Ratner's Christmas Turn-On

Bruce Ratner (above left): Love child of Dick Cheney + Al D'Amato? (With a little bit of Norman Tebbit?) Bruce Ratner and his helpers (including Marty Markowitz, above right) were at Metrotech last night for the annual lighting ceremony.

Walk Don't Destroy Brooklyn

WDD3 kicks off at noon on Sunday, and there's still time to register. From Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn: "Walk Don't Destroy 3 will be an opportunity to help fund the DDDB legal campaign at a fun, interactive and exciting event. Join your friends and neighbors to help stop eminent domain abuse, massive over-development and the destruction of the Brooklyn we know and love."

Desktop Day: Flatbush and Fifth

The bright red JRG Cafe has been Ratnered and the Williamsburg Bank clock is still shrouded. Here they both are sized to fit your PC desktop. While you're here let us know what size desktop you have using the quick poll over on the right. Instructions Left-click on the image first to open up the large version. Windows PC: Right-click on the large image and select 'set as desktop background'. You can also right-click and 'save as', then use your desktop properties settings to add the file you just saved and format it how you prefer. There's more info on customising your PC desktop here.

Mac: Macintosh instructions can be found here.

Ratner Keeps His Tax Break

We like the Daily News' definition of "slash tax break" in their Atlantic Yards story today: Bruce Ratner gets out of paying property taxes for a mere 15 years, rather than 25 years as originally planned. Norman Oder provides annotation and analysis over at Atlantic Yards Report.

Atlantic Yards: That fence is finished.

We're way behind on this one, but the New York Post reported on Monday that the city is poised to pull $100 million in subsidies from the Forest City Ratner Atlantic Yards project. For an in-depth analysis of the article head over to No Land Grab. Subsidies or not, the work continues around the Yards.