Wednesday, January 02, 2008

More From Kruger

Many local news outlets covered the press conference that State Senator Carl Kruger held last Friday. Everyone from the New York Post to the New York Times reported Kruger's assertion that the city's proposed parkland swap can't go forward without an environmental review. Though the Brooklyn Daily Eagle was a few days late on the story, they went a little deeper, and included some interesting comments from Kruger:

[Kruger] suggested "we ask the Architecture School of Columbia [University] to develop a plan for Coney Island that would be a working model." rather than use the one developed by the city's professional staff.

Besides starting over, he didn't have any other suggestions for how the city should go about expanding the amusement district in Coney Island, and said he hasn't familiarized himself with retail developer Joseph Sitt's plan for the amusement district, first unveiled in 2005.

It's not clear why Kruger thinks the students would do a better job than professionals. It is also not clear why he not bother to familiarize himself with Sitt's plan, before becoming so vocal on the issue, and doing so much to help Sitt out.

Kruger, ever the gentleman, also used a question about Robert Lieber's appointment as deputy mayor for economic development to take a shot at Dan Doctoroff:

"I would hope that he has a clearer vision of what development is, not what concepts are. If you want to look at what concepts are, you can look at [departing deputy mayor] Dan Doctoroff."


- post by Ben Nadler


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