We’re selling naming rights to subway stations now?
If a $4 million deal is approved on Wednesday, the nexus of subway stops at Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street and Flatbush Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn will add an additional name to its already lengthy title: Barclays.
This may seem odd, since Barclays is a bank based in London with offices in Manhattan, and the only Barclay Street on the city map is not even in Brooklyn. (It’s in Manhattan, in the financial district.)
Oh, but guess who’s behind this little deal?
There will, however, soon be a Barclays Center, the sports arena planned as the focal point of the Atlantic Yards project, and the developer, Forest City Ratner, has agreed to pay the transportation authority $200,000 a year for the next 20 years to rename one of the oldest and busiest stations in the borough.
I might have known. The MTA and Forest City Ratner are awfully cozy these days. And the Times blithely rolls along with cute little gosh-that’s-a-mouthful jokes and largely uncritical coverage of the massive boondoggle that is Atlantic Yards.
next they will use eminent domain to take the naming rights to your apartment.. that would be only slightly more absurd.
Dignity, always dignity! Still, I feel a bit embarrased for Barclays that all they could buy was a couple of New York subway stations. Goldman Sachs got DC’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
I used to do this nekkid performance art piece with the words GANNETT OUTDOORS written on my butt. It’s just a matter of time until we all get tattooed.