A New Battle of Brooklyn

This week's Brooklyn Papers has a good column written by former Assemblyman Joe Ferris, who used to represent Park Slope. He compares the original Battle of Brooklyn, whose 230th anniversary is almost upon us, to the the current one raging around Atlantic Yards. We will quote in part and encourage a click so you can read his entire column:

On Aug. 27, 1776, the Battle of Brooklyn, the first and largest in the War of Independence, was fought right here in what are now the streets of Gowanus, Prospect Park and Green-Wood Cemetery.

All too few Brooklynites are aware that their fate — and the fate of our fledgling republic — hung in the balance on that historic day. General Howe and Lord Howe had brought the entire British Army and Navy to New York and were determined to crush the American rebellion.

Thirty thousand well-trained and equipped troops of the superpower of its day were arrayed against Washington’s army of 11,000 colonial soldiers, state militiamen and ordinary citizens who believed in the ideals of individual liberty and political freedom.

The irony is that today, we are truly engaged in the Battle for Brooklyn.

The very liberties and political freedom that the Declaration of Independence proclaimed and the blood and sacrifice offered in the Battle of Brooklyn by patriots are now being trampled and sullied by the tyranny of a distant state government and its unelected representatives.

The Atlantic Yards project is an attack on our civil liberties, political freedom, our neighborhoods and our environment.

The seizure of private homes and businesses, under the hammer of eminent domain, for the purpose of benefiting another person, makes our Bill of Rights null and void.

To impose this megalith of a monstrosity upon Brooklyn’s brownstone neighborhoods, without the normal city public review process, makes a mockery of democracy.

During the 1960s and 1970s, with the inspiration of Jane Jacobs, citizens fought and stopped Robert Moses and his urban removal and destruction of our city neighborhoods.

What is the Empire State Development Corporation? Who is Charles Gargano? Who elected him and gave him the power to forever pollute our air, choke our streets and subways, steal our sky and Manhattanize the low-rise residential character of Brooklyn’s neighborhoods? Where are our elected representatives?

Good questions all.

The wonderful drawing above was located here and posted by Lumi at No Land Grab.