The Brooklyn Standard??

rhodamine

Wtf.

When I got on the 2/3 today, instead of the usual overfriendly Metro/amNY pushers, there were two lowkey guys making sure everyone got a copy of a similar-looking paper called "The Brooklyn Standard", vol 1, issue 1...

As I like to try new things and support Brooklyn-based things, I grabbed one, and was suddenly struck by the fine print under the title... which reads something like "A Publication of Forest City Ratner Companies".

Hmm.

The headlines?

"Brooklyn's Booming: Atlantic yuards will bring jobs, housing and hoops!"
"Forest City Ratner Continues Efforts to Avoid Condemnation"
"Yes! Voice of New York sports joins Nets"
"New Buildings and Arena to enhance neighborhood"
"Atlantic Yards to add more affordable housing"

And on and on and on with endless, similar tripe.

This paper made me feel unclean.

Has anyone else noticed this Ratner PR tool this morning?

:?

heights249

oh my God that sucks! I have about a million things to say about that and I did hear that he was coming out with a publication to sway the Brooklyn public...but that's outrageous!! Actually I'm more concerned at the moment of the displaced metro news guy - what did they do with him?! :!:

captain m

I got it too and was going to post about it but you beat me to it.

Most disturbing for me was

"There are two kinds of people in this world today: Brooklynites and Brooklyn Wannbes!" - Marty Markowitz

- I guess that would make him the latter

daveb

heights249 wrote: Actually I'm more concerned at the moment of the displaced metro news guy - what did they do with him?! :!:

If we're talking about the Grand Army guy, I'm hoping the earth opened up and swallowed his perpetually upbeat, twisted ass. :twisted:

rhodamine

heights249 wrote: oh my God that sucks! I have about a million things to say about that and I did hear that he was coming out with a publication to sway the Brooklyn public...but that's outrageous!! Actually I'm more concerned at the moment of the displaced metro news guy - what did they do with him?! :!:

i know... so much to say about this. social engineering at its worst. youd think they would have kept the FCR name a little more on the downlow, and not put it in the beginning of every article, but oh well...

theres also something sour about choosing the name "brooklyn standard".

rhodamine

daveb wrote: [quote=heights249]Actually I'm more concerned at the moment of the displaced metro news guy - what did they do with him?! :!:

If we're talking about the Grand Army guy, I'm hoping the earth opened up and swallowed his perpetually upbeat, twisted ass. :twisted:

hahha!!! lol. :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:

sje

If the project were so good for the neighborhood, he wouldn't have to be spreading propaganda in the form of a fake newspaper about it. Stinks.

rhodamine

sje wrote: If the project were so good for the neighborhood, he wouldn't have to be spreading propaganda in the form of a fake newspaper about it. Stinks.

exactly. they didnt even try to finesse it. its just a blatant prop for their goals. do they really think that this sort of thing is gonna help? are people that dumb that they'll fall for it?

maybe theyre just using it to massage the opinions of the uninformed/less informed. which sucks.

whyfi

I just had to laugh... I have faith that most will see it for the propaganda that it is...

emily

I don't know what's worse:

A) How pathetic that is
The fact that many readers won't notice that it's from Ratner, and will believe it

Did anybody hold on to a copy of this? I wonder if we could get it scanned and posted.

rhodamine

EmilyM wrote: I don't know what's worse:

A) How pathetic that is
The fact that many readers won't notice that it's from Ratner, and will believe it

Did anybody hold on to a copy of this? I wonder if we could get it scanned and posted.

you can see it yourself in pdf format at http://www.brooklynstandard.com

i dunno, you cant really even look at it without knowing its fro mratner. problem is, what that implies might be lost on the unaware masses. not everyone in brooklyn is as informed as we are, unfortunately.

anonymous

The regular guy who sells the major papers was missing from the 7th Ave Q/B today too and some dudes were trying to hand out the Brooklyn Standard. I wonder if the guy that is there every morning selling the papers (with that crazy voice) was offered money to go elsewhere for the day???

I just thought the whole thing was very odd, so I skipped on the free propaganda.

jamesondean

Subject: NIMBY, MF.

Some kid from BUILD was handing those out on my street a few weeks ago, or trying to. Guess they had a lot of copies left over...

heights249

daveb wrote: [quote=heights249]Actually I'm more concerned at the moment of the displaced metro news guy - what did they do with him?! :!:

If we're talking about the Grand Army guy, I'm hoping the earth opened up and swallowed his perpetually upbeat, twisted ass. :twisted:

Wow - really? That's harsh. I think for a couple of seconds a day that I interact with him he doesn't affect me that profoundly. If anything I think he's rather uplifting to come into contact with - to me anyways, he tries to make the best of the job that he has. Again, just personally speaking.

daveb

*sigh*
:roll:

heights249

daveb wrote: *sigh*
:roll:

I don't get it? What's the "sigh" for?

emily

I think because we've already discussed this guy a lot in another thread. Some people find him charming and others find him really annoying and can't believe that he's working for a company with racist management/ownership.

Personally, I think he's fun and always makes me smile, but I take the 2/3 about 1/50th of the time, and there's no guy at the Q where I usually get on. So I suppose he could become grating if you saw him every day.

(For a similar debate, look for the thread about the panhandler outside Natural Land.)

heights249

Okay - well, I still don't get the sigh thing - but moving on - I don't know the guy at all or what he knows of his company's management practices or values - but I'm kinda guessing he may not care. Sometimes people who need a job don't have the liberties that others do in choosing what jobs they'll take. This of course is a seperate issue from whether he's annoying or not but I kinda think that he may be doing the best he can with his own personal circumstances. Of course I don't know maybe not - but I'm willing to assume this because I think for the most part it is the most common and general trend of human behavior. I'm struggling to choose my words so that they convey what I'm most trying to say -because I think it's important to stress that I'm not trying to say what has been said before about him isn't valid - but there's probably more to his story, and really anyone's whose job it is is to stand outside a subway station and pass out free newspapers to people you know, for the most part, don't really want to be bothered by you.

rhodamine

heights249 wrote: Okay - well, I still don't get the sigh thing - but moving on - I don't know the guy at all or what he knows of his company's management practices or values - but I'm kinda guessing he may not care. Sometimes people who need a job don't have the liberties that others do in choosing what jobs they'll take. This of course is a seperate issue from whether he's annoying or not but I kinda think that he may be doing the best he can with his own personal circumstances. Of course I don't know maybe not - but I'm willing to assume this because I think for the most part it is the most common and general trend of human behavior. I'm struggling to choose my words so that they convey what I'm most trying to say -because I think it's important to stress that I'm not trying to say what has been said before about him isn't valid - but there's probably more to his story, and really anyone's whose job it is is to stand outside a subway station and pass out free newspapers to people you know, for the most part, don't really want to be bothered by you.

not to stir up the same tired old thread, but i gotta agree that that guy is uber annoying. cloying, rather aggressive with handing out his paper, etc. hes the sort of guy that sees you coming from 20 feet away and shouts "HEY BIG GUY! (i hate that, btw) GETCHER PAPER HERE BUDDY!! HERE! HERE! HERE YA GO!!! HERE YA GO MAN READ THIS!!!" while shoving a paper in your face, no matter if im on the phone, reading THAT very paper already, reading a book, etc. its, well, overkill.

i totally agree with your humanitarian view, but sometimes i just wanna go get on the freaking train without having to run the gauntlet of the overly peppy papesr lackey, you know? and i think thats what the *sigh* was referring to... the well-intentioned tendency to play devil's-advocate for an arguably nice guy... who just happens to be really annoying for some of us that have to dodge him every day.

were not bad for being annoyed by him.
youre not bad for championing him.
its just the case of two different perspectives, which can coexist here, yeah?

anonymous

The Ratner paper was in the lobby of my building in mid-June. I am not sure why they would be distributing it a month later. Weird...

sje

Because it's not a real, timely newspaper, but a bunch of propaganda bullshit. Trying to blanket the neighborhood with them, no doubt.

rhodamine

sje wrote: Because it's not a real, timely newspaper, but a bunch of propaganda bullshit. Trying to blanket the neighborhood with them, no doubt.

i know, it saus june/july 2005 on it. i wonder if theyll ever get to issue #2, heh...

sje

can't wait. {bronx cheer} :twisted:

daveb

sje wrote: can't wait. {bronx cheer} :twisted:

Now that's got me wondering what a Brooklyn cheer sounds like.

rhodamine

sje wrote: can't wait. {bronx cheer} :twisted:

i was in the process of doing a little snooping into their DNS information to see how veiled the "man behind the curtain" was...

when i saw it, i realized they haven't even tried to pass it off as a "real" thing or made any effort to create a pretense.

brooklynstandard.com

Certified Offer Service - Make an offer on this domain
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Registrant: Make this info private
Forest City Ratner Companies
1 MetroTech Center North
Floor 11
Brooklyn, NY 11201
US
Phone: 718-923-8452
Fax: 718-923-8752

Domain Name: BROOKLYNSTANDARD.COM

Administrative Contact , Technical Contact :
Forest City Ratner Companies
[email protected]
1 MetroTech Center North
Floor 11
Brooklyn, NY 11201
US
Phone: 718-923-8452
Fax: 718-923-8752

Record expires on 18-May-2008
Record created on 18-May-2005
Database last updated on 18-May-2005

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NS1.PLAINHOST.COM 208.179.130.11
NS2.PLAINHOST.COM 208.179.130.12

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Current Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
IP Address: 208.179.130.186 (ARIN & RIPE IP search)
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Data as of: 08-Jun-2004

anonymous

http://www.dddb.net/#dheights

emily

Did you see that there's a letter from Bloomberg in the letters to the "editor" section of the "paper"? I wrote his office an email explaining what I thought of his participation in the project.

anonymous

Subject: Ratner's Rag...

of course anyone COULD tie them up in a nice neat bundle for recycling pick-up. I'm just suggesting...

BDZ wrote: The Ratner paper was in the lobby of my building in mid-June. I am not sure why they would be distributing it a month later. Weird...

anonymous

Subject: Brooklyn Standard

Um, I don't think you can put GARBAGE in with the recycling. The Brooklyn Standard is definitely GARBAGE.

anonymous

I have no opinion about the paper, but I'd like to be the squeaky wheel of these boards.
Ratnerville = inevitable.
And by the way, an upper west side group has been fighting Extell for over a year about their proposed gigantis residential tower http://wb11.trb.com/news/local/eveningnews/nyc-collapse0715,0,7894477.story?coll=wpix-evening-news-1
Why don't we send some of the roving reporters of this site to 100th street and Broadway and ask the residence their opinion on Extell (What about it Rhoda; How's that feature article about graffiti coming along).
I guess if it's not in your 'hood, you'll promote Extell as the alternate to Ratner.
I keep telling you: As long as there is a market for residential construction, the Ratner plan will go through, and without noise.
Maybe then we'll get a new Police Precinct out of this to patrol our neighborhoods
Sincerely,
Anonymous Guest

anonymous

Ratner is cornered.
Extell's proposal is far better than Ratner's.
Our hearts go out to those injured on 100th street.

When you sleep with dogs, sleep with the prettiest ones.