Posted Aug 16, 2012, 2:59 PM
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New Yorker for life
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Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Borough of Jersey
Posts: 57,192
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http://hiphopwired.com/2012/08/15/exclus...s-not-better-than-madison-square-garden/
Exclusive: Spike Lee Says Barclays Center Is “Not Better” Than Madison Square Garden
by Latifah Muhammad
August 15, 2012
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The Barclays Center has been the talk of basketball, Hip-Hop and Brooklyn, but one person unfazed by the hype is Spike Lee. The acclaimed director, and Brooklyn native is a devout New York Knick's fan and when asked if he will start supporting the Nets who have since moved to his borough, he refused to switch sides. “I'm not going with the Brooklyn Nets,” Lee tells Hip-Hop Wired. Slated to open in September, the Barclays Center will boast several amenities including a 40/40 Club location outfitted with 80-inch flat screens, and a VIP section covered sponsored by Calvin Klein. Nets minority owner, Jay-Z will perform eight shows at the arena in September, while John Legend will be the first act to take the stage at Barclays Cushman & Wakefield theater one month later.
Regardless of the attention that the center has received, Lee is not impressed. However, he will visit the arena— if need be. “I'll go, but I'm not a Brooklyn Nets fan,” he added. “ It's not better than Madison Square Garden though. It's three blocks from my office in Forte Green.”
“The Garden,” as it's called, is New York City's longest active major sporting facility and opened in 1968. Over the years, several music artist (including Jay-Z) have performed in the venue. In 1991, owners shelled out $200 million to renovate the location and added 89 suites. It currently hosts 320 events a year, but only time will tell if Barclays will become a viable competitor for the Garden.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/nyregi...y-investors-playbook.html?pagewanted=all
With Arena, Rapper Rewrites Celebrity Investors’ Playbook
By DAVID M. HALBFINGER
August 15, 2012
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When the developer Bruce Ratner set out to buy the New Jersey Nets and build an arena for them in Brooklyn, he recruited Jay-Z, the hip-hop superstar who grew up in public housing a couple of miles from the site, to join his group of investors. Mr. Ratner may have thought he was getting little more than a limited partner with a boldface name and a youthful following that could prove useful someday. But Jay-Z’s contributions have dwarfed the $1 million he invested nine years ago. His influence on the project has been wildly disproportionate to his ownership stake — a scant one-fifteenth of one percent of the team. And so is the money he stands to make from it.
Now, with the long-delayed Barclays Center arena nearing opening night in September and the Nets bidding in earnest for Brooklyn’s loyalties, Jay-Z will perform eight sold-out shows to kick things off. But away from center stage he has put his mark on almost every facet of the enterprise, his partners say.
He helped design the team logos and choose the team’s stark black-and-white color scheme, and personally appealed to National Basketball Association officials to drop their objections to it (the N.B.A., according to a person with knowledge of the discussion, thought that African-American athletes did not look good on TV in black, an assertion that a league spokesman adamantly denied). He counseled arena executives on what kind of music to play during games. (“Less Jersey,” he urged, pushing niche artists like Santigold over old favorites like Bon Jovi.)
“He is it,” Mr. Ratner, the developer, said in an interview. “He is us. He is how people are going to see that place.”
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http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120813...se-barclays-is-becoming-brooklyn-fixture
For Better or Worse, Barclays is Becoming a Brooklyn Fixture
August 13, 2012
By Janet Upadhye
Designer Deb Goldstein created a T-shirt to protest the renaming of Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street to Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center.
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NEW YORK is Back!
“Office buildings are our factories – whether for tech, creative or traditional industries we must continue to grow our modern factories to create new jobs,” said United States Senator Chuck Schumer.
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