Submitted by Michael D. D. White, Feb 19, 2008 12:30

It is hard to believe that with substantially over a billion dollars or a billion and a half in public subsidy pending to be doled out to Bruce Ratner that neither the city nor state are preventing the premature destruction of the Ward bakery Building.

The building is a significant asset that was being used well into the 90s. Any destruction NOW is likely to be a destruction twenty years prior to the time that anything currently intended to replace it would be built. We are likely seeing the creation of a twenty-year parking lot that will increase blight. (Even though what is to replace the Ward Building is "supposed" to built in less than a decade, the reality is that it would almost certainly take far longer, twenty years being a better estimation.)

Also, with luck, Atlantic Yards will never be built since Atlantic Yards it is costly, badly designed and lacks public support.

It would be far better to preserve the Ward Building for now. That would allow for the option that one day the Ward Building's beautiful repeating graceful arches should be a focal point and defining feature running along side of a new Ward Park in a responsible neighborhood design for the area.

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