Wednesday, June 15, 2011

"Crazy, Crazy, (Rich) White People!": PS 58's Barclays Nets Sign Gets Tagged

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What Took So Long?
This is too funny. One of the two Barclays Nets signs were hung on PS 58's fence about two weeks ago, has been tagged. Someone obviously felt strongly about Barclays' naming rights of PS 58's playground and added "Crazy, Crazy, (Rich) White People" and "When will it end" on stickers now glued to the sign.
The signs created quite a bit of buzz around Carroll Gardens. Barclays Nets Community Alliance paid for part of the Carroll School's schoolyard renovation through an organization called Out2Play. In exchange for the donation, the school allowed the signs to be hung on the fence. (Why Out2Play or former Councilman DeBlasio who secured funding for the renovation did not get the same consideration was never fully explained.) Some in the community, including me, found that commercializing our public playground is a bad idea and creates a slippery slope.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report, who has been a vocal and tireless critic of Barclays involvement in the Atlantic Yards project, agreed. He writes:
I'd point out that, when Out2Play seeks individual donations, they don't advertise the possibility of getting your name on a school playground. That must be reserved for bigger donors.
Out2Play explains:
Every dollar we raise from the private sector often translates into nine dollars in public funding. Each of our playspaces costs an average of $250,000.
How much did Barclays give to P.S. 58? I haven't checked, but would note that the initial $150,000 grant was supposed to help refurbish eight playgrounds.

That's less than $20,000 a playground--pretty good if you get a sign out of it too... (more here)
Not bad, indeed. Where else can you get a prominent advertising space for approximately $20,000?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is a horrible deal. 20 k for a 2 square foot sign on a chain link fence? It looks no bigger than a Pay Day Loan or Fat Pill sign that no one pay attention too.

Anonymous said...

crazy, crazy white people is going around.
it's on a poster for the new Julia Roberts/Tom Hanks movie in the carroll stop.

Anonymous said...

What does this even mean? "Crazy Crazy (Rich) White People! When Will It end?"

Are we taking this to mean that the "Crazy (White) People" are the Barclay's developers and FCRC? Because this could easily be making fun of the people complaining about the signs and making them out to be such a big deal.

Either way, whoever stuck those on needs to up their game. If they're going to be clever vandals, then their vandalism needs to be clever.

concetta said...

nyc is full of crazy white people & i too ask 'when will it end?'.

Anonymous said...

Man, I hate seeing this Barclay's Nets sign on a public school playground fence. It should never have been allowed to happen. Insidious and creepy.

Anonymous said...

In exchange for the donation, the school allowed the signs to be hung on the fence.
Its not a donation if its done in exchange for an ad. its more like tax deductible advertising.

Anonymous said...

That tag is great for so many things. I'd like to see it slapped on half the restaurants on Smith St. ! Ha. Very clever stickers.

enuf already! said...

First you ruin a neighborhood (Brooklyn - wait to see the traffic havoc etc. the Barclay Nets area will create), so that you can make gazillion dollars with your project. Then you pick the most innocent place - in this case a school - "donate" a few bucks badly needed by the school because the city is giving tax breaks to wealthy developers instead of making sure schools get what they need. And you humiliate the neighborhood with your self-promoting signs, sticking the people's noses in your sh** even more. It's perverse, and we shouldn't have to put up with this people. Why are we???

Bristol said...

Still up, still hilarious. :)