The Barclays Center: Brooklyn’s Unforeseen Community Center
Today, nearly a decade since the opening of the Barclays Center, the community of Downtown Brooklyn has begun to accept the arena as a symbol reflecting values greater than gentrification and economic turbulence in their neighborhood.
The multi-purpose indoor arena — that houses the Brooklyn Nets, and concerts by the likes of Jay-Z and Barbara Streisand — was highly contested upon its arrival in Brooklyn, as it displaced area institutions and mainstays in Pacific Heights, residents and treasured small businesses. When construction for the Barclays Center initially began, the use of eminent domain received the backing of the courts for the developer to proceed with a massive multi-billion dollar venture that included a mix of housing and retail complexes, many which are still in development. Locals protested the opening of the arena as part of a grassroots campaign that spontaneously emerged — this campaign was called “Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn.”
Recently, George Joseph, a Brooklyn-based criminal justice and housing journalist for The City, stated that the opening of the Barclays Center was a “big disappointment” for those working-class tenants, who were forced to move because of escalating rents that accompanied the Barclays arrival. The ripple effects continue to affect nearby regions, like Bedford-Stuyvesant, which historically has been a black working-class neighborhood.
One of these disappointed residents is a longtime Brooklynite who passionately protested the opening of the Barclays Center; she prefers to be referred to as Diana G. Diana said that she was “not opposed to the opening of a sports center,” but was afraid that “if they started to build highrises, the very thing that drew people to the neighborhood would be lost.”
Despite the fierce opposition of community residents, the Forest City Ratner shareholders and developers continued to create architectural plans for the exterior plaza of the Barclays Center. A 50-story office tower, designed by architect Frank Gehry, was designed to surround the arena, but the 2008 recession deterred this additional build, thus leaving the future of the plaza unsettled.
When May of 2012 arrived, and the plaza remained empty, the subway station was renamed the Atlantic Avenue–Barclays Center in tribute to the area in which it stood. The Atlantic Avenue station eventually gained traction as New Yorkers learned to accept the Brooklyn Nets as their own. The once forsaken subway station soon became the busiest station in Brooklyn — with 13,939,794 passengers by 2019.
The gradual success of the Atlantic Avenue subway station revealed the shifting attitude of Brooklynites towards the Barclays Center; Brooklyn resident Callison Cornell agrees. Cornell believes that “in New York, you get used to things and figure out what other good parts of it there are.”
On May 29, 2020, four days following the death of George Floyd, Brooklyn “got used to it,” and transformed the once repudiated plaza into a lodestone for activism.
The massive Black Lives Matter protests that often coalesced at the Barclays Center, integrated the arena into the fabric of civic life and social protest. These spirited protests featured participants chanting, marching, and holding signs bearing the names of victims of police violence.
In the days following the final marches, members of the Brooklyn community began to share their newfound appreciation for the Barclays Center.
Among many others, @Catherynbe-a public Twitter user-tweeted out her thoughts. She tweeted that “the Barclays Center becoming a protest hub is so heartening and somehow almost rights things in light of the controversy and contention over getting that vast project built.”
Somehow, in the most unlikely of ways, the Barclays Center has now found unexpected significance a decade after its controversial birth.
Logan Hennes