friday morning of the 4th of July weekend) Citizens Defending Libraries of which I am a part and co-founder of, had a tough time notifying as many people as we could to get the word out that this meeting was to occur.

According to what Robert Perris, the District Manager for CB2 told CB2 members later (July 11, 2015) when distributing and touting Ms. Bellafante’s “observations,” Ms. Bellafante “apparently walked over from her Brooklyn Heights home to attend the community board's public hearing on the ULURP applications associated with the Brooklyn Public Library's plans for its Brooklyn Heights and Business and Career branches” to attend the meeting.

Attending the meeting Ms. Bellafante heard discussion by a CB2 Land use committee that was obviously flailing about helplessly with, for instance, a total lack of knowledge about how much they were actually shrinking the library.  The public was not allowed to speak before the Land Use Committee voted, but it would be hard to think that anyone attending would not have been greatly affected, taking expressed sentiments to heart, when, at the end of the meeting, a long line of community members got up and spoke absolutely unanimously and very eloquently (we should get all our video posted on this) inveighing against sale and shrinkage of the library. No member of the public attending the meeting spoke any words of approval for the scheme.

In news coverage of that night summarizing many of the comments I am quoted as follows:

"This is a very sad vote," said Michael D. D. White, co-founder of Citizens Defending Libraries, which has been fighting the sale. "You've declared open season on selling off of libraries, you've declared open season on the selling off of public assets in general. And you've set the precedent for selling them off at an extraordinarily low price."

See:  the Brooklyn Eagle:  CB2 committee approves sale of Brooklyn Heights Library, with caveats, By Mary Frost, July 7, 2015.  I said much the same thing on News 12 coverage which, with a few short minutes and few words managed to cover other essential points Ms. Bellafante neglected in her article.

Apparently, however, Ms. Bellafante's point of view was not, and perhaps could not be, swayed by the public sentiments expressed that night.  Ms. Bellafante’s editor email to me stated that Ms. Bellfante’s “opinion” that “the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights branch should go forward had already been formed” and, in fact, was formed before she learned that the Saint Ann’s school her child attends was benefitting.  We don’t know when Ms. Bellafante decided she would write her article, but it has come to our attention that Ms. Bellafante was informed that Saint Ann’s was benefitting at least by the evening of Monday, June 29, 2015. . .  which means that her “opinion” was already formed by that Monday.

Tuesday, July 7th, the day after the Land Use Committee meeting Ms. Bellafante attended, Ms Bellafante reached out to me leaving a message on Facebook at 3:42 PM.  See below:

Michael: I am a Brooklyn Heights resident and columnist at the NYT and I'm writing this week about some of the changes facing Brooklyn libraries (both at Cadman and Sunset Plaza).

I was at the Community Board meeting last night and noticed some folks holding up signs and assumed they were affiliated with Citizens Defending Libraries. I'd love to talk to you (and/or you and your wife, who I understand is also very involved in this issue) about some of your concerns. I live right on Willow so could meet for coffee in the AM if you have time or we could talk on the phone if that's easier.

Let me know. My email is  giniab[at]nytimes.com

Many thanks,
Ginia

Ms Bellafante finally reached me the following afternoon (Wednesday July 8th) when she called my cell phone wanting a call back “before 6:30 PM” because she was “on a deadline.”

I called her back and we talked extensively starting about 4:30 PM.  In multiple respects I was surprised by how much she told me she already knew about the library sales.  Although she was contacting me with a stated deadline that was imminent, Ms. Bellafnate’s preparation for her article with its pro-development message the article did not appear to have been be rushed into production. 

Her article, published in the Metropolitan Section, was posted on line Friday afternoon.

In collecting more information from me, Ms. Bellafante let me know that she was already very familiar with many facts she later left out of the article, including how Saint Ann's private school is benefitting behind the scenes if the public's library is sold and shrunk.  She was also aware of the linkage between the sale of the Donnell Library for an inexcusably low price and the virtual carbon-copy replication of that model with the proposed sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library: She said she knew that when David Offensend was at the NYPL overseeing the much criticized Donnell sale, his wife, Janet Offensend, went to the BPL where she was key in evolving the "real estate strategy" and concurrent decision to sell and shrink the Heights Library.

Nevertheless, there were a fair number of things I told her that she didn't know that I noted didn't show up in her article even when I think they were of significance.  For instance, that Bill de Blasio had stood on the steps of the 42nd Street Central Reference Library in July of 2013 calling for a halt to the sale and shrinkage of libraries, including this particular Brooklyn Heights Library,* but then not long after, while developer applications were pending was taking money from the development team his administration ultimately selected as he let the sale proceed through to the next steps preceding the public approval process that Ms. Bellafante was writing about.  At Ms. Bellfante's request I directed her to a video available on the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube channel of de Blasio's July 2013 statements appearing beside us to opposing the library sales.

(* Mr. de Blasio (7/12/2013): "It's public land and public facilities and public value under threat. . . and once again we see, lurking right behind the curtain, real estate developers who are very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties")

Instead of mentioning anything about de Blasio in connection with the above, Ms. Bellafante downplayed the likely legitimacy of suspicions about our top elected officials and the sacrifice public assets for real estate development by suggesting to her readers that such suspicions were a sort of reflexive hangover, an "aftermath of the Bloomberg era" (therefore safely past tense and dissociated from the de Blasio era?).

I was also able to inform Ms. Bellafante, because she did not know, that Scott Sherman, who had written a series of articles about proposed NYC library sales and shrinkages for The Nation, had a new book book just out, "Patience and Fortitude- Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library," that included in it new revelations about just how extremely little the NYPL netted from the sale and shrinkage of the Donnell Library: Less than $33 million.  From that amount must still be subtracted annual rent for a temporary replacement Donnell that started at $850,000 after Donnell, still not reopened in any form, closed in spring of 2008 and also must be subtracted millions of dollars paid to high-priced professionals associated with making that transaction materialize.  That very low net price was for a 97,000 square foot library shrunk down to a largely underground and largely bookless library of just just 28,000 square feet, while the penthouse apartment in the 50-story luxury tower replacing this public building is on the market for $60 million and other apartments in the building are selling for prices in the neighborhood of what the NYPL netted.

Ms. Bellafante did not tell me that she had already formulated an opinion that the Heights Library should similarly be sold and shrunk, but a few odd things indicated she might already have some leanings about certain things . . .  

Ms. Bellafante dismissed with disinterest the inconsistencies of the Brooklyn Heights Association respecting its position on selling and shrinking the library because of the gap in time between when it advocated the library be enlarged and its switch to now advocate that it be shrunk.

The fact that the library was significantly enlarged and completely upgraded with appreciable public expense in 1993, making the building essentially 5 years newer than the adjacent Forest City Ratner One Pierrepont Plaza, Morgan Stanley building, was irrelevant to her.  That Morgan Stanley building is where Hillary Clinton has chosen to locate her National Campaign Headquarters.  “After all,” that (1993) was “twenty years” back at the time the BPL announced it wanted to sell the library Ms. Bellafante reasoned aloud sharing her thoughts.

The Friday afternoon Ms. Bellafante's article went up, I immediately started posting comments to the article to add to it facts and perspective that I felt the article lacked.  Processing of comments was slow with some taking five hours to appear.

Publication of Ms. Bellafante’s article this particular weekend was very well-timed to have an influence on a CB2 vote scheduled for the following Wednesday, July 15, 2015, as to whether the library should be sold and shrunk and Saturday, the afternoon following the article’s publication it was sent around to all the CB2 members as propaganda by the CB2 District Manager suggesting the relevance of Ms. Bellfante’s “observations” to the upcoming vote.  See below:

July 11, 2015 at 3:20:21 PM EDT.

"Ginia Bellafante, who writes the "Big City" column in the Metropolitan section of the New York Times, apparently walked over from her Brooklyn Heights home to attend the community board's public hearing on the ULURP applications associated with the Brooklyn Public Library's plans for its Brooklyn Heights and Business and Career branches.  The applications are on the agenda for this Wednesday's general meeting, to be held at 6:00 pm at St. Francis College.  I thought the members of Community Board 2 and its Land Use Committee might be interested in Ms. Bellafante's observations."- District Manager Robert Perris.

(For what it’s worth, almost as soon as Ms. Bellfante’s article was posted on Friday, 3:04 PM, Ashley Cotton, Senior Vice President and Chief of Staff of Forest City Ratner, another of the real estate parities involved in the proposed library sale and shrinkage tweeted Ms. Bellafante’s article embedding a “thank you.”)

On Sunday, July 12th when I learned in the afternoon that Ms. Bellafante was a Saint Ann’s parent I submitted the following comment to the Times article (I was still awaiting publication of a previous comment about digital books).  This is the comment the Times would not publish:

When I spoke with Ms. Bellafante there was a great deal of information she impressed me by telling me that she already knew,, most of which doesn't appear here.  For instance, the background connections explaining how this proposed sale is modeled on the Donnell sale debacle, conceived at the same time.

Ms. Bellafante also explained that she knew all about how Saint Ann's, a private school, is getting a significant payday from the sale and shrinkage of the public's library in a currently undisclosed amount.  We discussed the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for the sale in the background.

What Ms. Bellafante did NOT tell me and I now understand to be true is that Ms. Bellafante is a Saint Ann's parent, something not disclosed in this article.

Here is what Ms. Bellafante's editor wrote back to me at the end of the next day confirming that Ms. Bellfante was a Saint Ann's parent together with reasoning about my comment that was not being published:

From: Virshup, Amy  
To: mddwhite  
Sent: Mon, Jul 13, 2015 4:39 pm
Subject: Your comment on Ginia Bellafante's column

Dear Mr. White,

I am Ginia Bellafante's editor at the Sunday Metropolitan section of the Times and your comment about Ms. Bellafante's recent column on proposed library redevelopments in Brooklyn was forwarded along to me. The comment was not posted on the site, as I'm sure you know.  But I didn't want to let the moment pass without getting back to you.

I spoke to Ms. Bellafante about any possible conflict of interest. She began following the library issue before she knew that any possible sale of air rights by St. Ann's could be part of the project. She had not heard that anyone in the school was lobbying for the redevelopment to go forward, until you and other opponents claimed to her this was the case. Her opinion of whether the redevelopment of the Brooklyn Heights branch should go forward had already been formed and was not influenced by this news, or by the fact that she has a child at St. Ann's.

As citizens of New York, we here at the Times often end up writing and editing about things that intersect with our own lives. There are cases in which we feel that a reporter or columnist is simply too close to an issue to write fairly about it. We don't think this is one of those cases.

Sincerely,
Amy Virshup

Here is what I wrote back:

Monday, July 20, 2015 9:21 pm

Dear Ms. Virshup,

Yes, thank you, I am aware that the Times did not publish my comment.

When I talked with Ginia she told me that she knew all about the Saint Ann's payday.  I was surprised by how much she knew about this and other things like the linkage between Donnnell and other library sales with the Offensends (from our shared Brooklyn Heights neighborhood*) in the background and somewhat surprised by how much she chose to leave out as too unimportant to specifically mention, and too unimportant apparently to weigh in the balance of her conclusions.

        * We also similarly talked about Mr. Gutman.

Talking about Saint Ann's, we talked about the PowerPoint presentation that Saint Ann's did for its faculty about the library sale.  We also discussed at length the issue of Saint Ann's lobbying for its private benefit behind the scenes to drive forward this transaction where the public incurs significant loss.  I don't know when Ms. Bellafante first became well informed about the Saint Ann's payday before talking to me, nor do I know when she formulated her opinions, but I firmly feel it was, as a matter of good journalistic practice, a matter for her to disclose to her readers.  Ostensibly, at least she was formulating her thoughts when seeking information from me, and perhaps she should still have been.  On the other hand you are suggesting she already had a fixed idea of the conclusions she intended to promulgate before contacting me.

Failing disclosure in her article, I think it would have been fairest to the public and Ms. Bellafante's readers to at least learn that Ms. Bellafante was a Saint Ann's parent via my comment when I offered it rather than blocking it. This would have been especially valuable to have done on a timely basis, because Ms. Bellafante's article was used as a propaganda piece sent out officially by the CB2 office for CB2 board member consideration in connection with their vote before the CB2 members voted.  It was very well timed and well written for that purpose.

I could quibble about other matters in the article that look like they reflected an agenda on Ms. Bellafante's part, but I suppose I will only add that Ms. Bellafante did not mention to me that she was was going to depict Citizens Defending Libraries as having a sort of a feud with Urban Librarians Unite.  I don't believe she mentioned Urban Librarians Unite at all, and she certainly didn't mention her intent to have them comment on Citizens Defending Libraries or offer any opportunities of balance in that regard.

As for the question of when a columnist is too close to an issue to write fairly about it there will be different opinions. I, myself, personally, believe it is often necessary to write about things intersecting closely with our own lives. .  although maybe this is less often the case at the Times where the staff is large.  The lack of disclosure is what is troubling.

As to whether these or other relationships affected Ms. Bellafante's judgement in these matters, some of her logic troubled me like quickly dismissing the oddness of so drastically shrinking a library we so recently expanded (effectively the library is five years newer than the adjacent Ratner building, One Pierrepont Plaza, where Hillary Clinton has located her national headquarters).  Right now I'll leave the question of whether Ms. Bellafante's judgement was affected to others to consider without stating my own conclusion.  It's something I believe you and the Times should still be thinking about.   As for the public, it  won't be able to evaluate the question for itself without disclosure.

MICHAEL D. D. WHITE
Citizens Defending Libraries 
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite [at]aol.com

I did not get a response back.

One additional afterthought I’ve had is that, even if Ms. Bellafante formulated her apparently irrevocable opinion that the library should she sold before she formally knew that Saint Ann’s was getting a great deal of financial benefit in the background, she still formulated her opinion with that Saint Ann's sale being part of the milieu, the background and social environment of people around her, against which she formulated her thoughts.  Without being very careful it is not so easy to say that there was no consequent influence.

The purpose of this letter is not to point out where Ms. Bellafante and I may disagree in about conclusions that could be subjective, but pointing out some of these differences will help indicate instances where more wary and alerted readers might conclude that Ms. Bellafante's judgment was off.

Ms. Bellafante is entitled to a personal observation upon which she describes the library as "dilapidated," especially since she told me that she has visited the library with her son, but it is an assessment we don't share and I directed her to an extensively complete set of photographs including all the space not normally viewable by the public that I believe supports a different conclusion.  While it must be treated as Bellafante's own assessment it seems less accurate than an indication that she was looking to pass along promulgated talking points of the BPL.  Using sarcasm to belittle the idea that there is need for scrutiny because the BPL estimated costs of $9 million in necessary repairs for the library, $3.5 million for a partially out of commission air conditioning system (actually estimated by the BPL as higher than that) are likely inflated, Ms. Bellafante tossed off to her readers a disbelief that library administrators are interested in doing real estate deals, but the BPL's minutes show that when Linda Johnson arrived as BPL president she told her board that real estate deals were her top priority.

While Ms. Bellafante's quoting me about digital books is an accurate portion of our conversation about digital vs. phyical books it is a highly truncated one.  Yes, as recently covered by a WNYC "On The Media" segment and National Notice article, digital books and keeping physical books off site does mean libraries cease to have zones of privacy, but in saying that we are not against digital books I cited librarian John Palfrey's new "BiblioTech" book as calling for digital plus physical books (requiring more, not less, room), and I noted that people tend to prefer physical books (probably in part because they learn better with them- as covered in the Times) so that, despite the push of the BPL and NYPL toward digital books, circulation is way up with almost all of that circulation being physical books.  I also cited the just-out Washington Post article about how much more expensive digital books are and how with a push to digital rental models and increasingly consolidated content control digital books may mean that content winds up just vanishing from the libraries. . . .

. . . Instead, Ms. Bellefante's article uses was written to imply that the Brooklyn Heights Library is being shrunk based on "library science."

In conclusion, I believe that that there is substantial evidence that Ms. Bellafante approached her subject with bias and a fixed predetermination about what she would write that improperly fore-ran her collection and analysis of relevant facts and that, partly because that fixed predetermination persisted the way it did that Ms. Bellafante being a Saint Ann's parent, a school benefitting very significantly from this transaction, should have been disclosed in her article.  Similarly, I think the Times should have published rather than blocked my comment that would have provided an alternative, though less effective, disclosure of that relevant fact.  In fact, I see no reason why the Times did not publish my comment other than the original lack of disclosure might have been viewed as potentially embarrassing.

Had readers been informed by such disclosure there would have been cause to be more alert for the balance that I believe was missing from Ms.Bellafante's article.

Here, albeit with a few overlaps from what is cited above, are things Ms. Bellafante left out of her article:

    1.    The mistake of shrinking this library ( last enlarged with public expense and sacrifice Oct.1993) down to just  one-third size* can  never be corrected, nor can the “replacement” library, stuck in the bottom of a luxury residential tower, ever grow with the neighborhood, CBD, borough or city.  Though this shrinkage is to a preordained size, no replacement library has been designed and  no estimation at all has been done of how many books it should hold.

            (*  63,000 square feet to just 21,000 square feet.)

    2.    The BPL is selling a  sturdy,  readily adaptable library in good shape, together with its land and development rights worth over $100 million (probably $120 million or more) to the public in order to net next to nothing in a transaction that may even incur a  net cash loss.  Further, there is no assurance that the paltry sums, if any, gleaned from the sale,  all going to the city, would ever subsequently go to libraries.  Libraries, highly valued by the public, cost relatively little to fund, but this sale is apt to encourage further underfunding like this.

    3.    This sale would sacrifice one more public asset (an education-supporting one at that) to build yet another new, huge residential tower that would further burden the public infrastructure such as PS8, already at  140% capacity.

    4.    The gentrifying aspects of this project are unmistakable with a public asset democratically serving everyone equally being shut down, lower income patrons coming to the neighborhood  kicked out, and so-called “affordable” housing units built  “poor door” style at a far remove from Brooklyn’s burgeoning downtown and upper crust Brooklyn Heights.

    5.    The developer has  refused to say how much of a payday the private Saint Ann’s School is getting from the public’s sale and shrinkage of the library, because that’s a “ private” transaction, even though  it’s driving this  public one.  Shouldn’t Saint Ann’s be paying the BPL?  (It may likely get more from this sale than the BPL is getting.)

    6.    This sale sets the unfortunate precedent for serially underfunding and selling off other libraries (per the BPL strategic real estate plan) and other public assets (like  public housing) setting a template for how public assets can be picked off one by one.  This developer is making hundreds of millions of dollars: The incentives for other such deals will always be there.   If we can’t stop them at libraries . . .where can we stop them?

    7.    It’s improper that while the developer’s application for this project was pending Bill de Blasio was taking money sent to him by its development team,  in his words:  “lurking right behind the curtain . .  very anxious to get their hands on these valuable properties.”

Here are links I supplied Ms. Bellafante as research resources to supplement what I understood she had found:

    •    This Citizens Defending Libraries page with a handout we gave the CB2 Land Use Committee members (linking to other handouts including the memo about environmental issues).  It links backward to other valuable sources.  Monday, July 6, 2015,  Handout Number 1 For July 6, 2014 Brooklyn Community Board 2 Land Use Committee Meeting- Let's Get the Record Straight! Concerns Re Proposed Library Sale+Shrinkage To be Voted On 

   •    This is the Citizens Defending Libraries YouTube 12-minute interview with the 2-minute de Blasio clip right after the introduction.  BK Indie Media Interviews CDL On Library Selloff Schemes

    •    This is the product of the Citizens Defending Libraries forums we've had on the subject of selling off and privatizing public assets in general.  Our Public Assets Under Attack- A Calamity of the Commons Unfolding That We Must Act Collectively Against- How best To Express It? 

   •    This presentation of the tour photos showing the library to be in very good shape with lots of readily usable space.   In A Closed Library, A Tour of Much The Public Doesn't Get To See- Don't Let Them Close This Library, The Brooklyn Heights Library On Cadman Plaza West, Corner of Tillary & Clinton

    •    This is Citizens Defending Libraries statement of principles posted in connection with the Sunset Park library proposal.  Monday, November 3, 2014,  Proposed Statement of Principles Concerning Any Possible Redevelopment of Library-- Sunset Park Branch.

    •    Reference to recent Noticing New York articles I wrote about the libraries from July and June.

Sincerely,

MICHAEL D. D. WHITE
Citizens Defending Libraries 
Noticing New York
http://noticingnewyork.blogspot.com/
National Notice
http://nationalnotice.blogspot.com/
W: (718) 834-6184
C: (917) 885-1478
mddwhite [at]aol.com

Real Estate Deal Revelations In Scott Sherman’s New “Patience and Fortitude” About NYPL Central Library Plan Fight: Observer-Owning Kushner Family In At Outset of Donnell Sale

I am reading and now am almost at the conclusion of Scott Sherman’s new “Patience and Fortitude- Power, Real Estate, and the Fight to Save a Public Library.”  It’s about the fight to save the famed 42nd Street Central Reference Library from the NYPL “Central Library Plan” that would have also sold off the Mid-Manhattan and 34th Street Science, Industry and Business libraries.

The book’s official release date is a few days from now, but ordering directly from the publisher makes it available earlier, which is the way I got copies.

I am fascinated to see how Mr. Sherman ties it all up, although I already suspect that there will be a few threads left tantalizingly hanging.  The book deserves a thorough Noticing New York review, which I hope I will get around to soon.

In the meantime, the book produces some revelations in what I already have read.  One of them involves confirmation of something that was easy to suspect but was never before reported: The Kushner family that owns the New York Observer was in on the sale of the beloved Donnell Library from the outset.

Two November 7, 2007 NY Times stories about real estate deals that turned out to be connected

Why was that easy to suspect?  As reported previously by Noticing New York, on November 7, 2007 the New York Times published two stories that reported separately (even in two different sections of the newspaper) about two real estate deals that ultimately turned out to be connected: The New York Public Library’s announced sale of the Donnell Library and Jared Kushner’s purchase, for a record-setting amount (taken home by Tishman Speyer) of 666 Fifth Avenue.  Jared Kushner is the owner of the New York Observer.

In my previous NNY reporting on these tandem sales I asked: “Did somebody know when 666 was bought that there was other potential value in the building?”  Why? Because ultimately $30.825 million was paid to the owners of 666 Fifth Avenue for `air rights’ freeing the Donnell site developer from restrictions that would have limited what could be built there.

The purchase of 666 Fifth Avenue announced December 2006 occurred in January 2007, ten months before the announced sale of Donnell.  The Times reporting that November said it was the “first major foray into the Manhattan office market, the buyer, the Kushner Companies.”

Scott Sherman’s book reveals that in 2007:

[Marshall] Rose moved rapidly to dispose of the Donnell Library.  Two bidders emerged: The Kushner family, which owns many properties in Manhattan, and a subsidiary of the Bermuda-based Orient-Express company, which owned the abutting “21" Club.

When Citizens Defending Libraries (I as a co-founder of CDL was part of the interview team) interviewed NYPL Chief Operating Officer David Offensend about the NYPL’s library sales he was evasive about the bid process that wasn’t public so it isn’t a surprise that only these two bidders “emerged.”    It is interesting that behind the scenes, the Kushners, looking to make a second major foray into the market, apparently understood the connection and what it meant in terms of the transaction that would ultimately be structured.

Certainly others understood too, but that connection was not furnished publicly at the time Robin Pogrebin was reporting about the announced Donnell sale.  She was misled by the NYPL’s description of a very different transaction involving only an 11-story hotel, not a 50-story luxury tower in which the inclusion of a luxury hotel would be only a small part.

As the Kushner deal to acquire of 666 Fifth was solidified by the end of 2006 at a then suspiciously high price, it looks all the more likely that the Kushners knew of the likeliness of a Donnell sale somewhat earlier that year. . .

. . .  That, checked against the reporting in Scott Sherman’s book, seems to mean that the Kushners knew the outlines of the deal that was shaping up before the NYPL board knew about or approved it.  Notwithstanding, the Kushners were apparently taking significant action presuming they knew how things would unfold.

2006 seems to have been an interesting year for the Kushners.  Jared Kushner acquired the Observer in July 2006.  Also, as the Times reports, his father was released from prison:

Mr. Kushner’s father, Charles B. Kushner, is a company founder and a newsmaker in his own right. A major Democratic fund-raiser, Charles Kushner was convicted last year of 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign donations. He was released from prison earlier this year.

Interesting thing about the owner of the Observer being involved in this deal?: It’s one more New York City news organ less likely to do investigative reporting about New York City library sell-offs. . .

At 53rd Street accross from MoMA, the 97,000 square foot Donnell on land from John D. Rockefeller out of stone that matched Rockefeller Center's

Mr. Sherman’s book has other revelations.  There are, for instance, revelations concerning the loss the NYPL suffered selling Donnell.   Noticing New York and Citizens Defending Libraries have previously made the point that Donnell was sold to net the NYPL less than $38 million.  It turns out the NYPL netted far less than that.  The NYPL collected a gross price of $59 million for the 97,000 square foot library, much of which had been recently renovated.  It is so far costing the NYPL at least $21 million to build the much smaller 28,000 square foot, largely bookless, largely underground library that will `replace' Donnell in 2015 or maybe 2016.

Additional losses must be subtracted.  The NYPL paid millions to professionals to tell them that its essentially stupid real estate transactions were the opposite of that.  That’s the way that you cover your ass when are doing something that you shouldn’t.

But, if the NYPL had tried to build a library that replaced Donnell full scale it would have lost money on the transaction even taking just these figures into account.

There is more information that will come out associated with the cost of removing the books from Donnell.

Books ready to be shipped off, disappearing from Donnell.  Many illions of books that were in Manhattan Libraries are not there anymore.  And there is substantial cost associated with not having them there.

Mr. Sherman’s book identifies some other costs that turned out to be huge in comparison to how little Donnell was sold for:

the outfitting of a temporary replacement library for the Donnell in a cramped space on 46th Street, which turned out to be a very costly proposition–  [NYPL President] LeClerc and Rose had inked a rental lease whose terms called for payment of $850,000 for the first year (with possible increases thereafter), but the Library also spent nearly $5 million to outfit that new temporary facility.

Ergo, even before recognizing that the NYPL would have suffered a net loss if it had to build a full-scale Donnell, the $5 million to outfit the temporary replacement means that the NYPL netted less than $33 million for selling the library and from that there needs to be further subtractions of the $850,000 annual rents for all the years since Donnell closed in spring of 2008.

Meanwhile, the penthouse apartment in the 50-story luxury tower replacing Donnell is on the market for $60 million.  Several weeks ago another single lower-level condo unit in the building, 43A, sold for $20,110,437.50.  There is also a 114 guest room luxury hotel in the tower and earlier this year Chinese investors made that hotel, according to the Wall Street Journal, “the most highly valued hotel in the U.S.” after agreeing to buy it for “more than $230 million. . .  .more than $2 million a room.”

Having checked via the index, I know that there is one thing that Mr. Sherman didn’t report.

He reported how NYPL COO David Offensend (now replaced- not reported by Sherman- by Iris Weinshall, Senator Schumer’s wife) was a key driver of the Donnell sale and NYPL real estate plans.  Some flatteringly refer to Offensend as a `mastermind' of the plans.

But Sherman did not report that while David Offensend was engaged in such plans at the NYPL his wife, Janet Offensend was named to the board of the Brooklyn Public Library where she was instrumental in the introduction of parallel plans for the sell-off and shrinkage of Brooklyn libraries, including a sale very closely modeled on, almost exactly duplicating, the sale of Donnell: The sale of the Brooklyn Heights Library,   Brooklyn’s central destination library in Downtown Brooklyn on Cadman Plaza at the corner of Tillary and Clinton.*

(* The sale of Donnell was sudden and secretive, but the first ever public hearing about the sale of a major New York City library will be held Wednesday, June 17th, about the proposed sale and shrinkage of the Brooklyn Heights library.) 

On the left the Grand Army Plaza Library.  On the right the Brooklyn Heights Library.  Both central destination Brooklyn libraries were designed by Francis Keally, former president of the Municipal Art Society when it was a vital organization

Where Are They Now?: Sharon Greenberger, Evercore and the Revson Foundation- Selling And Shrinking NYC Libraries

Sharon L. Greenberger in government and now . . .  still selling libraries?

Sometimes coincidence seem just too frequent and sometimes it will surprise you where certain people will turn up.

Sharon L. Greenberger

Back last August I wrote a long article, the saga of the Brooklyn Public Library’s creation and pursuit of a “Strategic Real Estate Plan” to sell and shrink (“right-size”) its libraries, an article put together through the vantage of reading over ten years of the Brooklyn Public Library’s own minutes.   See: Sunday, August 31, 2014,  Mostly In Plain Sight (A Few Conscious Removals Notwithstanding) Minutes Of Brooklyn Public Library Tell Shocking Details Of Strategies To Sell Brooklyn's Public Libraries.

One of the BPL trustees who emerged as a fascinating spearhead pushing the plans to put library real estate in the hands of developers was Sharon L. Greenberger (the “L” stands for “Lee”) who was appointed to the BPL board by Mayor Bloomberg.  She was chief of staff for Bloomberg’s top development dog, Daniel Doctoroff, Deputy Mayor for Economic Development and Rebuilding.

It was Ms. Greenberger who became the key designated leader of a BPL board task force created in the fall of 2008 to promote the "Strategic Real Estate Plan."  She regularly appears in the minutes pushing it forward. She is the one who introduced to the board Karen Backus, the former Forest City Ratner vice president, who was hired to create the real estate plan in 2007 and who in her task force role was responsible for coordinating with Backus and being a conduit for all board comments to her.  Greenberger’s committee in February 2009 also reviews whether to hold off on capital work that needs to be done at the Sunset Park Library, given that a secret “Revson Study” called for that library to become a “Mixed Use Real Estate” opportunity.

That “Revson Study” must be a pretty eye-opening one given that the BPL even now, years afterward, refuses to furnish it pursuant to the Freedom of Information Law as it is required to.

Revson

We’ll be back to Revson.

Back to Greenberger

February 2009 was also when Ms. Greenberg’s real estate committee is reportedly in communication with New York City’s Landmarks Commission to ensure that landmark designations don’t interfere with the real estate-related ambitions the BPL has for its multiple historic libraries.

Greenberg over time winds up in a fair number of other development and government related positions, all of which are interesting. 

Greenberger with NYU president John Sexton

For a while Greenburger was involved with NYU’s controversial expansion plan as Vice President of Campus Planning and Real Estate for New York University.  She was described as having “bolted” from it.  When she left to become President and CEO of the New York City School Construction Authority, Greenwich Village Historic District Director Andrew Berman  criticized her for her involvement in selling air rights to developers while at NYU and quipped that the same thing might now happen to NYC schools, something that ultimately proved to be a very valid concern. (See: Planning czar bolts N.Y.U. for Bloomberg schools job, By Lincoln Anderson, April 19 - 25 2006.

From the School Construction Authority Ms. Greenberger moved on to the Department of Education.  She left there in 2011 following the exceptionally brief troubled tenure and departure of Schools Chancellor Cathie Black, the Bloomberg appointee from the public relations world who had no education experience.

Greenberg wasn’t the only Doctoroff staff person to show up on the BPL’s board.  There was also Laurel Blatchford, a Senior Policy Advisor to Daniel Doctoroff before she moved on to become Deputy Commissioner for Strategy Planning, Policy, and Communications at New York City's Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD).  She later was involved on the private sector side in events working towards the dismantling of the South Street Historic District.

If you read the previous longer NNY article it describes much more about how other Bloomberg operatives like Bloomberg Counsel Anthony Crowell another Bloomberg trustee and First Deputy Mayor Patti Harris, also charged with overseeing real estate matters for Bloomberg, were presiding over BPL governance matters in various ways.

Greenberger and Blatchford both overlap in their BPL board tenures, interestingly with another BPL trustee, Janet Offensend.

Greenberger showed up on the BPL board in December of 2004, appointed by Mayor Bloomberg for a five year term.  This is roughly the same time that Janet Offensend makes her first appearance in the BPL's minutes (September 21, 2004).  Ms. Offensend is interesting as another key BPL trustee associated with the BPL’s library sales although she didn’t get appointed to the board until the end of 2005.  Ms. Offensend shows up in the minutes about half a year after her husband David's assumption of the position of Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL where he would oversee the sudden, secretive sale of the Donnell Library in 2007 and the Central Library Plan, another massive boondoggle involving library shrinkage and the proposed sale of the Mid-Manhattan Library and SIBL, the 34th Street Science, Industry and Business Library, together with the destruction of stacks at the 42nd Street Central Reference Library and removal of its books.

Evercore

David G. Offensend started as Chief Operating Officer at the NYPL in the first half of 2004, coming from Evercore, a private equity and investment firm that spun off from the Blackstone Group, an investment company which has, as just one of its many lines of business, the world's largest real estate investment company, and which is headed by Stephen A. Schwarzman.  Mr. Schwarzman transferred $100 million to the NYPL when it was his understanding that the Central Library Plan would then proceed with its plans to shed valuable Manhattan real estate.  Oddly, months before the relatively contemporaneous Donnell sale was publicly known, there was weird speculation in the press that Schwarzman and his Blackstone Group would be involved in an acquisition of Orient Express, the company that it was revealed had contracted to purchase Donnell when information about the apparently bidless sale came out.

Where Are They Now?

Where is Sharon L. Greenberger now?  Yes, she has been at New York Presbyterian, SVP for Facilities Development and Engineering. . .  But she can also be found on the board of the “Charles H. Revson Foundation.”

Remember that “Revson Study” the BPL won’t release?  That study about libraries converted into  “Mixed Use Real Estate Opportunities”?

Recently the Revson Foundation was one of a principal movers and funders behind “Re-imagining New York City's Branch Libraries” that set up an orchestration of “six interdisciplinary teams to present innovative design solutions for the challenges facing branch libraries.”

More than one set of these presentations was made.  I missed the first one that borrowed Brian Lehrer from WNYC to moderate.  I was at the one at the New School’s Furman Center on January 12th early this year.  That evening's audience was informed that materials were going to be put up the web, but they decided not to put up a video of the evening.  It could have been embarrassing in some respects.

At the end of the presentation, the moderating New School host, summing up, said the following:

And again, as the final presentation has shown, and we will see again hopefully, at the end a library is real estate.  It's an integral ingredient in urban development.  I've studied libraries for years, and many design projects around the country have found it's often a nice placating gesture in a real estate development. You want to do commercial development?: Put a library in it and you win a new public that you might not have had on your team initially.  So in short a library has many fronts and functions.

The last presentation referred to above had, among other things, shown, with accompanying diagrams, how provision of libraries could be exchanged for community approval of real estate development: A better, bigger library traded for an upzoning where it is built, or the upzoning of an entire area surrounding such a library based on the exchanged assurance that surcharges on the new development would be paid into the library system’s general coffers.  Anything paid in by what was referred to as such a “surcharge,” would, theoretically, have to not be subtracted out of the city’s budget on the other end. . . . but that virtually insurmountable problem wasn’t hinted at.

Let developers upzone and get a bigger library?

Libraries as `nice placating gestures' to `win’ public approvals for development? . .

. . . Such enticement plans could hardly work if the public felt that libraries were a basic public service they were entitled to no matter what- And wasn’t such public entitlement the deal Carnegie struck with the city when he donated most of the city's libraries?  It's a deal the city is now breaking.

The only way such enticement plans work is if the public is kept starved for libraries and starved for library funding.  That, perversely, puts people hoping to use libraries as pawns for lubricating development in the camp of wanting libraries perpetually underfunded or even on the brink of extermination . . .

Such enticement plans do not work if libraries, like police, fire and sanitation departments, are looked upon as inherent public goods that pay for themselves because the cost of doing without them would be greater.

The presenters at these “re-envisioning” forums were all propounding themselves as being pro-library and pro-library funding..

The entire evening of presentations, more than three hours even in incomplete form, and even before it was opened up for audience questions, served up some good ideas.  It also served up some silly ones and some other ideas that were ominous and frightening.

The talk about having fewer books at the libraries was far too cheerful.  There was talk about libraries that would be appreciably smaller, their “flexible” spaces less committed to traditional library use with the idea of cramming in multiple competing prospective uses.  One possibility focused on: “ephemeral” small temporary storefront libraries.

As I made the point when audience questions were permitted, when evaluating all of this, what gets thrown out as a smorgasbord mix of good, silly and bad ideas is less relevant than which of these ideas gets cherry picked for actual execution by library administration officials.  The panelist presenters were loath to comment when I asked them what they thought of actual plans materializing against the background of the cloud of ideas thrown up.  The plans we have witnessed actually materializing involve sale and shrinkage of libraries and elimination of books, all of this structured to benefit the real estate industry: Selling and shrinking central destination libraries like the Donnell and Brooklyn Heights libraries,* and similarly the Central Library Plan shrinking library space and eliminating books while selling Mid-Manhattan and the Science, Industry and Business libraries.

(* The first ever hearing about selling off a NYC library, this one, will be held Wednesday, June 17th.)

The fact is that the Revson Foundation, as with the too-toxic-to-release “Revson Study” about converting libraries to multi-use development opportunities has been suspiciously in the background and suspiciously aligned with supporting these development ambitions.

The Revson Foundation has prominently backed Spaceworks, a private firm, technically a not-for-profit, comprised of real estate and political insiders that has as one of its principal purposes the privatizing takeover of space to shrink libraries.  Spaceworks targeted as one of its first guinea pig experiments the shrinking of the 7,500 square foot Red Hook Library down to just 5,500 square feet.  This was although the Center For an Urban Future in a report funded by the Revson Foundation (and promoting their redevelopment) said, somewhat at cross purposes, that New York City branch libraries should be at least 10,000 square feet or more and notwithstanding that BPL President Linda Johnson, given a high profile platform to speak unchallenged at the Municipal Art Society, said that 7.500 square feet for a library was “woefully inadequate.”

The Revson Foundation has also partnered with Urban Librarians Unite, a group that has testified in favor of selling and shrinking libraries and that also supports Spaceworks.  It donated at a total of $32,000 to that group over the years of 2012, 2013 and 2014.

To find in addition that the Revson Foundation has on its board Sharon L. Greenberger, who as a Daniel Doctoroff city development official was key in structuring the BPL’s plans to turn all its libraries into real estate opportunities, is shocking.

Looking at the Revson Foundation board, there is something else to exacerbate concern: Evercore, the firm spun off from Blackstone that David Offensend co-founded and left to work at NYPL selling and shrinking libraries. Revson Foundation board member Stacy Dick was at Evercore overlapping with for a number of years with Offensend.

Greenberger now?  She's just arriving at another institution that caretakes appreciable other assets about which the public cares.  About a month ago the YMCA announced Ms. Greenberger is becoming its new president.  She starts in July.  See: YMCA of Greater New York Announces Sharon Greenberger as New President & CEO, April 7, 2015.   

Takeover of Charitable Boards By Wall Street Financiers With Not So Charitable Values

There is new study on the increasing dominance of Wall Street financiers on charitable boards:  "The Wall Street Takeover of Nonprofit Boards," by Garry W. Jenkins at Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law.  See: Wall Street's latest takeover: Charity boards, by Robert Frank, May 28, 2015.

As CNBC’s Robert Frank summarizes:

the percentage of nonprofit board members in the study who come from finance has doubled since 1989. They hold an even larger percentage of leadership positions on nonprofit boards.

From the report:

As financiers come to dominate the boards of leading nonprofits, it is not surprising that their approaches and priorities have made their way, very explicitly and fundamentally, into the governance of the nonprofit sector.

Among multiple other critiques of the pitfalls of such boards the report notes that “numerous critics have written thoughtfully about the ways in which market-based thinking and approaches applied to the nonprofit sector provide false promise, with the potential to dilute charitable values” and “undermine long-term mission focus.”

Mr. Frank wraps up:

.. as the study makes clear, simply "following the money" may not be the best long-term strategy for today's most important charities.

This report and the Robert Frank summarizing of it apparently assume the good intentions of such dominating board members, their principal concern then being that the approach of such board members will be culturally misguided and insensitive to value that cannot be expressed monetarily

A May 30, 2015 New York Times Sunday Review Op-Ed, “Who Will Watch the Charities?,” by David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, is far more caustic and cynical.  “(W)e should end the charade that all philanthropy is somehow charitable,” says Mr. Callahan.  He cites how earlier this year “a school reform group in Philadelphia offered $35 million to help that city close a funding gap, but demanded the right to open more charters as a condition and wouldn't disclose its donors.”  He warns a big problem with modern philanthropy: “how inextricably entwined it has become with politics and ideology.”  He says:

it’s alarming how in an era of high inequality, private funders have a growing say over central areas of civic life like education and public parks, and how this influence is often wielded against a backdrop of secrecy.

Mr. Callahan says that the secrecy can’t go on, predicting that it won’t, saying that as powerful institutions in American life charities need vigilant oversight.

I am not saying that the Revson Foundation has not done many things of value.  What's more I am sad to be questioning it at all as my aunt, Kay Daly, was Vice President of Revlon in charge of advertising and a close colleague of Revlon’s founder, Charles Revson Sr. who set up the Revson Foundation.  His son, Charles Revson Jr,. his son, is also on the Revson Foundation’s board.

Revson Board

I’ll leave it to the reader to study and try to discern how and by whom influence gets exercised on the Revson Foundation’s board.  I have not yet had time to do as much deep research as I’d like.

Does it matter that Sharon L. Greenberger is really more a development operative hailing from the Bloomberg administration’s Daniel Doctoroff days, than a financier and technically from Wall Street?

Does it matter that Cheryl Effron, a real estate developer on the board, has strong ties to the Bloomberg administration (see this from 2011):

In 2009 she founded Greater NY, a public-private partnership based in the Mayor's Office to engage fifty corporate executives in two-year one-on-one strategic partnerships with non-profit executives to develop new models for social service delivery in New York City.

    * * *

She is a trustee of the Mayor's Fund for the Advancement of New York City.

Does it matter that Jeffrey Goldberg on the foundation board is one of the columnists at Bloomberg View set up in May of 2011 as the editorial division of Bloomberg News, that is “an opinion product . .   to some extent, a reflection of its creator,” Michael Bloomberg, mayor at that time.

I invite my readers to investigate more.  These `where are they now' questions are indeed interesting, but where will WE be without libraries?   Wherever we are, we’ll probably be there without many of our other public assets as well. . . Because, if you can’t stop them at libraries, where can you stop them?

PS:  If it makes you feel any better- or worse- the Revson Foundation has given a great deal of money to WNYC radio which now has on its board MaryAnne Gilmartin, the head of Forest City Ratner (a gatekeeper for one of the library sales, Brooklyn Heights) and has recently run promotional spots that are essentially advertising for Forest City Ratner.

A Multiplicity of Scoops: An Astounding List of Things You’d Discover By Reading The Brooklyn Public Library's Minutes- All About Its System-wide Plans To Sell And Shrink Libraries!

Here’s a bulleted road map to the multiplicity of scary, documented scoops that you need to know are in Noticing New York’s new article: August 31, 2014, Mostly In Plain Sight (A Few Conscious Removals Notwithstanding) Minutes Of Brooklyn Public Library Tell Shocking Details Of Strategies To Sell Brooklyn's Public Libraries.

Each one is potentially a major story in and of itself, but collectively. . . .

Noticing New York has sourced, from the Brooklyn Public Library’s own board of trustee minutes, a history of how the BPL plans to sell and shrink Brooklyn’s libraries, secretly turning them into real estate “opportunities” that would “support economic development.”

Here’s what you can discover from the minutes of the Brooklyn Public Library that constitute BREAKING NEWS, because, before this, the public just didn’t know.

    •    How influential and strategically placed were a married couple, David Offensend and his wife Janet Offensend, with the New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library respectively, so as connect and interrelate in terms of timing, approach and purpose, the sale and shrinkage of NYPL libraries in Manhattan with the sale and shrinkage of libraries in Brooklyn?
    •    Profound Secrecy!: What were the BPL’s instructions about keeping secret the names of libraries affected by its real estate plans? What did it instruct should be kept in "strict confidence" in this regard and what information was kept from the public and those funding libraries?
    •    A problem for incoming Mayor Bill de Blasio?: What is known about plans to lock his administration into the BPL’s secret library sell-offs?  During his campaign to be elected, candidate de Blasio called for a halt to the sale and shrinkage of New York City libraries, including those the BPL was targeting in Brooklyn.
    •    How small has the BPL considered making libraries?  To what postage stamp-size could libraries be shrunk and what did the BPL have in mind in this regard? . .  And what name did it give to what it considered to be the model it would promote?- In what (lucky?) neighborhood was the first such model library intended to appear?
    •    How many critical mentions (and in how many different ways) do First Deputy Mayor Patti Harris and Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Daniel Doctoroff, Bloomberg’s principal henchmen when it comes to real estate and development deals, come up in this saga of targeting libraries as real estate “opportunities”? 
    •    A real estate strategy plan was formulated that prioritized at the top of its list for sale two libraries both immediately adjacent to Forest City Ratner property- What former Forest City Ratner Vice President did the BPL hire to formulate that strategy?   What is to be known about how and why the firm was chosen?
    •    Air conditioning breakdowns?: In the summer of 2012 the air conditioning in the Brooklyn Heights Library `broke down` along with other air conditioning systems of libraries across the BPL system- This was just before library sales were to be announced.  Who was hired to handle this `emergency' and on what terms, exactly how long before it happened?
    •    Brazenness?  In 2012 Sam Roberts of the New York Times praised the library heads for their instinctive and open sharing of information as BPL president Linda Johnson was, in fact, withholding information about the library sales.  How did Ms. Johnson react to Mr. Robert’s praise?
    •    What’s being proposed with respect to the issuance of tax-exempt bonds for the libraries?  Why are powers being given to the Dormitory Authority of the State of New York in this regard and what did now City Club President Michael Gruen say in 1995 about the building of tall towers that could be relevant to the subject of libraries today?
    •    Eminent Domain is a powerful tool that enables private owner’s property to be seized against a property owner’s will. It's a tool that private developers love to have put in their hands by public officials- Find out about eminent domain being a part of the BPL’s strategic real estate plan and what libraries that might affect.
    •    What is the mysterious “Revson Plan” that identifies libraries to be turned into development projects and could possibly prevent your community’s library from being renovated?  Why does this plan exist if there is a separate strategic real estate plan to identify projects for sale?
    •    What were the first Brooklyn Libraries to be viewed as real estate deals, and how far back in the last decade was that?
    •    For which library that the BPL included in its strategic real estate plan did City Councilman Domenic Recchia find funds?
    •    What consultant(s) did the BPL get to tell it in a `needs' study that the BPL should be engaged in “support for economic development”?
    •    How many consultants does it take to say that pursuing real estate deals changing libraries is a bright idea? . . .  And how after-the-fact will their justifications be provided?
    •    What consultant got the better part of $1 million for its work to justify selling off libraries?
    •    What consultant assessing the condition of real estate in the library got what instruction about continuing to work to make their report a more convincing argument for selling libraries?
    •    What telling relevance does Mayor Bloomberg’s promotion of sugary drinks (that’s right, promotion) have to do with this history respecting the sale of libraries?
    •    What are the BPL’s likely troublesome goals with respect to entering into private partnerships and with what big, well-known developer did the BPL enter an odd-sounding partnership as one of its first?
    •    When Brooklyn libraries were in jeopardy from system-wide sale plans what did Borough President Marty Markowitz tell the public that would persuade them quite the opposite, and why should he have known better?
    •    What unknown knock-down drag-out fight did the Queens Library have with Mayor Bloomberg just as Bloomberg was leaving office about whether the powerful exiting mayor would be able to appoint, and leave behind him, a top aide on the Queens board?
    •    There has been a massive story covered by the media at great length concerning charges that the Queens Library is `mismanaged.' What could you read here that may convince you that when you thought you knew enough to understand this heavily-reported story, you actually didn’t?
    •    What is and isn’t in the minutes about how the BPL is getting rid of books?
    •    What is and isn’t in the minutes about how the Brooklyn Heights Library that the BPL has prioritized to be sold?
    •    How little scrutiny did the BPL board give to selling off of libraries and how little objection did its trustees raise?
    •    Before the plans to sell Brooklyn libraries proceeded, what legislation was passed in Albany to restructure the BPL board, giving Mayor Bloomberg much greater mayoral control (like with NYC schools)?
    •    What thought might have been given to the question of whether ethics laws and considerations would be violated by BPL board trustees selling libraries to pursue real estate development objectives?
    •    How much do the New York State sunshine laws, like the Open Meetings Law, allow us to discover about the way power works when real estate deals like the selling off of libraries are being worked on in secret?
    •    What does the sale of libraries have to do with the stories involving the sale of a number of other public assets up for dismantling: Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn Bridge Park, South Street Seaport, NYCHA's public housing, New York City schools, NYU's expansion through Greenwich Village?

Yes, it’s a multiplicity of multiplicity of scary, documented scoops that you need to know are in Noticing New York’s new article, each an arresting story on its own and certainly deserving of even further investigation and follow-up. .

 . . Collectively they interrelate to tell a stark story about how our public officials have strayed far and dismally from the standards the public is entitle to expect.