I got my first look at the new arena in Brooklyn Tuesday night. I need another trip down there to make a firm assessment but I love what I saw of the place on my maiden visit. The only reason I hesitate to anoint the Barclays Center a great venue is that my initial view may be shaded by the atypically posh accommodations enjoyed throughout the evening.
Steelers fan Mike scored a pair of primo seats through his job. We entered when the gates opened at 6 PM.
The ticket included access to a lavish pre-game buffet in a club adjacent to the Nets locker room. The seats were incredible. Just two rows off the floor opposite the visitor’s bench, we maintained readiness for the prospect of a seven-footer diving into our rib cage for a flying basketball.
A server brought us cold beverages throughout and didn’t bother with the settle-up until the end of the game. Arena employees who checked tickets and operated other facets of the game-day experience were warm and enthusiastic.
Seating areas throughout the building appear shrouded in near-darkness when contrasted with the brightly-lit playing surface. It’s pleasing to the eye as you look around. Upper level sections have some quirkiness in shape. Rows don’t seem unreasonably long horizontally and the steep climb from entrances to seats are made navigable by railings down the middle of the aisle.
The crowd was announced at 16,236 which is a few hundred shy of capacity. At no point in the evening was there much in the way of sustained energy from the audience. That’ll get better. This is a new experience for many fans. The building is constructed in a way that will make for a good home court/home ice advantage but it’ll take time.
The Islanders are committed to moving here in 2015. It’s mysterious why the building wasn’t configured with an ice rink in mind but now that I’ve seen the place, I think it’ll be a fine venue for hockey. The look and feel of the upper level’s closeness to the ground floor reminds me a bit of Maple Leaf Gardens. I mean, nothing comes close to MLF’s intimacy but it’s a strong characteristic at the Barc.
At halftime, we hung around a bit in the club area accessible via our tickets. We said hello to Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy. He was a complete gentleman. Murphy voiced optimism and support for the young players acquired in the Dickey deal and said he’d be ready to go when position players report in four weeks.
We also crossed paths with former Mets pitcher Ron Darling who sat one section away and acknowledged the admiration showered on him with aplomb as he walked to the club at halftime.
No matter how great this new building appears to be, any discussion of the Barclays Center should include consideration of the divisive process that preceded its construction.
There was significant community resistance to the project. It took the better part of a decade for developer Bruce Ratner and an army of real estate lawyers to get the green light to build on the busy intersection of Atlantic and Flatbush in downtown Brooklyn.
Some small businesses and residents have been displaced through eminent domain. Others will get squeezed by the neighborhood’s rising property values. A significant part of Ratner’s vision for the arena plan is an array of real estate development on adjoining parcels. Those buildings are stalled but said to be still on the drawing board.
I was a supporter of the new arena in Brooklyn from conception. It’s easy for me to be pro-arena sitting a borough away but I based my position in part on familiarity with what resided on that corner before. Not knowing a whole lot about the larger proposal still in the works, I believe the arena as a stand-alone part of the deal is good for Brooklyn. It beats a messy collection of unremarkable retail and/or emptiness that occupied Atlantic Avenue above a rail hub on that stretch pre-Ratner. I don’t fully understand why the displacement had/has the reach it did.
As we walked up Portland Avenue into Fort Greene after the game, I gained an understanding and sensitivity to the possibility of disruption to the lives of regular people in the immediate vicinity of the arena. Beautiful rows of brownstones occupied by families dedicated to their neighborhood as any New Yorker would be now face streams of foot traffic before and after events. I would hope there would be respect for these quiet streets but you know what happens when 19-thousand people empty into the neighborhood. Most will scurry straight to the subway and commuter trains so conveniently located near the arena. Some will linger, looking for action or a post-game drink or meal. Some will be loud and some will be inclined to act in a way they may not in their own community. That potential for isolated hooliganism is impossible to defend and likely difficult to control. The brownstones were here before the arena. Unlike Wrigley Field, where boozed-up fans piss in alley-ways of residents who bought into that neighborhood knowing the ballpark’s side effects ahead of time, most of the people who live up and down the densely populated streets around Barclays had no idea what was coming.
So, with Ratner’s planned cluster of high-rise apartments in the area around Atlantic Terminal still unbuilt, my position on the new arena remains mostly unchanged. The superb linkage to public transit steps from the arena’s entrance equals or exceeds what’s available at the Garden for all but those riding New Jersey Transit. People who try to take a vehicle to Barclays won’t do it more than once after driving around in circles while the masses glide on and off public transit. Adding a handful of LIU-Brooklyn basketball home dates on the arena schedule is nice although those seats should probably come down off the $20 minimum.
If Brooklyn (population 2.5 million) was its own city, it would be the fourth largest in the United States just behind Chicago. It deserves its own arena and is capable of supporting professional sports. It did just fine without any pro team for a long time, yeah, but placing a nicely-designed gathering spot in the heart of the borough can be a good thing for the community as long as the community gains reasonable access to it.
I’m glad we have a new place to see the games. We have a competitor to the Garden. We have a venue that costs a lot to enter, yeah, but it appears it was built without a cookie-cutter. That’s good for Brooklyn. And on balance, it’s good for New York City.
