The Barclays Center Could Have Killed Us All

Tien Mao via Gothamist

It was only a matter of time.

Forest City Ratner, the same company that promised Brooklyn starchitect Frank Gehry's 9th Wonder of the World and instead plans to give us watered down, prefab modular towers, recently admitted that bolts originally used to keep the Barclays Center from collapsing into Target and Vickie's Secret were the wrong size.

According to the New York Times, halfway through building, the company that created the bolts stopped production because of financial difficulties, and in a rush attempt to complete the arena in time for Jay-Z and the Nets, Forest City Ratner used smaller bolts in the arena's canopy-like entryway to get the job done.

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Here's a video of Jay-Z and Coldplay counting down the new year at the Barclays Center

Did any of you guys check out the show? Did Jay-Z and Coldplay perform a "Yellow/99 Problems" mash-up? Were Beyonce and Gwyneth giddily singing along in the wings like some teenage groupies? 

Damn the Ratner Man, Save the View!

Pic from virtualtourist.com

Do you know that if you look through the arch of Grand Army Plaza from a certain angle just inside of Prospect Park, you can see a perfectly-framed Empire State Building? Cool, right? For those who have never noticed it, you better run out there and take a look while you can, 'cause guess who might be blocking that gorgeous view in the near future? Our BFF responsible for The Barclays Center, FOREST CITY RATNER.

I know that some of us have reconsidered our negative feelings toward The Barclays Center since they brought our borough the Nets and Babs Steisand and the Rolling Stones and whatnot, but the Atlantic Yards project is no where near completion. We have at least a thousand years of their modular glass shithouses to live through, and now one of Ratner's gargantuan towers -- a 219-foot tall residential high-rise on Atlantic Avenue near Sixth Avenue, to be exact -- threatens to block this little-know view of the Empire State building forever.

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Brooklyn Gets (Rolling) Stoned

via justwilliam1959.wordpress.comAs the man with the enormous lips said: "You can't always get what you want." This is especially true if what you wanted was to scuttle the Barclays center and, for instance, stay in your home and/or business that was inconveniently located in the arena's footprint. But sometimes...sometimes...you get what you need. "What you need," henceforth, can be defined as a bloated, corporate tour from the grandaddies of the dinosaur rock groups. 

Yup, the Rolling Stones are saying hello, Brooklyn.

On on Dec. 8, they will be interrogating brown sugar, re: it's tastiness, and encouraging the starting up of themselves from our borough's gleaming new basektballetorium. The big shows just keep rolling in at that place, don't they? This'll be the only NY show on the band's upcoming tour, since they've neglected MSG in favor of Newark's Prudential Center. So yeah, Manhattan, how does it feel? To be on your own? Completely and utterly unlike a Rolling Stone? (I apologize profusely for that.)

Tickets go on sale Nov. 19 at 10am. Maybe you like to spend lotsa money on old, dancing singing men?

In the wake of Sandy, The Nets Have Postponed Their First Game

In keeping up with her string of dumping horrible shit on New York City, Hurricane Sandy has taken one more thing away from us: The Nets' very first game against the Knicks. The showdown was supposed to take place tonight, but because of the massive damage that Sandy has caused, including a shut-down of the entire subway system, the game has been postponed.

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