Aaron Naparstek

» Friday, April 07, 2006

A Very Brooklyn Passover Seder

As the Jewish historian Yosef Yerushalami notes in his Pulitzer-nominated book, Haggadah and History, the Passover ceremony has been adapted to all sorts of social and economic situations throughout the ages. This year, celebrate the deliverance of the Children of Brooklyn from real estate developer bondage with entertaining ceremonial additions to the Passover seder like this one:

The Four Questions
(About Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards Project)
To be sung by the youngest real estate developer at the seder.

Why is the Atlantic Yards project different from all other real estate development projects?

Question 1: Why is it that Brownstone Brooklyn consists of unleavened low-rise buildings, but at Atlantic Yards Bruce Ratner wants to build seventeen high-rise buildings?

Question 2: Why is it that in all other projects the community would be happy for a real estate developer to bring them “jobs, housing and hoops,” but in this project the community is so extraordinarily bitter?

Question 3: Why is it that in all other projects, the developer dips only into his own budget, but in the Atlantic Yards project the developer dips twice – $100 million from the state’s budget and $100 million from the city’s budget?

Question 4:

Why is it that in all other projects, the buildings stand straight, but in Frank Gehry’s designs for the Atlantic Yards project, the buildings recline to one side?

The oppressed masses of Brownstone Brooklyn can click this link for more great ideas for this year's Passover seder.

7:15 PM | Link |

Comments

We were poor builders in Cleveland. Then G-d took us out from there with a little bit of cash and some good connections. And we built a mall at Albee Square that no one shopped in. And had the City not bailed us out by renting most of it for its agencies, lo, we, our children and children's children would be obligated to actually build what works in the number one market in the country. And through there are many wise, brilliant and experienced sages who could guide our way, we feel compelled to slap together pathetic little "urban renewal" developments. And the more we develop these public-fund-bailed-out monstrosities, the more we are praised.

Posted by

Anonymous @ 4/07/2006 11:19 PM | Link

Mazel t'ov!

Posted by

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