Ratner's Un-Fab Towers

Only days after being sued by disgruntled construction workers for undelivered jobs and wages, Bruce Ratner throws another shrimp on the fuck-you-Brooklyn-barbie pit he calls the Atlantic Yards. Representatives of Ratner's firm released some stank ass pictures by SHoP architects revealing the first of a few towers planned around the Barclay Center. And here's the kicker: they're all pre-fab modular towers. That means they're made in smaller modular units in a factory, then transported to the Atlantic yards, where they will be bolted into place. Sort of like Legos, but not nearly as cool. 

The first of the towers will be 32 stories tall and made up of 930 of these modular boxes. One of the later towers could raise as high as 50 stories, making it the tallest modular tower ever built -- or the tallest middle finger to all those who initially backed this project because Bruce promised A) Frank Gehry, and B) Union jobs. Let us address each of these factors.

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Ratner, You Just Got Sued.

I'm not going to lie: I sorta' love it when someone jams a thorn in Bruce Ratner's ass, especially when it's from folks who once backed him up. On Tuesday morning, unemployed construction workers announced a lawsuit against Brooklyn's favorite developer (or "The RAT," as one commenter from the Brooklyn Paper called him) for promised jobs and wages that they never received. 

According to a press release, the lawsuit claims that Ratner's development group offered something called a "Community Benefits Agreement" (CBA). This promised that people from the community would be hired to work on the Atlantic Yards project. It is implied that Ratner did this to cool down immediate criticism of the project, and to gain the support of local politicians.  

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