From Brooklyn: Open Letter to Frank Gehry

A Brooklyn native writes about the Atlantic Yards development: "In fact, the proposed arena, like the surrounding neighborhoods, stands to be utterly dwarfed by these ponderous skyscrapers and superblocks. It's a nightmare for Brooklyn, one that, if built, would cause irreparable damage to the quality of our lives and, I'd think, to your legacy. Your reputation, in this case, is the Trojan horse in a war to bring a commercially ambitious, but aesthetically—and socially—disastrous new development to Brooklyn."

Jonathan Lethem criticizes Frank Gehry's project for a number of reasons: its scale, the public relations brochure, politics, eminent domain, and what the new towers will mean for the landmark Williamsburgh Savings Bank Tower.

[Editor's note: article augmented by slide show of the project.]