AY Opponents Bank Shot

The attempt to delegitimize the Atlantic Yards project continues apace with today's story by the Daily News' Michael O'Keeke on the manufactured furor over the checkered history of Barclays Bank. And just as we said already, it's amusing how some folks take everything that is printed by certain media outlets as gospel.

Corporate histories are not always pristine. The advent of capitalism is often accompanied by events that in retrospect we find to be abhorrent-especially as perspectives mature and human right concerns become more central to our sensibilities. That being said, the current policies of Barclays bear little resemblance to the bank's past posture and to use the past to stigmatize the naming rights deal is a real rasping at straws; a grasping that glosses over the real good that the deal will bring to the athletic groups in Brooklyn.

Acorn's Bertha Lewis captures some of this when she tells the paper, "Today's civil rights agenda is about building affordable housing so black and Latino families can have a place to live in Brooklyn..." Atlantic Yards will be a major cause of resurgence in downtown Brooklyn and a fabulous boon to the boroughs young people.