The sister of Develop Don’t Destroy’s Daniel Goldstein has her own activist streak, Miss Wit tee designer Deb Goldstein’s coming in the form of a shirt protesting the MTA’s decision to accept naming rights dough in order to rename the Atlantic Avenue-Pacific Street subway stop, “Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center”. From DFAinfo.com’s Leslie Albrecht :
The new name is the result of a 2009 deal between the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Barclays Center developer Forest City Ratner Companies, who will pay the transit agency $200,000 a year for the next 20 years for the naming rights.
Barclays, a London-based bank, bought the naming rights to the new Brooklyn Nets arena in Downtown Brooklyn in 2007 for a reported $200 million.
She became inspired to make the threads when she spotted the new Barclays Center signs at the subway station, which sits just a few hundred yards from the new arena at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues.
To Goldstein, the station signs seemed to be “commanding” locals, some of whom had fought passionately against the arena, to embrace the Barclays Center.
“It just feels like there’s no control over anything that’s happening,” Goldstein said. “I have no problem with change, but change is something that evolves. You don’t buy change, and that’s what this feels like. It’s just a reminder of the whole process of how [Atlantic Yards] happened. It was supposed to be about housing, and now a British bank has their name on a subway station.”
Goldstein said she made the shirts in the spirit of the “I’m Still Calling It Shea” T-shirts that popped up when Citi Field opened.