Song for Prospect Heights

The Ratner Who Sold Christmas

I was trying to think up pro-PHeights/anti-Ratner holiday songs. Anyone have ideas for tweaking some of the seaonal classics? Does anyone have some inspiration for lyrics for something like God Bless Ye Merry MTA, or You'd better watch out.... Ratner's coming to town? Other ideas could be Broadway-themed, like Everything's Up To Date in Ratnercity.

I haven't come up with too much so far, just this:
Jingle bells, jingle bell
Ratner's on his way
Oh what fun it is to ride
What the taxpayers pave the way

Please! No serious replies!

there will be some anti-ratner caroling for anyone interested . . .

the Save Brooklyn Sym-Phony, and those that stand with
us, continuing a time-honored tradition, soon we will go a-caroling to fight the arena threatening prospect heights, fort greene, and surrounding neighborhoods. Roger Paz has written some witty anti-ratner lyrics, and you are welcome to write more.

The plan is to carol the evening of Wednesday, December 14 and the afternoon of Sunday, December 18. please join us, bring instruments and friends. we plan to have one (optional) rehearsal - this sunday (12/11). .

REHEARSAL (at freddy's, in the backroom)
Sunday, 12/11, 2 pm

CAROLING (meet at freddy's)
Wednesday, 12/14, 7pm
Sunday, 12/18, 2 pm

"Blighted Heights" (to the tune of Silent Night)

Blighted Heights
What a sight
No-one lives
near the blight
No small businesses
No little kids
Nothing but steam rising from sewer lids
No-one lives here at aaaaaaaaaaall
No-one lives here at all

Blighted Heights
What a fright
Nothing stirs
in the night
No cafes, no diners, no bars
No light but the flickering stars
No-one works here at aaaaaaaaaall
No-one works here at all.

"Splintered Neighbourhood" (to the tune of Winter Wonderland)

Hey, Ratner
What's your mission?
Eviction? Demolition?
You're up to no good
You're chopping up wood
Working on a splintered neighbourhood

Millionaires will be playing
Local kids will just stay in
No neighbours to meet
on Parking Lot Street
Living in a splintered neighbourhood

On Flatbush you'll thrill to see the traffic
Shouts and horns and fumes will fill the air
Doesn't matter if we end up all sick
As long as you can be a billionaire

Lots of cash will be flowin'
But we know where it's goin'
The Ratners can sleep
'Cuz Marty sold cheap
Welcome to our splintered neighbourhood

Future generations will just wonder
"Was this empy building ever used?"
"Yes," we'll say "it ws the pride and plunder
of a public office oncde abused."

So what's the point of life's labors
if we can't keep our neighbors?
We're happy to fight
To do what is right
And not live in a splintered neighbourhood
And not live in a splintered neighbourhood

"Ratnerville Sucks" (to the tune of Jingle Bell Rock)

Ratnerville Ratnerville Ratnerville sucks
Ratner's a shmoe and Ratnerville blows
Capers, skyscrapers and graft on the side
Will he get to do it? You decide

Ratnerville Ratnerville Ratnerville Sucks
MetroTech fright and Terminal blight
Shysters and goniffs and crooks of all stripes
in the dead of night

Ratnerville Time, it's the swill time
to sell your soul away
Ratner Hell Time, Something-Smells-Time
To line pockets at the MTA
Giddy up, get along, get out your map
Hope to God you have some luck
Move or perish in the vanishing street
That's cuz Ratnerville
That's cuz Ratnerville
That's cuz Ratnerville sucks!

"Hey, Listen, Marty Markowitz" (to the tune of God Bless Ye, Merry Gentlemen)

Hey listen, Marty Markowitz
We don't like what we've read
It says right here that you agree
with what Bruce Ratner said

This so-called land developer
Should develop film instead
Cuz Brooklyn is not your private toy
Your private toy
No, Brooklyn is not your private toy

No listen, Borough President
It's time to listen good
It's people and not architects
that make a neighbourhood

We thought that you were with us
but now it's understood
No, Brooklyn is not yours to destroy
Yours to destroy
No, Brooklyn is not yours to destroy

The will of Prospect Heights people
you haughtily defy
The questions from the Ft. Greene folk
you give them no reply

We're here building communities
While you're building a lie
No, you cannot win and we're the reason why
the reason why
No, you cannot win and we're the reason why!

"Marty, the 2-Faced BP" (to the tune of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

Marty the 2-faced BP
had a very slimey scheme
Give a huge slice of Brooklyn
so Ratner could fulfill his dream

Using the Nets as carrot
he tried to sell this sordid scam
But when it came to people
he just couldn't give a damn

All the people he once knew
Wondered why he turned
Marty, with your BP clout
Why'd you have to sell us out?

Then all of Brooklyn jeered him
and you could hear them say:
Marty, the 2-faced BP
Be with us or be passe
Be with us or be passe!

"The 12 Days of Ratner" (to the tune of...you know)

On the _____ day of Christmas, Bruce Ratner took from me...

1st Day: An apartment for my family
2nd Day: Two thoroughfares
3rd Day: Three neighbourhoods
4th Day: Four years in building
5th Day: DE-MO-CRA-CY!!!
6th Day: Six sportless months
7th Day: Seven days a-strolling
8th Day: Eight unclogged subways
9th Day: Nine cultures mixing
10th Day: Ten acres peopled
11th Day: Eleven blocks of sidewalks
12th Day: Twelve months of taxes