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tel/fax:
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121 5th Avenue, PMB #150
Brooklyn, New York 11217
About DDDB
Our coalition consists of 21 community organizations and
there are 51 community organizations formally
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volunteer legal team of local lawyers supplementing our
retained attorneys.
We are funded entirely by individual donations from the community at large
and through various fundraising events we and supporters have organized.
We have the financial support of well over 3,500 individual
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Freddy's Bar Armors Neighbors - Erects Guillotine Made of Beer Cans - Declares Eminent Domain Revolt
From our comarades at Freddy's Bar and Backroom, a 2nd Sunday of resistance:
Media Alert
What:
Freddy's Bar Armors Neighbors - Erects Guillotine Made of Beer Cans - Declares Eminent Domain Revolt
It's Bars vs. Banks
When: Sunday, December 27, 2pm.
Where: Freddy’s Bar
& Backroom
485 Dean St. (Corner of 6th Avenue)
Brooklyn, N.Y.
Listed as one of the Best Bars in America by Esquire Magazine;
Last week voted One of the Best Bars in Brooklyn by the Village Voice.
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Scheduled to be torn down for ACORN, a British Bank, and a Russian Billionaire, there's a brewing standoff at this Brooklyn bar:
Last Sunday, Freddy’s Bar installed the Chains of Justice (see Cuff Love, NY Post by Leonard Greene and A.P. coverage later in this alert), to prevent the wrongful Eminent Domain taking of the neighborhood where it is situated in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn.
In preparation for the upcoming seige of the bar, this Sunday, December 27, we are declaring revolt and collecting money for armor plating to protect homeowners and renters from eviction, at an event featuring a 9 foot guillotine to guillotine Eminent Domain effigy.
Billionaires Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov are on the verge of using the State of New York to seize the neighborhood for a stadium using New York State’s outdated Eminent Domain laws. They hope to build a stadium named for Barclay's Bank, for the soon-to-be Russian owned N.J. Nets, and some housing to be operated by ACORN. We say the banks and foreigners have taken enough from America, and that ACORN needs to reform its ways and keep their paws off our bar and neighborhood.
As evictions loom ever larger following the Atlantic Yards Master Closing which authorizes the state to wrongfully take over the embattled neighborhood, locals are standing their ground and escalating the battle to stay in their homes. The threat to the neighborhood has galvanized us – and to prove it, we are raising funds for galvanized steel plates to put on neighbors doors to resist eviction.
Eminent Domain Revolt is being declared in our neighborhood. We are overthrowing the rule of the Real Estate Royalty who keep outdated laws on the books and use the government to do their bidding. We are up against a real estate company that is the second biggest political donor and lobbyist spending force in the state. The law must be changed. Period.
Senator Bill Perkins, Chairman of the New York State Senate Corporations, Authorities and Commissions Committee has begun a crusade to rid New York State of Eminent Domain Abuse. He has asked Governor Patterson for a moratorium on Eminent Domain takings until the Columbia decision against the Empire State Development Authority’s pattern of operating in bad faith, and abusing Eminent domain has been reconciled with the Atlantic Yards decision in the Court of Appeals. And we are behind him 100%.
They will try to take the neighborhood and the bar with Eminent Domain, and we are going to stop them.
Brooklyn’s Prospect Heights, where Freddy's Bar is located, faces a unique twist: The State of New York is moving to take properties from families and businesses and, instead of building a road or a school, the State will hand the land over for private use by Russia’s richest man, who, in partnership with billionaire Bruce Ratner is building a stadium to house the NBA’s worst team. 8 acres of the 22 total acres the State is taking will be for the stadium. The rest, it has recently been revealed, will be leveled, with nothing required to be built on it for decades.
*****************************************
We say Eminent Domain Abuse in New York State is going to end right here, right now because our neighborhood will not be taken. Over 5000 people have pitched in for the legal fight, and hundreds of Freddy’s patrons stopped by last Sunday throughout the day to practice handcuffing themselves to the "Chains of Justice" mounted on the bar. The bar patrons and neighbors have had enough. If we have to now resort to guillotines and armor plating, so be it. This is one bar that will not be taken by the evil known as Eminent Domain.
In light of the recent decision against Columbia University and the Empire State Development Corporation’s attempt to steal properties by eminent domain, and the confusion in the Courts that seems to allow taking Brooklyn properties for Ratner, but not Harlem properties for Columbia…we are angry. We are giddy for the victory against Columbia, but angry that our neighborhood can be taken, that our bar can be taken. We will stand in support of the Prospect Heights neighborhood, and the extended neighborhood of 5000+ supporters who have donated time and money to fight against eminent domain. Last week we installed chains on the bar because we believe the links of the chain represent all the individuals unbreakably locked in a chain gang seeking fair rights for the individual in the contemporary flurry of land-grabbing corporate greed.
The Backroom at Freddy’s Bar was the birthplace of this particular rebellion for fair treatment, the front room is where we brought out the hardware to back it up. And the sidewalk in front of the bar is where we will guillotine Eminent Domain Abuse in effigy.
The Declaration of Revolt and Guillotining Ceremony will happen on Sunday, December 27th at 2:00pm.
We invite you to this video-, audio- and photo-genic event….
Posted: 12.26.09
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