Celebrating Jane Jacobs: Atlantic Yards Footprint Tour

Center for the Living City have arranged some FREE walking tours of New York in celebration of Jane Jacobs. We're recommending the "Atlantic Yards Footprint and Environs" tour with Norman Oder. From the Center for the Living City website: "The walk reveals the historic and political context behind the controversial Atlantic Yards plan—beginning at the edge of Downtown Brooklyn, where the borough’s tallest building is being converted to luxury condos, a dip into the embryonic Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) arts district, a peek at revitalized Fort Greene. The walk will then take in the fruits of urban redevelopment—1970s tower apartments, 1990s low-rise housing, and two malls—before traversing the footprint itself in Prospect Heights." Meeting Location: In front of Williamsburgh Savings Bank (tallest building in Brooklyn) Hanson Place at Ashland Place Time: Saturday, Sept 29, 2 PM Tour Guides: Ron Shiffman and Norman Oder Also keep in mind the Municipal Arts Society exhibit “Jane Jacobs and the Future of New York,” which opens on September 26th.

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.