Brooklyn's sprawling Atlantic Yards development — named after the decaying railyards of Atlantic Avenue — was to be a massive residential, transport and entertainment hub, including a new stadium for the New Jersey Nets basketball team. Already facing strong community opposition, it's now under threat from the economy and a softening housing market. Architect Frank Gehry recently told an industry magazine the project would likely never be finished, although he quickly retracted his comment. Meanwhile, property in the rest of the Big Apple is equally bruised: all of the city's ambitious projects (redevelopments at Penn Station, Lower Manhattan and the 56 Leonard site by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuro) are indefinitely delayed, as is another $5 billion worth of development.
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