What’s NOT Cancelled This Saturday: Anna Dagmar, Anothony da Costa and Caitlin Canty at First Acoustics

Red Molly at First Acoustics most recent show, the Saturday before superstorm Sandy arrived

Superstorm Hurricane Sandy changed around plans for a lot of people and it’s got to be acknowledged that for those most affected things won’t be the same again and such recoveries as may still be in store could be a long way off.

One way in which things changed for many, although much less drastically, is that music performances touted by Noticing New York as alternatives for those eschewing the Ratner/Prokhorov-owned “Barclays” Center were cancelled.

Coco Wilde, who runs First Acoustics cancelled the Saturday, November 3, 2012 evening performances of Suzie Vinnick appearing that night with Friction Farm.  (In terms of time frame, that Saturday night was the evening preceding the marathon that the Bloomberg administration belatedly cancelled.)  So, although I had promised this as one Saturday night’ alternative to Barclays fare it didn’t happen.  I don’t know if it was any more irksome for those determined to go out and entertain themselves in that week following the storm that although Coco cancelled the First Acoustics night, the Barclays Center was open for a basketball game that night.  During the recovery fray, the city and MTA mobilized special bus service in support of the event at the 18,000 seat arena.  If you remember, the subways weren’t coming to Brooklyn.

Coco says that Suzie Vinnick and Friction Farm will now perform in next year's 2013/2014 season.  She says those with tickets for the cancelled night can use them for the next season performance, use them instead for (or bring friends to) another concert this season, or she will refund them.

Another event that didn’t happen was Shepley Metcalf’s Thursday, November 1st performance at the Metropolitan Room singing the songs of Laura Nyro.  Lower Manhattan was still without electricity at that point and that meant the Metropolitan Room on 22nd Street just west of the Flatiron building was dark and closed.  And it would have been quite difficult for us Brooklynites to get to anyway without subways and no special supporting bus service for the establishment supplied by the city and the MTA.

Shepley Metcalf at the Metropolitan Room on the 10th

I can report, however, that nine days later with power restored to lower Manhattan together with much of the subway service linking Brooklyn to Manhattan, Shepley did make her second scheduled performance at the Metropolitan Room.  The place was packed.

I can also advise you that this Saturday’s First Accoutics evening featuring Anna Dagmar, Anothony da Costa and Caitlin Canty is going ahead as planned.

Metropolitan Room coming attraction for Pia Zadora

First, to bring you up to date, Shepley’s performance was ultimately wonderful and whereas in looking forward to it I wrote about Barbra Streisand’s period of covering Laura Nyro songs, in her show Shepley mentioned that too and unveiled a curious little surprise in that regard: She invited everyone in the audience for a visit downstairs following her performance so that she could prove she had pictures of a young Streisand attending her father’s wedding to her step-mother.  (Noticing New York has been paying special attention to Streisand recently given the questionable lapses associated with her performance at the “Barclays” Center so this extra coincidental connection to our cousin Shepley is interesting.)

I couldn’t help noticing, while at the Metropolitan Room, that they had posters up for upcoming performances by Pia Zadora.  I don’t know what others in the world who don’t have the associations with Ms. Zadora that I do think of her.  There’s an ample variety of reasons people are apt to think a lot about Ms. Zadora, starting with the fact that she famously starred as the Martian Princess in the 1964 film  “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.”  My associations involve a fun-to-tell story (but I won’t tell it here) story that involves my good friend from high school, Randy Morrison going back to when Pia was performing in “Henry, Sweet Henry,” the Broadway musical adaption of the “The World of Henry Orient” with Don Ameche.  Pia does a wonderful version of “I Thought About You,” one of our favorite songs, a song that claimed our attention mightily when it ws performed as a duet by Cynthia Holiday and Jim Malloy, backed by the Bob Cunningham trio, at First Acoustics.

You may want to know that the most recently held First Acoustics performance, held the Saturday before that odd Sunday the subways were closed in anticipation of the pending storm, went spectacularly.  The women of Red Molly, called back repeatedly by applause, found themselves confessing that they had run out of encores, and had to improvise.  Penultimately, they sang our entrancing favorite, an a capella version of Susan Werner's "May I Suggest."  And they finished up- I recall the suggestion came form the audience-  with "Fever."

Abbie Gardner after Red Molly's performance

Afterwards, I was able to confirm by talking to Red Molly’s Abbie Gardner that her, separate-from-the-group “My Craziest Dream” performance was going to involve backup support from her musician, song-writing father.  I don’t know if it actually happened since that event was scheduled for November 3rd in Dobbs Ferry and Westchester, as we know, was also exceedingly challenged by power problems.  It’s a performance I someday want to catch.

I knew I was going to love seeing Red Molly at First Acoustics a second time and since I last saw them they have been very busy writing dulcetly superb new songs.  The extraordinary pleasure I hadn’t experienced before was seeing the energetic Union Street Preservation Society.  Their music went straight into my preferred playlist afterward and I told Coco she has to plan on having them back again, sooner rather than later.  I told her she had to because, as extraordinarily good as they were that Saturday night, I argued we were only getting 80% of what they were capable of: They are regularly a five member (sometimes more!) band and one of their number had taken off that night because his wife just had a new baby.  If they are this joyously good at 80%, I said, think what they will do at 100%.

Union Street Preservation Society at First Acoustics the Saturday before the subways were shut down

It turns out that Union Street Preservation Society has a background performing at Freddy's, the local bar and music venue that was razed along with a lot else to make way for the "Barclays" Center.  They performed there not long before it was closed and they have now been performing at the new, reincarnated Freddy's farther out in Brooklyn the third Friday of every month.  Union Street Preservation Society guitarist David Leiberman also recommends an upcoming integrated performance they will be doing with Andy Statmen and his trio at Barbès in Red Hook, January 17, 2013.  Red Hook was hard hit by the storm and Barbès soon hosted benefit concerts for storm relief.

I think that Mr. Leiberman, who was front and center much of that First Acoustics night, was taken, when I talked with him after USPS's performance, with my idea that any musicians deigning to perform at the highly subsidized "Barclays" Center should kick back their subsidy so that we can reduce by maybe $20 per, the cost of tickets to real local music entertainment in Brooklyn.

What to expect this Saturday night?  You could just let yourself be in for a surprise. .  That’s a fabulous way to approach the Saturday nights of life. . .

I have not yet heard any of the three acts performing Saturday night but the beauty of the internet is such that its connectivity makes it so easy to peek and guess about what the future might hold.

Here's video of Anna Dagmar . . . would you say there’s a classically yearning relentlessness to the rhythms?  Like an old Irish or English folk song?  Coco assures me that on Saturday Dagmar, a pianist, IS bringing a classical quartet to back her up.




And here is a video for Anothony da Costa . . .  Quiet, exact,  rolling guitar picks and wistful remorse?





Lastly, not leastly, we have video of a Caitlin Canty ballad, one of four videos up her website. . . This is slow and pretty; she also has video of faster music.



Hope to see you at the concert in Brooklyn Heights Saturday.  More information about First Acoustics and the rest of this season’s performances is available and linked to in this article: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, Alternatives To The Scandalously Spawned, Scandalously Named Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center: Protest & Locally Nurtured Concerts.

Bloomberg Asks Runners In Now Controversial Marathon To Donate To Hurricane Relief: Will Similar Request Be Made Concerning Nets Game?

Mayor at this afternoon's press conference where he said marathon runners should donate to hurricane relief efforts

(Added 5:34 PM: Note Breaking news addendum about marathon cancellation at the bottom of this post.)

At his mayoral press conference this afternoon on the measures being taken to put New York City back on its feet after superstorm Hurricane Sandy Mayor Bloomberg addressed the controversial decision to go ahead with the city’s annual marathon, as scheduled, starting Sunday morning.

At his mayoral press conference yesterday Bloomberg linked discussion of proceeding with the marathon with plans for the scheduling of the Nets inaugural basketball game at the so-called “Barclays” Center.  That opening game, which was postponed, is now being held the Saturday night before the marathon.  Bloomberg had originally wanted the opening Knicks vs. Nets game to be held Wednesday night, even without working mass transit and even though it was hard on the heals of Monday’s storm.

At this afternoon’s conference Bloomberg told everyone that the marathoners participating on Sunday morning were being asked to contribute $26.20 each toward hurricane relief, apparently as a measure to make proceeding with the marathon more acceptable despite the fact that, inevitably, some public resources will have to be diverted into the marathon while the city, particularly Staten Island where the marathon starts, is still dealing with significant storm recovery efforts on multiple fronts.  (The amount of $26.20 was chosen to represent the 26.2 mile length of the Marathon.  The mayor says he hopes some marathoners will contribute more.)

The city will also be diverting appreciable resources in support of Saturday night’s basketball game.  Will the Nets and "Barclays" arena owners (Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov) similarly be asked to make special donations toward hurricane relief to offset likely public irritation about public resources being diverted to their enterprise while hurricane relief is still so importantly underway?  Maybe.  The thing is that the diversion of public resources into the Nets and the “Barclays” Center is already way beyond outrageous and that is why Noticing New York publicly urged that Barbra Streisand write a check for $700,000.00 to the public (or whatever part of that amount her conscience dictated) as reparation for the vast amount of public subsidy that can be attributed as the public cost of her two concerts performed at the “Barclays” arena.  See: Friday, October 19, 2012, Political Thoughts In Her Email Aside, Streisand Owes Response To Community Letter Asking “Why Play Barclays?” Plus Maybe A $700,000 Check!

The "Barclays" Center advertising oculus showing Barbra Streisand, one of the singers who has not answered an open letter from the community questioning why she was performing at the Ratner/Prokhorov arena 

If the Nets and “Barclays” owners write a check will the amount begin to cover the subsidy poured into the arena?

Also at this afternoon’s press conference the mayor itemized a credited list of contributions toward hurricane relief from firms like Goldman Sachs and real estate firms upon whom Bloomberg has gone out of his way to confer benefit.  The list was like a commercial for those firms.  Will the donations be in any way equal to the public cost of benefits Bloomberg has conferred on such firms during his tenure as mayor?

I doubt it.

Addendum, at 5:34 PM:  Note the following breaking news: The marathon has just been cancelled (shortly after this post went up) by the Bloomberg administration.  In terms of the equivalencies in play that puts a lot of extra pressure on the administration to postpone or cancel the Saturday night basketball game as well.  Right now people are saying about the marathon that a sports event cannot take precedence over the recovery efforts. 

More Alternatives As You Shun The LIBOR Scandal Center: Shepley Metcalf Singing Laura Nyro At Metropolitan Room & Reminder on Red Molly

Planning on shunning the Barclays (LIBOR scandal) Ratner/Prokhorov arena?  Here are some alternatives if you are interested in good music.

This Saturday Evening: Hot Ticket of Red Molly and Union Preservation Society

Let me put this reminder first since I couldn’t fit all the bounty in this post’s title: Red Molly and the Union Preservation Society are performing at First Acoustics this Saturday, October 27, 2012, at 8:00 PM.  I suggest both getting tickets in advance and arriving early as this is an especially hot ticket.  (First Unitarian Congregation at the corner of Pierrepont and Monroe Streets in Brooklyn Heights)

Red Molly at First Acoustics Concert March 19, 2011

I I rank the perfect blending harmonies of Red Molly extraordinarily high as an experience, having seen them at a previous First Acoustics evening.

I wrote about them and songs they perform like May I Suggest” (by Susan Warner) together with more about the offerings this First Acoustics season here: Wednesday, September 19, 2012, Alternatives To The Scandalously Spawned, Scandalously Named Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center: Protest & Locally Nurtured Concerts.

Red Molly's Abbie Gardner Above with Pat Pictor: They sing a duet Wictor wrote,  “A Little Love Is Gonna Do”

I also have my eye on Red Molly’s Abbie Gardner.  In the above post I wrote about her “My Craziest Dream” album of American Songbook music, with her father providing some backup and performing his own “Staten Island” composition.  I see that Gardner, in her own right, has another Unitarian-hosted “swing dance” coffee house appearance (“Common Ground” Community Concerts- Get it?) with the “The Craziest Dream Band” up in Dobbs Ferry, New York coming up on November 3rd.  (South Presbyterian Church, 343 Broadway, Dobbs Ferry NY)  I wonder what pleasures are in store and if her father will be there backing her up?

The multi-membered Union Preservation Society opening Saturday night for Red Molly sound like they can provide some really raucous fun but they also have a sweet, simple Shaker song demonstrating their wares on their website.
 
First Acoustics Concert: Buskin & Batteau and Freebo

Freebo at First Acoustics earlier this month with Buskin and Batteau joining him on stage

The previous First Acoustics concert, the beginning of the month was  Buskin & Batteau and Freebo.  Freebo is fantastic at relating to the audience and I liked the fact that he also ventured to talk politics- politics I took a shine to.  Still when I talked with him during the intermission he said he was quite conscious about how the core to his work is a message of inclusion.

Marshall in background backing up Buskin & Batteau

Buskin & Batteau go way back with a solid reputation so I don’t need to burnish it more. . .

. . .  I found myself fascinated watching percussionist Marshall Rosenberg backing them up, mostly playing the drums with his hands, occasionally brushes.  What was most fascinating is not what Marshall played- it was what he didn’t play.  He had all sorts of minimal effects and was prone to use them minimally.  I talked with him afterward and he said he was incredibly mindful of the importance of the “spaces” in the music.  Watching him involved almost Hitchcockian suspense: You could see Marshall’s eyebrow rise. . . you could feel something was coming. . . whenever it came it would be perfect . . . what would the perfectly-picked punctuation be?. . . in his intent look you knew he knew exactly . .  and then Gloriosky!  Something so minimal and just right!  

Shepley Metcalf Performing Laura Nyro Songs at Metropolitan Room

Cousin Shepley Metcalf will be back again at the Metropolitan Room, this time performing the songs of Laura Nyro.   She’ll be there Thursday, Nov. 1st at 7 pm and Saturday, Nov.10th at 9:30 pm.   When Shepley was last at the Metropolitan Room she was interpreting the songs of Fran Landesman (which you can read about here)

Nyro is an influential  '60s songwriter performer, a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, who died in 1997.  Shepley’s usual  repertoire is American Songbook so this is considered something of a departure for her though Nyro “fuses elements of soul, folk, jazz and Broadway tradition” to create the Nyro sound that has a lot in common with the songs of the Songbook.  In her last semi-detour from the Songbook Shepley called attention to Fran Landesman as a songwriter.  Landesman wrote one jazz standard,  “Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most,” considered to be part of the Songbook.  Her other songs unveiled relatively recently with music composed by Simon Wallace provide numerous candidates for addition.  (Her songs started as poems.)

Nyro songs included in Shepley’s new “Can You Surry?” set include “Stoned Soul Picnic,” “Eli's Coming,” “And When I Die,” and “Billy's Blues,” “Emmie,” “Luckie,” and “I Never Meant to Hurt You.”

Since the subject of Barbra Streisand may be on the minds of people shunning the “Barclay’s” arena environment, we might note that Streisand, a Nyro fan, covered Nyro’s above mentioned, “I Never Meant to Hurt You.”  Streisand also famously covered Laura Nyro’s “Stoney End,” even giving her twelfth album the name of that song which album also has Nyro’s “Time and Love” and “Hands Off the Man (Flim Flam Man)”.

Below is a video teaser for Shepley's upcoming Nyro song gig at the Metropolitan Room.



Tickets are now ready for purchase from the Metropolitan Room by calling ( 212-206-0440) or visiting the web.

Shunning "Barclays"

So those are some of the current bounty of alternative choices for those participating in my suggested seven year shunning of the so-called “Barclays” Center.  (If you need to catch up: I am suggesting the Ratner/Prokhorov arena be shunned and that both patrons and performers eschew going there for at least seven years- or until the arena goes bankrupt so that ownership gets taken back and given to the public.)

You don't have to shun the "Barclays" Center: You can also enjoy the above performances as I suggest even if you don’t participate in the shunning.  (And I can’t swear that any of the performers mentioned and promoted here have taken an oath to avoid the arena- though maybe they will.)

If you are one of those deciding to patronize the arena and decide to also come to any of these performances you will probably realize that, with them, you are getting far better value and a much more intimate venue.  If nothing else the water is vastly cheaper than $4.50 water bottles they are selling at the arena.  The water at First Acoustics, like the water at Freddy’s Bar (a local music venue the arena displaced through eminent domain abuse) is free.  I haven’t checked but New York water is likely also free at the Metropolitan Room.

The tickets at the Barclays (and all the other associated charges- whether or not you expect them) are expensive, expensive enough so that you may feel fooled and foolish paying them. . .  But the thing to remember is that with all the public subsidy that Ratner and Prokhorov are pocketing and the harm they have caused the community, every ticket the arena sells actually costs a lot more.

That is why I am asking that Barbra Streisand write a $700,000 check to compensate the public for all the subsides that went to Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov for her two concerts at the arena.  We may applaud Ms. Streisand for her political support of President Obama but what would really do the most to  make the world a better place would be meaningful acts on everyone’s part, including Ms. Streisand’s,  to forestall a world where as Mr. Obama tells us the “economy grows slower” because “a few folks are doing very well at the top [like Ratner and Prokhorov] and everybody else is getting squeezed. [Like the residents of the neighborhood evicted by them and the taxpayers subsidizing them] ”

The fact of the matter is that not everyone has to shun the arena in order for it to fail: Lots of people can go to it, lots of performers can decide to perform there, putting subsidy in the Ratner/Prokhorov pockets.  But profits are made at the margin.  All it takes is for a reasonable percentage of possible patrons and quality performers to shun the arena for what it is and represents, and it can go down in a well-deserved spiral of decline.

Most Important Thing About Economy + Central Issue In Election: Obama On Jon Stewart’s Daily Show Rejects Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Paradigm

Obama on Jon Stewart 10/18/2012 with a pinch representing Ratner and Prokhorov amongst the few benefitting from a skewing of wealth that slows the economy

President Barack Obama appeared on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show last week and at about thirteen minutes into the program (6:05 in this video) he stated clearly what he said was “the most important thing is when you think about the economy” and what he said was “the central issue in this election” which must be addressed.

And then President Obama rejected as detrimental to the nation’s economic growth the paradigm that fundamentally underpins the creation and extraordinary government assistance to the Bruce Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov-owned “Barclays” Center and the larger Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly of which the Jay-Z-promoted “Barclays” Center is a part.

Citing the historical record for authority, Mr. Obama stated what many of us (perhaps not every Republican) might consider a basically self-evident truth: That economic growth is impaired by setting up the economy so that “a few folks are doing very well at the top and everybody else is getting squeezed.”

This is the same point I made just days ago, responding to an email I received from Barbra Streisand in which she asked me to support President Obama.  I said that the case she made for Obama and his agenda would have been much more compelling had she focused in on this disparity in wealth as the most central and important of this election’s issues.  I even commented how the International Monetary Fund has issued a report saying that this “widening disparity” in wealth is gumming up and slowing down the U.S. economy.  I likened it to how things grind to a halt at the end of a Monopoly game, when further moves cease to be possible because all the money is piled up in one place.  (See: Friday, October 19, 2012, Political Thoughts In Her Email Aside, Streisand Owes Response To Community Letter Asking “Why Play Barclays?” Plus Maybe A $700,000 Check!)

The Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly and the so-called “Barclays” Center that spearheads it is a glittering example of what not to do if the economic precepts cited by Obama are of concern to anyone.  As I keep saying: The heaped-up gleam and glitter of the “Barclays” Center seized and hoarded by the wealthy Ratner and Prokhorov, just like a folkloric pirate treasure chest, symbolizes exactly this kind of piled-up, economy-destroying redistribution of wealth.

And it is because of the huge amount of public subsidy that has been directed into the “Barclays” Center that, when Barbra suggested that I send money to support Obama and his agenda, I, in turn, suggested that Ms. Streisand write a $700,000 check to compensate the public for all the subsides that went to Ratner and Prokhorov for her two concerts at the arena.

No doubt you want to know what Obama said about the economic effects of skewing benefit to a few and exactly how he said it.  Here is his statement:

The most important thing is when you think about the economy, I am absolutely convinced that, when you look at the historical record, that when middle class families do well, when there are ladders of opportunity for poor families to get into the middle class, the entire economy does well, and when a few folks are doing very well at the top and everybody else is getting squeezed the economy grows slower.  And that is the central issue in this election that we've got to make sure we address.

You see that little pinch Obama is making with his fingers above?  That little pinch is Mr. Obama referring to the “few folks” like Mr. Ratner and Mr. Prokhorov who we have been setting up to do “very well at the top” with schemes that squeeze “everybody else” and slow the economy like Atlantic Yards and its “Barclays.”

I know that not everybody is always going to follow through to make all these connections. . .

. . .  The New York Times as a prime example doesn’t make such connections and is unlikely to observe how all of the following, to compile just a short list, are all of a piece with the preferential transfer of wealth to Ratner and Prokhorov going on in Brooklyn: The fact that, despite what Romney initially told the public, his tax liability for 2011 turned out to be a mere ten percent; that the wealthy pay proportionately less (increasingly so) of their income into the Social Security System but are taking escalating benefit from it, the harm to the public from the ongoing Barclays LIBOR scandal and the Times ongoing reality and fact-skewing promotion of Jay-Z and the “Barclays” Center.

I know also that politicians don’t also follow through on all the precepts they express when running for office. . .

. . .  But isn’t it interesting that Obama in a tight, hard-fought election rejects the foundational underpinnings that brought us the “Barclays” Center and Ratner’s Atlantic Yards mega-monopoly?

(Below is interview where Obama's statement is at 6:05)

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Political Thoughts In Her Email Aside, Streisand Owes Response To Community Letter Asking “Why Play Barclays?” Plus Maybe A $700,000 Check!

The "Barclays" Center advertising oculus showing Barbra Streisand, one of the singers who has not answered an open letter from the community questioning why she was performing at the Ratner/Prokhorov arena 

Does Barbra Streisand owe the local citizens of her native Brooklyn and New York $700,000?  The way I figure it maybe she does.  Maybe we should send her a bill asking for her check.

Ms. Streisand Owes Community A Response To Letter

No matter what, Ms. Streisand still owes the community a response to the open letter that Develop Don’t Destroy sent to her and Leonard Cohen asking: `Why are you playing the “Barclays” (as in LIBOR scandal) arena?'

The so-called “Barclays” Center (that Streisand has now already played without responding to that letter) is, of course, the arena owned by developer/subsidy collector Bruce Ratner and Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.  It’s gone a long way to corporatize Brooklyn while representing a vast transfer of wealth from the many to the few.

What Ms. Streisand Owes To The Public For Subsidizing Her Concerts

I am not suggesting that Barbra may owe $700,000 to New York citizens because of the long list of complaints the community says it is suffering because that arena was shoehorned into the middle of Brooklyn brownstone neighborhoods (overriding zoning restrictions that prohibit an arena closer than 200 feet to residences).  (See: Wednesday, October 17, 2012, Bullet Points: Community Objections to “Barclays” (LIBOR) Arena Operations (Most Relate Back To Zoning Override Locating Arena Close To Residences) .

. . Nor is it because that it was for “Barclays” that Freddy’s bar (a local music venue) and other Brooklynites and businesses were evicted by eminent domain abuse to make way for Barbra. . .

. . . .  I am suggesting that when you do the calculations the subsidy forcibly exacted from the public for performances at the “Barclays” Center can be assessed as coming to about $20.00 per seat per performance.  (See: Wednesday, October 10, 2012, Weighing The Change In Brooklyn: The True Cost Of “Barclays” Center Glitter, The Cost Of “Barclays” Center Tickets.)  If the resulting subsidy to the Streisand concerts is calculated at their reportedly sold-our capacity in an 18,200 seat arena (or, to be precise should that figure be rolled back to 17,732 if the arena operators didn’t actually finish installing the seats yet?), you can do the multiplication (move the decimal point, multiply by 2 and then by 2 again, the second time to take into account both of Streisand’s two concerts) and that comes to over $700,000 (or, more precisely, $.709 Million plus change).

The Streisand concerts may have been considered a big success but they were a big subsidized success.

The exact figures are hard to calculate in terms of the best way to figure present value in attributing subsidy over the years it might be amortized, but if you go with the rough figures I generated, Barbra probably owes the public a lot for the subsidy we (Freddy's now relocated bar included) are paying for in our taxes.

A Conversation In The “Barclays” “Daily News” Plaza

The other day I was caught scowling outside the “Barclays” Center by a scrubbed and gussied-up woman of about forty about to go into the first Streisand Concert.  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“She shouldn’t be doing this,” I said, “. . .  And she calls herself an activist.”

“And it’s `Barclays’!” I said pointing to what some refer to as the “Barclays Vulture” above our heads.  She gave me an appreciative, knowing nod.

I asked her if she know how much her ticket cost.  She said she did.  I asked her if she knew how much it cost after I and the rest of the public got done paying for it . . .

“A lot more!” I said.  Her face fell and she looked truly distressed.

Who Got The Subsidy?

Barbra probably didn’t wind up personally pocketing a lot of that subsidy.  It was probably mostly pocketed by Ratner and Prokhorov because they get to charge the public going rates . . and pay their headline acts going rates. . . because when they got all that subsidy they got it without any regulations that require them to pass benefits on to anyone else.

Should Barbra write the community a check?  Maybe not for $700,000, but, as a woman of conscience, she could take a look at the figures and decide how much she appropriately owes back.  Besides, it should be remembered that by performing at the “Barclays” Center Ms. Streisand helped send public money where it does not belong: Into the pockets of Ratner and Prokhorov.

Perhaps all performers at the “Barclays” Center should be routinely asked to consider writing a check back to the public.  The question then would be:  How to get that money back, divvied up proportionally, to those deserving of the reparations?

Email Arrives For Me From Barbra

Meanwhile there is that open letter from the community that Ms. Streisand has still not responded to. . .
  
. . . Watching my inbox for a response from Ms. Streisand to the community’s open letter asking her why she was playing the “Barclays” Center, I saw that yesterday I had gotten an email from Ms. Streisand.  It was (per its subject line) about “This election” (i.e. the presidential one that’s ongoing.)  Yes, it was a form email.

I am glad that Streisand is coming to President Obama’s aid with support for his agenda, which she alerts us that Republicans have been blocking, but as a personally-couched political solicitation it was a bit disappointing because it provided only a scant window into Ms. Streisand’s own thinking.

Importance Of Voting For Obama: Programs Skewing Income And Wealth Are Bad For The Economy

I happen to believe that there is very good reason to vote for Mr. Obama over Mitt Romney: Romney champions programs, tax structures and alterations to Medicare and Social Security, that will further skew the allocation of income and wealth in this country to those who are already far wealthier than others.  And I agree with the analysis of the International Monetary Fund that this “widening disparity” gums up and slows down the economy.  (See: National Notice, Thursday, October 18, 2012, How Big A Lie Did Mitt Romney Tell When He Said His Federal Taxes Were Never Less Than Thirteen Percent Of His Income? (And Why It Affects The Economy).). . . I think of the ill effects to the economy as being sort of like when things grind to a halt at the end of a Parker Brothers Monopoly game, when further moves cease to be possible because all the money is piled up in one place. 

I have previously pointed out that the heaped up gleam and glitter of the “Barclays” Center, like a folkloric pirate treasure chest, symbolizes that same kind of piled-up, economy-destroying redistribution of wealth, an accumulation of pirate booty, illegally seized and hoarded by the wealthy Ratner and Prokhorov.

How Barbra’s Political Concerns Ought To Jibe With All The Rest Of Our Concerns

Why is Barbra Streisand supporting Barack Obama for reelection?

The concerns Streisand expresses in her email (when she says “This election presents a clear choice”) while not exactly on point in recognizing what I have just expressed, nevertheless dovetail with these concerns.  Streisand writes:

Democrats will protect Medicare and strengthen environmental protections. Health care reform will be fully implemented and critical investments will be made in jobs and education to strengthen the middle-class.    

Medicare and Social Security are in jeopardy because of the Republican proclivity to redistribute more wealth to the already wealthy.

Likewise, health care reform and education.

Assaults on the environment are also often tricky attempts by corporations, like those in the fossil fuel industry, looking to steal public wealth and assets without paying for them.

The very existence of the middle-class is threatened by the increased skewing of wealth and income.  What is happening on the national stage with redistribution of wealth and the way it adversely affects the economy is no different from what is happening with the “Barclays” Center.  It is all of the same cloth.

And jobs?  The kind of top-down corporatizing takeovers (promoted by Bain Capital, or whomever) are as antithetical to job creation as they are to income equality.  That kind of corporatizing takeover is what was done when a local economic ecosystem that was competing with Ratner was scooped out and thrown away to make way for Ratner's mega-monopoly.

You can also find this posted on Ms. Streisand's own website: Reducing Income Inequality Is the Key to Economic Growth -- Time to Pass the Buffett Rule.

Checks To “Get America Moving Again”
 
In her email Ms. Streisand asked me and my family to do something we’ve already done and are happy at her urging to do yet again: Send a check to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).  She said it was what was needed “to get America moving again.”

I agree it’s time to get America moving again, particularly America’s economy, and that means starting to reverse the grotesque redistributions of wealth from the middle-class and the less-advantaged many to the far wealthier few. . .

. . . And for that reason I am asking Ms. Streisand to write a check to refund the subsidies to her concerts: Maybe $700,00 . .  or at least the portion thereof that Ms. Streisand herself calculates she owes to the public for having performed at the “Barclays” Center.  I think that if she and all others performing at the “Barclays” Center were to do that it would make a powerful statement and help “to get America moving again.” 

Silly Little Post About Barbra Streisand And Freddy's Bar. . And Money That's In The Wrong Place

Back on July 25th I published a sort of silly little post that I suggested might give readers a small peek into the inside world of blogging. . .(See: Silly Little Blog Post About Dumb Little Blog Ad: My Excoriation of Barclays Paid-For Name Building Earns More Barclays Spending To Get Its Name Out.)

I recounted how an ad popped up on my Google Blogger screen (as they do) right after I hit the button to publish a Noticing New York article that extensively castigated Barclays Bank (and its resigned-in-disgrace, chief executive Robert E. “Bob” Diamond) for not being inclined to do the right thing by community standards but nevertheless paying to have the `honor' of having their names prominently appear on things like the “Barclays” Ratner/Prokhorov basketball arena opening in Brooklyn and the (Bob) “Diamond Building” on Colby College’s campus (See: No Sparkle In Barclays’ Bob Diamond: Societal Mores Unmoored, What And Who We Honor Today- That Which We Used To Shun) . . .

. . . .  The Google Blogger ad that popped up was, if you can believe, for Barclays Bank!  Telling me I should “open an account today” with Barclays!

As I explained, the ad probably popped up because (scary to think) Google Blogger knew what I was writing about!

As I explained (in more detail) when I wrote that earlier silly little post, I'd previously had a similar experience:  It was when I was writing about how Bloomberg was spending too much money to get re-elected  (Sunday, November 1, 2009, Bloomberg vs. Thomson (54% to 29%?): It’s Not What You Think. (For Instance the “P” is Missing and What Might “P” Stand For?).)  The ensuing advertisement Google Blogger generated  told me I should  "vote for Bloomberg! "

Now, while writing another article I have had another similar internet experience.  Yet again, I was writing about how people are spending too much money promoting the wrong things and I was writing once again about the Ratner/Prokhorov arena that has promtionally been named "Barclays."   (See: Wednesday, October 10, 2012, Weighing The Change In Brooklyn: The True Cost Of “Barclays” Center Glitter, The Cost Of “Barclays” Center Tickets.)  In the article I zeroed in on concerts Barbra Streisand is scheduled to be performing in the Ratnner/Prokhorov "Barclays" arena.  Ms. Streisand, a self-described activist, is one of the singers who has not answered an open letter from the community questioning why she is performing at the scandalously spawned and scandalously named arena.  (The other, incongruously, is singer/song-writer Leonard Cohen.)

I was asking whether it made sense that government should be subsidizing tickets to the Barbra Streisand concerts to the tune of $20 a ticket when that same $20 would have paid for an entire night out at Freddy's, the local bar and music venue that was evicted from the neighborhood through eminent domain abuse to clear the way (together with much of the rest of the neighborhood) for the "Barclays" Center.  Freddy's, or a versin of what it had been, had to move to another neighborhood in Brooklyn where it now pays higher taxes (like the rest of us) to subsidize the Streisand concerts and the other activities at the "Barclays" Center.  I asked readers to consider: What would happen if, instead of subsidizing "Barclays" Center's corporatizing takeover of Brooklyn, the same amount of money was spent on subsidizing 3.6 million trips (with $20.00 each) to local tax-paying cabarets and restaurants?

In composing the article I did research for it by watching a video about Freddy's Bar and Grill that I found on Norman Oder's Atlantic Yards Report site.  Many videos you can play on the internet automatically include advertising snippets.  What do you think happened when I clicked and started to watch the video about Freddy's?  You can probably guess by now: Two eyes appeared floating on top of the video about what a wonderful neighborhood bar Freddy's was.  It was an ad for Barbra Streisand and the eyes were hers. ----  That is the image you see at the beginning of this post.

It wasn't an ad for her performances at the "Barclays" Center and I don't know exactly why it appeared.  Was the explanation, as before, that Google again knew what I had been writing about?  Or was it because I was clicking on the web from Brooklyn and all of Brooklyn is being targeted with Barbra advertising because of the upcoming concert?  Or did the ad appear because the internet knew I was interested in that spot where Freddy's once stood, perhaps even in the music once offered there, and calculatingly pulled up the new substitution?

I don't know exactly but I get the overall point:

Write about how an obscene amount of money is being spent promoting Bloomberg: You'll get an advertisement promoting Bloomberg in response.

Write about how absurd it is to be spending public resources promoting the name of a nefarious bank like Barclays:  You'll get an advertisement telling you Barclays is so great you ought to bank with them.

Write about how unfair it is that local music is being put out of business by having to subsidize Barbra Streisand at the "Barclays" Center: You'll get an advertisement telling you to go out and buy Barbra's music.

Suffice it to say too much money being spent on advertising is on the wrong side of things.  I won't go into the question here about whether the funds spent on all this lavish Bloomberg and Barclays advertising or the subsidies for Barbra Streisand's concerts were come by fairly.  You probably know that it is my Noticing New York viewpoint that just wasn't the case.

I'll leave you with this. . .   Maybe you’d like to click on this video by Peg Byron about the old Freddy’s and see what advertisement comes up for you.  Whatever ad comes up the Freddy's video itself is a good one I suspect you will enjoy watching.

Weighing The Change In Brooklyn: The True Cost Of “Barclays” Center Glitter, The Cost Of “Barclays” Center Tickets

The "Barclays" Center advertising oculus showing Barbra Streisand, one of the singers who has not answered an open letter from the community questioning why she is performing at the Ratner/Prokhorov arena 

With the opening of the Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center in Brooklyn last week much is being written about what has been lost and what we might think we have gained.

I believe it was Brian Lehrer who summed up for his listeners the October 2nd New York Magazine cover story— “Brooklyn Is Finished.”  (followed by a small subtitle) “Or has it only just begun.” — as being sort of about how Brooklyn may have become a victim of its own success.

Brian Lehrer or one of his staff may have speed-read the Mark Jacobson New York Magazine story referred to (its relative incoherence challenges a careful read), but I don’t think it can be cited for the proposition that Brooklyn is a victim of its own success.  Nevertheless, the article certainly mulls over, without providing much explanation, the issues of what has been gained and lost with the arrival of the “Barclays” Center.

The arrival of the “Barclays” Center in Brooklyn hardly represents Brooklyn being a victim of its own success: What it represents is the borough’s failure to fend off a corporatizing grab of its burgeoning local culture.

Elegy For Loss In A Corporatizing Grab

Jay Michaelson writing in the Huffington Post (An Elegy for Brooklyn, in the Shadow of Barclays, 10/02/2012) did a far better and much more succinct job than the New York Magazine article in weighing the losses that come with the arrival of Barclays.  Michaelson, like  Jacobson in New York Magazine, tends to see the losses through his own set of personal filters, but he gets it mostly right, particularly with respect to the principles involved.  What is being lost is the wealth of a diverse, locally-generated ecosystem, “an experiment in a different kind of urban renewal.”  (You may hear echos of Jane Jacobs and NNY’s testimony about HDC’s proposed issuance of more bonds for Ratner.)  What is being plunked down by Ratner in exchange is just more of the ubiquity of “the same chain-restaurants and sports bars, the same monotonous culture” that you witness in other corporately fostered environments.

Says Michaelson: “Once again, something unique is being displaced by something ordinary and crass.”

“Manhattanization”?

Michaelson gets perhaps only one thing wrong.  He says: “Today, the Slug is the tip of a pincer of Manhattanization.”   (He refers to the “Barclays” Center as “the slug” and to living near it as living in “shadows of the Slug.”) I think “Manhattanization” isn’t the operative concept because I have always doubted that the more politically powerful Manhattanites would have allowed anything like Ratner’s governmentally assisted acquisition of a 50+ acre monopoly or Ratner’s other various oppressions of the surrounding neighborhood.  Manhattanites defeated Bloomberg’s wishes to place the Jets Stadium on Manhattan’s West Side.  I have also always doubted that Manhattanites would have tolerated the extreme and sudden jump proposed to take the Ratner-controlled property to unprecedented density.  I may need to reassess that last doubt now given the Bloomberg administration recently unveiled plans to almost double (starting in 2017) the density of Manhattan’s already very dense Midtown business district surrounding Grand Central, from 39th Street to 57th Street on the East Side.

Corporatizing Takeover Comes Subsidized

On another key point Michaelson is absolutely right: That the corporatizing takover of Brooklyn is not the result of natural economic forces.  It is the result of subsidies snuffing out those forces.  “Real capitalism was already here, in the form of bodegas and boutiques,” he tells us while reminding us that the “slug” is “the bastard child” of government subsidies, and:

Real capitalism is about small businesses creating a diverse market ecosystem. Mega-capitalism is about big money squashing all of it like a bug.

Indeed, what we see when looking the “Barclays” Center is the big box store version of entertainment.  Similar to the way that big box stores are so often able to strike special deals with government for tax exemption, giving them extra edge over mom-and-pop stores, the “Barclays” Center doesn’t pay taxes.  It is also additionally supported by other subsidies as well.

If you go to see Babs Streisand* playing the “Barclays” Center, Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov as its owners need not set aside even one penny of your ticket price to pay for taxes.  But if you want to open an intimate music venue across the street that hosts local musicians, including possibly young next-generation Streisands, you are going to be at a competitive disadvantage: You’ll have to pay taxes and you won’t have the rest of the “Barclays” package of subsidies helping you.  In fact, you will have to pay extra taxes to pick up the tab for the those subsidies and the taxes the “Barclays” Center isn’t paying.

(*Note: The community has sent an open letter Barbra Streisand and Leonard Cohen respecting their scheduled performances at the arena, holding open the possibility that “as artists with a history of philanthropy, social justice and civil liberty advocacy, and protest lyrics” Streisand’s and Cohen’s acceptance of performance dates at the arena might mean that they had yet “to learn about the history behind the venue” with which they were associating themselves.” The artists have yet to respond to the community’s letter.)

The kind of corporatizing agglomeration of wealth into a privileged tax-exempt fortress you see at the “Barclays” Center is similar to what was done with the building of the new Yankee Stadium: The new Yankee Stadium has fewer seats than the old (so the ticket prices could be raised), but its overall footprint is actually bigger than the previous stadium so that, for the benefit of a corporatizing few, it could include within its tax-exempt privileged walls the business activities once plied by others outside those walls who paid taxes.

Could the boundaries between whom government is choosing to benefit and whom government works against be any clearer?

Cost Of The Corporatizing Subsidy: Is That The Ticket?

It’s worth doing some quick, back-of-envelope calculations to understand exactly what the “Barclays” Center subsidies mean.

Let’s assume that there will be about 225 events a year at the “Barclays” Center (at least that’s a number its prospective bondholders relied on), and then let’s assume that typical events might be filled with about 16,000 (that's just a tad below the attendance figures for the opening Jay-Z concerts.)  That would give us 3.6 million ticket sales a year.  The actual number of performances might be more or might be fewer and overall attendance could be different but this is a good ballpark figure for our purposes.

Now let's think what that translates into in terms of per ticket subsidy.  Let's start with the real estate taxes that are not being paid.  The way the deal works is that that real estate taxes being side-stepped are equal to the debt service on the tax-exempt bonds issued for the arena (essentially mortgage debt financing a large portion of the building).   $511 million of tax-exempt bonds were issued by the state for Ratner and Prokhorov at an overall interest rate of 6.48%.

The Official Statement describes multiple, for the layman complicated kinds of bonds.  The cash flow going to debt service (available here) jumps around (starting out low just after the construction period, ratcheting up and then back down again) but, leaving out the construction period, a simple debt calculation for thirty-five years over which the bonds amortize translates to an annual figure for unpaid taxes of $36,962,520.00, or $10.27 per ticket.

But that's just the start because there are other subsidy costs that have to be added in as part of the additional cost of each ticket.  There is: 1.) the annual city, state and federal subsidy to lower the interest rate on the bonds, 2.) the allocable portion of the MTA write-down on the land, 3.) the city’s donation of the closed down part of Fifth Avenue and the allocable portion of the closed section of Pacific Street, 4.) the allocable portion of the $279 million in cash from the city and state, 5.) the abuse of eminent domain to obtain land at lower cost, 6.) the entire package of preferential density for other buildings on the block and exemptions from rules that normally apply, like not building arenas within 200 feet of residential buildings.

Probably, because only the arena and not much more is opening for a period of time, allocable portions assigned to the arena should be boosted.

That’s not to mention extra police, subway trains, and other city services needed to support the arena.

The city, state and federal subsidy to lower the interest rate on the bonds comes to about $95 million in subsidy.  But over the 38 year term of the bonds that only about $2.5 million a year.  Sales tax is also being avoided.  It could all be allocated to the construction years but maybe it is better to allocate to the first ten years at about $1.75 million a year.

The MTA write-down on the land value and the city gift of street streets probably ought to be valued at about $72.61 million all together.  (More should probably be added onto this because the developer is also getting a free option on more land with it but we'll ignore that.) If that total is taken over the next ten years that's $7.261 million a year.

If, given the arena's immediate delivery with most else about the mega-project in abeyance we might allocate 40% of the city and state cash to the arena and decide that it should be allocated to the next ten years?  That would be another $11.6 million a year.

At this point all these additional amounts come to another $22.671 million in subsidy a year.  So at this point the per ticket subsidy is running at about $16.56.  The value of the rest of the subsidies like eminent domain acquisition of land, density and all sorts of exemptions is harder to calculate.  I suggest that for conceptual purposes which just round it out to about $20.00 a ticket, which is probably low.

$20.00?  That could have covered an entire night out at Freddy's the neighborhood bar with music performances that was evicted by eminent domain's threat and left money over to spend elsewhere in the community.  (Apparently once referred to as the “borough of Brooklyn’s most vital cultural hub”- It's in the video in the link.)

Think what would happen if, instead of subsidizing 3.6 million "Barclays" tickets the same amount of money were spent to subsidize 3.6 million trips to local tax-paying cabarets and restaurants?   

A ticket to see Barbra Streisand isn’t, by everyone’s standards, cheap: $104 to $716.65.  And that’s the nominal cost of the tickets not yet including the addition of these subsidies.  It also doesn’t include added fees charged beyond the face amount of the ticket.

But if the tickets aren’t cheap that’s, in part because, Ratner and Prokhorov didn’t have to agree to lower what they charge for tickets in exchange for subsides.  They can charge what the market will bear.  They are not a nonprofit and since they aren't they are allowed to make as much profit as they can and all that money can go back to Ratner's Cleveland or Prokhorov's Russia, or wherever.  There is no no one, and no practical expedience that requires them to recycle those monies through the community.

Their ability to charge the going rate also explains why the cost of a bottle of water in the arena can be $4.50.  You may especially want that bottle of water before you leave if you show up for a Jay-Z concert at its scheduled starting time 8:00 PM not knowing you should really expect him to start an hour and a half after that.  (At Freddy's you could get a glass of water for free.)

Tickets for Jay-Z concerts were in two categories.  Tickets that were supposed to be market rate tickets were reportedly running between a low average price of $452 to a high average price of $530.  Floor seats for the much-hyped show were over $2,000.  Then there were 7000 tickets nominally being offered at the crowd-friendly price of $29.50 ($37.20 with fees) that were actually reaching the secondary market at $195.23.

Whatever the nominal ticket prices you just have to remember that, with the subsidies, the amounts that Ratner and Prokhorov get to pocket and take back with them to Cleveland, Russia, or wherever, are going to be greater by that amount.  If you go with the cheap $104 Barbra Streisand ticket its real price (before fees) is $124.  The $29.50 Jay-Z concert ticket is $49.50 or $57.50 with fees.  But if you are spending the better part of a grand for a ticket maybe you consider these amounts other citizen taxpayers are shouldering for your ticket trifling.

But now here is something else to consider: If the number of performances go down or if attendance figures wind up being lower than the per subsidy amount allocable to each seat-filling ticket goes up.  Something else happens too: Ratner and Prokhorov may find themselves wanting to raise ticket prices.  If they do, it could turn into a vicious cycle: higher prices reducing attendance.

Glittering Treasure Chest Of Value

There are certainly those who look upon the “Barclays” Center and see impressive value there;  They crow about the spectacle of its glitter. A frequently used metaphor for a glittering and startling concentration of wealth piled up in one place is that of the treasure chest.  Some people who make proclamations about  what Brooklyn has gained with the “Barclays” Center, people like Ratner, Prokhorov, Bloomberg, Markowitz, and Charlie Rose gloat over the arena's glitter.  I see what they are gloating over as representing much the same thing as a treasure chest.  Like a treasure chest, the “Barclays” Center undeniably gleams with heaps of accumulated value.  But the “Barclays” Center, like those fictional fairytale treasure chests, comes by its impressive heaped up gleam because it is an accumulation of pirate booty, illegally seized and hoarded.

All that piled-up wealth represents the brooches and necklaces that are not out in the community being worn as adorning ornament by the ladies, it’s the candlesticks and silver that are not festooning local dinner tables, it represents the gold that is not circulating through and enriching the general commerce of the community.  It also represents the cost of the fear, violence and suffering when that wealth was wrested from its original owners at sword point or with the discharge of blunderbusses.

Piratical Plunder Attracts

The 1991 movie “Hook,” a Spielberg revisitation of the “Peter Pan” story, is flawed in many ways but it tries so hard in an overblown way to cram so much in that it inevitably succeeds in various interesting incidentals (like Glenn Close in an incognito cameo as a male pirate, long before her gender-switching role as Albert Nobbs).  The conceit is that Peter Pan has grown up and that now, as Peter Banning, he has forgotten who he was.  There is a metaphor that I thought ill-handled and clumsily maudlin but that stuck with me nevertheless:  The adult Banning (Robin Williams) is now in the real estate and financial industry with a investment banking private equity firm, something like Bain Capital, that specializes in taking over vulnerable firms.  As Banning’s son relates, Banning “blows them out of the water” upon encountering “any resistance.”  The fairytale’s Wendy, now aged into a grandmother (Maggie Smith), quiets upon hearing this. Fixing Banning in her gaze says, “So, Peter, you’ve become a pirate!”

The metaphor is not seriously developed or capitalized upon in the film, but it gets emphasized in a brief ensuing moment as Banning shivers when he looks at pirate imagery embedded in the nursery’s wallpaper.  The point is that boys who once gloried in championing justice, can easily forget their origins, growing up into men seduced by the attractions of piratical plunder.  We may see Ratner’s professionals as being so enticed to the other side of justice  . . . and perhaps even Ratner himself.

The thing to remember is that the revelry around the glint and gleam of the “Barclays” Center is, at its core, a celebration of an immense and unforgivable transfer of wealth from the local community to a force of marauders.

Glitter of Golden Eggs?

Jane Jacobs, the great urbanist observer and thinker who wrote “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” writes in that book (p. 246) about a sort of `killing the goose that laid the golden egg’ concern, that the benefits of a diverse economy can be killed off by a rush of businesses coming in to take advantage of an “enviable location” so that the “enviable location” thereby ceases to exist.

Days ago Charlie Rose did what amounts to his second infomercial for Bruce Ratner to promote the “Barclays” Center.  (In it, he jokes with Ratner about `manipulating politicians’ and also jokes with Russian Oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov about free speech in Russia.)  Characterizing Ratner to his (trusting?) PBS audience as a “worrier--a soft-spoken worrier,” Rose served up to Ratner a succession of perfect Tee-ups for all sorts of Ratner self-promotion: “What's the biggest misconception about you, that you would like people to know is simply not true?” 

Rose, keying off the sort of Jane Jacobs `killing the golden goose’ concern I just mentioned told Ratner that he assumed that Ratner, in building the “Barclays” Center, wanted “to make sure that none of this causes Brooklyn to lose Brooklyn, to be what it is. . .  I mean, if you have the definition of something that has soul, you want to make sure that nothing gets in the way of that soul.”

Ratner (who later flatters Rose in the interview by telling him he asks “very good questions”) naturally affirms the point.

Ratner also affirms moments later when Rose suggests that Ratner wants to honor, or as Ratner says, “continue the soul of Brooklyn” so that, in Rose’s words “it doesn't look like Brooklyn has been bought.”  (“Stolen” is actually the image that comes to mind.)

During the interview, Rose flourished and had the Mark Jacobson New York Magazine cover story displayed on the screen.  Rose’s “questions” played off the aforementioned motif, interpreting this as a moment when no one wants Brooklyn to be “victim of its own success.”  

But none of this is true.  Ratner’s putting up the “Barclays” Center is not an example of Ratner being attracted to the golden goose of Brooklyn’s soul.  More likely he viewed the sports arena as an extension of his pennant-decorated shopping malls across the street and as a way of wiping out the competing development springing up just streets away (streets that he know owns thanks to the government and eminent domain abuse).  Most of Brooklyn’s recognized success has happened since Ratner announced his plans in 2003; this success happened in spite of Ratner's plans, and it thrives better when at a safe remove from Ratner.  But now that the Ratner arena unveiling comes in the middle of the ongoing Brooklyn success story with which everyone is so familiar he can hardly afford to be seen as being at odds with it.  But he is at odds with it!

Subsidies Falsify Cost Equations And Warp And Extinguish Development

Though things absolutely stand to be lost, this time it isn’t exactly about the care and preservation of golden geese.  It is't about Ratner valuing the golden eggs that are being laid.  The antagonism between Brooklyn and what Ratner is creating is more direct.  The Jane Jacobs caution that more aptly applies to the “Barclays” arena is expressed in her 2000 book, “The Nature of Economies,” in which she warns that:

. . . subsidies falsify both costs and prices. . ..  lies of that sort warp development.

Immediately after, as further explanation of the pitfalls of falsified costs, Jacobs cites the post-Soviet Russia in which Rartner’s partner Mikhail Prokhorov made his fortune:

Monopolies, established by cronyism and strong-arm methods, along with pervasive extortion and corruption, falsify actual cost anyhow; racketeering enterprises prefer eliminating competitors to competing with them on prices, quality and services.

Let us then, before ever entering the “Barclays” Center, keep our wits about us.  Let us remind ourselves that the true cost of a ticket to enter is much greater than the dollar amount that appears on one’s ticket.  Part of that cost is what Michaelson in his Huffington Post column reminds us is what may vanish, unable to withstand Ratner’s “onslaught”:

 . . . Within a mile of Barclays Center, there are over 100 restaurants, mostly local and independent, many of them serving local and organic food in literally every cuisine of the world (there's a fantastic French Caribbean place right in the shadow of the Slug). There are co-ops and quirky thrift shops, Pentecostal churches, brownstones and city housing; there are lots of bicycles on the street.

Alternatives To The Scandalously Spawned, Scandalously Named Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center: Protest & Locally Nurtured Concerts

The kleptocratic story of how the Forest City Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov “Barclays” Center Brooklyn basketball arena was spawned and inflicted through to its imminent completion is an ugly one.  And then there's the name. . . The arena could have been named after any corporation ponying up some advertising dollars. .   and whatever name the arena, squeezed into its Brownstone Brooklyn location ultimately brandished, it was likely to be deemed an irksome synonym for ignominy.  Nevertheless, the demon gods overseeing the project’s incubation managed to short-cut more directly to ensure that result: This public-paid-for piece of Brooklyn sports the name of “Barclays,” the bank whose association with the LIBOR rate-fixing scandal appropriately evokes the arrogant primacy our society puts on having the interests of the 1% supersede those of the 99%.

There Are Alternatives!

It's good to know that there are alternatives when the onslaught of publicity for the arena makes it seem almost obligatory for every citizen to celebrate the arrival of this first slice of the Forest City Ratner/Mikhail Prokhorov mega-monopoly conceptualized as "Atlantic Yards," nominally 22 newly-bequeathed acres but actually a monolithic total of 30+ developer-controlled contiguous acres.  No, Not so . .  There are clearly superior alternatives to feeling obligated to join the celebration or start attending arena events: The arena’s arrival can be protested, and in preference to the arena’s plans for what sounds like some overgrown concert performance confections there are enticing homegrown local alternatives that offer the more intimate embrace of time spent with performers who may actually be more moral and truer to their roots.
   
Protesting the Arena Crime Scene

First, with respect to the protests: The initial opportunity comes up with a series of protesting events coinciding with the arena’s unveiling, emphasizing that the arena is a “Crime Scene.”  The events will run from a Wednesday, September 26th showing of the “Battle For Brooklyn” documentary, and a 7:00 PM  Thursday evening candlelight vigil through to Saturday, September 29.  Subsidy collector Ratner and his kindred spirit Mikhail Prokhorov, a politically-favored Russian oligarch, will want that weekend’s publicity to focus instead on the Jay-Z concert unveiling the arena at 8:00 PM, Friday, September 28th.  Jay-Z has been rewarded for his promotion of the arena and sell-out of the community with a 1% partnership interest in the developer’s deal.

More about the events at this website and this Facebook invitation page and as written about by Norman Oder at Atlantic Yards Report here:  Friday, September 07, 2012, "It's a Crime!" New web site targets Atlantic Yards failures, announces vigil, protests geared to arena opening weekend and Wednesday, September 12, 2012, An Occupy protest coming in response to Jay-Z's comments, but will it be just before his Sept. 28 concert?, and Tuesday, September 18, 2012, Atlantic Yards protesters list demands: new plan, reformed oversight, more developers, environmental review, new regulations.

Mr. Oder takes issue with whether Atlantic Yards can be technically described as a “crime,” suggesting that, more accurately, it is just part of the “culture of cheating,” the rubric under which Mr. Oder has been running a series of articles summing up how the mega-project has, across the board, been based upon strategies of deception and bad faith.  But denying the crime here overlooks how the government, itself, was used as an instrument of theft which is, after all, the definition of “kleptocracy,” where a politically connected elite steal from the less advantaged.

Those keeping careful score as to what defines a “crime” will tell you that in these situations the real crime isn't what is technically illegal, it is what gets redefined as legal in order to permit such behavior.  To give just two examples: That kind of redefining is what happened when the state and federal constitutional prohibitions on seizing private property for private benefit (including constitutional protections recently voted upon by New Yorkers) were rewritten out of existence by state agency skulduggery supported by judicial fiat (meaning that property that neighbor and senator Charles Schumer clearly knew wasn’t “blighted” was pretextually deemed to be so by collusive government officials so it could be taken by Ratner).  And that kind of scrapping of laws on the books is what happened when the MTA decided that it didn’t have to comply with recently enacted public authority reform legislation designed to prohibit its rigged deal with Ratner because it was sure no one was going to make them follow the law.

Alternative Concert Going

As for alternative concert going, (if you want to be distracted from such serious subjects by entertainment) about this time every year I have started publicizing the upcoming concert roster for First Acoustics concerts. (See: Wednesday, September 28, 2011, Getting Near to Holly Near: Performing This Saturday at First Acoustics (with John Bucchino and special guest Linda Tillery)- Plus Notes on Empire and Wednesday, February 25, 2009, Adding Something Off Topic: A Few Notes.)

This year’s season will premier Saturday (September 22nd at 8:00 PM) with Roosevelt Dime (fast banjo, thumping washtub, blaring brass- "Steamboat Soul") on a double bill with Honor Finnegan (a Bluesy soloist). . . I think I'm going to love Saturday night.

Here is the complete season line-up through to the culminating June 1st concert, (All dates are Saturday evenings at 8:00p.m. except for December 9 which is a Sunday afternoon at 3:00):

    •    September 22, 2012: ROOSEVELT DIME with Honor Finnegan

    •    October 6, 2012: BUSKIN & BATTEAU and FREEBO

    •    October 27, 2012:  RED MOLLY with Union Street Preservation Society

    •    November 3, 2012: SUZIE VINNICK with Friction Farm

    •    November 17, 2012: ANNA DAGMAR, ANTHONY DA COSTA and CAITLIN CANTY

    •    December 9, 2012 (This is the one on Sunday at 3:00 PM): BROOKLYN WOMEN OF SONG (Meg Braun, Jean Rohe and Carolann Solebello)

    •    March 23, 2013: BARNABY BRIGHT and DENI BONET

    •    April 20, 2013: SPUYTEN DUYVIL with Karyn Oliver

    •    May 18, 2013: PESKY J. NIXON with Kara Kulpa

    •    June 1, 2013: JONI MITCHELL'S BLUE: A 40th Anniversary Celebration

Based on my own past year's prior attendance of First Acoustics concerts, I especially, especially recommend the harmonies of Red Molly, and probably my favorite song that they perform is “May I Suggest” by Susan Warner.  Attending, you should have an opportunity to have the performers personally sign purchased copies of the group’s CDs.  Each of the Red Molly performers also has individual solo performance CDs.

You never know exactly what surprises might be in store: The last time I heard Red Molly they were on a First Acoustics double bill with the absolutely superb Pat Wicter.  Pat Wictor sang with Abbie Gardner, one of the Red Molly trio, “A Little Love Is Gonna Do” a song Mr. Wictor wrote that in my estimation is worthy of addition to the Great American Songbook canon.

Once when I had occasion to talk with Pat Wictor he told me that he considered it important to sing other people’s songs, to sing the classics, and to sing songs from the American Songbook; “It’s the only way you learn.” he told me.  Listening to his “A Little Love Is Gonna Do” I believe exactly what he said.  You see, First Acoustics is kind of environment where you might wind up having these kinds of thoughtful exchanges with the performers.

Speaking of learning by singing the classics, Abbie Gardner, Wictor’s singing partner for “A Little Love Is Gonna Do,” has a solo album of American Songbook classics, “My Craziest Dream.”  The album wasn’t there for me to pick up the night I heard Red Molly but I found it later on emusic.  It includes Milton Ager’s “Happy Feet,” a song I cherish which ought to be performed more.  The album was done working with Ms. Gardner’s father, pianist Herb Gardner, and those with a Noticing New York sensibility may want to note that it includes a song written and performed by Mr. Gardner that fills a critical NYC gap, a rollicking anthem in praise of the borough of Staten Island.

Everybody Ought To Know, But Do They?

Last year when I covered the First Acoustics line-up I gave special attention to Sloan Wainwright, and in that regard I noted that she is pedigreed via familial interrelationship with, it seems, an entire universe of famous musical performers, including not only the constellation of those who are Wainwrights, but also the McGarrigle Sisters and the Roche Sisters.  It turns out that her web of relations also connect her to singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen, who with improbable incongruity was one of the first performers announced to be performing at the Ratner/Prokhorov “Barclays” Center.

Cohen’s “Everybody Knows,” one of his very most famous songs, has an inherent relevance to the “Barclays” Center saga, including lines like, “Everybody knows the fight was fixed- The poor stay poor, the rich get rich-That's how it goes-Everybody knows.”  Everybody ought to know, but is Mr. Cohen among those who actually do?

It might be suspected that Mr. Cohen did not know the history of corruption and government malfeasance when he signed on for his gig at the “Barclays” Center and, in fact, last May after the announcement, Develop Don’t Destroy wrote an open letter to Barbra Streisand and Leonard Cohen respecting their scheduled performances at the arena, holding open the possibility that “as artists with a history of philanthropy, social justice and civil liberty advocacy, and protest lyrics” Streisand’s and Cohen’s acceptance of performance dates at the arena might mean that they had yet “to learn about the history behind the venue” with which they were associating themselves.

Streisand and Cohen have yet to respond to DDDB’s letter.  I have reached out independently to Mr. Cohen for a Noticing New York article on the subject and have similarly received no response.  I reached out through the obvious official channels first.  Because of Cohen’s “Everybody Knows” special relevance to the “Barclays” Center saga I also reached out to Sharon Robinson with whom he co-wrote that song, including when I was in her home town of Los Angeles.  I received no response.  Mr. Cohen’s multiple familial connections to the musical universe afford other possible opportunities to elicit a response that I have begun to follow up on.   I have received no response.

I don’t know what Mr. Cohen and Ms. Streisand may ultimately do with respect to performances at the “Barclays” Center.  Their ducking of the issues presented to them make it seem somewhat more likely that they and/or their booking staff may have considered and discounted the issues of disreputation associated with the arena prior to signing commitments.

Some say that since the arena has arrived it somehow must now be accepted as a fact of life.  I don’t think so.  There may come a time when a sufficient aging of the sins may be curative or ameliorative.  Perhaps some will shun the arena permanently, but it does seem that, no matter what, there should be a period of time when performers and potential patrons alike would pledge out of conscience to eschew the arena. . . perhaps for five years, or maybe the biblical seven years, as in seven lean years?

To make sure that during those seven years the agents booking performers into gigs don't inadvertently book them into a place like the "Barclays" Center, principled performers can start including a clause in their engagement contracts protecting themselves.  Clauses that protect the principles and reputation of the performers have, to date, been referred to as "reverse morals" clauses.  Perhaps in the future they will be better known as "Barclays Center" clauses.

Not everyone will stay away from the arena, and I am not even suggesting pursuing obtaining such a pledge from performers who obviously give little apparent thought to matters of conscience.  Still, mightn’t such a pledge and a persisting consciousness of the arena’s history have just enough negative effect on the arena’s financial health, on Ratner’s and Prokhorov’s ability to pay off their bonds and to make their presumed profit, enough negative effect on Barclay’s promotion of its disreputable name to start settling some of the scores that need to be settled?

In the meantime, as we give the "Barclays" Center a wide berth, we will have more intimate venues for entertainment that are superior anyway, like First Acoustics . . . .

What?  You say I did not address an alternative for sports fans?  Well, I have consistently suggested it is better to get out and enjoy some exercise than to be a voyeur to the questionable business of professional sports.  (And that sets aside the fact that Brownstone Brooklyn was the wrong place into which to squeeze an outsized sports venue and that it was wrong to use it to spearhead and distract attention from an eminent domain-abusing land grab of vast proportions.)  For more of my thoughts on the travails of sports start with these articles on sports fandom.