Hundreds Protest Proposed Site Of Brooklyn Nets Arena

Jay-Z’s involvement with a group of investors that purchased the New Jersey Nets won him accolades as a business man, but some residents in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn are singing a different tune. Yesterday (March 28) almost 400 people turned out to protest a planned 19,000 seat arena that developer Bruce Ratner, who […]

Jay-Z’s involvement with a group of investors

that purchased the New Jersey Nets won him accolades as a business man, but

some residents in the Prospect Heights section of Brooklyn are singing a different

tune.

Yesterday (March 28) almost 400 people turned

out to protest a planned 19,000 seat arena that developer Bruce Ratner, who led

the purchase of the Nets, has on the drawing board.

In addition to the arena, Ratner’s $2.5 billion

dollar plan includes 17 skyscrapers over 24 acres.

Almost 500 residents and businesses stand to

be displaced under the "eminent-domain" law, which is the right of

a government to appropriate private property for public use.

Patti Hagan, spokesperson for the Prospect Heights

Action Coalition, has organized protests. Hagan completed a door-to-door survey

of the neighborhood to determine the population that would be effected.

Hagan pointed out that 870 people who lived in

the area would be condemned and more than 500 businesses would be driven out.