Born and Bred

I spent just one night in New York, and was lucky enough to have friends take me to a barbeque, which is one of the uniquely American things I didn’t think I would miss, but do this time of year.  In Paris we talk about politics; we talk about vacations; we talk about art. In New York we often talk about apartments, and investment strategy.  This is one of the things I don’t like about New York. Last night though we talked about “Lend Me a Tenor”, Martin McDonagh and Mark Rothko. We talked about exercise, and about steak marinades. At one point though, commerce and real estate made its appearance as a woman who worked for Ratner Forrest City was telling us about the status of the now famous/ infamous groundbreaking of the new sports arena, housing, and all around borough bursting project that the developer has taken on in Brooklyn. I have watched this controversy unfold, as we lived not too far from this particular area. The protests over eminent domain which occurred while I was here had turned into lawsuits, and finally settlements, all the while leaving Brooklynites uncertain about its responsibility to its population. I love Brooklyn because of its social and cultural diversity, and its unlikely sense of nostalgia and vision. The nostalgia is for a time that only the older residents remember when Ebbets Field was the pride of Brooklyn.

The future it seems is trying to shape itself in a fashion which could bring back some stadium glory, as the center piece of the Ratner plan is a new home for the Nets basketball team.  This plan seems from the
outside to be not just a symbol for Brooklyn, but a representation of how it relates to the American dream, as Jay-Z is one of the owners of the Nets. Jay-Z started his life in a Brooklyn housing project, and is

now one of the city’s most influential figures, as a producer, designer, business mogul, not to mention musician. So now Jay-Z will be stepping into Brooklyn as a sports franchise leader of a beautiful
(or at least new) arena.

When I hear these plans I am not convinced. I actually see this as exactly the thing that is most different about the American mentality in comparison with the European that can also lead to the greatest
problems.  The feared outcomes of the new project are escalating property values, which keep out working class families, increased traffic, and the usual bomb site problem that happens around stadiums
and arenas. That is, businesses generally don’t thrive near them, as the area becomes seen as too crowded, and paradoxically becomes a place no one wants to go. (I think it was Yogi Berra who said that no one goes to Coney Island anymore. It is too crowded) I think all of these are likely outcomes. The other significant difference between the Nets arena and Ebbets Field is that a basketball game is

prohibitively expensive for many Brooklynites. Seeing the Dodgers was really a cross class affair.

In the mid twentieth century during the same time period of the Dodgers moving to Los Angeles, Europe and the United States were starting to redefine working class and middle class. The cold war no
doubt played a big role in this and in different ways here and in Europe. In Europe socialism and communism became an important part of intellectual and political discourse. In the United States it became the enemy. Despite Marxism and Stalinism being fundamentally different, there was a general association of the working class, by some, as being a force which could lead to totalitarianism. This was
just perception of course, but what happened, and it is apparent now when you hear politicians talk, is that all Americans stopped identifying themselves as working class, and instead became middle
class. This was partly just words, but there was some truth to it. Berthold Brecht said something to the effect that Europe and the United States had made the proletariat bourgeoisie by making it
possible for them to all have a Volkswagen and a house. If this was deliberate it was a good political plan. It kept revolution at bay. By the 1980’s the car and the house population became an ownership

society. Pensions became 401Ks. We all became interested in ownership in a way which was unhealthy. It became a mass delusion. We saw this very clearly in the housing crisis. Basically we all wanted to move up a class, but were not even really in the current class we thought we were. The middle class were actually working class, the upper class actually middle class, and the super rich actually just wealthy. There was actually a super rich, but that is such a tiny amount of people that it is just as likely to become king as it is to become one of them. I think many Americans realize this now, but in New York that
realization should be even more frustrating than anywhere else. A friend told me that nothing has changed on Wall Street since the 2008 crisis. People are still getting rich. What has changed is that
everyone else is having trouble.

So while this is happening in the general economy, the Ratner project breaks ground. It seems to me that it is a terrible snub to Brooklyn and to middle/working class Brooklynites that people have had to move
out of their homes to build it. Last night the woman working with Ratner also told me that there was a plan for the great architect Frank Gehry to do this project, but it became too expensive. I said,
mostly in jest that “if Gehry was the architect I would be for the project”. I probably wouldn’t be, but I actually would be more likely to be. Gehry makes beautiful and inspiring buildings and houses. They
make you really think about potential, as they are fixed structures that move through the imagination. That is a powerful thing about art, and if we are going to have a symbol of potential in Brooklyn, at least that
symbol should be one that is unique and inspiring. As it is, it will be another reminder of our investment into a society which we can’t all participate in.