Over the last several months, the Nets affiliate charged with running Barclays Center has been quietly adding events other than NBA basketball to the Brooklyn arena's schedule. By making deals with promoters and agents, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment hopes to bring in more than 150 events to the billion dollar arena once it opens in 2012.
Buried in Forest City Enterprises' quarterly financial report released Wednesday is word that the Barclays Center has reached a milestone in guaranteed income for arena operations. The arena has secured guaranteed contracts that will pay more than half what the team projected in arena income...years prior to opening.
Amateur video shot by critics of Atlantic Yards as well as news videos show for the first time foundation walls going up around Barclays Center. An New York State spokesman called the latest activity, which includes work on an arena subway station, "the first steps of major construction."
No, really, the six year long (and counting) battle over the Nets new arena has been set to music and will have a one-month run at the Irondale Center in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. It's entitled "In the Footprint: The Battle Over Atlantic Yards", a new play with music,
With the anticipated appointment of 33-year-old Arana Hankin as ESDC project manager for Barclays Center and Atlantic Yards, all three key players in the construction of the billion dollar arena will be women.
In an interview with Comcast SportsNet, Brett Yormark says Mikhail Prokhorov has "redefined" the franchise's culture, refusing to accept anything but the best. By wanting to win and develop a global culture, the Russian billionaire has given the organization a "swagger."
Freddy's Bar, whose patrons promised to chain themselves to a bar railing to stop it from being torn down, is no more. The center of resistance to Bruce Ratner's plans for Atlantic Yards and the Nets arena was finally torn down Tuesday.
WNYC's Brian Lehrer, aided by reporter Matthew Schuerman, examines the Nets proposed name change Monday, taking calls from listeners about proposed names should Mikhail Prokhorov change it from Nets to something else. Codgers??
Demolition is close for the two best-known symbols of Brooklyn critics' resistance to the Atlantic Yards project: Daniel Goldstein's condominium building and Freddy's Bar. Demolition could take months.
A NetsDaily translation of the full Forbes Russia interview with Mikhail Prokhorov reveals the team plans a name change once it moves to Brooklyn, and that in fact documents seeking approval for the change have already been submitted to the NBA. He didn't disclose the name.
