...Mr. Ratner, who is also The Times’s partner in building its new Manhattan headquarters...

To the Times Editor:

Shame on you.

Why is it that when trashing the Jets Stadium Bob Herbert makes it a moral issue about under-funded schools and under-paid policemen and firemen versus an unnecessary, publicly funded football stadium—but somehow when the developer of your new office tower comes on the scene with a stadium proposal in a non-Manhattan borough, the depth of analysis stops with "changes in traffic light timing"?

Why exactly do you think a 15% reduction in the size of the project would be appropriate? Why not 7.5%? Or 50%?

Why exactly is it important for Brooklyn to have a major league sports team—when 25% of the population of the borough lives under the poverty level?

Even the least interested bystander in this discussion would want to know, with the support of that $200 million (DDDB: the public cost is actually closer to $2 billion) that taxpayers are forking over, how much Mr. Ratner is going to be making on the project?

When you want to, your incisive, tack-sharp thinking can be brilliantly illuminating. However, for the lack of depth and lazy critical analysis demonstrated in this editorial, all your Pulitizers should be recalled.

Steve Kroeter
Resident
Park Slope
Brooklyn, NY 11215

Dear Times Editors:

Your editorial states there is opposition " from area residents who fear it would change the character of their neighborhoods. "...a little further down you state, "...The Nets  basketball team would bring major league sports back to Brooklyn. The  buildings designed by Frank Gehry would add a sense of excitement to the entire area..."

The arrogance of your tone is truly astounding. It harks back the Robert Moses era of destructive, sweeping 'improvements' that wiped out entire neighborhoods and left a permanent scar on the city. Have you ever actually talked to any of these 'area residents' ?  I choose to live in Brooklyn because it is NOT Manhattan. Because it is made up of mom and pop restaurants and coffee shops, of intimate  neighborhoods, of brownstones and church steeples. If I or any of the residents wanted a garish Frank Gehry building or stadium we would ask for it. We have not. 

We want our neighborhoods to continue to grow on a grass roots level. We want to continue to encourage locally owned businesses that make our borough unique - restaurants and shops owned by our next door neighbor and reflect the neighborhood - not some planner's vision in a corporate headquarters a thousand miles away. We do not want our neighborhoods businesses and residents to driven out by tax payer subsidized developers who are overriding local input (if you had attended Community Board meetings you would be aware of this) and zoning laws.  

You claim Ratners project will bring in tax revenue you failed to mention his company receives a thirty year property tax break, which I am sure you aware of, since the New York Times, that champion of taxes, will receive a similar deal for their project. 

Brooklyn has prospered because of it intimate neighborhoods, its historic character, and local development. That is the sort of growth that works long term - big boondoolge projects like Atlantic Yards (and the host of other sweetheart deals going on) will only kill the thing that made this borough so attractive in the first place. You are correct that local residents are not happy about this....the astonishing thing is you don't seem to care. 

Sincerely
Malcolm Armstrong
Fort Greene, Brooklyn