As Wal-Mart Keeps Thinking About Albee Square, Protests Mount

As word continues to bubble up about Wal-Mart's continuing interest in building a store at Albee Square in downtown Brooklyn (on the site of The Gallery mall, which is currently owned by developer Joe Sitt and his firm Thor Equities), there is now a Wal-Mart protest planned for next week. The Albee Square site could end up with a tower up to 50 stories tall with 800 apartments and 500,000 square feet of retail space at ground level. Mr. Sitt is said possibly be looking at selling the mall, which he purchase from developer Bruce Ratner. (The city actually owns the land under the mall.)

In any case, the protest was reported yesterday via The Real Estate from the Wal-Mart Free NYC website. The organization suggests that allowing the Evil Empire of Retailing to open in New York City (and they've been moving in that direction for some time) and, specifically in Brooklyn "will destroy everything that Brooklyn stands for."

Here's the full text of the missive:

As you have all read and heard about, Wal-Mart continues to have an enormous interest in Brooklyn. It's not even a question of if Wal-Mart will do damage to the community and the local business owners throughout the borough, the the question is How much damage will they do to Brooklyn. They will destroy everything that Brooklyn stands for or listen to what one Brooklyn resident had to say:

"People come here on tour buses when they want to see what real New York is like," said Leo Gulfam, a former graffiti artist who rents a storefront where he customizes clothing, jewelry and Air Jordan sneakers with everything from Pakistani flags to pictures of Tweedy Bird. "Our people are crazy about bling," he said. "They aren't crazy about Wal-Mart."

We're holding a rally on February 8th at 1 PM at Albee Square (the site of the potential Wal-Mart) We strongly encourage all of you to come and show Wal-Mart that they are not welcome in Brooklyn or our city...Head to our blog (www.nywalmart.blogspot.com) to view the flyers we've been distributing...Please join Walmartfreenyc,the U.F.C.W, Change To Win, the NYC CLC, Brooklyn City Council members and Community groups to tell Wal-Mart they are not welcome in downtown Brooklyn or in any Borough of New York City. We will join together on Thursday, February 8, 2007 at 1 PM at "The Gallery at Fulton Street"....Albee Square.

Should be interesting.