So we should take developers’ pious promises and dire warnings during the approval process with a grain of salt.

That applies to projects in spot rezonings near the Atlantic Yards site: the “M-CROWN” zone, later formalized into the Atlantic Avenue Mixed-Use Plan (AAMUP).

See, for example, the story of the 1010 Pacific rezoning, in which promises of affordability, cultural space, historic facade, and unit count from the applicant proved hollow—and then they flipped the property for a huge profit.

Since then, as I’ll describe below, a parcel subject to a controversial and unsuccessful spot rezoning nearby has changed hands. The transaction casts doubt on the owner’s past warnings and suggests substantial profits.

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The Atlantic Yards angle

The framework applies to Atlantic Yards, too, so we should have similar expectations.

After all, the partnership between Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR hasn’t built anything as a team yet. (Cirrus has no track record beyond another approved project.1 LCOR does have a track record.)

State agencies, notably Empire State Development (ESD) and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), have long been willing to revise deals with the project’s developers, but, as we’ve learned, have been unwilling to enforce contractual provisions regarding the unbuilt Urban Room atrium and penalties for missing affordable housing.

As I wrote on March 31, a presentation to EB-5 investors, who own a minority stake in the Atlantic Yards platform development, stated, “The developer will continue constructing buildings or sell sub-parcels.”

That was apparently an effort to reassure those investors that there would be an opportunity to be repaid.

It also reminds us that, once developers have a project approved and entitled, they have options, especially when contracts are not ironclad.

We’re still in the approval process. A key next step is a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, due by July 31. It should outline public support, timing, and oversight.

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But it won’t be binding. It precedes a formal public review, though it’s all controlled by Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Will we learn the value of the “public resources” sought, including 1.6 million square feet of additional bulk, yet-unspecified tax breaks, and an expected $350 million in direct subsidies?

The 962 Pacific example

We recently learned that the much-discussed 962 Pacific Street in western Crown Heights, the subject of a complicated and controversial spot rezoning nixed by Council Member Crystal Hudson, will be developed after all, and at a likely huge profit for the landowner.

As the Real Deal reported April 21, Avery Hall Investments, the Brodsky Organization2, and contractor Monadnock Construction bought not only 962 Pacific Street (Block 1133, Lot 13) but also an adjacent parcel just to the south, 863 Dean Street (Lot 80), allowing for a block-through assemblage.

The lots are 33,000 square feet and 16,500 square feet, respectively. Presumably, the assemblage gives the developers more design and layout options.

Big bucks

The parcels are within the recently approved AAMUP, which allows new residential density on land formerly shackled by commercial and industrial zoning.

That rezoning clearly goosed interest in those properties, among others. The Real Deal quoted broker Matt Fotis of Marcus & Millchap as saying that 863 Dean drew 15 offers. It sold for $16 million. (Owner Albert Appleton acquired the underlying lots in 1996, 30 years ago, for $68,000.)

While no price was disclosed for 962 Pacific Street, a recently uploaded deed to the city’s ACRIS database discloses that it sold for $33 million, more than double its neighbor’s price.

The contract date was Nov. 18, 2025, about a year after the New York Times quoted owner Nadine Oelsner as saying it might not make financial sense to build her project, leaving its fate uncertain.

As of 2024, I had suggested that the parcel, acquired for just $1,000 in 1974, was worth perhaps around $20 million. That was clearly an underestimate.

That $33 million for Nadine and Bill Oelsner surely justified the $14 million they borrowed, cumulatively, to clear, prepare, and rezone the site.3 (Some of that spending made the site more valuable, preparing it for development. Some of it went to fees for the unsuccessful rezoning.)

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Warnings and evasiveness

As I reported, one Brooklyn Community Board 8 member asked Oelsner, “What is the projected sort of margin that you are expecting to have on this project?”

“Let’s come back to the Community Board,” she replied, but their ultimate response was evasive.

Was the question invasive? Well, it was relevant, given claims that they were being squeezed.

Oelsner and her lawyer, playing chicken with the community board, suggested that the failure to pass the rezoning would lead to the construction of a last-mile package distribution center or a bus parking lot, both of which would fuel unwelcome traffic.

“If I can’t get some movement on here, I’m going to lose this property,” Oelsner warned at one Community Board 8 meeting, given that their loan was coming due, I reported in December 2022. Ultimately, they just kept refinancing.

Would the Oelsners, who had no experience in real estate development, maintain a majority ownership in a future joint venture? “We pray to God,” she told CB 8 members, “we can keep this property, and we can have a controlling interest.”

That, I wrote, was hardly definitive. Ultimately, it was piffle.

What might be built

One 962 Pacific plan had 150 apartments and 135,815 zoning square feet (zsf) of residential space. That implies larger apartments.4

The R6A zoning in the Mid-Block Mixed-Use Subarea allows a residential building with a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of 3.9, plus an incentive to add 1.1 FAR of office, commercial, or manufacturing space, for a total FAR of 5.0.

That would allow 193,050 square feet of residential space, or 46.1% more. Does that mean there’d only be 219 apartments, a similar increase? I suspect there would be more, and smaller, apartments.

So, if the new owners spent $49 million for 193,050 square feet of residential space, that’s $254 per buildable square foot. But the site could have a total FAR of 5, which means 247,500 bsf, including lower-value non-residential space. That works out to $198 per buildable square foot.

The developer originally requested an FAR of 4.6, arguing that that was in line with spot rezonings down the block.

Affordable housing

Avery Hall’s Brian Ezra told the Real Deal they planned a project “consistent with the rezoning,” but wouldn’t provide details. The AAMUP allows for Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) Options 1, 2, and Deep Affordability:

• 25% of units averaging 60% of Area Median Income (AMI)

• 30% of units averaging 80% of AMI

• 20% of units no higher than 40% of AMI

[Updated/corrected thanks to comment below from Gib Veconi]

As I wrote, the Oelsners initially offered 25% affordable housing. After Community Board 8’s Land Use Committee sought 35%, expanding the number of lowest-income units, and the developer agreed to 32%, the full Board endorsed that revision.

What happened?

Council Member Hudson, who had declared a moratorium on new projects until the area rezoning had passed, clashed with the Oelsners, whose proposal for a spot rezoning on a block that already had other spot rezonings had been stalled by the pandemic.

Was it arbitrary to oppose this one, especially since the private deal would’ve delivered more affordable housing? Maybe, maybe not.

But it was a lot more complicated a story than the New York Times presented, as I wrote in the link below.

It was appropriate to pressure the Oelsners to include more affordable housing, because they’d get the jump on other developers in the area rezoning. Also, they’d be building into a block where significant construction had concluded.

The real estate publication The Real Deal reported, with dubious sourcing, that Hudson had sought far more from the landowners, including 100 percent affordable senior housing at another site, plus $5 to $10 million in a fund for affordable housing.

Hudson denied it. It’s plausible that some negotiation occurred.

After all, we know there’s big money in an upzoning, whether for a particular parcel or in an overall area. Building bigger makes property more valuable. The numbers have to work.

The WNBA, after years of financial stagnation, has seen team valuations rocket thanks to new media rights, sponsorship deals, and recognizable stars like the Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark. That’s led to an average valuation CNBC says is “$460 million, 84% more than the league’s most recent expansion fee of $250 million.”

Both CNBC and Sportico estimated the New York Liberty is worth $600 million, an astonishing rise from the $12 to $14 million in debt that Joe and Clara Wu Tsai assumed in 2019 when acquiring the stagnant business from Madison Square Garden’s James Dolan.

That’s one-third more than the $450 million valuation reported less than a year ago when the Liberty, owned mainly by the Tsais (plus the Koch family), sold a stake in the “mid-teens” to several investors, including Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, which Joe Tsai now leads.

In May 2024, Wu Tsai said she aimed to make the Liberty the WNBA’s first billion-dollar franchise within ten years. That’s no longer a stretch, and it should happen faster.

According to CNBC, the Golden State Valkyries are the league’s first $1 billion team, Michael Ozanian of CNBC reported May 4. (Sportico says $850 million.)

“Well-run WNBA teams will be worth $1 billion within five years,” a potential investor told Ozanian. Count the Liberty in.

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Smart moves

Credit the Tsais for savvy investment and marketing, for acquiring star players, for enhancing facilities and staff, and for conceiving a new image for the team, including mascot Ellie the Elephant.

They sold out the Barclays Center in their home debut last night, where they crushed the Connecticut Sun, even without some key players.

Even the new box office, temporarily on the not-quite-public plaza, is covered in Liberty logos, as shown in the photo below.

The Liberty’s new coach is interviewed in New York magazine, with the headline Can the New York Liberty Be Champions Again? The pressure is on for new head coach Chris DeMarco.

From a glowing May 7 profile in Vanity Fair, Clara Wu Tsai Put Her Money on the New York Liberty. Now, the World is Finally Catching Up to the WNBA.:

Wu Tsai is eager to see the Liberty win it all and is proud that this era of the team will be “known for investment that changed the trajectory of, or set the standards for, what other companies and teams think of what’s possible for the WNBA.”1

They built a new fan base in the borough and region for this “sports entertainment corporation,” as subsidy skeptic Bettina Damiani put it in 2007 Congressional testimony.

Public and private

It raises a question, as I wrote on Twitter/X: with the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and Barclays Center (operating company) skyrocketing in value, why does New York City/State not review the arena tax exemption and/or charge for making Ticketmaster Plaza permanent in a revised Atlantic Yards plan?2

Though few remember, the potential for greater public benefit has been raised before.

After all, if a second professional team arrived at Barclays, according to the February 2005 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by the city, state, and original developer Forest City, “additional rent and other terms” would be negotiated.

That’s never been invoked, however.

No, often opaque spending, purportedly $5 million a year, by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund (see my series), doesn’t compensate for a tax-free arena property recently assessed at $122.7 million.

Note that Citifield and Yankee Stadium have even larger tax exemptions, while Madison Square Garden’s exemption, according to the Independent Budget Office, is anomalously low.3

Remember, rather than pay taxes on the tax-exempt site, the arena operators make payments in lieu of taxes, or PILOTs, to cover construction debt, as I wrote in 2024. Watchdog legislator Richard Brodsky likened the practice to sending “my tax payments to the bank to pay off the mortgage.”

Moreover, they benefit from tax-exempt bonds, which offer lower interest rates than taxable bonds, and have already been refinanced for additional savings.

Last night, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and his wife, Rama Duwaji, attended the game.

It’s understandable why public officials like sports teams: they offer a platform of publicity without having to navigate political partisanship. (During his campaign, he went to a Knicks game.)

Mamdani’s own Communications Director also posted on Twitter/X:

Shouldn’t a true socialist not only criticize high ticket prices, as Mamdani did with the Knicks, but also the tax exemptions that benefit Barclays, as well as MSG, Citifield, and Yankee Stadium?

Does he not know of the 2020 letter from nine Council Members stating, “We love our teams, but we love our constituents more”? (More here.)

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Reasons for Liberty/WNBA boom

The WNBA’s new media rights deals, CNBC reported, are 6.5 times the league’s previous average for such deals, while sponsorship and attendance have risen, finally leading to a new contract for historically underpaid players.

The Valkyries reaped $78 million in revenue last year, with 18,064 average attendance, while the Liberty earned $43 million, with a 16,323 average, about 1,200 less than the maximum attendance. So there’s room in Brooklyn to both fill seats and, likely, keep raising prices. Also, a deeper playoff run would reap more revenue.

Sportico, in its 2026 WNBA Valuations Ranking, valued the Valkyries at “only” $850 million, which indicates that such rankings are more art than science.

“The average WNBA team is worth an estimated $427 million, up 59% from 2025,” Sportico’s Kurt Badenhausen declared.

As the valuations “include real estate and team-related assets, such as practice facilities,” the value of the Liberty is expected to be boosted by the $80 million practice facility planned for Greenpoint, scheduled to open next spring.

Team revenues, averaging $31.5 million last year, rose 56% year over year and 139% from 2023, according to Sportico.

The Brooklyn Bridge uniform

No progress without profit was the story behind the NBA and the Brooklyn Nets, as author Matt Sullivan wrote in his book Can’t Knock the Hustle. Same for the WNBA and the Liberty.

Consider the new uniform inspired by the Brooklyn Bridge, which the team says is “rooted in themes of strength, movement, resilience, and connection.” Of course, they’re already on sale for $129.

“The Rebel Edition uniform is a tribute to Brooklyn, to the history that surrounds us, and to the women whose resilience and determination have shaped this franchise and continue to drive the game forward,” said Liberty CEO Keia Clarke.

Inscribed within the stripe on the back of the jersey and above the jersey tag on the front is a quote from Emily Warren Roebling (wife of chief engineer Washington Roebling, son of original engineer John Roebling), whose leadership was instrumental in the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge: “Back of every great work we can find the self-sacrificing devotion of a woman.”

“One difference,” as I wrote on Twitter/X, “is that the Brooklyn Bridge doesn’t have all those sponsors and logos.

Opening day

Yesterday was not merely a home opener, according to the Liberty, but also “the start of a season-long celebration connecting the Liberty’s legacy to the future of basketball in New York.”

“Liberty legend Kym Hampton” performed the National Anthem, while halftime entertainment included Liberty mascot Ellie the Elephant, along with the Lil Torches, Torch Patrol, and Timeless Torches. The game had a custom court inspired by the franchise’s original 1997 design.

I’m sure it was fun. While the owners of the Liberty and the arena company could spend big on their holdings, they somehow can’t keep the escalators rising from the transit hub working. (It’s a recurring issue.)

The team announced new food options, including Levain Bakery cookies and 7th Street Burger smashburgers, as well as a new spicy mango margarita. New merchandise, too.

Local businesses offering Liberty perks include Bagel Pub, Pasta Night, Shake Shack, and even the Whitney Museum of American Art, which will host the May 15th edition of Free Friday Nights, a Liberty-themed event.

New sponsor: Coach

The Liberty just announced new partnerships with the handbag brand Coach, the league’s official handbag partner.

This includes Coach Story Sessions, featuring key players from the team, plus a stop on the brand’s spring Tabby Tour. It will also feature a special #BookTok-inspired social series, the “Courtside Book Club,” with Liberty players — and the team’s mascot, Ellie the Elephant —selecting a reading list for each quarter of the season.

“Storytelling is at the heart of how we continue to grow the game, and this partnership with Coach allows us to tell the New York Liberty story in a truly meaningful way,” said CEO Clarke.

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New sponsor: Spotify

Now Spotify is the Liberty’s Official Music Partner, including in-game activations, player storytelling, and on-court branding. The launch yesterday included a “home opener block party presented by Spotify.”

Mascot Ellie “will also headline select Spotify-led activations at Barclays Center, and the Liberty will debut an official Spotify playlist featuring songs produced by the organization, alongside tracks that resonate with fans.”

It’s all part of being a well-run sports entertainment corporation. As Damiani told Congress:

Although sports entertainment corporations have an entire section of every day’s
newspaper devoted to them, the [teams] are, we must always remember,
privately owned entertainment corporations. It’s discouraging that officials are confusing teams with public goods like parks, water and transit that are essential to the city’s public health and economic vitality.

I typically cover the Barclays Center’s monthly Community Notice, an event calendar for neighbors, on the blog. But I’m writing about this month’s document here because it points to the arena operator’s lack of transparency and the need for someone to keep watch.

The Barclays Center yesterday—on May 6, late!—circulated its May 2026 event calendar, with eight ticketed events: six WNBA New York Liberty games and two concerts, including Bruce Springsteen and René Liu.

In May 2025, the arena hosted seven concerts, four Liberty games, and eleven private events, mostly graduations. (The May calendar is typically light to allow for the possibility of Brooklyn Nets playoff games. That didn’t happen this year.)

As cited in the screenshot above, the arena plaza will have amplified sound from 5 to 7:25 pm tomorrow, before the Liberty’s home opener against the Connecticut Sun. Expect a full house.

A JetBlue event

Also note amplified sound on the plaza all day May 12, from 9 am to 7 pm, for what’s billed as the JetBlue Daytona Plaza event.

What’s that? It’s not explained in the calendar circulated by Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment.

Well, NYC for Free says the JetBlue Carry-On Cup, from 2 to 7 pm, will involve a pop-up to give away round-trip flights from New York to Daytona Beach.  

Every 15 minutes, attendees will race on scooters designed like carry-on luggage to win a trip to the “World Center of Racing,” according to the announcement.

How much will public access to the plaza be truncated? Unclear.

What is clear, as I’ve written, is that the “public amenity” of the plaza is subject to private control, despite the significant tax exemption and other public largesse.

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Private events

The month also includes seven “private events,” with no explanation. The time ranges are from when the doors open until the event ends. Most, as I discovered through web searches, are Commencement ceremonies.

• May 15, 5:30-10 pm: unknown; 6:45 pm start

• May 16, 7:30 am-12 pm: LIU Brooklyn, Global, Hudson & Schwartz College of Pharmacy; 9 am start

• May 17, 11 am-4 pm: unknown; 12 pm start

• May 18, 8:30 am-12:30 pm: NYU Tandon School of Engineering, 10 am start

• May 18, 3-7 pm: The New School, 5 pm start

• May 28, 8 am-12 pm: Brooklyn College, 9 am start

Why disclosure matters

At a state-sponsored Quality of Life meeting on May 7, 2019, an arena representative was asked about the monthly calendars.

(Such meetings have been suspended during a pause in project construction, but neighbors still might have questions about arena operations.)

"I know we're coming up to graduations, and I know we're going to have a lot of bus problems," commented resident Pauline Blake. "We get the monthly notice... but it doesn't tell us about graduations. Is there a way for us to find out we will have very large graduations that may have bus traffic coming?"

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Indeed, sometimes buses inundate the neighborhood, and/or idle on local streets, and sometimes crowds of visitors surge on nearby blocks.

"We send out notifications," the arena rep (who lasted less than a year) responded smoothly. He noted that residents have (or could get) his contact information. "Please feel free to reach out to me, and I’ll follow up with you."

That, as I wrote, reflected a dismaying strategy of opacity, in which Barclays Center operators veered from significant disclosure of both the focus of the private event and the expected crowd size—see example below— to zero disclosure to partial disclosure.

They’re back to very partial disclosure.

Why is it so hard to tell neighbors the name of the event and the expected crowd size, even a range?

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The AAPI Night Market

On Wednesday, March 20, from 6 to 10 pm, the arena will host the fifth annual AAPI Night Market.

From the notice: “Celebrate the Asian American and Pacific Islander community with complimentary food from local vendors, performances, kids activities & more. This event is free & open to the public.”

As the image indicates, it’s also sponsored by… Hennessy.

Temporary box office

The notice also discloses a buildout this month of a temporary box office on the plaza, as they’re renovating the actual box office.

It looks finished to me, as shown in the April 30 photo, and was already up as early as April 24, as I wrote. That was disclosed with the April 2026 event calendar.

The May 2025 event calendar, for reference

My coverage was headlined Barclays Center releases May 2025 event calendar: seven concerts, four Liberty games, and eleven (unspecified) private events, mostly graduations.

It serves to help the developers’ path to state approval of significant project changes, including 1.6 million square feet of free bulk (worth $320 million?), direct subsidies of $350 million, and other “public resources,” while expanding a project with 6,430 approved apartments—about half of them built—to about 9,000 units.

It also indicates a few changes in response to public feedback.

The report’s initial 39 pages are almost identical1 to the Draft report, while an additional section responds to questions and comments. (The report was prepared by the consultant Karp Strategies.)

Key takeaways

In that new section, ESD defends—for the first time—“significant” subsidies to build a platform over the railyard, needed for vertical development while preserving railyard functions.

ESD also reveals a design tweak to one building (B9), deflects requests for about more deeply affordable housing, and resists turning over project governance to a more representative entity. (The latter two issues have been raised by local elected officials and the coalition BrooklynSpeaks.)

In other words, the desire for public input goes only so far.

Density and scale

As to the project’s astounding proposed scale, well, ESD claims, “Designing buildings that meet housing needs, are financially possible, and are compatible with the character of the surrounding neighborhoods is important to both ESD and the Development Team.”

Those, of course, are in tension, and it’s not just an issue of “neighborhood character,” which, after all, can be debated. (Are Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park sites reflective of nearby row-house streets, moderately upzoned Atlantic Avenue, or far larger parcels not far away but clearly in Downtown Brooklyn?)

It’s also an issue of what advocacy planner and academic Ron Shiffman calls “carrying capacity,” given that, for example, the increase in apartments and population outpaces the much-promoted one-acre increase in open space.

Shiffman wrote me after I suggested that a giant new project up Flatbush Avenue might serve as a precedent for Site 5, the two-tower project planned catercorner to the arena, bordered by Flatbush, Atlantic, and Fourth avenues, and Pacific Street.

He observed:

“We have a responsibility to ensure that affordable housing delivers not just shelter, but a livable and healthy environment. Placing lower-income families at one of the city’s most congested intersections effectively asks them to accept conditions—noise, danger, and lack of usable public space—that we would not tolerate elsewhere.”

He’s brought up that issue at meetings of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (AY CDC), of which he’s a director.

Timing questions (and doubts)

The new report, reiterating responses from a March 19 public workshop, states that, under the best-case scenario, the first buildings would open “in the early 2030s” and the development team “anticipates completing the project in the late 2030s.”

That said, it acknowledges that the complexities of such projects complicate “an exact timeline.” Indeed, the history of Atlantic Yards—announced in 2003 with a purported ten-year buildout—does not inspire confidence.

Moreover, “anticipate” is a notorious project weasel word. In 2006, the original developer, Bruce Ratner, acknowledged that “almost everything winds up taking longer than we anticipate.”

In a May 2008 Daily News op-ed, Ratner professed an updated ten-year timetable, hedging, “We anticipate finishing all of Atlantic Yards by 2018.”

We deserve a range of possibilities, including analysis of what the Port Authority, in the case of Ground Zero construction, in October 2008 called “a ‘probabilistic analysis’ or risk analysis – that had not been applied to past schedules.”2

According to the March 19 public workshop (see screenshot below), a “Conceptual Project Program” should be delivered by June. That might include many of the details, such as a timeline and new images, that we should already have.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between ESD and the developers, Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR, is due by July 31. That will precede a public approval process that should last through the end of 2027.

Essential criticisms

My essential criticism of the Draft Report remains: the Community Engagement effort, involving four workshops and online surveys, was aimed at ratifying the new developers’ framing—only taller, bulkier towers can deliver the desired affordable housing and open space—while also crowdsourcing tweaks to open space, streetscape, and retail plans.

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The report retains the surprising—but dubious, given the limited and unrepresentative input—suggestion that respondents prefer below-market “affordable housing” at relatively higher incomes, disregarding the project’s unfulfilled promises to deliver low-income apartments.

Real transparency, as I wrote, would’ve meant allowing follow-up questions and a public report-back at the workshops.

It also means they would have:

• shared what the proposal might look like (which is why I’ve published unofficial images from my collaborator Ben Keel)

• identified comparable large real estate projects in New York City that have 409 apartments per acre, as is proposed for Atlantic Yards, rather than evading my question

• explained that, though they plan to add an acre of open space by eliminating a building, the amount of open space, related to population, would go down, given the increase in apartments

Big question: subsidies

Real transparency, as I wrote after the Draft Report, would’ve disclosed the developer’s quest for $350 million in state subsidies to build the platform needed for vertical development over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard.

The issue did emerge in the Final Report’s Q&A:

Is the State considering granting the Development Team’s request for $350 million in subsidies to support the platform construction? If the state does not use taxpayer funds to subsidize the building of the platform over the railyards, will this project no longer be financially viable for the developers?

Very significant public subsidy is required in Phase II, to make development of homes, public open space and community facilities, and other ground-floor uses at the site above an active railyard possible. ESD acknowledges that the extraordinary cost of the platforms is the most significant impediment to site development and the creation of affordable housing and is actively working to address this issue by evaluating public subsidy options to ensure the project’s success.

(Emphases added throughout)

That’s conclusory.

How can we evaluate subsidy levels until we know the developer’s cost to enter the project and acquire or control existing development rights? (Remember, a Cirrus principal called taking on Atlantic Yards, leveraged by buying the discounted debt of former master developer Greenland USA, a “no-brainer.”)

As the coalition BrooklynSpeaks, which has the ear of local elected officials, has asked, "Will ESD commit to providing an independent financial analysis reconciling project cost, subsidy and public benefit?"

ESD, the report states, “has already engaged a third-party financial consultant to review the project underwriting with respect to financial feasibility in order to help ESD evaluate these complicated balances.” We haven’t seen it.

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Remember, former City Planning Commission Chairman Dan Garodnick, hardly a radical, recently told Vital City, “ But if a single dollar of public money is going into a project, the public should have absolute transparency as to what’s going on.”

Former Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, a real estate developer and hardly radical figure, recently told the New York Times, when asked about Hudson Yards, “Unless it’s also prepared to share in the upside, the private sector should not expect the public to step in whenever market conditions change.”

So why should New York State make deals without transparency?

From the Q&A:

Is ESD considering granting payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs)?

ESD is exploring various tax exemption programs and tools.

That leaves open many possibilities.

One design change: B9 tower

From the Q&A:

Has the project team considered removing the central north-south leg of the proposed building at B9, and replacing it with a simple B8 double-loaded bar on Atlantic Avenue that continues the street frontage retail of Atlantic Avenue and adds green space on the south side of B9?

The Development Team agrees with the comment and has eliminated the central leg of B9 in its thinking on the site plan. This provides more contiguous open space on B9 as the comment suggests but also provides the further added benefit of the unencumbered publicly accessible open space on B8. The Team believes that the current open space design of B8, which includes west-facing B9 retail fronting the open space, is optimal for placemaking in the master plan and for long-term commercial viability of Atlantic Avenue. Maintaining B8 as publicly accessible open space creates a unique ground plane condition that the Team expects to significantly improve the street-level experience along Atlantic Avenue long-term.

See the updated unofficial infographic below.

Of course, if they’re going to eliminate that portion of the building, they won’t sacrifice square footage. Rather, they’d have to build a taller B9 and also redistribute some of its bulk, likely to the B5 tower. That means the five railyard towers might average 574 feet, not 550 feet.

I’d note that the Development Team doesn’t fully agree with the comment, as the commenter, architect Jonathan Cohn, had proposed restoring the B8 tower.

Cohn, in response to my query, agreed that eliminating that portion of B9 would “make for a significantly more ‘open’ open space,” but also would save the developers money, as it means less construction over the railyard.

He said the phrasing about the “benefit of the unencumbered publicly accessible open space on B8” was confusing, especially without a revised plan. (See below for further discussion of B8.)

Deeply affordable housing?

From the Q&A:

Based upon the last (supposedly binding) agreement, this community is owed 185 units at 30%–40%, 461 units at 41%–60%, and 385 units at 61%–100% of AMI. Can ESD definitively say whether or not the community is ever going to get affordable units in the 30–40%, 41–60% and 61–100% AMI ranges?

There will be units delivered at a range of affordability levels, including at 40%–100% AMI. ESD is committed to seeing through the Atlantic Yards project, bringing badly needed housing to the area, and delivering affordable units.

That response was evasive.

The question reflects advocacy by BrooklynSpeaks, which, though not a participant in the 2005 Atlantic Yards Affordable Housing Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), has regularly pointed out where it falls short, as in the slide below.

Another commenter raised the issue. From the Q&A:

Demand on Housing Connect for middle-income units tends to be much lower than for low-income units. Would you consider delivering fewer units at deeper affordability to better meet that demand?

The current proposal which is under consideration is intended to address the feedback on affordability levels provided by respondents, which includes providing units at a range of affordability levels.

In other words, no.

The response reflects the first of the report’s seven “Key Takeaways”:

• HOUSING AFFORDABILITY: Maximizing the number of affordable housing units across a range of income levels, particularly for moderate and middle incomes, and prioritizing family-friendly unit sizes are a top priority.

Is that truly reflective of community input? The statement relies on an online survey for which the median household income was $135,256, while lower-income residents, as well as Black ones, were underrepresented.

“The current proposal,” the report states, “envisions a minimum of 30% of rental units being 2 bedrooms or more.” While that sounds like three out of every ten rental units would be family-sized, the MOU said that 50% of the units would be family-sized on a square-foot basis.

New oversight?

From the Q&A:

Is the State considering having the project overseen by an entity other than ESD?

ESD is the appropriate agency to oversee this project due to both its unique ability to establish tailored design standards for the site and its current enshrined role in the project documents. ESD remains committed to a transparent and accountable Phase II and is grateful to all who are taking the time to engage and share their feedback on the project and process.

Of course, were this a transparent and accountable process, the state authority would have already disclosed much more. The image below, released at a Dec. 8 workshop, is the only one that hints at project scale.

The “current enshrined role in the project documents” could change, just as other aspects of the project documents, such as penalties and deadlines, surely will change. This is a political decision. The governor doesn’t want to give up control.

What about density?

From the Q&A:

Is the proposed open space really large enough to compensate for the thousands of new residents? There are concerns about the density.

Area needs that will arise with the addition of new residents will be studied as part of the environmental review process. The findings resulting from this review will inform the open space, infrastructure, and services needed to ensure the needs of current and future residents are met.

We know, from past results, that the environmental review process can be massaged to support any decision. We haven’t been told about comparable projects.

The developers plan five towers over the railyard that would be taller and bulkier than the B4 tower pictured below, which is 511 feet and contains about 800,000 square feet. (I estimate an average of 574 feet and more than 900,000 square feet.)

From the Q&A: Building a 720-unit building will add a huge number of people to this neighborhood. Has there been a sun study for the proposed reconfiguration of the green space? Please provide a wind study.

The response, of course, is that all impacts will be studied. However, they’re not building one 720-unit tower. They plan to build the equivalent of seven such towers.

How to balance priorities?

From the Q&A:

Can you please compare the relative importance of the following areas: the community’s and city’s needs for affordability, this engagement process, what was promised during the previous iteration of this development, and feasibility?

All the areas identified are important. This report is a major step in the larger good-faith effort currently underway to move this stalled project forward while building in as many features of importance to the community as possible. All planning is being done with the public in mind.

Wouldn’t a good-faith effort be far more transparent?

More on B8

What is the rationale behind the Development Team’s proposed conversion of B8 to open space, shifting the bulk to other sites?

The developers claim that “community feedback” indicated that more open space was “important to making increased density successful.”

Yes, more open space is desperately needed to accommodate the growing population. However, the development team decided to eliminate B8 before they sought any feedback.

From the Q&A:

The developers claim that site B8 is extraordinarily difficult to build on, due to the rail tracks below. Yet they still are providing a structural deck over it, for parkland. There seem to be foundations already in place for columns between tracks, and plenty of room in the vicinity of the NW corner of B8 for a tower core (elevators, etc). Please provide some detail on why a residential building on this site is not feasible, while a park is.

As discussed above, the Development Team believed a signature, central open space was important for the long-term success of the project. B8 was selected for this open space as the imposed structural loads for a publicly accessible open space are significantly less than those associated with a large residential building. This results in fewer deep foundations, fewer transfer structures, and reduced slab thickness, as well as smaller steel and concrete beams and shear walls. Since the parcel is already very constrained by the positioning of active rail lines, delivering enhanced open space while minimizing the impact on the tracks below remains the priority.

Cohn, who posed the question, observed that a central open space is a “questionable benefit when compared to a contiguous active street front.” He also told me that the response didn’t address the capacity of the foundations already in place.

Public park or private space?

BrooklynSpeaks had noted that the “open spaces cited by participants as examples of what is desirable at the site are all public parks, not private space controlled by developers and landlords,” and suggested a public role in “Pacific Park,” which is currently overseen by the landlord-controlled Pacific Park Conservancy.

From the Q&A:

Will the new open space be welcoming and more akin to the area’s major parks as opposed to recent construction?

ESD and the Development Team are committed to providing new open space areas that are welcoming and widely used by the project’s residents and neighbors. Specific design elements have not yet been finalized and community feedback such as this is being taken into consideration.

That doesn’t get to the issue of public and private.

An implicit criticism of “Pacific Park”

From the Q&A:

A note on the proposed site plan reads “Improve community access along Atlantic Avenue,” yet the arrows indicating access are not different from the original site plan. So, who would have “improved access,” and from where?

Previously, the continuous street wall along Atlantic Avenue and Dean Street would have led to the open spaces feeling less accessible and more like private courtyards. This has already been experienced on Dean Street with the existing open space on Block 1129. By converting B8 into a publicly accessible open space parcel, the new open space will feel much more inviting and open to the public than previous open spaces have.

Is the main issue that the existing open space feels like “private courtyards”? I suspect it’s not used much by neighbors beyond the dog run and the children’s play area because there’s no outlet and little to do.

As the photo below shows, even the “main lawn” has been inaccessible recently due to reseeding.

Gaps in retail frontage on Atlantic

From the Q&A:

Is the State concerned about the impact that gaps in retail frontage may have on future construction, particularly to the east of the site?

Although B8 is proposed as a publicly accessible open space, the Development Team has wrapped the corners of the platform sites with retail and community facilities that have storefronts on Atlantic Avenue, complemented by further activation of non-residential spaces on the open space. The Development Team would liken the B8 open space break to any urban condition wherein a park relieves the retail storefronts and then they resume — for example, Bryant Park on the south side of 42nd Street in Manhattan is a valuable amenity to the surrounding area and does not detract from 42nd Street as a successful retail corridor.

Cohn observed that the comparison was inapt, as Bryant Park is surrounded by activity and complemented by a historical pedestrian-oriented grid. He suggested better precedents might be the way Sunset Park and Green-Wood Cemetery break the retail frontage along 5th Avenue in Brooklyn.

What about dog runs?

From the Q&A:

Are dog runs being contemplated for the open space? If so, will they be larger than the Pacific Park run, accommodating for larger dogs?

The Development Team is currently exploring several design options for the public open space that capture feedback from the public workshops and community survey. …There will be additional future opportunities for public input on open space programming and design.

That didn’t encompass Cohn’s comment, which was that the existing dog area between B13 and B14 “is much too small to allow dogs to reach a full running stride; the constricted size contributes to conflicts, and spill-over into non-designated areas.” (He also noted that it is almost always in shadow.)

He suggested a much larger dog run. He called the response “a total non-answer.”

Apparently no one raised the issue of the poor placement and/or buffering of the current dog runs, which has led to noise complaints and truncated hours.

Questions about process

From the Q&A:

Why was the Community Engagement centered around responding to a plan as opposed to starting with fresh ideas from the public?

Providing the public with the Development Team’s proposal as it is being considered by ESD staff was part of a sincere effort from the State to move forward with the project in as transparent and accountable a process as possible. Public input is welcome.

A “sincere effort” would’ve been more transparent from the start.

Did the findings in this report take into consideration those who attended in-person workshops as representatives of larger organizations?

That’s a “relevant data point,” according to the report.

Does ESD consider the survey responses to be adequately “representative” of the community?

“The 593 survey responses, combined with the feedback received from the three public workshops, provide ESD with a robust set of data and feedback from community stakeholders,” but the survey is “just one component of a broader outreach process.”

What was your outreach to public housing developments around this site?

ESD claims “robust outreach,” including “distribution of meeting information at an Atlantic Terminal Tenant Association meeting, tabling at high traffic areas… flyering at local businesses, and dissemination to local email lists and Community Boards.” It didn’t necessarily work.

Will ESD be working to reach more very low-income New Yorkers?

ESD says suggestions are welcome.

Is it correct that 9% of the respondents to the survey don’t even live in New York City? Should their responses count?

Well, says ESD, some people have a stake in the community. Also, feedback is welcome from those who may have “concerns and personal frustration about the regional/national housing crisis and an inability to secure housing.”

In other words, housing need trumps many things.

Keeping people informed

From the Q&A:

Will ESD commit to publishing a public interagency coordination plan with timelines, responsible agencies, and specific metrics for infrastructure improvements tied to project build-out?

ESD recognizes that, like all large projects, Phase II will involve interagency coordination for issues such as construction, street design, and programming of the final sites. The public will continue to be kept updated on the Development Team’s work with other agencies (city, state, and federal) via regular updates to the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation and at community meetings.

Let’s see when and how regular meetings resume.

Transportation and traffic

What’s your plan for increased demand for public transit and pressure on the already busy Atlantic Ave station?

It will be studied in the Second Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SSEIS).

What’s your plan for traffic, especially with new planned construction?

Well, get ready for “partial lane closures during temporary periods to support the larger logistical work associated with the platform construction and foundations/superstructure.”

Can you speak to your plans to allow riders to exit the station on the side of the Modell’s building?

While the report says the development team is working with the MTA to explore options, that doesn’t mean it will happen.

Site 5 questions

In response to a question about the effect of the two-tower project on the Pacific branch library, the response said that pedestrian access to the library would remain unchanged, and vehicles accessing the parking area at Pacific Street should not be impacted by Site 5 loading

The Site 5 plan contemplates a loading dock, so that “trucks will not double park and idle on the street.” It didn’t say the loading dock would be on Pacific Street, but that’s the most likely location.

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Asked if they’d consider elevating the base of Site 5 to make a public plaza, the answer was essentially no, as the “first-floor program”—which includes a new store for P.C. Richard—“remains a key focus of the Development Team.”

Racial equity

A series of questions raised issues of racial equity.

From the Q&A:

Will ESD identify solutions for racial equity, infrastructure, and displacement concerns found during the environmental review process?

The SSEIS will include an analysis of whether the proposed project may cause or increase a disproportionate burden on a disadvantaged community. The SSEIS would also include an analysis of the potential for displacement of businesses or residents due to the proposed project. The analysis will include an evaluation of the potential for any indirect displacement impacts, such as displacement due to rising rents in the area. Where significant adverse impacts are identified in any of the technical areas, measures to avoid or mitigate those impacts will be proposed. Where impacts cannot be avoided or mitigated, they would be considered unavoidable significant adverse impacts.

In other words, the state review process does not require mitigation of impacts.

From the Q&A:

Page 31 states that community input will be “documented and evaluated alongside technical, regulatory, financial, and policy considerations.” How will ESD ensure that financial feasibility is not used to systematically override racial equity and civil rights concerns raised in this engagement, and will it publish a framework showing how these factors are weighted?

ESD has already engaged a third-party financial consultant to review the project underwriting with respect to financial feasibility in order to help ESD evaluate these complicated balances.

From the Q&A:

How will ESD formalize the ongoing role of civil rights organizations — including the Brooklyn NAACP — in co-designing future engagement, reviewing draft materials, and monitoring compliance with commitments over the life of this project?

ESD remains committed to seeking input from community organizations like the Brooklyn NAACP. Input from community leaders and the project’s neighbors will shape future engagement and outreach efforts during the public review process.

From the Q&A:

Key Takeaway 7 highlights community concerns about infrastructure and “quality of life,” including transit access, cleanliness, safety, traffic congestion, and wind impacts. How will ESD ensure that these quality-of-life issues — already disproportionately borne by Black residents — are addressed and mitigated before additional density is approved and built?

Potential impacts on the local community are of the utmost importance to ESD and the Development Team. Many of the issues identified in the comment will be studied in the SSEIS.

From the Q&A:

Page 31 states that community input will be “documented and evaluated alongside technical, regulatory, financial, and policy considerations.” How will ESD ensure that financial feasibility is not used to systematically override racial equity and civil rights concerns raised in this engagement, and will it publish a framework showing how these factors are weighted?

ESD has already engaged a third-party financial consultant to review the project underwriting with respect to financial feasibility in order to help ESD evaluate these complicated balances.

Let’s see if that framework gets published.

2

The target dates and “probabilistic” dates were not far off. Some were met, while others were not.

While the Memorial Plaza was completed, as targeted, in time for the tenth anniversary of the attacks, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub was not completed until March 2016, rather than the second quarter of 2014, the “probabilistic date.”

While the Freedom Tower was completed in 2013, the year for both target and “probabilistic” dates, it didn’t open for business until November 2014. Greenwich Street reopened in June 2015, well past the 2012 target and “probabilistic” dates.

Though President Donald Trump’s Justice Department had earlier settled its case against Live Nation, 33 state attorneys general (plus Washington, DC) pressed on.

The verdict’s effect remains unclear. As the New York Times reported, the jury agreed with the maximum damages calculated by the plaintiffs’ expert: $1.72 per ticket. Though ultimately up to a judge, that could total hundreds of millions of dollars, per Big Tech on Trial.

Even if Live Nation fails in its appeal, the remedy phase awaits. The most dramatic step would be to break up Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Though President Joe Biden’s Justice Department had sought that remedy, it’s now seen as a stretch.

How it works

If Barclays Center is named for a felonious bank, well, now the plaza outside is named for a sponsor known for improper, customer-gouging business practices. As David Dayen summarized it in The American Prospect:

In this case, the evidence was incredibly clear: Live Nation uses its various business lines—venue ownership, ticketing, event promotion, and artist management—as mutually reinforcing, to build dominant positions and make it impossible for competitors to operate or for anyone to escape its clutches. In internal communications, Live Nation executives regaled one another about “robbing [customers] blind.”

Barclays-related testimony, Part 1

The Barclays Center played an important cameo in the first phase of the trial, as I wrote.

Former CEO John Abbamondi, who had led Barclays’ switch to upstart ticketing company SeatGeek, testified that a phone call he had with Live Nation executives sounded like a threat.

Indeed, Barclays bookings with Live Nation declined. Was it retaliation? The new UBS Arena opened in late 2021 in western Nassau County, and new venues often have a honeymoon year.

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After a Barclays show was canceled for COVID, Abbamondi said Live Nation blamed Billie Eilish for rescheduling at UBS, but said one of the performer’s managers, speaking to a Barclays employee, blamed Live Nation. That, however, was disregarded by the judge as hearsay.

A powerful piece of evidence was SeatGeek’s willingness to offer what it termed “retaliation insurance” for venues wary of losing Live Nation bookings.

Because Barclays thought it might lose $20 million by antagonizing Live Nation, SeatGeek couldn’t afford retaliation insurance. So SeatGeek offered arena operator BSE Global (now Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment) $20 million in equity. (It’s unclear if that was accepted, and/or retained.)

Ultimately, BSE, owned by Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, made the pragmatic decision to return to Ticketmaster.

“My only religion is to win games and win the championship,” Joe Tsai told the New York Post in December 2021, explaining a different—but similarly pragmatic—reversal of policy: bringing back the unvaccinated star Kyrie Irving. “That’s where we are.”

Barclays-related testimony, Part 2

Once the trial resumed, testimony by Barclays’ chief booker, Laurie Jacoby, indicated reasons that the arena wanted to switch from SeatGeek.

In a July 13, 2022, email (via Decibel.News) to SeatGeek, Jacoby detailed “grave concerns with various aspects of SeatGeek’s technology and practices,” notably the posting of nonexistent “spec tickets” regarding a Bruce Springsteen tour that had not gone on sale.

(Earlier in the trial, SeatGeek’s CEO acknowledged they’d sold 20 tickets. He also blamed Barclays for mis-entering data. Was that sorted out? No.)

Jacoby, at the time, warned that Springsteen’s managers might pull the show or never return. (Neither outcome emerged.) “In short, the word on the street is that promoters don’t want to come to Barclays,” she wrote, blaming SeatGeek.

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As the Times reported, Jacoby nevertheless testified that she believed Live Nation had retaliated against Barclays “and that Live Nation employees had been ‘stirring the pot’ against them when they spoke to artists’ teams.”

A 10-page email (via Decibel.News) to SeatGeek, from BSE Global general counsel Jeff Gewirtz, indicated a host of other issues, including:

• SeatGeek had been too slow in moving buyers to the event page from the “waiting room”

• SeatGeek couldn’t quickly respond to changes to event seating on an event day, preventing new seats from being sold

• Seats with special perks, like Crown Club access, didn’t have such perks advertised when resold on SeatGeek’s platform

• Barclays had to reimburse The Strokes due to “perceived overall loss of revenue,” including “issues with aisle and VIP seats not functioning during the pre-sale”

• SeatGeek accidentally refunded all customers for canceled Disney on Ice shows, including those who’d gotten exchanges

The bottom line

From the seller's side, it seems, ticketing can be a complicated business. From the buyer’s side, the junk fees and other costs tacked onto scarce live entertainment events, however frustrating, haven’t deterred customers.

Indeed, Paula Mejía, writing in The New Yorker, wondered if anything would change: “Therein lies the paradox: these maddeningly bureaucratic platforms have tapped into a business so lucrative—the creation of high-profile communal rites—that it literally has no bottom.”

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Today, at least, we know that legal expertise, deployed by state attorneys general if not the vastly more powerful (at least in normal times) federal Justice Department, can substitute for disgruntled consumers’ inability to take collective action.

In an April 21 essay for the New York Times, Lina M. Khan, former chair of the Federal Trade Commission, and Doha Mekki, former principal deputy assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s antitrust division, called the Live Nation verdict “a watershed moment,” noting that the federal settlement involved “paltry fixes.”

“When government officials fail to stop corporate abuse,” they noted, “jury trials can be a key catalyst to force real change.”

Art, taint, and awareness

The paradox continues: the desire for live entertainment surely will trump qualms about paying the tainted Ticketmaster to enter the tainted Barclays Center.

Most people won’t notice, of course. After all, the taint from the arena company’s owners hasn’t stopped customers.

At least they should pause for a moment.

In an alternate universe, the arena’s new digital art series, Art on the Hour, presenting 60-second works on the Oculus screen at the top of every hour by a new artist each month, might allude to these larger political issues.

Then again, that series, which should start Friday, May 1, is sponsored by Barclays. Unlike some other art associated with the arena, it won’t be credited to the Tsais’ cleansing Social Justice Fund. That might compound cognitive dissonance.

Well, the renovation of the arena’s atrium will include a redesigned interior box office “with dedicated ticket resolution and guest services areas to create a more welcoming and efficient experience,” according to a press release, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment Announces Next Phase of Barclays Center Transformation.

So “a satellite box office will operate on the Ticketmaster Plaza to ensure continued access to ticketing services.” Renovation work should be finished by the fall.

In other words, the branded Ticketmaster Plaza is a public space, until it’s not. (See update below.)

After all, it’s fundamentally a space to support arena operations, offering space for promotion and advertising, as well as for ticketholders to gather.

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Note how it was cordoned off four hours (at least) before showtime on April 24 to accommodate—apparently—general admission ticketholders to Florence and the Machine gathering early, even though doors wouldn’t open until an hour before the event.

Update: How public is it?

Is the arena plaza public? In 2016, Justin Garrett Moore of the city’s Public Design Commission told the New York Times that the arena had “become one of the most important new public spaces and landmarks in the city,” part of a “network of pedestrian-oriented public spaces that connect people, transit and multiple uses.”

It’s often referred to as a public amenity or public asset—though it’s not controlled by the public, as Gib Veconi, a Director of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, points out in a comment below, noting the plaza is part of the arena’s ground lease.

Indeed, the temporary (for now) Urban Experience is defined in the arena lease as “creating a significant public amenity,” including “landscaping, retail, seating, the Subway Entrance, and space to allow for formal and informal public uses, such as outdoor performances, temporary markets, art installations, and seating.”

Those “temporary markets” have mostly involved arena-sponsored sellers or, perhaps, bootleg vendors. Those “outdoor performances” are only those sanctioned by the arena operator.

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That arena lease also sets out guidelines for public access:

Subject to such temporary, reasonable, and necessary closures for (a) repair and maintenance, (b) crowd control measures approved by any applicable Governmental Authority, (c) Force Majeure, (d) temporary construction activities permitted or required by this Lease or the Declaration, and/or (e) temporary closures for private events as permitted by the Design Guidelines, the Urban Room or Urban Experience, as applicable, shall remain open to the general public from at least 7:00 a.m. through 10:00 p.m., seven (7) days a week (or such longer hours as may be required for events at the Arena).

I doubt that applicable governmental authorities weigh in much on the arena operator’s crowd-control measures, such as limiting access hours before the events.

Note that the arena operators are, by their lights, keeping it open well beyond the hours outlined—very unrealistically, in retrospect—in the lease.

As for the temporary box office, it presumably falls under the broad category of “temporary construction activities.” Ultimately, though, it diminishes the public amenity and reinforces the benefit to the arena operator.

Year three of renovations

The arena operators are not quite halfway through a five-year renovation process, initially estimated at $100 million, but now estimated at $150 million.

In March 2024, BSE Global (now Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment) announced they’d swap 30 suites (of 87) for club-like spaces called The Row and The Key, with 436 seats, as reported by Sports Business Journal.

The latter noted that Barclays was “still the fifth-newest building in the NBA, with arguably its most unique exterior, but it’s well down the line in recent years in terms of major capital expenditures.”

In October 2024, BSE announced the opening of the sponsored Toki Row and JetBlue at the Key, saying it was “part of the first phase of a more than $100 million, five-year plan to enhance fan experience.”

Another way of putting it might be “to raise revenue.”

As of October 2024, they’d installed “a new retractable seating system to maximize the arena’s operational efficiencies while increasing capacity,” while planning other projects.

In October 2025, BSE announced the opening of Gallagher Terrace, a premium membership club with in-seat dining and waiter service, and Modelo® Bridge, an upper-concourse fan zone.

This past January, the coming renovation of the Qatar Airways Club into a new “premium, event-level experience,” accommodating 360 members and said to be inspired by DUMBO(!), was said to be part of a $140 million project.

The latest

Along with the new box office, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment on April 21 announced a “reimagined main atrium and box office, new American Express Card Member Entrance and Lounge, and contemporary art integrated throughout the arena.”

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So it seems they’re spacing out the announcements for effect.

The five-year plan is now estimated at $150 million. That’s not much more than the $122.7 million in property taxes they don’t have to pay on the tax-exempt arena site.

The atrium will feature a suspended installation by artist Sarah Sze—part of a separate art announcement, “Brooklyn Art Encounters”—and a sweeping 180-degree LED wall wrapping the atrium interior, creating an immersive visual environment.

Will the latter be art, or advertising?

More perks for the high-rollers

The arena will introduce a new dedicated American Express Card Member Entrance along Flatbush Avenue, with separate doors to a new VIP entry serving the suite level and Gallagher Terrace.

Also coming: The AmEx® Lounge, an exclusive suite-level club accommodating more than 200 guests. (Is this carved out of decommissioned suites, or other spaces?)

A few snarky comments on NetsDaily:

• Perfect. I’ve always going to the arena and thought “but what if it looked like an expensive but lifeless airport?”

• Agreed, fix the escalator!!!! [in response to a different comment]

More details

Renovation work will be led by architects at Populous, and construction management will be provided by Shawmut Design and Construction.

The arena is also getting an upgrade of its control room.

This is being funded significantly by the 2024 Koch family investment to acquire a 15% stake in BSE Global for $688 million.

That deserves two updates.

First, as I wrote on March 5, the Atlantic Yards developers, Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR, are apparently relying on Gov. Kathy Hochul—rather than a deal with the city, as with Hudson Yards—to supply $350 million in public funds for the platform needed for vertical development.

It’s unclear whether that would apply to the first platform block or to both. The timing and terms—what guarantees?—also remain unclear. The state budget, in its final stages, typically emerges as a murky package.

The second update: the Hudson Yards deal with developer Related Companies—in which $2 billion property taxes would pay for the platform rather than go to public coffers—has hit a speed bump, according to an April 23 New York Times article, Mamdani Faces Pressure to Cancel $2 Billion Deal to Expand Hudson Yards.

As described below, it’s political, and Mayor Zohran Mamdani, for now, is hedging his bets.

The key warning

Real estate developer and former Deputy Mayor (under Bill de Blasio) Alicia Glen has become a somewhat surprising supporter of the public interest when it comes to development deals.

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“More low-cost capital should either generate significantly more affordable housing than was originally contemplated or actual revenue to the city if the project is profitable,” Glen told the Times regarding Hudson Yards. “Unless it’s also prepared to share in the upside, the private sector should not expect the public to step in whenever market conditions change.”

The AY angle

Well, that applies to Atlantic Yards, as suggested in the links below. We need more transparency. We need an honest appraisal of the developer’s request for free bulk and other public resources.

Also, as Glen suggests, fairness requires that the public share in the project’s upside. That applies to the currently brewing development deal.

That could also apply to the biggest winner in the current Atlantic Yards drama: Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty and operates the Barclays Center.

Why aren’t they asked to pay for making the plaza permanent? New York State has leverage.

Affordable housing

Remember that Glen, in December 2023, also told The Real Deal that New York State should uphold the $1.75 million/month in damages for the missing 876 units of Atlantic Yards affordable housing. (Those damages would go to a city trust fund to support local affordable housing.)

“You have to reestablish a basic contract between the government and the communities in which you are building,” she said. “And if you can’t do that, you are endangering the whole endeavor.”

Since then, of course, Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has negotiated payments totaling $12 million, which housing advocate Michelle de la Uz, unsurprisingly, called “insufficient” and which has provoked protests from local elected officials and the coalition BrooklynSpeaks.

Mamdani wary

The Hudson Yards deal, which eliminated a despised potential casino but made the numbers work for Related, was cut by the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams, and later faced criticism from Comptroller Brad Lander.

Mamdani’s administration, a spokesman told the Times, is “not actively engaged in negotiations to move this project forward at this time.”

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That doesn’t mean he’s written it off. After all, Mamdani surely would like to cut a ribbon. It may mean he’s open to a revision.

The political dynamic is that a longtime Mamdani supporter, New York Communities for Change—the successor to the advocacy group New York ACORN—was about to endorse 3rd District City Council candidate Lindsey Boylan, who Mamdani has endorsed. Boylan opposes the Hudson Yards plan.

Political maneuvering

The deal last year, engineered with 3rd District Council Member Erik Bottcher, involved a modest increase in affordable housing, from 420 to at least 625 of 4,000 apartments, while delivering big benefits to Related.

Bottcher’s now in the state Senate, having endorsed his former Chief of Staff, Carl Wilson, as his successor. Wilson seems the establishment candidate, with endorsements from Council Speaker Julie Menin and Council seat predecessors Corey Johnson and Christine Quinn.

Wilson, who’s gay, on the same day Mamdani endorsed Boylan (who’s not), contended that the race was “really about the future of the West Side, and it’s about the future of having an LGBTQ representative of this district, the birthplace of Stonewall and the modern gay rights movement.”

Election Day is April 28. Early voting has already started.

Boylan has been endorsed by the Working Families Party and various progressive legislators. Neither Wilson nor Boylan—nor for that matter, rival candidates Leslie Boghosian Murphy and Layla Law-Gisiko—say anything about Hudson Yards on their websites.1

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In other words, it wasn’t a salient issue until recently. Note that the YIMBY movement Abundance New York supports Wilson, calling Boylan a third choice, after Boghosian Murphy, and placing Law-Gisiko last. (Their analysis omitted Hudson Yards, as well.)

Law-Gisiko, in a Substack posting yesterday titled Related’s Profligate Adventure in Municipal Generosity, wrote;

What happened at the Western Rail Yards, also known as Hudson Yards Phase 2, in late 2025, is not a policy disagreement. It is not a difference of opinion about development strategy or affordable housing priorities. It is a scandal. It is a transfer of public wealth to a private developer, Related Companies, to name them, of such breathtaking audacity that it should be front page news every day until someone is held accountable.

….The fleecing was of such magnitude that even Erik Engquist, senior editor with the pro-real-estate blog Real Deal, who has never seen a real-estate deal he didn’t love, felt that Related was going too far!

She has endorsements from various reform political clubs, local activists, and elected officials.

Back to Atlantic Yards

Well, we haven’t seen all the math, but I have a conceptual argument for helping pay for the platform (or supporting affordable housing), as I wrote.2

The big winner in Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (formerly BSE Global), which operates the arena and owns the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, should help cross-subsidize the remaining project, even though it’s not responsible for it.

Empire State Development (ESD), the gubernatorially controlled state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, has leverage.

It’s already agreed, conceptually, to make the plaza permanent, thus preserving revenue for the arena company and providing a safety valve for crowds, rather than allowing a large tower to be built over the arena at Atlantic and Flatbush avenues, as currently approved.

The bulk of that unbuilt tower, B1, would instead be moved across Flatbush Avenue to Site 5, longtime home to the big-box stores P.C. Richard and the now-closed Modell’s, recently converted into the short-term Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, owned by the arena company.

That would allow a giant two-tower complex at the parcel known as Site 5.

But the conceptual agreement isn’t final. Shouldn’t the public share in the arena operator’s upside? Doesn’t all this deserve analysis?

(Note: Attorney General Letitia James’s office said the issue wasn’t deed theft but a property dispute. It’s complicated.)

A new safeguard

To stymie deed theft, last year the City Council passed Intro 888, led by 35th District Council Member Crystal Hudson, with 16 co-sponsors, including Ossé.

A purchaser making an unsolicited offer to an owner (or representative) must disclose the market value of that residential property and also disclose that owner’s right to acquire an independent appraisal of the property’s value.

It’s a reasonable step to right the balance between real-estate sharpies and the public interest, given the buyers’ asymmetrical information about the market and their tempting offers of seemingly easy money.

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The Atlantic Yards context

The issue might be extrapolated, indirectly, to Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park: a real-estate company seeks (public, unmarketed) property at a huge discount—100%!—while making fuzzy promises about reciprocity.

Meanwhile, no one has assessed that property’s market value or called for an independent appraisal. How does the public, as property owner, know if it’s getting a fair deal?

Developer Cirrus Workforce Housing, with partner LCOR, wants the right to build 1.6 million more square feet. That’s the equivalent of two large towers, though they instead plan to redistribute that bulk among larger towers.

I estimated the value at $320 million ($200/buildable square foot), based on sale prices for development rights in the area. Neither the developer nor any government agency has offered an assessment.

(Update: As a commenter on Twitter/X pointed out, the valuation should be adjusted by the cost of the platform. Then again, they expect public support for the platform.)

That’s wrong, especially since Cirrus is an affiliate of Cirrus Real Estate, which pursues “investments that offer asymmetric risk-return profiles and significant downside protection.”

This was an unsolicited offer, after all. The owner issued no request for proposals (RFP), as in 2005, when the railyard development rights were put up for bid by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).

If unsolicited offers for private property must trigger a disclosure of market value as well as the possibility of an independent appraisal, why not apply that to unsolicited offers for public property?

Who do you trust?

Consider that in November, Cirrus suggested the request constituted only a 20% increase in the project’s overall bulk. That’s one way to frame it.

If analyzed in the context of where that new bulk would go, however, I estimated it as a nearly 46% increase in square footage over the MTA’s Vanderbilt Yard.

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In other words, we shouldn’t trust the calculation of an interested party. Given that pattern, even if they issued a valuation, it shouldn’t be taken as gospel.

(Update: I should’ve cited the quote from former City Planning Chair Dan Garodnick: “But if a single dollar of public money is going into a project, the public should have absolute transparency as to what’s going on.”)

The backstory

In 2005, original developer Forest City Ratner’s bid to the MTA was predicated on the maximum amount of buildable square feet—vertical “land”—calculated at the time.

Last year, when Cirrus and LCOR took over the project, their “feasible alternative” proposed additional bulk.

“Are you,” I asked Cirrus Managing Principal Joseph McDonnell, “expecting to have to pay for additional square footage over the railyard?”

“So we’re making the payments which are due to the MTA,” McDonnell replied.

“For what’s already been bid,” I said. “They bid for a certain amount of square footage, vertical square footage.”

“That’s not exactly how the parcel space purchase agreement works,” he responded. “They bid for the right to build on top, that’s subject to a Development Agreement and the MGPP [Modified General Project Plan].”

That suggests: if the Development Agreement changes, they can build bigger. “To rephrase it,” I asked, “are you expecting to pay for additional development rights?”

“We don’t know at this point,” McDonnell said, suggesting it would be a decision by the MTA and by Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project.

What next?

Those gubernatorially controlled bodies are supposed to represent the public, but answer to Gov. Kathy Hochul. They have not suggested they’d require payment, and Cirrus, of course, was busy lobbying before it went public with its plans.

ESD is expected to reach a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the developers regarding public assistance, public benefits, and timing by the end of July.

Maybe before then, we can discuss the value of such public assistance. Where’s the estimate? Where’s the appraisal?

(Should they pay $320 million? Or: should other costs, and subsidies, be factored in?)

If that requirement’s a minimum for individual homeowners facing real-estate sharpies looking for a good deal, why not for the public at large, facing a developer that sees Atlantic Yards as a “no-brainer”?

It involves adding 1.6 million square feet—free “land” worth perhaps $320 million—to the originally approved bulk and eliminating the B8 tower, redistributing its bulk to the five other towers built.

We don’t really know.

Below is the developers’ fuzzy, misleading comparison of the currently approved Atlantic Yards plan and what they call a feasible alternative, with five towers (B5-B7, B9-B10) averaging 550 feet, and two towers at Site 5, catercorner to the arena, one 775 feet and another perhaps 450 feet.

That’s why I commissioned my longtime collaborator Ben Keel to produce some renderings.

While local elected officials, in a recent letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul, seem mostly concerned about affordable housing (and oversight), questions of scale and density have received little attention. They shouldn’t be ignored.

What’s next?

Information about the project last surfaced on March 19, including the last public workshop (in this phase) and a meeting of the (purportedly) advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation, or AY CDC. (My coverage.)

We’re waiting for a Final Community Engagement Report from Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project.

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Will any of the public pushback on the Draft report be incorporated, or will that engagement process again be used to validate the developers’ plans?

Also, New York State might soon give $350 million to the developers for a crucial platform over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard. The timing and terms remain unknown, even as the developers expect a very valuable project.

Also unknown: whether that funding would cover both railyard blocks or just the first.

Enter 395 Flatbush Ave. Ext.

Recently, negotiations over a giant new building—Brooklyn’s second-tallest and surely bulkiest—less than half a mile north along Flatbush Avenue reflected a debate over affordability, not scale.

The recent approval of 395 Flatbush Avenue Extension could be used to argue for an increase in Atlantic Yards density, notably at Site 5, a similarly sized parcel. Then again, the settings are not quite parallel, as discussed below.

Less than a year after Mayor Eric Adams unveiled the plan (which surely had long been percolating) for a 1,263-unit tower a block bounded by Flatbush, DeKalb, and Hudson avenues, and Fulton Streets, the City Council last month approved a slightly modified version.

Where would that 72-story, 840-foot (with 40-foot bulkhead) tower be located? In the photo below, it would be just southeast—to the right and slightly foregrounded—of the spiky Brooklyn Tower, the borough’s sole supertall, rising 1,066 feet.

Closer in are the 484-foot 505 State Street, the glassy wedge at left center, and the 512-foot Williamsburgh Savings Bank, aka One Hanson. Part of Site 5 is visible at left.

(A 725-foot tower is coming behind 505 State, also part of the Alloy Block, which may be more of a parallel to Site 5. More on that below.)

During the approval process for 395 Flatbush Ave. Ext. (FAE), virtually no one challenged the building’s scale, only its affordability. Council Member Crystal Hudson did secure somewhat deeper affordability, more family-sized units, and some funding for Fort Greene Park.

It’s “the FIRST project in Brooklyn to use our new high-density zoning districts,” the Department of City Planning exulted on Twitter/X, citing the C6-12 zoning district, which allows for an unusually large Floor Area Ratio of 23. (Floor Area Ratio, or FAR, is the building’s bulk as a multiple of the underlying lot’s square footage.)

“The project,” the DCP stated, “also creates new jobs + services, public open space & subway entrance upgrades!”

The mostly residential tower at Flatbush Avenue Extension between Fulton Street and DeKalb Avenue would contain 1,544,875 gross square feet (gsf). That includes cellars, bulkheads, and mechanicals. (The existing seven-story commercial building would be demolished.)

It actually has 1,075,100 zoning square feet (zsf), which indicates an unusually large discrepancy compared to other buildings.1

That includes the maximum 933,820 zsf (19 FAR) of residential floor area and 141,280 zsf (2.87 FAR) of non-residential floor area, which includes retail space and space that could be used for offices or community facilities. So a total FAR of 21.87.

An Atlantic Yards parallel?

When the 395 FAE plan was unveiled, I suggested that the increased density might be seen as a boost for Site 5. Then again, as the photos above suggest, Downtown Brooklyn has a remarkably dense cluster of towers, with no new park space and a reliance on internal amenities.

The Downtown Brooklyn project was approved with 1,263 apartments, or 1,120 apartments per acre. The Site 5 project might have 1,200 units, I’ve speculated, which would mean 1,074 units per acre.2

Remember, that’s not what was approved. Nearly 20 years ago, the City Planning Commission recommended reducing the height and bulk of Site 5, given its transitional location “directly adjacent to the low-rise buildings west along Atlantic Avenue and the terminus of the Fourth Avenue corridor.”3 It became 250 feet and 440,000 square feet.

But that was before developer Forest City Ratner chose not to build the project’s flagship tower along with the arena.

Since 2015, the Atlantic Yards developers have planned to transfer the bulk of the unbuilt flagship tower (B1, aka “Miss Brooklyn”), once planned to loom over the arena, across Flatbush Avenue to Site 5.

In 2021, state officials quietly agreed to allow that bulk to be transferred rather than let the developer and its successors confront the impact of their business decisions.

(Also see Transparency fail: why, in a June 2024 discussion about Site 5, did Empire State Development officials not disclose changes they’d already backed in 2021?)

That would make the arena plaza permanent, an enormous gain for arena operator Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, owned (with the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty) mainly by Joe and Clara Wu Tsai.

How big would Site 5 be?

Site 5 was approved in 2021—as part of a state lease, since the city’s not involved—to have 1,242,000 gsf. I previously calculated the FAR as 25.5, which seems astronomical. However, that should be recalculated to account for the difference between gsf and zsf.

A 15% or 20% reduction would result in 1,080,000 zsf or 1,035,000 zsf. That would yield Floor Area Ratios of “only” 22.2 or 21.2, similar to the Downtown Brooklyn site.4

But are the sites comparable?

According to the 395 Flatbush Ave. Ext. Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), “Downtown Brooklyn is a unique mixed-use area with some of the tallest and highest-density developments—both residential and commercial—in the city.”

The chart below in the Final Environmental Impact Statement cites dense buildings very nearby.

Site 5, as suggested in the images below, is in a more transitional area than the Downtown Brooklyn project. While major roads border it, low-rise zones are south on narrow Pacific Street and across Atlantic Avenue to the west (not pictured)

Fourth Avenue, rezoned for 12-story (mostly) buildings, marches south.

Today, though, you could imagine proponents arguing that, if a building comparable to the Site 5 plan has been approved over the DeKalb Ave. Q/B/R station, why shouldn’t one be built adjacent to a larger subway station, Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr?

Then again, that location is clearly Downtown Brooklyn, not, like Site 5, across the street from row houses and a landmarked library on Pacific Street.

In that sense, Site 5 is more akin to The Alloy Block, a block or so north on Flatbush , with two towers (one built, one in progress), plus two schools and retail, with a total FAR of 15.75. More on that below.

Argument for density

During the approval process for 395 Flatbush Ave. Ext., the one commenter who asked, “I just don’t understand why it has to be 72 stories,” provoked this response,5 which I’ve distilled into:

• There are other large buildings nearby

• This would “optimize land use and density” near transit

• There’d be permanent, rent-stabilized affordable housing

• There’d be more people walking around

• The subway station would improve

• The pedestrian experience would improve

Most of those arguments—except maybe the first—could be applied to Site 5.

Is it just an argument about aesthetics? Could it be about “carrying capacity,” as longtime advocacy planner and academic Ron Shiffman has articulated, at meetings of the AY CDC?

If Site 5 has to be ever larger to maximize the number of affordable units and make the development economically viable, what trade-offs does that entail?

Well, even Jersey City, known for trying to supercharge development, set a 20 FAR maximum for parcels under 60,000 square feet at Journal Square, while allowing larger parcels 25 FAR—though, as I’ll write, one large development still has an FAR below that of 359 Flatbush Ave. Ext.

(Both Site 5 and 395 FAE are under 50,000 square feet.)

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The affordability debate

The big issue for 395 Flatbush Ave. Ext. was not bulk but affordability.

Council Member Hudson, as shown in the post below, secured more affordability and more family-sized units than proposed, plus funding for Fort Greene Park, which, unsurprisingly, will absorb far more use from the nearby increased population, given the lack of new parks to accompany the building boom in Downtown Brooklyn.

While the final project maintains the same percentage of affordable units (25%) as proposed, it now has a weighted-average Area Median Income (AMI) of 58.6%, rather than the 60% proposed under the city’s Mandatory Inclusionary Housing (MIH) Option 1.

While MIH 1 sets a floor of 40% of AMI, Hudson also got a commitment for deeper affordability, 30% of AMI, to reach extremely low-income households. (Today, a two-person household could earn $38,880 and pay $911 for a 1-BR. Those figures will rise.)

Ultimately, the city Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and developer Rabina agreed to 102 apartments (8% of total) at 30% of AMI; 76 apartments (6%) at 40% of AMI, and 139 apartments (11%) at 90% of AMI.

(At 90% of AMI, a two-person household today could earn $116,640 and pay $2,733 for a 1-BR.)

Instead of 25% family-sized apartments, as proposed, the percentage will be 27%, as Hudson received a commitment for 347 total family-sized units (2-BR and 3-BR). Of the total, 87 (25%) would be affordable.

The lesson: there’s often wiggle room for changes, given that developers ask for more than what they can accept, allowing them to magnanimously “compromise” on both scale and affordability.

At the Feb. 23 Land Use Committee hearing, Hudson commended Rabina for agreeing to “significantly increase the number of affordable two-bedroom apartments.”

“We must build more housing, and we must build this housing now, and we have an obligation to build this housing responsibly,” she stated, sounding on board for new density and/or recognizing that her influence was limited.6

Partial park boost

The 395 FAE development team agreed to contribute $1 million over 10 years to the Fort Greene Park Conservancy, beginning at demolition: $50,000 per year for the first five years and $150,000 for the last five years, after the building opens.

Representatives of the Conservancy had asked for $200,000 to $250,000 a year. Arguably other developments nearby should be contributing as well.

At the Council meeting on March 10, Hudson said she’d continue to “push for deeper, sustained investments in our public spaces so that neighborhood infrastructure keeps pace with development.”

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Public space and Atlantic Yards

The Atlantic Yards developers plan to build Site 5 and the B6 tower first, since they can rely on terra firma and require the least infrastructure. Though six more acres of open space are planned, the timing is unclear.

Local elected officials, echoing requests from the coalition BrooklynSpeaks, recently told Gov. Kathy Hochul that a future Atlantic Yards building must include indoor space for large community gatherings, to be administered by a non-profit steward not affiliated with project developers, consistent with the original intent of the Urban Room once promised at the prow of the unbuilt flagship tower.

That, presumably, could become part of Site 5.

Looking at the Alloy Block

In February 2025, Alloy Development announced the second phase of the development that was originally 80 Flatbush and renamed the Alloy Block. The first tower, 505 State Street, opened in 2024 with 441 units, 45 of them affordable at 60% of AMI. It was the city’s first all-electric skyscraper.

(Originally, the first phase was projected to be finished in 2022 and the second phase by 2025. Timetables often don’t pan out.)

Under construction is One Third Avenue, behind the current 505 State Street, seen below, and nearly 50% taller.

One Third will be the tallest Passive House building in the world, following a performance standard for high energy efficiency. It will be 63 stories and 725 feet, a reduction from the 986 feet originally proposed and the 840 feet expected when the project was approved.

“We knew height was a key issue for neighbors and we electively worked to reduce it even beyond what was required to address their concerns,” spokesman James Yolles said in response to my query. The building borders low-rise State Street. (See video further below.)

The tower design has evolved from a tapered cube to a more rounded building (examples here) to a more evenly proportioned rectangular extrusion.

“At the same time, the current height allows for the same number of apartments but with more generous layouts,” Yolles said. The building will be roughly 640,000 square feet, the same as approved.

One Third Avenue will have 583 apartments, including 152 affordable units at 60% of AMI. The 61,000-square-foot site is 1.4 acres, so 1,024 apartments translates to 731 per acre.

The presence of two schools means that they’re not maximizing floor area on the full parcel. Still, the 15.75 FAR, far more than the standard 12 FAR of the Downtown Brooklyn rezoning, was granted because of the affordable housing and schools.7

Adaptive reuse, in part

The tower’s podium will consist of six floors of office space, elevated 100 feet above grade, with 11,300 square feet of leasable area per floor. The developer is adaptively reusing the P.S. 15 Annex, now landmarked, at Third and Schermerhorn, while demolishing most of P.S. 15 and keeping part of the facade.

Those structures, along with a new infill building on Third Avenue, will host retail.8

While office space was once planned as 100,000 square feet, the reduction has been redeployed into residential square feet.

The residential lobby entrance will be within the existing building on narrow State Street, across from row houses. The commercial lobby entrance will be at the busy corridor of Schermerhorn and the future Temple Square Plaza.

A recent article in the Architects Newspaper portrays the new plaza, which incorporates part of the Schermerhorn Street bed. Though seemingly expansive, the plaza will be 8,900 square feet (.2 acre), of which 3,000 square feet, slightly more than a third, was the roadbed.

It will have new greenery, seating, infrastructure improvements, and space for public events. Furniture will contain movable chairs, timber-slatted benches, and platform seating. The plaza, designed by Future Green Studio, will be maintained by the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.’

While Times Plaza, just north of Site 5, has long been awaiting reconstruction as part of the Atlantic Yards project, it could not be incorporated into Site 5 because of the need to maintain traffic flow along wide Atlantic Avenue.

As the graphic above suggests, the plan has been pending since May 2017—nearly nine years ago.

I last checked on it in December 2024. “At this time, there are no immediate construction plans for Times Plaza,” a spokesperson for Empire State Development told me, adding that it’s also subject to a decision by the New York City Department of Transportation.

Curb cuts and loading

Site 5, according to that interim lease, would have a midblock loading dock on Pacific Street, across from a low-rise residential block. Maybe, maybe not.

“A large building there will have its own set of traffic and loading docks, and we’re thinking about different ways that we can position those to get that off the street as quickly as possible,” said Joseph McDonnell of Cirrus at a meeting last month. “Our goal is to have the loading docks within the building, to effectively pull the trucks off the street, and we’re thinking about the best places to do that.”

In the 2022 Crossroads charrettes sponsored by the advocacy coalition BrooklynSpeaks, architect John Massengale, in his Urban Design/Street Design presentation, proposed that Pacific Street become a curbless, slow street, as shown in an image above. That seems unlikely.

I took a walk around Site 5 in January, below. Pacific Street is the longest street, with the least traffic.

The second-longest segment is along Flatbush Avenue, but that likely would be the entry point to the parcel’s retail—remember, P.C. Richard is returning—and hotel, and maybe even apartments.

At the Alloy Block

Neither Alloy Block tower has a loading dock.

“The project includes laybys for loading and trash pickup, including one on State Street in front of 505 State,” Yolles told me. “One Third Avenue will include a similar layby. Based on community feedback, our garbage pickup is located in specific locations and occurs at specific times.”

I took only a few visits to State Street outside the Alloy Block, so I didn’t view trash pickup.

I did see that “No Standing” signs were routinely not respected. Congestion on narrow streets seems unavoidable.

8

After seeing how the Alloy Block has saved the facade of one historic building, I could imagine some arguing to save only the facade of the Pacific Street library building near Site 5, while coupling it with something much larger.

That library is not landmarked, but the city has committed $34 million toward a “transformative renovation” (see presentation), with construction scheduled to begin this winter and last two years.

It might reopen just in time for construction… across the street.

Freddy’s Bar, when located at Sixth Avenue and Dean Street and known as Freddy’s Bar & Backroom, was the clubhouse of the Atlantic Yards opposition, circa 2004-2010, before moving to what some call the South South Slope, at Fifth Avenue and 17th Street.1

The article begins by citing a heavy link chain around the bar, known as “the Chain of Justice”:

Like the weathered, gorgeous old bar, that chain made the trek from Freddy’s Bar and Backroom, the first iteration of the business located at the intersection of 6th Avenue and Dean Street…. The chain was installed after the establishment lost its seven-year appeal to stay on its ancestral ground on the border of Park Slope and Prospect Heights in 2010. As a symbolic protest following the final appeal, patrons and staff handcuffed themselves to the chain for several hours to stave off the wrecking ball, downing beers and cherishing their final few hours in the bar that was their home for the news cameras, and for themselves.

(Emphasis added)

Um, they didn’t handcuff themselves to the bar in the end, but the installation was a media event in December 2009.

What’s missing?

Hmm… what “seven-year appeal” or, rather, legal battle?

What happened when, as BK MAG puts it, “the old location was demolished and the eminent domain money came in”?

What was behind the “forced ejection” of Freddy’s?

Well, something that BK MAG seems unable to convey: it was condemned, under the state’s dubious use of eminent domain2, so developer Bruce Ratner could build the Barclays Center, the arena whose current operator also publishes the magazine, and build other components of the Atlantic Yards project.

Though BK MAG doesn’t disclose that connection, nor for that matter, any editors, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment—owned mainly by Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, plus the Koch family—says BK MAG is among the “exciting scope of brands” it owns.

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Usually, the phenomenon I call “Atlantic Yards Down the Memory Hole” is triggered by forgetfulness or carelessness. In this case, it looks more like editorial caution.

The article was credited to a writer who uses the creative moniker of Abe Beame, New York City’s Mayor during the 1970s fiscal crisis. (Pseudonymous writers, unless they’re in mortal danger, sacrifice some credibility.)

Recalling the end

Freddy’s had two closing nights, one for the public and one for regulars. The photos below are by the estimable Tracy Collins.

On the last night, a frenzied bacchanal, 26 musical acts played short sets, the crowd bobbing fiercely inches away. “We all live/at Sixth Avenue and Dean,” they sang, in sozzled solidarity, to the tune of the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine.”

One regular distributed an image of Ratner on postcard-sized stickers, adapting artist Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” campaign.

The next day, as the Freddy’s crew began moving, they left messages, posters produced by Atlantic Yards opponents Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, in the front window: “We are not blighted” and “No excuse for eminent domain abuse.”

Mellowing out

“It came out great in the end. Everyone, including Bruce Ratner, got what they wanted in this deal,” Freddy’s manager (and video artist) Donald O’Finn told an interviewer in February 2011. “The owner of Freddy's got a bunch of cash and got to walk away after never really doing anything, Ratner got his stupid goddamn arena and address, and we got a fresh start.”

After all, Freddy’s reopened before the Barclays Center debuted in September 2012.

Today, as “Beame” reports, O’Finn sounds even more mellow, suggesting that the move from gentrifying Park Slope meant “we moved into a spot that I think is still very Brooklyn.”

Good point.

That raises a question: if Freddy’s is a rare institution “that retains the energy and values this borough once held, if only for a little longer,” as “Beame” writes, what were some of those values? Well, read on.

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Trying to remake Brooklyn

Some with long memories may remember a “Ratnerville Singout” held nearly 19 years ago at Freddy’s.

One darkly funny song predicted, “Freddy’s Is an Escalator Now.” Today, the Freddy’s parcel is part of the B3 tower, 38 Sixth Avenue, and likely within the perimeter of the Heart of Chelsea Veterinary Group location.

The song I remember most, memorialized on video, is John Pinamonti’s “The Burrow,” below. (Here’s the studio version.)

“It makes me mad, yeah, it's such a pity / They're trying to rename Brooklyn "Forest City,” sang Pinamonti about the then-powerful developer.

Today, as Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment (BKSE) pursues a “ecosystem” of events, media, and (future) retail/hotel in Brooklyn, the lyric might be rewritten to say, “They’re trying to rename Brooklyn BKSE.” It still rhymes.

The “Freddy’s” documentary

In June 2010, Freddy’s, a documentary by Vicente Rodriguez Ortega, was shown at the Brooklyn Film Festival. As I wrote, the film hit deeper than the whimsical trailer below, with engaging talking heads, music, and some intriguing filmic composition.

The first showing was a bit like a wake, a chance for some regulars and staff to remember a unique product of a particular time and place, Prospect Heights preceding and riding a wave of gentrification.

In the film, video producer Steve deSeve says, “I view this as a battle between Donald O’Finn and Bruce Ratner. A guy who’s so pure... I see you, I take you, I make you into art... versus, like Bruce Ratner, I see you, I take you, I make you into money in my pocket.”

Stick around til the end of the trailer, when one regular observes, “It’s a precious cultural meeting place--and there’s alcohol.”

The trailer’s soundtrack is Bumbling Along, by Steve Espinola, a bridge between the artsy bohemianism of Freddy’s and the development project that forced it to move.

Near the song’s end, the music pauses, and Espinola shpritzes: “The ones who are trying to destroy my multicultural neighborhood so they could build a basketball stadium and skyscrapers. They are efficient, they are organized and sometimes murderously effective, but they are ethically short-circuited and spiritually adrift.”

Then the whimsical music returns, with the segue, “But they don’t know what’s going on, even they are bumbling along.”

Bumbling along

Sixteen years later, that line hits differently. In many ways, Forest City was bumbling along. They built the arena, but had to give up the Nets and ultimately the arena to Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.

Forest City launched an ill-fated plan for modular construction and cut its losses, selling the project, in stages, to Greenland USA.

Greenland bumbled too, unable to start construction over the railyard or to deliver the promised affordable housing.

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Now, new developers Cirrus Workforce Housing and LCOR have taken over, and expect direct subsidies and concessions from the state.

Prokhorov cashed out, selling the Nets and the arena company to Joe Tsai. The Tsais cashed out in part by selling 15% to the Koch family.

The value of that “goddam arena” has increased exponentially, but government agencies haven’t figured out how to ensure a share for the public. (Psst: Charge the arena operator for the “temporary” plaza they want to make permanent.) That’s worth a song, too.

Remembering Lee Houston

O’Finn, asked in 2011 what he missed most about the old Freddy’s, said it was too new to grasp: “The only thing I can say that I miss is Lee Houston, who was a regular who passed away. We have his picture here on the wall, but he’ll never walk in the door again, I don’t think.”

The film contains an affectionate and respectful — yet hardly worshipful — remembrance of Houston, an older Black man from a different Prospect Heights, a jazz musician, teacher, and "phenomenal ball-buster."

"Along with any number of people, I miss him tremendously," former Freddy’s bartender David Sheets told the camera in his flinty way. "Lee was Lee. He was quite someone. And I miss him very much."

After Sheets passed, I recalled those words: he, too, was “quite someone.”

Musician, graphic designer, and activist Scott Turner, in his (archived) Fans for Fair Play blog, recalled how, at Houston’s wake, O’Finn comped everyone’s drinks because he “couldn't fathom making money off of Lee's death. So he did what Bruce Ratner could never comprehend -- he lost money because it was right.”

Turner, aka RebelMart, left town before Freddy’s closed, but saluted it, and Houston, in his final Brooklyn performance, below.

"We buried Lee with tears and smiles,” Turner sang at 2:10. “We only got each other for a while."

"If Freddy's goes down, Brooklyn is gone," he warned. Well, maybe a certain version of Brooklyn, at a particular time and place.

Freddy’s today has a new home. What we’ve lost, at minimum, are memories of what it was and why it moved.

2

As the map below suggests, the Freddy’s building, at the northwest corner of Sixth Avenue and Dean Street, was not itself blighted.

But it was within an area that included properties “exhibiting one or more blight characteristics.” At the Court of Appeals oral argument, the lawyer for the state could say that “the record also establishes that the project site as a whole is blighted.”

In the wake of the 2020 police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis and regular #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations at the Barclays Center plaza, while the arena was closed during the pandemic, Joe and Clara Wu Tsai, owners of the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and the arena operating company, issued a Social Justice Commitment Statement.

On Aug. 25, 2020, they promised “$50 million over 10 years for social justice initiatives and community investments that will benefit the BIPOC (especially Black) community, with a priority on Brooklyn.”

As I wrote, it was perhaps the most significant commitment announced by an NBA owner. (The league promised $30 million a year for social justice, via the new NBA Foundation: $1 million from each team, for ten years.)

Only in August 2019 had the Tsais gained full ownership of the Nets and the arena company, seven months after they’d acquired the Liberty.

More quietly, the Tsais pledged $50 million, a few months later, to fund the Wu Tsai Theater at Lincoln Center.

A media strategy

Early on, the Social Justice Fund (SJF) generated much publicity. “Brooklyn Nets owners score points with social justice fund,” proclaimed the New York Daily News on Dec. 16, 2020, heralding grants to five “Brooklyn-based Black leaders” before a formal announcement.

Tellingly, that press release, issued before the SJF had a website, came from the Brooklyn Nets, crediting “Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai, owners of the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, the WNBA’s New York Liberty, and Barclays Center.”

While the press release repeated the $50 million figure, it didn’t disclose the grant amounts.2

That signaled a pattern: publicity without transparency. Their philanthropy is notably opaque, avoiding the disclosures required of nonprofits, which raises questions about the SJF’s parent “foundation.”

A murky record

The SJF’s programs and initiatives have furthered periodic progress in Brooklyn, including a $2.5 million loan program that reached 98 BIPOC small business owners typically ineligible for bank loans; nine $50,000 grants to local creative businesses; the Just Brooklyn Prize, honoring five changemakers with $20,000 each over the last three years; and $25,000 grants to four nonprofits over the past three years.

Still, their numbers in their five-year Impact Summary don’t add up, as I wrote in my initial Feb. 4 critique, Has the Tsais’ Social Justice Fund Really Invested $25M “In Brooklyn” Since 2020?

The SJF has since answered some questions, but my updated annotation, below, still suggests gaps.

Their philanthropic spending surely has civic value. It also helps the Tsais build civic and political clout, bolstering their businesses, with little accountability.

Indeed, a key SJF employee says she works on “personal philanthropic initiatives that align with high-net-worth brand identity, values, and long-term strategy.”

Meanwhile, the publicity helps distract from their enormous gains. The Barclays Center has helped the Tsais turn a company they bought for some $3 billion into one worth perhaps double that,3 even as they benefit from a tax-free arena site.

They’re on the verge of getting the “temporary” arena plaza—a public/private space crucial to arena operations and valuable for advertising and promotion—made permanent, without payment, though New York State could require it.

Beyond this article, also see the overview linked below, which tries to catalog all their initiatives, both announced and not.

Lasting change?

In the website screen (below) promoting the Impact Summary, the SJF claims to have “driven economic mobility, community development, and lasting change across Brooklyn.” It’s surely helped with the first two.

“Lasting change” is hard to confirm, especially given the SJF’s opacity.

For example, we don’t know how much it’s given in “Grants to community organizations,” cited in the excerpt below. Moreover, the grants didn’t directly support “over 1,400 businesses” but rather the organizations helping them.

Has the SJF funded “pilots and programs that are scalable,” as promised? The record suggests caution, as my other coverage, linked below, suggests.

One key program has ended.

Another has evolved significantly.

Also, the claim that the SJF was “launched” by Wu Tsai distracts from the source of their wealth and controversies tied to her husband.

Even the Impact Summary’s claim that the Social Justice Fund aims “to support economic mobility within communities across the borough” shifts from an earlier focus on race.

Transforming Brooklyn?

The SJF no longer claims, as in the April 16, 2024, Instagram post below, that it’s “transforming Brooklyn, empowering 96+ businesses & partnering with 38+ local organizations & schools to build a diverse, inclusive community.”

Surely “transforming Brooklyn” would require far more spending.

“In a short time, SJF has become one of the top philanthropies in Brooklyn,” Liane Stegmaier, Chief of Staff at Brooklyn Org (formerly Brooklyn Community Foundation), stated after I asked for an assessment. (Brooklyn Org and the SJF partner on various projects.)

“This borough has always been underfunded, and they stepped up with a historic, example-setting $50M commitment,” she added. “They have since formed a broad range of partnerships and invested deeply in local nonprofits in their priority areas, which has been widely felt.”

Indeed, there’s a void to be filled. While the SJF has invested broadly, “deeply” is debatable, given, for example, annual allocations of $100,000 divided among nonprofits in various categories, such as Black Maternal Health or Re-Entry and Workforce Readiness.

The Social Justice Fund, for example, has avoided the crucial need for affordable housing, an Atlantic Yards promise supposed to combat racialized displacement, likely because $5 million a year can’t go too far.

The SJF’s take

A SJF representative from the public relations firm DKC has since answered some of my queries, but cut off responses after a certain point.

“[T]he Social Justice Fund was created in Brooklyn, for Brooklyn, in response to persistent inequities in wealth, health, and opportunity that were magnified during moments of crisis (pandemic and George Floyd murder),” the spokesman told me, in part reframing what the Social Justice Commitment Statement called “systemic imbalances and root causes that produce racial gaps in education, health and wealth.”

“The core belief: economic mobility is the most durable form of justice, and it requires coordinated investment across capital, careers, community safety, and culture,” the statement continued. “SJF operates with a place-based strategy, leveraging Brooklyn’s scale, institutions, and talent to demonstrate what equitable investment can look like in practice.”

“SJF is not a traditional philanthropic organization,” he added, noting that they’ve taken on risks and experimented with programs. Indeed, unlike, say, the NBA Foundation, the SJF doesn’t solely support established non-profit organizations.

Along with such traditional spending, Wu Tsai and SJF Executive Director Gregg Bishop have launched new programs. That earned praise from Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who at the Just Brooklyn Prize ceremony last Nov. 14 hailed Wu Tsai for not simply giving money away but choosing “front-facing philanthropic work.”4

They’ve also revised arena hiring practices, as Bishop says, to remove “barriers for individuals who are justice-impacted.”

Despite the SJF’s focus on “innovative solutions to systemic inequities,” some initiatives, as noted below, have been quietly credited to the Social Justice Fund, though they primarily promote the Tsais’ businesses.

Nor does the SJF disclose its full spending, which I’ve learned includes at least $2.5 million in administrative costs so far.5

A p.r. push

Early SJF moves came with a public relations push.

On June 24, 2021, when the SJF launched its first major initiative, the EXCELerate loan fund, it garnered publicity from CNBC, Sportico, and the New York Daily News, which bannered its coverage across two pages in the Sports section. (A Sports reporter, reliant on access to the team, might be happy with a scoop.)

The announcement came with supportive quotes from blue-chip endorsers. Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, “applaud[ed] my friend Clara Wu Tsai for her vision and leadership.”

Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, said, “With the BIPOC loan program, and Clara Wu Tsai and Gregg Bishop’s leadership, the Social Justice Fund is modeling what good citizenship looks like.”

The BK-XL initiative was heralded by a widely circulated Nov. 7, 2022, Associated Press article, “Brooklyn Nets owners start program for minority-led startups.”

A month later, the New York Times followed up with Why the Owners of the Nets Are Funding Tech Start-ups.

So it’s surprising that the five-year Impact Summary wasn’t accompanied by a supportive press release or a strategically placed news article featuring quotes from such supporters.

Are they wary of detailing their spending? Or disclosing that their most heralded programs were not necessarily scalable?

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A branding exercise?

The SJF can serve as a branding exercise for the Tsais, a philanthropic gloss on what was once called “community relations,” such as backing established arts institutions or funding concerts on the arena plaza.

Basketball court renovations are festooned with the teams’ logos. The neon signage at the arena plaza stating “You belong here” and “We belong here,” I contend, suggests advertising as much as art.

The SJF might also be seen as a relatively small, though not insignificant, sum for reputation insurance and strategic brand management, just as that Lincoln Center pledge surely helped the Tsais win allies in New York and a 2022 award for being “extraordinary New Yorkers.”

Remember that photo op with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who’s ultimately their landlord? (The arena site is leased from the state, to avoid taxes and enable tax-exempt financing. A month before the Aug. 2, 2022, photo, Wu Tsai had given the maximum contribution to Hochul’s election fund, $69,700.)

The Social Justice Fund might be seen as an arm of the Tsais’ company, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment.

The SJF emerges in 2020

The “major goal of our philanthropy has been in science,” as Wu Tsai told Inside Philanthropy in a July 12, 2021, article headlined The Brooklyn Way: How A Billionaire Couple’s Philanthropy Evolved to Support Social Justice.

That said, Wu Tsai, in 2019, helped found the REFORM Alliance, which aims to reform policies toward probation and parole.

She had a longtime interest in economic mobility, Wu Tsai told Forbes on Nov. 16, 2022. “When George Floyd happened,” she said, “that’s why we decided to focus on more levers.”

Birthed in the summer of protests and with a Nets roster that included some highly politicized players, notably the mercurial star Kyrie Irving, the Social Justice Fund might also be seen as the “cost of doing business.”

The SJF was announced shortly before the Nets hired Steve Nash as coach, a partial inoculation before hiring a white executive, albeit one favored by a Black star, Kevin Durant.

The SJF emerged with support from the notably politicized Net Garrett Temple. “They are people that are very adamant about their beliefs and have some of the same value systems that I share,” Temple told CNBC. “They’re definitely one of the more progressive, forward-thinking governors in the league.”

Economic mobility is a focus for the SJF’s Bishop, a Grenada-born Black Brooklyn Tech graduate and one-time college dropout who succeeded as an autodidact in tech. After earning two degrees, he later became the Commissioner of the NYC Department of Small Business Services, gaining valuable experience and connections.

“I grew up in East Flatbush, and there’s a number of Gregg Bishops in East Flatbush, in Brownsville, in Canarsie that are just waiting for that opportunity,” he said last April. Some SJF programs help further such economic mobility. Others do not.

The halo effect

The halo effect from both innovative initiatives and conventional community spending distracts from larger policy questions.

On Aug. 24, 2020, Brad Lander and Antonio Reynoso, among nine Council Members, signed a letter requesting that the city’s sports teams and arenas “finally pay some form of property taxes.”

They may not remember—in 2024, Comptroller Lander hailed the arena thanks to his New York Liberty fandom, and Borough President Reynoso helps choose the Just Brooklyn Prize winners—but that might be seen as social justice, too. 6

That letter was dated just a day before the Tsais issued the Social Justice Commitment Statement, though it wasn’t publicized for a week.7

Forgone property taxes for the tax-exempt arena site were most recently estimated at $122.7 million, or nearly 25 times the annual $5 million commitment.

As one unusually pointed commenter on NetsDaily put it in response to a December 2021 interview with Wu Tsai, she should donate time and money without publicity; sell their Alibaba shares and donate them; and “stop pretending like China isn’t a huge human rights problem and speak out against your husband.”

Not likely.

A later NetsDaily article about the SJF’s small business loan program provoked a more positive reader comment: “The Tsais are going above and beyond in their work for equity and social justice.”

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SJF plans pivot

As noted above, the EXCELerate loan program has evolved to EXCELerate 2.0, which the SJF, oddly, doesn’t promote.

The BK-XL accelerator for start-up companies has, apparently, ended, though the website—which likely needs an update—still says, “Applications for 2024 are now closed. You may still apply here to be considered for our rolling application.”

“Regarding the future of BK-XL, based on our analysis of the business landscape in Brooklyn – especially businesses in underserved communities – we have determined that loans and grants have the most impact,” the SJF spokesman told me. “We have thus focused our resources towards strengthening local CDFIs [community development financial institutions] to lend more flexible capital to small businesses and invest more in grants to medium size businesses to be a catalyst for growth.”

Indeed, on March 10, the Social Justice Fund announced a partnership with The Asian American Foundation, Renaissance Economic Development Corporation (Renaissance), and New York State for the NYC Elevating Business Loan Program, a $5.5 million initiative—with $1 million from the Tsais and $4 million from the public—in small business loans, coupled with free financial counseling and multilingual training services.

The partnership included a presentation at a Nets game, providing additional publicity for the program and the Tsais.

This citywide program, in partnership with Asian-American groups, marks a departure from the “for Brooklyn” mantra and the focus on Black Brooklyn.

Also expect a boost in the less-publicized Revitalize Brooklyn grant program, which has so far directed $450,000 to help nine larger businesses grow. Given the funding of food and fashion businesses in Brooklyn’s gentrified zones, this also marked a partial departure from the SJF’s initial focus.

The business overlap

More overlap: the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty, and Barclays Center can serve as co-sponsors of SJF efforts, including the “Belong/Brooklyn” block party, basketball court renovations, and public celebrations.

In response to my query, the SJF spokesman told me, “The arena bills SJF for costs associated with using the facility for our events.”

So: the Tsais pay the Tsais for those plaza concerts, atrium events like the Just Brooklyn Prize and student art exhibits, and arena bowl use for BK-XL’s Demo Day.

Could the cost of hosting the Just Brooklyn Prize, plus the well-produced videos of the winners, exceed the actual prize money?

(Honorees, as noted in my separate round-up article, include an activist against stop displacement in East New York, a supporter of Haitian refugees, the founder of Domestic Workers United, and the Co-Founder of Family and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted.)

Also, the Art at Barclays Center page credits LaToya Ruby Frazier’s installation last year on Ticketmaster Plaza, The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions, not just to the arena company but also to the Social Justice Fund, though SJF involvement wasn’t previously claimed.

That suggests the Tsais can count that project’s cost toward their “investment in Brooklyn.” Same with the upcoming “Brooklyn Art Encounters,” at least in part.

Is the foundation real?

Though the SJF announcement said it was funded by the Tsais’ “charitable foundation,” there’s no evidence of that. Nor is there any evidence that the Social Justice Fund is “a nonprofit started by Clara Wu Tsai,” as the New York Times stated on Oct. 16, 2024.8

The SJF and its parent, the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, are essentially opaque, despite crafted public announcements. Despite its name, the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation is apparently not a real foundation, at least under U.S. law, but rather a shell for something else.

Private foundations funded by a single source must annually report their grants, overall spending, and assets on Form 990-PF to the Internal Revenue Service and disclose the names of those who give at least $5,000. (See, for example, the Walentas Foundation, funded by developer David Walentas, and look for Schedule B.)

Similarly, public foundations funded by multiple sources, such as Brooklyn Org and the NBA Foundation, file annual Form 990s. Such foundations can publicly restrict the names of their contributors. (Again, see Schedule B.)

So I shouldn’t have to ask the Social Justice Fund about its grants, its administrative spending, or Bishop’s salary. But the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, nominally headquartered in the couple’s La Jolla neighborhood, discloses no spending beyond paying an accountant to complete the form, thereby keeping the name active. Unlike the SJF, it has no website.9

Why, I asked, is none of the SJF spending detailed in the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s public reports to the IRS? No answer.10

Brooklyn Org’s 2025 Impact Report lists the SJF among “Foundation Supporters.” I asked Brooklyn Org whether they were sure the SJF was a foundation, given that its parent had failed to list any grants. No answer.

The Social Justice Fund seems less a true nonprofit than, as SJF Manager Robyn Summers puts it on LinkedIn, “family office–led philanthropy.” She works on “personal philanthropic initiatives that align with high-net-worth brand identity, values, and long-term strategy.”

Summers says she’s “Manager of the Joe and Clara Tsai Social Justice Fund at BSE Global,” which earlier this year reverted to Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. That suggests the philanthropic effort is part of the family business. Indeed, the SJF and the parent company share a Brooklyn address.

Similarly, Timi Dayo-Kayode, who co-led the most recent BK-XL accelerator, says on his LinkedIn that he’d worked for the Brooklyn Nets. Co-lead Chris Martinez, on LinkedIn, says he works for BK-XL, but earlier worked for Blue Pool Capital, the Tsais’ family investment office.

Could BK-XL be an extension of the Tsais’ family office? When I asked what entity invested in the start-ups, I didn’t get an answer.

In 2024, at its Annual Meeting and Winter Gala, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce honored “our WNBA Champions the New York Liberty and BSE Global , their parent corporation,” wrote Brooklyn Chamber CEO Randy Peers on LinkedIn. “Thank you to Liberty CEO Keia Clarke and Gregg Bishop from the Social Justice Fund for joining us.

As shown in the photo above, Bishop was seen as a “corporate honoree,” an ambassador from the Liberty and its parent company.

Not quite a “standard foundation”

“It’s similar to working for a foundation, your standard foundation,” observed Bishop in a podcast interview last August. “They do similar work, but instead I work specifically for a family member.”

Business support, he suggested, was 60% to 70% of the SJF’s work, while the rest is working with nonprofits.

“I find organizations that are aligned with Clara’s priorities,” aiming to ensure their work is impactful, scalable, sustainable, and innovative, Bishop said. Then he presents them to Wu Tsai, “and most of the times we are in agreement.”

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Bishop has made presentations at last April’s Smart City Expo USA 2025 at the Javits Center, where he presented the SJF’s work as Philanthropy Transforming Cities, and a March 2025 panel at SXSW in Austin, titled No Returns, No Problem: Philanthropy Gets Creative and Brave.

The latter suggested a contrast between “institutional philanthropy,” which requires extensive paperwork and deliberation, and creative models of private philanthropy, exemplified by the SJF’s “trust-based” EXCELerate loan program.

“The Fund is fortunate to be in the position that traditional capital markets cannot take: to absorb early risk, prove models before scale and de-risk pathways so other capital can follow,” the spokesman told me.

Transparency questions

Then again, SJF is also nontraditional because it’s opaque.11

About a year after Inside Philanthropy initially covered the Tsais, its Aug. 31, 2022, article, Two Years After Historic Uprisings, Where Does Philanthropy’s Commitment to Racial Justice Stand?, raised a potential red flag. After querying 14 high-profile funders, the publication found that only two, including the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, declined to share information about their progress.12

Was that to avoid disclosing their spending? Unclear.

“We are committed to listening and learning from community members, our players, and our employees as we design and implement this plan,” the Tsais said in the Aug. 25, 2020, Social Justice Commitment Statement.

Then again, while the SJF website has invited applications for programs and prizes and, for nearly a year, has offered a link to alert staff to “organizations in Brooklyn,” it lacks a general Contact form or email address.13 It lists no board.

Nor has the SJF held a public “listening tour,” as Brooklyn Org does.

A Harvard case study?

Harvard Business School has published two case studies focused on EXCELerate: Clara Wu Tsai and Brooklyn Loan Innovation (March 2022, revised January 2023) and Clara Wu Tsai and Brooklyn Loan Innovation B (November 2024).

Neither the Social Justice Fund nor Harvard would make those copyrighted studies public. The portrayal seems positive, but it’s unclear whether the studies address whether the models are scalable.

Along with Bishop and Wu Tsai presenting at Harvard, referenced on LinkedIn as “Rich” by Prof. Archie Jones, seems to be Rich Tao, a member of Joe Tsai’s inner circle, according to Sportico, and a former Blue Pool executive. He now heads Udy Road Holdings, which helped mentor the second BK-XL cohort. (I queried Tao, but didn’t hear back.)

If so, that suggests another overlap between “philanthropic organization” and business.

The SJF partnerships

The Social Justice Fund’s partners have provided it with institutional legitimacy and program infrastructure. How much does it pay them?

I got a general answer: “We work with many partners – including Brooklyn Org, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, TruFund, etc. – who have unique expertise, as well as technical and programmatic capabilities, to maximize the impact of our programs. In all cases, these partners are compensated.”

Brooklyn Org’s (BKO) Stegmaier added, “BKO has also benefited from their philanthropy, with a $300K grant to create and support the Just Brooklyn Prize and an additional $30K for BKO to operate the prize (which was modeled on our Brooklyn Org Spark Prize, but to honor individuals instead of organizations).”

This year, the Just Brooklyn Prize will not only award $20,000 to each of five winners but also $5,000 to five finalists, while the Social Justice Fund has increased operating support for Brooklyn Org for administration.

Five nonprofits each receive Brooklyn Org’s annual $100,000 “no strings attached” Spark Prize and are celebrated at a gala breakfast. In 2022, the charity honored Wu Tsai. Starting last year and continuing last month, the Spark Prize breakfast has been held at the Barclays Center.

Brooklyn Org announced April 9, 2025: “Brooklyn Org and our partners at the Social Justice Fund founded by Clara Wu Tsai held a free training… at the Barclays Center to provide legal, communications, and fundraising expertise for Brooklyn nonprofits.”

Among key presenters were Bishop and Joe DePlasco of DKC News, a Social Justice Fund consultant.

“Brooklyn Org works directly with Barclays Center for their events,” not through the Social Justice Fund, the SJF spokesman told me, adding that the partnership was limited to the Just Brooklyn Prize, which the Fund had recently committed to supporting for three more years.14

Some suspect numbers

Am I too skeptical? Well, not only did I find that the “1,400 businesses supported” was a stretch, as noted above, but I also found another exaggeration.

The original Impact Summary claimed that Basquiat in Brooklyn Schools, a student arts curriculum inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat, reached 70,000 students.

Questioning that professed total, I cited an Oct. 16, 2023, Social Justice Fund post stating the program “now supports 75 schools, benefiting 4,000+ students,” a far lower number. In response, the SJF revised it to 12,000 students, as shown below.

Sure, that’s just one program.15 Whether sloppiness or slipperiness, it suggests that self-reporting scants accountability.

What’s the plan?

What happens after ten years? Does the Social Justice Fund continue? Might they designate, as I’ve speculated, exit profits from a BK-XL investment to fund future initiatives?

“We are focused on building on our work over the remaining 5 years of the initial commitment,” I was told. “Our commitments beyond the 10-year period will be determined in the future.”

I wouldn’t be surprised if, thanks to—for example—rising team values and another minority share investment in Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, more funds might be available for philanthropic work, especially if it clearly overlaps with other projects, such as the parent company’s Planet Brooklyn festival, as shown in the poster above.

Arena ironies

The arena was once supposed to provide millions of dollars in civic value, costs avoided by the Tsais and their predecessors.

The much-hyped 2005 Atlantic Yards Community Benefits Agreement stipulated that community groups could use the arena for at least ten events a year, at “a reasonable rate,” furthering their fundraising.

That never launched. (Yes, the Tsais now provide the arena for community purposes, but on their own terms, with the costs now calculated as part of the SJF’s $5 million commitment.)

Also, fans were once promised 2,000 discounted Brooklyn Nets tickets at $15. That lasted just one season. Today, the cheapest season tickets, at least the ones I recently saw available, cost about $60/seat, over 41 games.

If they sold 2,000 seats at $20 (to allow for inflation), they’d “lose” $40/ticket, or $80,000 per game.16 At 41 regular-season home games, that adds up to $3.28 million, likely more, given the dropoff in food and souvenir spending.

Meaningful gestures, and their limits

The SJF’s 2023 “Belong/Brooklyn” campaign, for Black Maternal Health, emphasized “women’s health equity as an essential right.” Four organizations, including the Brooklyn Perinatal Network, got $25,000 each, for a total of $100,000.

The money surely helps, as does the exposure. As Bishop said in an Aug. 29, 2024, interview, “we’re using our assets, so we’ve had [Belong Brooklyn honorees] at Liberty games” and events on the plaza to help build awareness. Such funding, however, can’t support a full-time staffer.

Few remember that, in 2005, the original Atlantic Yards developer, Bruce Ratner, gave $50,000 to the Brooklyn Perinatal Network.

“There’s a difference between public relations,” the (late) Rev. Clinton Miller, pastor of Brown Memorial Baptist Church, told the New York Daily News at the time, and Ratner “really wanting to have a sincere impact on the infant mortality rate.”

Then-Council Member Letitia James called it “pocket change.” Today, the totals may be larger, but such spending still deserves perspective.

After all, “Personal philanthropic initiatives that align with high-net-worth brand identity, values, and long-term strategy” might come with multiple motives.

Consider, for example, the SJF’s non-publicized support for See NYC, a $1,450 “summer camp-style experience” for emerging leaders.

As shown in the screenshot above, Group 1 on Day 1 could tour the Tsais’ new Brooklyn Basketball Training Center. Then all five groups could meet for lunch at Barclays Center with the New York Liberty leadership.

Was that social justice, or bolstering the brand?

MLK’s heir?

At the Barclays Center on Feb. 13, 2024, Wu Tsai was presented with the (recently unveiled) Dreamer Award by Martin Luther King III and his wife, Arndrea Waters King, in front of Brooklyn Nets fans.

“This award,” the Nets stated, “is given to a select number of extraordinary individuals across the country who have done inspiring work to create a more just and equitable world.”

The new award was part of a “Call to Action encouraging individuals to participate in local service opportunities,” as the Nets wrote. The Kings aimed to unite “brands and communities” to spread the message of service, under the banner of their organization, Realize the Dream.

So they promote virtuous, if hardly risk-taking, action while gaining partnerships from sports leagues, companies, and wealthy individuals.

Was that Martin Luther King, Jr.’s vision?

“Dr. King’s dream was as much about economic justice as it was about social justice,” wrote Bob Lord for Inequality.org in 2014. “Today’s distribution of wealth in America represents his nightmare come true.”17

That observation, which today might support a wealth tax on billionaires, was not part of the Dreamer Award.

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Strangely, as I’ll write separately in greater detail, the separate Brooklyn Nets & New York Liberty Foundation has reported raising $2 million, in two tranches, from the “Joe [&] Clara Tsai Foundation,” said to be headquartered at the Industry City offices of the Tsai holdings.

The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation is based in La Jolla, not Brooklyn, and has never reported any contributions. That Industry City address of the recipient address was apparently (mis)used as the location of all the contributors to the Brooklyn Nets & New York Liberty Foundation.

This is a companion to the overview article, headlined The Tsais’ Social Justice Fund: “Lasting Change” or Strategic Brand Management? Below, I’ll go through the Social Justice Fund’s Impact Summary section by section, starting top left, and adding some information not included.

While much of this relies on their website text, I’ve added complementary or analytical information, as well as some SJF responses—not insignificant but not complete—to some of my questions. I’ve also described some pending questions and programs omitted.

Within the claimed $25 million in spending, the SJF has supported many programs and individuals. We just don’t know how much.

It’s not easy to spend $5 million a year, though, in increments of $25,000 or $20,000, such as for the “Belong/Brooklyn” nonprofit or the Just Brooklyn Prize, both of which involve $100,000 in grants, plus unclear costs for events and public relations.

Nor do we know how much the Tsais pay themselves, such as when the SJF pays for use of the arena.

The overall effectiveness and connection to social justice deserve more transparency, especially since, as described below, the claims remain vague.

After all, though the SJF released a two-page Impact Summary, it does not delineate its grants to the Internal Revenue Service, because, well, the parent Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, despite its name, is not an actual U.S. foundation as typically understood.

Below, I’ll go into more detail about each quadrant of activity.

The sections, linked below, include:

• Promoting Education

• Advancing Arts, Culture, and Community

• Increasing Access to Capital

• Expanding Workforce Opportunities

So you can go to the hyperlinks or skim, looking at the headlines.

At the bottom, I’ll add information about unmentioned initiatives or spending, such as:

• the Just Brooklyn Prize

• the Black Voices for Black Justice awardees

• the Liberty Portraits

• spending on administration

• spending on the in-kind use of the Barclays Center

• the See NYC program

The bottom line: they’ve spread themselves around broadly if not always deeply, offering useful. They’ve clearly had an impact, though, given their failure to disclose spending, it’s difficult to fully assess. They publicize some initiatives and not others.

Promoting Education

Technology bootcamps

In 2024, according to the website, “the Social Justice Fund launched two transformative bootcamps for New York City high school students, equipping them with the knowledge and skills to navigate the technologies shaping our future.”

“The Web 3.0 Bootcamp introduced 100 students to the next evolution of the internet, focusing on blockchain fundamentals, NFTs, decentralized finance (DeFi), and best practices within the Web 3.0 ecosystem,” the website states.

Also, “the AI Bootcamp provided students with a high-level understanding of large language models and their practical applications in real-world scenarios.”

The 2025 AI bootcamp, according to a Yale student instructor, was a five-week program for about 50 students.

Helpful? Surely. Transformative? Tough to tell. The bootcamps have served over 300 students, according to the Impact Summary. That suggests 150 students a year.

SJF Executive Director Gregg Bishop, in an interview last year, called it an effort to position youth for tech careers. If the SJF were part of a real foundation, we’d know how much they spent.

(Also note the connection to Technology Training in the fourth category, Expanding Workforce Opportunities.)

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The Basquiat Project

The Social Justice Fund in 2021 debuted a much-lauded student arts curriculum, stating:

The Brooklyn Nets have partnered with the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) and the Fund for Public Schools to create an educational arts program about the work of Brooklyn-born artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. The program was funded by Clara Wu Tsai, who established a Social Justice Fund to support racial justice and equality initiatives benefitting Black, Indigenous and People of Color.

So it’s a Brooklyn Nets initiative, but it’s not funded by the team; rather, it's funded by the Social Justice Fund, which Wu Tsai is said to have funded—though the couple announced it and supplied their resources.

It’s another sign of the loose boundaries between philanthropy and business promotion. The goal, Wu Tsai said, was to “show students how Basquiat’s art could inspire change, and provide them with an outlet for self-expression.”

That clearly inspired creativity, as student art shows confirmed. Still, the initial version of the Impact Summary offered exaggerated numbers. After seeing it, I questioned the claimed total of 70,000 students reached, noting a previous social media post (below) that said “4,000+ students.”

“An earlier version of the impact report was uploaded with an incorrect number of students impacted by the Basquiat project,” I was told in response. “The number is 12,000 students. We are updating the report to reflect this.”

Yes, the Basquiat Project is just one program among many. However, their sloppiness in reporting or willingness to exaggerate—take your pick—calls into question their credibility.

This February, under the banner of the Basquiat Project, the SJF funded a visit of “150+ young student artists and educators” to the Guggenheim Museum, involving “private tours of the exhibit and artmaking activities led by museum educators, in addition to a Q&A with the artist Rashid Johnson.”

Wu Tsai plans to bring a prominent Johnson work to the Barclays Center this fall, part of what is grandly called “Brooklyn Art Encounters.”

After Basquiat, Max Roach

As a successor to the Basquiat program, the Social Justice Fund is supporting a curriculum involving Brooklyn-born Black composer and musician Max Roach.

While the program started too late for the Impact Summary, it’s not even on the SJF website. Still, WBGO reported Oct. 29, 2025. The Social Justice Fund & New York City Public Schools Launch The Max Roach Music Project, “a rigorous initiative aimed to commemorate the legacy of Max Roach by integrating music education and social justice in public schools.”

As 2024 marks the centennial celebration of Max Roach’s birth, the project serves as a timely tribute to his impact on civil rights, music, and cultural innovation. These principles are reflected in the curriculum which features a collaboration with Max Roach Estate and Jazz House KIDS, coaching by professional musicians, and a culminating performance at Barclays Center in Spring 2026.

“Max Roach was a son of Bed-Stuy and a jazz genius who has shaped the genre for generations of musicians,” said Clara Wu Tsai, Founder of The Social Justice Fund. “We are proud to honor him by bringing this musical arts program to thousands of students throughout Brooklyn.”

It will be piloted in seven Brooklyn middle and high schools, as NY 1 reported Nov. 7, 2025, in New pilot to teach students about Max Roach, jazz and activism.

Expect publicity when the arena performance is announced. Don’t expect to learn how much they’ve spent.

Advancing Arts, Culture, and Community

Brooklyn Basketball Courts

The document cites renovations of 12 basketball courts, in partnership with the New York City Parks Department. The website says it was part of a “collective effort to end gun violence,” given the locations.2

(Such renovations were also supported by the previous owners of the Nets.”3 )

These efforts meld the Tsais’ interest as business owners and philanthropists. Those renovations come with branding—and t-shirts—from Brooklyn Basketball, representing the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, not the lesser-known Social Justice Fund.

Indeed, Oct. 16, 2024, minutes from Brooklyn Community Board 18 state, “The Brooklyn Nets paid for the basketball court renovations.”

The Impact Summary didn’t cite an investment. I calculated $2.1 million. The SJF later said it exceeded $2 million. It calls the funding a “[c]atalyst for an additional $10 million in investment.” How so? The SJF told me:

Courts are catalysts, signaling that neighborhoods are worthy of care and attract further investment. For instance, our refurbishment of the Breukelen Ballfields catalyzed the Department of Transportation to pave the schoolyard and an additional $5-7 million investment from the city/local councilmember for a capital project consisting of pickleball courts, tracks and synthetic fields. Similarly, in Bed Stuy, our investment in the Jackie Robinson courts has catalyzed another $5 million local investment as well.

I asked the Parks Department about the claimed catalyst, and they deferred to the Social Justice Fund.

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Belong Brooklyn

The Impact Summary describes Belong Brooklyn as:

Celebrating cultural richness through strategic partnerships

• Over 14 free public events at Barclays Center, including a Summer Concert Series and Let’s Talk Brooklyn lecture series.

• Commissioned of [sic] Belong Brooklyn by mixed-media artist Tavares Strachan.

That doesn’t fully describe the broad rubric—“series of programs aimed at uniting communities across Brooklyn and beyond”—cited on the SJF’s Belong Brooklyn page, as well as some $400,000 in support, as I’ve calculated, for various nonprofits.

I’ve questioned the neon signage in Art or Advertising? Behind the Tricky “You/We Belong Here” Signage Outside the Barclays Center. The SJF website claimed the signage helped encourage a “sense of belonging”:

The Social Justice Fund’s #YouBelongHere campaign was created to encourage a sense of belonging among people in our community and around the world. Using famed artist Tavares Strachan’s “You Belong Here/We Belong Here” art installation - which is currently on display outside the Barclay’s [sic] Center in Brooklyn, NY - as a visual backdrop, we are encouraging people to share their stories of belonging on social media using the hashtag #YouBelongHere.

The Social Justice Fund’s #YouBelongHere Campaign stated that, for every use of the hashtag #YouBelongHere, the fund would donate $100 to one of five nonprofit organizations (up to $20,000 per organization) working towards racial justice and creating a more equitable society in Brooklyn and beyond:4

• Weeksville Heritage Center

• Brooklyn Defenders

• Children of Promise

• Brooklyn United Music and Arts Program

• Bard Prison Initiative / Bard Microcollege at Brooklyn Public Library

From what I can tell, the campaign generated little uptake.5

Perhaps because of that, and/or the awkwardness of tying contributions to hashtag promotion, future “Belong Brooklyn” support for nonprofits came without contingencies.

Another promotion offered a carrot: Nets tickets. That also suggests synergy between philanthropy and business.

As shown below, one of the concerts was credited not only to the Social Justice Fund but also to the Barclays Center and various promoters.

While surely a welcome event, it’s hard to see how this constitutes “social justice” more than “community relations.”

The website claims an “inaugural” series in 2022 and, confusingly, a first annual series in 2023.6

Combining concerts and community support

Over the previous three years, the Social Justice Fund has used a summer concert series to promote cumulative $100,000 donations to nonprofits in particular sectors.

Though surely welcome, the money represents only a small fraction of the claimed $5 million in spending. Was that why the sums were omitted from the Impact Summary?

The 2023 campaign, for Black Maternal Health, emphasized “women’s health equity as an essential right and critical to true belonging and equality.”7

The 2024 campaign, for Re-Entry and Workforce Readiness, emphasized “employment equity, via workforce readiness and re-entry programs, as a means of belonging.”8

The 2025 Belong Brooklyn Initiative, as it’s now known, awarded $25,000 grants to four organizations working on Violence Interruption—an alternative to police in certain neighborhoods that uses “credible messengers” to mediate conflict.9

As the screenshot above suggests, the Violence Interruption Campaign is a “secondary” screen when scrolling horizontally on the SJF homepage. So it’s odd to see it, and its predecessors, ignored in the Impact Summary.

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Author Matt Sullivan, in his 2021 book Can’t Knock the Hustle: Inside the Season of Protest, Pandemic, and Progress with the Brooklyn Nets’ Superstars of Tomorrow, quoted a community organizer working with the Nets: “The NBA, it’s all a business. So some of the policies you can’t get to the NBA are police reform—that’s not safe. Defunding the police will hurt their bottom line.”

The Social Justice Fund has mostly steered clear of public safety issues, but the recent funding of violence interrupters, who are not necessarily embraced by the police, suggests a slight shift.

What about “Let’s Talk Brooklyn”?

Another SJF credibility issue involves the claim of a Let’s Talk Brooklyn lecture series, said to be part of Belong Brooklyn.

Was there a series? The SJF website describes a single event, on Nov. 27, 2023, in which SJF co-founder10 Wu Tsai hosted “GRAMMY Awardee Jon Batiste, and U.S Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy, discussing social media, mental health, and loneliness on college campuses.”

It seemed an awkward effort to bootstrap “social justice” onto Murthy’s national “We Are Made to Connect” tour, focused on college campuses. The crowd barely filled the arena atrium, according to an Instagram video.

Nonetheless, the Social Justice Fund positioned it as the “inaugural” Let’s Talk Brooklyn event, as shown in the above screenshot.

In her introduction, Wu Tsai said, “I’ve been thinking really hard over the last few years about how Barclays could really truly be of service to Brooklyn and to this community. And so I’m really pleased to be able to announce today something that we’re calling Let’s Talk Brooklyn, which is a series of conversations among policy leaders and musicians and actors and authors.”

Queried about subsequent events, a SJF spokesman (from the public relations firm DKC) told me, “For the Let’s Talk Brooklyn series, we recently hosted the Common Dream Summit for 65 kids. It included guest speakers, including Common, focused on how to dream and reach one’s potential.”

That’s a stretch. It involved a musician/actor, but wasn’t a free public event. It was held mostly at the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center, where the youth were given branded Nets swag before attending a Nets game at the Barclays Center.

NetsDaily described it as a partnership with Common’s Free to Dream initiative.11 No one invoked “Let’s Talk Brooklyn.” The SJF’s Bishop cited a “partnership with the Brooklyn Nets.” If the Social Justice Fund compensated Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment for the tickets, that means the Tsais pay the Tsais.

Brooklyn arts and cultural institutions

The Impact Summary cites “Investing in emerging and anchor institutions,” adding, “Provided grants to eight anchor arts and cultural institutions in Brooklyn, including BRIC, Brooklyn Museum, and Brooklyn Botanical Garden.”

After asking for more specifics, I didn’t learn the sums granted but was told:

Grants to cultural institutions in Brooklyn include those supporting Brooklyn Children’s Museum, New Heights, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn Arts Council, Weeksville, Prospect Park Alliance, Gersh Park Community Foundation, etc.

(The website also mentions the Center for Fiction.)

Weeksville Heritage Center was part of the first Belong Brooklyn campaign. Support for “anchor institutions” like the Prospect Park Alliance seems consonant with support from previous arena operators.

For New Heights, a “Non-Profit Sports-Based Youth Development and Education Organization,” benefactor table sponsors for its 2022 Gamechangers Ball included BSE Global, the New York Liberty, the Brooklyn Nets, and the Social Justice Fund. That again suggests an overlap between business and philanthropy.12

I couldn’t find any reference to a Gersh Park Community Foundation, but presumably it supports Gersh Park, the streetball mecca in East New York.13

The Brooklyn Arts Leadership Collaborative

Another element, according to the Impact Study, was “the Brooklyn Arts Leadership Collaborative, a 10-month program supporting the leaders of eight arts organizations led by people from underinvested communities.”

The inaugural cohort, in 2023, included: ARTE (Art Resistance Through Education); Black Girls Sew; Brooklyn United Music and Arts Program; Kyoung’s Pacific Beat; ¡Oye!; Black Trans Femme Artist Collective; Rooted Theater Company; Redhawk Council.

The announcement noted that only 50 of more than 4,000 arts organizations in Brooklyn were led by people from “historically marginalized communities,” so the program aimed to provide “holistic leadership development and strategic support.”

Each organization also received a $25,000 SJF grant. So that’s $200,000 in grants, plus an unknown amount of program expenses, including event space, guest speakers, and videography.14

As shown above, a fireside chat involved Clara Wu Tsai, Ford Foundation President Darren Walker, and Brooklyn Museum Director Anne Pasternak, exploring the theme “The Arts as Catalysts for Social Impact.”

Increasing Access to Capital

EXCELerate Loan Fund and BK-XL

The next two sections of the Impact Summary involve the EXCELerate Loan Fund and BX-XL, which I address in separate articles.

Revitalize Brooklyn

Revitalize Brooklyn, from “2024 to present,” is described as “[p]roviding economy [sic grants to restore momentum to innovative, creative businesses,” specifically “[a]warded $50,000 grants to nine innovative fashion and food-and-beverage businesses in Brooklyn.” So, a total of $450,000.

The website calls Revitalize Brooklyn “a competitive grant program designed to identify and support innovative Brooklyn-based businesses by providing growth capital to help them reach the next level,” given the struggles in Brooklyn’s creative economy post-pandemic.

“The program aims to cultivate a strong pipeline of 30-40 qualified applicants, ultimately selecting 9 businesses with the greatest potential for success and growth,” the website states.

Given that competition wasn’t publicly announced, how were applicants recruited? (After all, as one local commented on a July 8, 2025, Instagram post highlighting one grantee, “how can a creative business apply to this?” That didn’t draw a response.)

“Revitalize Brooklyn grantees were nominated to apply – and ultimately selected – by a committee of industry experts based and active in Brooklyn,” the SJF told me. “We received over 25 applications and 9 companies were selected. In the next round, we plan to expand to organizations that work with growth businesses to also nominate.”

It’s unclear whether the program offers business counseling, as did EXCELerate, but that would make sense.

In contrast with EXCELerate, there was no emphasis on Black Brooklyn; rather, there was a trend toward businesses embodying the interests and tastes of younger gentrifiers, albeit with a good number of entrepreneurs of color, as I wrote. It seemed a shift—or, perhaps, expansion—in tone.

Revitalize Brooklyn was announced almost backhandedly, emerging in a Jan. 29, 2025, column in the food website Eater, presumably placed as an exclusive by a Social Justice Fund public relations consultant.15

With no press release, the Social Justice Fund used social media: an Instagram campaign from June 19, 2025, through July 8, 2025, featured five recipients.

One of them, Buddies Coffee, had already closed its Williamsburg location, though it promises a new home, and was selected to provide coffee for six weeks at Meta Lab NYC, the company’s Manhattan retail space for AI glasses and VR headsets.

The SJF told me they aim to “invest more in grants to medium size businesses to be a catalyst for growth.”

That suggests an expansion of Revitalize Brooklyn. Think about it. Instead of putting $2 million, for example, into start-ups, they could deploy $1 millon to help 20 medium-sized businesses.

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Grants to community organizations

The next section, grants to community organizations, states that, by “[s]upporting non-profits dedicated to growing small businesses,” that means “[o]ver 1,400 businesses supported.”

Well, did the SJF funding directly support 1,400-plus businesses, or was it part of funding for organizations supporting them?

The answer I got points to the latter. “Our goal has always been to be authentic, not performative, through our connections with local organizations that we believe can create lasting impact,” the SJF told me. Their examples:

• CAMBA, which serves central Brooklyn, helped 760 entrepreneurs start, grow, and manage neighborhood businesses in 2023

• Bridge Street Development Corporation helped 600 neighborhood businesses in Bed-Stuy survive the pandemic by connecting them with funding opportunities and attracting visitors to business districts.

• Hot Bread Kitchen trained 107 new food-related small business owners, incubated eight businesses in its commercial kitchen, and helped 11 scale through connecting with CDFIs for loans up to $50,000.

Again, without knowing the SJF’s spending, it’s tough to assess the significance of its role.

Expanding Workforce Opportunities

Technology training

Under the category of Technology training, the SJF says it “Funded orgs which offered 9 to 12-month fellowships to access high-wage tech jobs,” with average wages of $75,000 - 97,000 a year.”

Which organizations? How many fellowships have been funded?

“The Marcy Lab School offers a free, one-year alternative to college, training high school graduates as software engineers and data scientists,” I was told. The number of fellowships wasn’t disclosed.

On a July 19, 2023, panel hosted by Brooklyn Savvy, Creating Economic Mobility with Gregg Bishop, the SJF Executive Director said it had funded Marcy Lab School, which is based in Industry City, and also helped Hack.Diversity expand into Brooklyn.16

The Boston-based nonprofit Hack.Diversity opened its nine-month fellowship program in New York, according to a July 1, 2024, article in Crain’s New York Business, engaging 15 fellows for paid internships in the first year, then 17 in the second year.

Hack raised about $2 million annually in contributions and grants, according to the article, with the “Clara Wu Tsai Social Justice Fund,” as it was misleadingly described, among the top five donors. The latter’s contribution was not specified.

Last April, Hack announced it would wind down as of August 30, 2025, citing fewer job openings and “the current backlash against DEI programs.” Perhaps that’s why the SJF doesn’t mention it.

As with the article about Hack.Diversity, the Social Justice Fund, as shown in the screenshot above, has pivoted to credit the philanthropic effort solely to Clara Wu Tsai, rather than to both her and her more controversial husband.

Professional development for justice-impacted individuals

The final section, at the bottom right of the graphic, focuses on “Investing in orgs that create job opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals,” with results described as “Approximately 1,088 people found employment” and “Average wages of $18-20 per hour.”

I asked about whether the SJF's investment directly supported the claimed number of jobs, but didn’t get an answer.

Which organizations? They include, I was told, those in the Re-Entry Workforce Readiness Campaign, a $100,000 commitment that was part of Belong Brooklyn: $25,000 to the organizations Brooklyn Workforce Innovations, Drive Change, Cases, and Osborne Association.

That announced investment also includes funding for the nonprofit Strive, though SJF’s website doesn’t mention it. Strive in March 2024 said its expansion in New York City from its flagship East Harlem location to Brooklyn was “fueled by a generous donation” by the SJF. The amount was unspecified.

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“The grant will focus on building the Career Path program, STRIVE’s signature five pillar model of workforce training and preparedness, offering career readiness and occupational training, job search skills and placement assistance, with emphasis on the robust healthcare sector in the Metro New York area and priority for justice-involved Brooklyn residents,” the announcement said.

In July 2024, “STRIVE celebrated the graduation of 20 students from its newest location in Brooklyn,” the organization said.

The Brooklyn pilot of STRIVE’s Career Path: Nonclinical Healthcare Support program was launched in partnership with Brooklyn Communities Collaborative, which aims to promote health equity in Brooklyn, and involved employer partners SUNY Downstate Medical School and Maimonides Medical Center.

In March 2025, the SJF’s Bishop appeared with Strive’s Chief Program Officer on a panel, “Alternative Trade School for People Facing Systemic Barriers,” at SXSW EDU.

Unmentioned Initiatives or Spending

Unmentioned: The Just Brooklyn Prize

The Just Brooklyn Prize, launched in 2023 by the SJF in partnership with Brooklyn Org, was, according to an April 21, 2023 version of the website, “awarded to five BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) changemakers annually who are dedicated to strengthening and building power within Brooklyn’s communities.”

Honorees include an activist against displacement in East New York, a supporter of Haitian refugees, the founder of Domestic Workers United, and the Co-Founder of Family and Friends of the Wrongfully Convicted.

The website today omits the term BIPOC, saying the prize is “awarded to five changemakers annually who are dedicated to strengthening and building power within Brooklyn’s communities.” Each gets an unrestricted $20,000 grant.

In reality, all the 2025 winners, celebrated at a Nov. 14 award ceremony, fit the original goal of BIPOC leaders, as did the previous winners.)17

Oddly enough, the Just Brooklyn Prize, which Wu Tsai at that Nov. 14, 2025, ceremony called one of the Fund’s “most important and most gratifying programs,” was absent from the two-page Impact Summary.

“The Just Brooklyn Prize gives us the opportunity to shine a light on some of Brooklyn’s most dedicated and inspiring leaders,” Wu Tsai said at the ceremony. “People who are working tirelessly for this community with limited resources and recognition. And coming together to honor you is truly one of the highlights of my year.”

Why omit the Just Brooklyn prize, especially since it represents a homegrown initiative”? (Could it be because the $100,000 in annual prize money represents just 2% of the claimed $5 million in spending?)

“No particular reason the Just Brooklyn Prize is not specifically called out in the impact summary,” I was told in response to my query. “It is included among our community grant programs.”

Unmentioned: The Black Voices for Black Justice Awardees

The first SJF grant recipients, announced Dec. 17, 2020, were five “Brooklyn-based Black leaders tackling the root causes of racial disparities in healthcare, climate policy, education, journalism, and the criminal justice system.”18

The Brooklyn awardees’ work, the announcement said, “will be amplified via The Black Voices for Black Justice Fund (BVBJF) to support Black leaders addressing systemic racism at the national and community level.”

For example, Next100 policy entrepreneur Chantal Hinds, according to the BVBJF, "conducted interviews and focus groups of 75 current and former foster youth, parents, and adoptive and/or foster parents to gather their views on how New York state can improve its education system to better support young people in the foster system.”

Why wasn’t this program mentioned in the Impact Summary? Unclear, especially since a fuzzy initiative like Let’s Talk Brooklyn was mentioned.

It’s notable that the press release, issued before the SJF had a website, was issued by the Brooklyn Nets. In this case, unlike with the later Just Brooklyn Prize, the Tsais outsourced the selection process to the BVBJF. When the second round was announced, it got a page (archived) on the SJF website.

While the $50 million total was highlighted in the press release, the dollar value of each grant was unmentioned. I couldn't get an answer when I inquired, but the BK Reader reported that the initial grants ranged between $20,000 and $50,000.

Indeed, the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund’s three- year report later explained, “Each awardee is provided with a grant – either $20,000 or $50,000 – to use at this pivotal moment to expand their voice and grow their solutions for building an anti-racist America.”

Two years later, in 2022, five more awardees were named, with the amounts again unspecified. Though the Black Voices for Black Justice awards are no longer19 linked from the SJF’s Initiatives list, the website has a page—findable via a web search—with the 2022 awardees.20 That first round is also cited on the News page.

The separate Black Voices for Black Justice website lists all ten awardees.

Unmentioned: Liberty Portraits

The Art at Barclays Center page first credits The Liberty Portraits: A Monument to the 2024 Champions to Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment; it also says it was commissioned by the Social Justice Fund. That credit was not part of the initial press release last July.

I had written last July 6, Art, Promotion, or Both? The “Liberty Portraits” Are a BSE Global Power Move. Now we know it’s also classified as social justice and, presumably, claimed against the $5 million spent last year.

The project is not mentioned in the 5-Year Impact Report or on the SJF website.

Unmentioned: spending on administration

In response to my question, I was told that 10% of spending goes to “administrative and operational costs, which is standard for philanthropic organizations.” Actually, that’s relatively lean, but this is a small organization.

Large legacy foundations like the Ford Foundation, which are heavily staffed, spend 20% on overhead, as David Callahan reported for Inside Philanthropy.

If the Social Justice Fund might, for example, share Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment offices at Industry City or use Tsai family office personnel for financial administration, well, they might save on overhead.

The NBA Foundation, which exists mainly to make large grants rather than innovate programs (as Ford does, and the Social Justice Fund does only in part), in 2024, distributed nearly $41.6 million in grants, while spending $1.84 million in compensation and $1.06 million in other expenses, according to its Form 990 report. So total expenses were below 7%. Then again, most SJF grants are smaller.

Unmentioned: spending on the arena

“The arena bills SJF for costs associated with using the facility for our events,” I was told.

So the Tsais apparently pay the Tsais for using the plaza for concerts, and the atrium for annual ceremonies for the Just Brooklyn Prize, concerts, a “Let’s Talk Brooklyn” discussion, as well as for displays of student art in the Basquiat program.

Then add spending to host two “Demo Days” for the BK-XL cohorts. That cumulative value, likely significant, remains unspecified.

Was the Social Justice Fund the sponsor of the New York City Department of Small Business Services’ (SBS) annual procurement fair, held at the Barclays Center in 2022? It seems likely.

“We are honored to be hosting the 2022 procurement fair at Barclays Center,” said Clara Wu Tsai, described as founder of the Social Justice Fund, in the press release. “Our arena’s business diversity program is a priority for us and has been a great vehicle for recruiting M/WBE vendors. We are big believers in the transformative impact that this procurement fair can have on economic mobility.”

The SBS also hosted a Contracting Summit at the Barclays Center this past January. Was it sponsored by the SJF? Unclear, but the organization’s Bishop was a speaker.

Unmentioned (maybe): $1M for Essential Workers night, $1M for more

On Dec. 22, 2020, the Nets announced they were honoring essential workers at their 2020-21 NBA Season Opener. Along with Barclays and other donors, they raised more than $2 million for COVID-19 Relief Efforts, to be donated to Coalition for the Homeless, The Campaign Against Hunger, Good Shepherd Services, New York Cares, and United Way’s COVID-19 Community Response and Recovery Fund.

According to the FY 2021 Form 990 for the Brooklyn Nets & New York Liberty Foundation, the single largest donor was the “Joe [&] Clara Tsai Foundation,” said—like all the donors, apparently for convenience—to be located at 168 39th Street, the BSE/Nets headquarters.

(By my calculation, as I’ll explain separately, the Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty Foundation contributed $902,460 of the stated “more than $2 million raised,” while Barclays contributed $1 million.)

Three years later, the “Joe [&] Clara Tsai Foundation” again gave $1 million the Brooklyn Nets & New York Liberty Foundation, according to the latter’s FY 2024 Form 990.

In that year, the Nets/Liberty Foundation gave $200,000 for the National Museum of African American History, and $100,000 for Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, both of which comport with Clara Wu Tsai’s priorities and might be considered “social justice.” Not being local, however, the spending can’t be attributed to the Social Justice Fund.

The role of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation is confusing. While the Tsais’ family office and the Social Justice Fund have offices at that location and presumably operate in association with the platform they call the “Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation,” the La Jolla-based Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation reported no expenditures for those periods, nor at any other time.

Unmentioned: REFORM Alliance job fair

On March 20, 2023, REFORM Alliance hosted the “first Brooklyn Job Fair in partnership with BSE Global at Barclays Center,” according to an arena announcement. It was aimed at “returning citizens, currently unemployed, single parents, veterans, and members of poverty alleviation and workforce development programs.”

More than 2,200 job-seekers and 42 employers attended, according to the Brooklyn Reader.

A Business Insider interview with Wu Tsai, who helped found the criminal justice reform group, noted that the event was “in partnership with the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund.”

Does that mean, for example, that the provision of the arena was charged to the SJF?

(Madison Square Garden two years earlier similarly hosted a job fair sponsored by Roc Nation and REFORM Alliance, with a supportive quote from Richard Constable, Executive Vice President, Global Head of Government Affairs and Social Impact, MSG Entertainment. With MSG, “social impact” is apparently a portfolio within the company, not a separate not-quite nonprofit.)

Unmentioned: See NYC

Unmentioned on the SJF website, or in the Impact Summary, is the SJF-supported See NYC, which last October brought together “150 people shaping the city’s future for a summer camp-style experience focused on connection, creativity, and collective action.”

As shown in the screenshot below, one of five groups on Day 1 could tour the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center “to demo cutting-edge technologies and learn about their goals for the community and the sport.”

That sounds like an advertisement for the new training center.

Then all the groups could gather for lunch and conversation at Barclays Center with the New York Liberty leadership regarding the investment and growth of women’s sports.

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So the Social Justice Fund promised to “match all donations, up to $25,000, to four organizations dedicated to improving health outcomes for pregnant people of color in Brooklyn.” They included:

• Brooklyn Perinatal Network

• Caribbean Women’s Health Association

• Haven Midwifery Collective

• Irth App

On Oct. 30, 2024, Brooklyn Communities Collaborative Grants nearly $1M to Brooklyn-Based Organizations to Address Maternal Health, the organization announced, including $250,000 to the Brooklyn Perinatal Network and $125,000 to the Caribbean Women’s Health Association, among ten groups.

“A community-led, multi-disciplinary review committee — comprised of nonprofit leaders, maternal health care providers, doulas, OBGYNs, and local residents — reviewed applications and awarded grants to 10 organizations committed to advancing maternal health outcomes,” BCC said.

The Social Justice Fund’s first big splash came in June 2021, when it announced EXCELerate, an ambitious new emergency loan program—without requiring collateral or a guarantor—aimed to help Brooklyn’s BIPOC small business owners, who historically have had trouble accessing capital, recover from the pandemic.

It also announced an Executive Director: Gregg Bishop, a former New York City Commissioner of Small Business Services (and a Black man raised in East Flatbush), with a history of commitment to equitable workforce development.

“We know that there is no social justice without economic opportunity,” said Clara Wu Tsai in the press release, which described her as Co-Founder of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation. (Now they call her “Founder,” steering attention away from her husband.)

An impactful initiative

The loan options ranged from micro ‘Rapid Recovery’ loans with no interest up to $15,000, to ‘Restart’ loans with 2% interest up to $100,000, aimed at businesses that had closed or reduced operating hours and faced barriers.

Operating from 2021 to 2024, at least in its initial iteration, the EXCELerate Loan Fund was the SJF’s widest-ranging and, perhaps, most impactful initiative, albeit not a sustainable one.

According to the Impact Summary, among the 98 businesses supported with emergency loans:

• 69% were women-owned

• 81% of businesses [79] remained open 3 years after the launch of the fund

• 41% added staff [though I couldn’t find out how that translated into FTEs, or full-time equivalent jobs]

  

As shown in the SJF-produced video below, Kidada Fields, founder of Fields of Qi Acupuncture in Fort Greene, explained how the loan helped her hire a virtual receptionist and a practitioner.

“The application process helped me to really pick apart what I needed help with,” she said, also citing SEO optimization to improve her website.

Some complications

The Impact Summary doesn’t explain, as the top image conveys, that EXCELerate was aimed at BIPOC businesses and was “character-based,” seeking evidence—not acceptable in more traditional lending—that a borrower was a worthy bet.

There’s more to it. As the SJF said on Instagram, the funds would “only be available to applicants with credit scores under 620.” (The SJF told me 50% had credit scores below 670; 6% had no credit history.)

The program offered not just a loan but also marketing expertise, business plan help, and mentoring sessions. So a suite of services might make such a program successful, albeit at an additional cost.

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The image below shows loans granted across several parts of Brooklyn, with an emphasis on Central Brooklyn neighborhoods with large Black populations, such as Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, and Flatbush/East Flatbush.

Also, a decent fraction were in Fort Greene/Clinton Hill/Downtown Brooklyn, plus a few in East New York and Bushwick, and a cluster in Sunset Park, with Chinese and Latino communities.

While the summary says 81% of businesses remained open, it didn’t say that 18% of the loans went into default—acceptable in an emergency philanthropic effort, not a commercial enterprise, but surely worthy of discussion.

(Consider, though, that the vastly larger federal Paycheck Protection Program involved 10.5 million loans nationally, with $755 billion in public funds forgiven, as of October 2022.)

I got a statement from the SJF:

Philanthropy is society’s ‘risk capital.’ EXCELerate was an intentionally risky program that could act fast and respond to the moment. It encouraged below-market interest rates and took higher-than-usual underwriting risks but did so to meet the urgency of the moment. Private lenders likely would not have been able to take the same sort of risks. Government programs such as the Paycheck Protection Program and New York Forward intended to reach the same audience, but EXCELerate was more accessible to Brooklyn’s ‘mom-and-pop’ business owners with its shorter application and decision-making cycle.

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Indeed, in an April 11, 2023, Brooklyn Reader article, Coping Through Crisis: A Look at the State of Brooklyn’s Black-Owned Restaurants, Pt. 2, Joseph Adewumi of the Downtown Brooklyn restaurant Amarichi praised the SJF loan program as more responsive than other pandemic-era programs that required more barriers or paperwork.

A big question

Curiously, the SJF website and Impact Summary cite only the original EXCELerate program, not the successor EXCELerate 2.0, which offers slightly higher but still generous interest rates to keep the initial funding in perpetual circulation.

That raises questions about the Tsais’ plan to “fund pilots and programs that are scalable.”

Such character-based lending, however new to Brooklyn, is not unique nationally, as noted below.

So, rather than simply celebrate a seeming success, as the SJF’s Bishop does in periodic public appearances, a better understanding of the program still awaits. If the SJF only promotes the original program, that suggests that public relations credit is a priority.

Origin story

Wu Tsai and Bishop did some homework, meeting with various stakeholders—including the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce and the Brooklyn Community Foundation, now known as Brooklyn Org—and learning that BIPOC-led businesses needed support.

“Because of redlining, because of a number of other things that have really robbed the Black community from generational wealth,” Bishop told Inside Philanthropy on July 12, 2021, “whenever a Black entrepreneur starts a business, it’s usually bootstrapping… it’s usually, ‘I’m going to max out my credit card.’”

“We learned the biggest problem was access to capital, and we seized on it,” Wu Tsai told Forbes. “We didn’t want to waste time designing a complex program, but to start something that could make an impact quickly.”

The SJF didn’t distribute the money. It—well, some entity associated with the Tsais—provided $2.5 million to be managed by TruFund Financial, a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), and Brooklyn Alliance Capital, the Brooklyn Chamber’s CDFI.

(A CDFI specializes in lending to under-resourced communities, offering not just low-interest rate loans but also business support. I asked what entity actually supplied the funding, but didn’t get an answer. The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation does not list any grants. It appears to be a shell for the Tsais’ philanthropic efforts.)

The initial press release included kudos from Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, and Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, who said the program “is modeling what good citizenship looks like.”2

EXCELerate apparently ramped up fast. As of Feb. 16, 2022, according to a Social Justice Fund Instagram post, it had “approved $1.6 million in loan funds for Brooklyn BIPOC businesses in the past six months.”

Big buzz

The program launched with strategic promotion, such as a June 24, 2021, CNBC article: Brooklyn Nets owners will use character, not credit scores, for a $2.5 million loan program that helps Black businesses.

A Sportico article that day, Nets Owners Begin $50 Million Social Justice Pledge With Business Loans, noted, “With its $2.5 million commitment, the SJF hopes to aid between 110 and 120 businesses in Brooklyn.” (The number was 98.)

“We really want to address as many systemic issues as possible,” Wu Tsai told Sportico. “With an eye to that and also hearing that Black businesses closed at twice the rate as white businesses during the pandemic, I saw a real opportunity.”

Clara Wu Tsai’s EXCELerate is a ‘win-win-win-win’ for Brooklyn and Black business, a New York Daily News sports reporter declared June 24, 2021, in an article that bannered across two pages.

“What we’re trying to encourage is keeping that $2.5 million investment circulating within the black community in Brooklyn,” Bishop told Sportico.

Exactly who?

There could be tension between the designations BIPOC and Black, given that the former encompasses a much broader set of businesses, some led by people with a different history of access to capital.

In an Oct. 21, 2021, podcast interview, Bishop, revising his words on the fly, called it “a fund that’s focused on helping Black-owned—BIPOC-owned businesses—through the pandemic.”

As of an Oct. 17, 2022, Instagram post, the SJF said 73% of loans had gone to Black-owned businesses, a similar percentage to that in the Twitter/X screenshot below.

Though the SJF website still touts loans to “Brooklyn’s BIPOC business owners,” the Impact Summary ignores race, part of a notable shift—likely in response to national trends—in which the Social Justice Fund has downplayed race-based remedies while using terms like “under-resourced” or “underinvested” as a rough proxy.

In response to my query, the SJF said that all the borrowers were Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC)-owned, 69% were women-owned, and 57% were Black women-owned. (It’s still unclear how many were Black-owned.)

“Data shows that obtaining capital is the biggest challenge for growing businesses in underinvested neighborhoods, and so that is where we have put our efforts,” stated the spokesman, from the public relations firm DKC.

In response to my queries, I was told:

• 66 businesses received no-interest loans of $15,000 or under from Brooklyn Alliance Capital.

• 32 businesses received 2% interest loans between $15,001 and $100,000 from TruFund Financial Services.

If loans in the first category averaged $15,000, that totals $990,000, leaving $1,510,000 for 32 businesses, or about $47,187 each. If the first category average was $12,000, that totals $792,000, leaving $1,708,000 for 32 businesses, or $53,375 each.

How did it go?

“We do measurement and evaluation,” Bishop said in a July 19, 2023, Brooklyn Savvy podcast interview. “Over the next three years, we’ll see how this program goes... [The goal] is to actually present the findings to the financial markets.”

He cited some other nonprofits making similar loans, but only up to $10,000, “because it’s risky.” (Others offer larger loans, including the Seattle-based Community Credit Lab, which offers quarterly investment reports and annual financial statements.)

“As a foundation, we are not actually looking for return for those dollars,” Bishop said, suggesting the funds would circulate within the community, and that peer pressure would drive “the repayment rates that we’re seeing.”

“We have an individual… evaluating everything that we’re doing,” Bishop said in that 2023 interview, “and we’re going to release a one-year report.”

They didn’t, but Harvard Business School Professor Archie Jones led two case studies regarding “Clara Wu Tsai and Brooklyn Loan Innovation,” one from March 2022 (revised January 2023) and the other from November 2024. (Wu Tsai got her MBA at Harvard.)

I was unable to get a copy, but the abstract suggests an admiring perspective:

Philanthropist Clara Wu Tsai is committed to racial equity and investing in Brooklyn-based minority business owners. In the wake of the George Floyd murder, she decides to create a new initiative called the Social Justice Fund and commit an initial $50 million over 10 years to benefit the BIPOC (especially Black) community. Now she must determine how to deploy that capital and who to partner with in order to maximize impact.

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Big picture

Describing EXCELerate at the Smart City Expo 2025, Bishop said that, prior to the SJF’s involvement, the maximum loan available from the Brooklyn Chamber’s CDFI was about $20,000. Now they are “able to do loans at a much larger scale. So strengthening a CDFI that’s focused on Brooklyn is one of the byproducts of that program as well.”

Indeed, loans are now available up to $50,000—but, as described below, the program is barely promoted.

At a June 3, 2025 symposium (below), Bishop described how “patient capital” and philanthropy could do something banks couldn’t do. “Four years later, we did our evaluation and four out of the five businesses that received a loan from us are still in business today,” he said, and “40% of those businesses actually hired people.”

The “not so good news,” he acknowledged, was that their default rate was about 18%. That, he said, would deter bankers, but was why “philanthropy needs to step in.” (The SJF didn’t answer my question about the default rate.)

The 98 recipients had a typical three-year loan term, according to Bishop, though on a podcast, he said, “In certain cases, we can go a little bit more.”

Interviewed Aug. 29, 2024, by host Angela Yee, Bishop said, “We’re going to be putting out a report later on this year” regarding “how to build programs like that.” That didn’t happen.

How sustainable?

Oddly, while the Social Justice Fund still promotes the original, COVID-era program on its website, the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce separately, and with little promotional push, offers EXCELerate Loan Fund 2.0, which references “growth capital,” rather than pandemic recovery. It offers below-market but slightly more demanding interest rates:

Loans of up to $50,000 are available to established businesses seeking growth capital, with interest rates ranging from 2% to 5%. The Brooklyn EXCELerate Loan Fund, supported by the Social Justice Fund of the Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation, targets BIPOC-owned businesses in Brooklyn, providing loans to support equitable economic growth in the community.

Is this still character-based? Is it limited to BIPOC-owned businesses, or just targeted to them? How long are the loan terms? Why doesn’t the SJF promote EXCELerate 2.0?

I couldn’t get answers from either the Social Justice Fund or the Brooklyn Chamber. The program launched sometime between December 2024 and March 2025, according to the Internet Archive.

I did get an explanation for one change. “One lesson from this first round,” the SJF spokesman told me, “was that such deeply discounted interest rates could not cover administrative costs and make up for potential losses. To maintain the sustainability of the program in the future, EXCELerate 2.0 offers slightly higher rates -- but still below-market -- to offset administrative costs and any potential losses.”

That’s reasonable. Other questions remain.

A new program

“Regarding the future of BK-XL, based on our analysis of the business landscape in Brooklyn – especially businesses in underserved communities – we have determined that loans and grants have the most impact,” the spokesman told me. “We have thus focused our resources towards strengthening local CDFIs to lend more flexible capital to small businesses and invest more in grants to medium-sized businesses to be a catalyst for growth.”

Indeed, on March 10, the Social Justice Fund announced a partnership with The Asian American Foundation, Renaissance Economic Development Corporation (Renaissance), and the State of New York for the NYC Elevating Business Loan Program, a $5.5 million citywide initiative—with $1 million from the SJF—in small business loans, coupled with free financial counseling and multilingual training services.

This seems a departure from the “for Brooklyn” mantra and the focus on Black Brooklyn.

It offers an 8% interest rate, well above either EXCELerate example but still below market rates.

It’s significantly less than the 13.5% rate at the Brooklyn Cooperative Federal Credit Union, which Next City profiled in December 2023 as The Tiny Credit Union Powering Brooklyn’s Economy.3

That said, the government can play a far larger role. The $80 million NYC Future Fund, recently expanded by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, now offers loans from $25,000 to $500,000 at a 7.5% annual interest rate, with flexible principal repayment terms based on business revenue, enabling small businesses to focus on growth. It requires a credit check and a personal guaranty.

Loans circulating?

The money for EXCELerate 2.0 comes from repayments by recipients of the original loans. An FAQ (archived) for the original program from the Brooklyn Chamber includes Why is this a loan and not a grant? The answer:

The Social Justice Fund believes in supporting the community. The Brooklyn EXCELerate loan is a $2.5M investment in the Brooklyn BIPOC business community. Similar to a sou-sou [an informal savings club used by Caribbean and African women], the fund wants the $2.5M invested to stay circulating within the BIPOC community. As businesses repay the loans, that money is then lent out to other businesses who also needs help. This keeps the investment circulating within the community.

That FAQ is no longer live, but it raises questions about how much has been recirculated.

BAC and TruFund issued the 98 loans between June 2021 and July 2024, with many still within their three-year repayment period, the SJF spokesman told me. As of July 2025, over $1.4 million (56% of the initial $2.5 million loan fund) had been repaid. That includes 32 loans paid off in full, and partial repayments for other loans, but we don’t know how much has been recirculated.

Brooklyn Alliance Capital and TruFund received their funds as grants, “with the understanding that all repaid funds would go back to BAC and TruFund to be recycled for future lending until the funds are exhausted,” the spokesman told me.

So, how long will this last, and how many will be served?

The program likely has some staying power, but the SJF’s lack of transparency—especially compared to some other loan programs—makes it difficult to assess.

Synergy with the Liberty

To highlight the New York Liberty’s 2023 schedule, mascot Ellie the Elephant visited four (Black woman-owned) businesses that had received EXCELerate grants, as shown in the video below.

“The SJF helped as the funds took care of her debts,” NetsDaily’s Brian Fleurantin wrote about one recipient, Donna Prescott of Donna Prescott Beauty, “which allowed her to maintain operations during the pandemic, and maintain a sense of normalcy.”

The article profiled the four businesses, reporting, for example, that EXCELerate funding helped Jones Family Touch Day Care expand to offer evening child care for healthcare workers.

“Thanks for sharing this story,” one reader commented. “The Tsais are going above and beyond in their work for equity and social justice.”

My take: the money surely makes a difference, but equity might require a far greater commitment, like the arena company paying taxes, which could help support larger enterprises like the city’s loan program.

Some EXCELerate recipients

A full list of loan recipients has not been released, but some, such as those listed below, have been announced publicly.

• Fields of QI Acupuncture, Fort Greene, as featured by the Social Justice Fund

• Therapy Wine Bar 2.0, Bedford-Stuyvesant, as featured by the Liberty and NetsDaily (and on the Social Justice Fund’s Instagram)

• Donna Prescott Beauty, Crown Heights, as featured by the Liberty and NetsDaily

• Under Her Empire, a creative agency, as featured by the Social Justice Fund (and on the SJF’s Instagram)

• Natrabella Skincare, Flatbush, as featured on the SJ’s Instagram

• The Amulet Fairy, as featured by the Liberty and NetsDaily

• Ebaata Skincare, Flatbush, as featured on the SJF's Instagram

• Jones Family Touch Day Care, as featured by the Liberty and NetsDaily

• Amarichi Restaurant, Downtown Brooklyn, as featured on the SJF’s Instagram (but which later closed)

• Jade Chi, a clothing line, as featured on the Social Justice Fund’s Instagram

I checked, and found that only a few had received PPP (Paycheck Protection Program) federal loans (which were forgiven): Under Her Empire ($19,608); Donna Prescott ($467 and $5,553); and Ebaata Skincare ($1,327 and $6,851).

So EXCELerate clearly filled a need.

Perhaps the highest-profile project launched by the Social Justice Fund is BK-XL, described in 2022 as “an early-stage startup accelerator program focused on BIPOC founders and based in Brooklyn,” offering $125,000—plus, potentially, $375,000 more—in financing, plus office space and mentorship/support.

It’s the only Social Justice Fund program with its own website.

(BIPOC translates as “Black Indigenous People of Color,” a term of relatively recent vintage. BK-XL later said it focuses on “underrepresented founders,” part of a general retreat from race-specific language.)

The announced $4 million investment, to validate and launch promising startups, constitutes the single largest component of the Impact Summary’s claimed $25 million “invested in Brooklyn.”

It’s surely more, given the cost of services—staff, rent, swag—for the ten-week programs, held at Camp David in Industry City, plus “Demo Days” at the Barclays Center.

For now, the main spending likely has had little local impact, as most companies treated Brooklyn as a way station. Beyond that, it’s hardly clear that an investment in, say, a far-off tech startup reflects “social justice” in Brooklyn unless, perhaps, the profits are someday redeployed.

BK-XL’s record, after a highly publicized first round and a lightly publicized second round of pre-seed funding, seems mixed. The first round involved 12 companies, while the second included only six, later reduced to five, even as requirements to stay in Brooklyn were relaxed.

In Round 1, half the companies, a reasonable number, got that $375,000 additional funding dangled by the Tsais, while only one in Round 2 so far has received it.

It’s not scalable

However, if the Tsais pledged in 2020 to “fund pilots and programs that are scalable,” BK-XL doesn’t seem to qualify, as the Impact Summary, excerpted below, states that it only operated from 2023-24.

“Regarding the future of BK-XL, based on our analysis of the business landscape in Brooklyn – especially businesses in underserved communities – we have determined that loans and grants have the most impact,” a SJF spokesman, from the public relations firm DKC, stated in response to my query.2

Is that a sign that BK-XL was a challenging program to run, given numerous applicants, a tenuous connection to Brooklyn, and with little visible short-term payoff? The SJF didn’t say so, but the evidence suggests that.

Short- and long-term perspective

Does that mean BK-XL didn’t work? That’s perhaps too soon to tell, since if a single company achieves a high valuation, that could deliver a dramatic return for early investors like the Tsais, perhaps allowing them to endow the Social Justice Fund.

At least two companies, thanks to new investment, are on a growth trajectory, and others may be as well.

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“BK-XL takes meaningful equity ownership in each company,” the website states, “thereby benefiting from the success of our founders to reinvest into more underrepresented founders, creating a flywheel that benefits the community.”

That flywheel hasn’t started yet.

“Any exit profits from BK-XL are returned to SJF,” I was told. “Given the program was designed for pre-seed investments, it is too early to collect exit profits or assess the long-term success and viability of each portfolio company.”

A heralded launch

The BK-XL launch was heralded by a widely circulated Nov. 7, 2022, Associated Press (AP) article, “Brooklyn Nets owners start program for minority-led startups,” which relied on an interview with Wu Tsai, co-founder of the Social Justice Fund.

The photo used by the AP, showing Clara Wu Tsai strategically posing outside the Barclays Center, was provided by the public relations firm DKC News. Its trademark is DKC: Maximizing Return on News™.

The Tsais seek to support “economic mobility for entrepreneurs and businesses in Brooklyn,” Wu Tsai told investment manager and podcaster Karen Finerman on May 31, 2024, first citing the EXCELerate loan program.

“To really affect long-term economic mobility, we also had to look at a different part of the ecosystem,” Wu Tsai said, which meant backing entrepreneurs. Hence, BK-XL, “a tech accelerator that provides seed capital at levels comparable to Y Combinator,” she said, referring to a famed accelerator that guarantees $500,000, in two similar tranches.

In BK-XL, each firm receives a $125,000 investment in exchange for 7% equity in a SAFE (Simple Agreement for Future Equity), a common funding tool: the investment converts into equity after a company raises additional funding.

In the first round, that initial investment was split between the Tsais and Visible Hands, a Boston-based venture capital fund that supports underrepresented founders.

(Note: Some sources suggest that Y Combinator (YC) supplies a combination of pre-seed and seed capital, while BK-XL’s FAQ below, despite Wu Tsai’s reference to “seed capital” in the interview, states that it’s pre-seed funding, a “foundational investment round.”)

“I think the best proof of our belief in Brooklyn and Black businesses is by investing in them and showing the world that these are good investments,” Wu Tsai told the AP, adding, in the article’s paraphrase, that profits would be reinvested into Brooklyn businesses.

That likely reflects BK-XL’s “flywheel” goal. Then again, profits for investors, as investing guru Andy Weissman said at BK-XL’s June 12, 2023, Demo Day, could take a decade to emerge.

Announcement hype: scope

The hype—regarding the project’s scope, its impact on Brooklyn, and even its professed focus—earned the Tsais generous publicity.

The initial press release, Clara Wu Tsai, The Social Justice Fund and Visible Hands Launch BK-XL, the Largest Accelerator Focus on BIPOC Founders, fueled the AP article, which called it “the largest business accelerator for minority founders of early-stage startups.”

Largest? The AP ignored a sentence in the press release stating the measurement was “potential investment size per company.”

Indeed, other accelerators have committed more funds overall and across more firms. Also, other programs offer less onerous terms. Google offered 126 founders a total of $10 million in non-dilutive funding through its U.S. Black Founders Fund, so the founders didn’t have to give up ownership.

That said, a stake from investors like the Tsais, coupled with mentorship, might do more to charge growth.

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“Impact investing”?

While a New York Times article about BK-XL called Wu Tsai “a philanthropist,” the program seems less philanthropic than impact investing, aiming to spur “positive, measurable social and/or environmental impact alongside a financial return.”

So far, that impact accrues significantly to the entrepreneurs themselves, by virtue of their identity, sending the message that BIPOC founders deserve support in a venture capital world that often ignores them.

“I’ve had to really prove myself, prove my metrics before being even considered for investment, whereas my white male founder counterparts often just get investments based on belief,” Tai Adaya, founder of the skin care company Habit, told News12 after the first Demo Day.

Among those funded, a relative handful—an “Airbnb for churches,” a kidney dialysis device, a personal safety smart ring, and an educational STEM kit maker—seem to combine business and social responsibility.

Many others, perhaps unsurprisingly, cluster around business efficiency: as a tool for solo entrepreneurs, a cloud collaboration platform for audio files, a B2B retail booking platform, and a calendar automation tool that syncs with email.

Then again, business efficiency reflects the mission of the Chinese conglomerate Alibaba (“to make it easy to do business anywhere”), which ultimately funds the Tsais’ “philanthropic investments.”

Initially, BK-XL offered a “preference for businesses that are in fields where the Tsais have experience – including e-commerce… and sports media,” according to the AP. For the second round, in 2024, they professed to be “industry-agnostic.”

Follow-on funding?

Asked in 2022 by Forbes about the pilot’s markers of success, Wu Tsai said, “Follow-on funding. There will be a chance for them to pitch to other venture capital firms.”

At least half of the participants in most major accelerators secure follow-on funding within three years, suggests this article. BK-XL may be part of the way there.

Half of the first-round companies received the full $500,000 in pre-seed funding. The claimed $5 million in follow-on funding would average less than $300,000 across 17 companies, but, if concentrated among six companies, would average $833,333.

That would be a sign of progress, if not sterling success. As of 2016, according to this article, “Exclusive of capital contributed by the accelerator, companies must have raised an aggregate of at least $750,000 post-accelerator to be considered as having raised a follow-on.”

Competition for spots

Another metric might be the interest of startups in BK-XL. In 2023, 2,000 applicants were said to have vied for 12 slots, according to an April 4, 2023, press release headlined BK-XL, The largest BIPOC Accelerator, Announces Its Inaugural Cohort of Startup Founders.

In the second round, while the announcement said “up to twelve startups” could be selected, only six were named, and one later left the program, for reasons not explained.

In response to my query, I was told, “We had over 600 applicants for the second cohort. We intentionally raised the bar for the second cohort. While we had the ability to accept up to 12 companies, we made 8 offers and two of those companies decided not to participate.”

It’s plausible that a second round might refine the process. That round promised the founders mentorship and support from investors and operators at Blue Pool Capital, BSE Global, and the Brooklyn Nets, which are all Tsai ventures, plus Udy Road Holdings, which has no public profile but is led by a longtime lieutenant to Joe Tsai.

They also could work with Advisory Council members: Infinity Ventures, focused on B2B fintech and commerce; WndrCo, a technology-focused investment firm; Benchstrength, focused on “technology companies that transform business and uplift communities; Harlem Capital, focused on founders who are people of color and women; and Udy Road Holdings. Though no longer putting up half the initial stake, Visible Hands was part of the Advisory Council.

What’s “in Brooklyn”?

BK-XL’s 2024 press release cited the 2023 record of “twelve startups across FinTech [financial technology], Commerce, SaaS [Software as a Service], and other diverse industries in Brooklyn.”

The SJF, as Executive Director Gregg Bishop described it in a July 19, 2023, panel discussion, was “looking at how do we bring more tech companies to Brooklyn.”

The purported Brooklyn focus misled some journalists. The AP reported that Wu Tsai “hopes to spotlight untapped business talent in Brooklyn.” The New York Times claimed BX-XL would fund “entrepreneurs in Brooklyn from diverse backgrounds.”

Wu Tsai’s essay in the 2024 book, The Power of Basketball: NBA Players, Coaches, and Team Governors on the Fight to Make a Better America, described BK-XL as targeting “underrepresented founders… with the potential to launch successful new businesses in Brooklyn.”

When the inaugural cohort was announced, Daniel Acheampong, co-founder of investing partner Visible Hands, said, “We are excited… to help guide these founders on their path to growth and generational wealth creation in Brooklyn.”

Brooklyn as a way station

That, it seems, was a stretch. While those in the initial cohort gaining the additional $375,000 investment had to meet certain growth benchmarks and maintain operations in Brooklyn for at least one year, the borough seemed mostly a way station.

The recruitment efforts treaded lightly on Brooklyn. “any black founders interested in a $500,000 check that requires moving to ny for a bit?” posted Timi Dayo-Kayode in January 2023 on X. (By February 2024, he would be named co-leader of the program.)

Acheampong quoted Dayo-Kayode’s post, adding, “We’re investing up to $500K in 12 companies led by BIPOC Founders and they get to experience Brooklyn.”

Asked, in the deleted tweet, “How long would you have to be in NY?” Dayo-Kayode responded, “10-12 weeks.” (For the first cohort, that was apparently an understatement, at least for those seeking $500,000.)

Visible Hands’ General Partner Yasmin Cruz Ferrine, introducing Wu Tsai at BK-XL’s first Demo Day, June 12, 2023, said, “Clara is working on making Brooklyn home to brilliant new companies and technologies.”

In the first round, those gaining full funding had to commit to one year in Brooklyn, as shown in the screenshot below. For the second round, that requirement was dropped.

While my query about that change didn’t get an answer, it’s not unreasonable that growing companies might cluster in locations that serve them best.

Growing the ecosystem?

“One of the things we ask for when they do receive a second tranche of funding, if they do, is that they move to Brooklyn,” Wu Tsai said in the May 31, 2024, interview with Finerman. “The goal… is hopefully they’re going to hire people who live in Brooklyn, and it will just help… grow our overall ecosystem of businesses in Brooklyn.”

Perhaps recognizing the cost of a tight geographical focus, BK-XL’s About page was amended to say it supports “businesses that will benefit Brooklyn, New York City, America, and the world.” (That passage was absent from the initial version.)

I asked how many jobs have been created in Brooklyn, but didn’t get an answer. After all, these are fledgling companies.

Which companies moved to Brooklyn? “From the first cohort, Crafted, SWYE360, and Tuma had all started outside Brooklyn and maintained operations in Brooklyn after the cohort ended,” I was told. “From the second cohort, Ambessa Play did as well. So between the two cohorts, four companies moved to Brooklyn.”

I’m not sure that “maintain[ing] operations” means a full, and permanent, move, as the footnoted citations suggest.3

How much did they invest?

In the first round, half of the initial $125,000 investment came from the SJF/Tsais, and the other half from Visible Hands. Then half the group, or six companies, got follow-on funding of $375,000 from BK-XL.

That means the SJF put $3 million into the first round. In the second round, the SJF invested $125,000 in each of the five companies, for a total of $625,000. That suggests a total investment of $3,625,000, not $4 million.

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Though my initial question about follow-on funding for the second round didn’t get an answer, I pointed to the claimed $4 million total. I was then told that the one-second-round company got $375,000.

Does such reticence mean they’re not happy with the second round? Or are they waiting longer to assess the companies’ prospects? Unclear. However, if they “intentionally raised the bar,” presumably they had contemplated a higher, not a lower, percentage for follow-on funding.

BIPOC, and Black

“This could be the next Black-owned Google or Calendly,” Wu Tsai told Forbes. “These businesses create incredible jobs. A lot of BIPOC founders will hire BIPOC people.”

Though Wu Tsai told the AP, “We want to show that investing in Black businesses makes money,” and the Social Justice Fund says it’s “centering economic mobility and racial justice for BIPOC populations in Brooklyn,” both claims deserve scrutiny.

Black founders did not represent a large majority, as far as I can tell, and some of them began their success an ocean away.

The initial announcement, as shown below, claimed the program was “Brooklyn-born” and focused on “BIPOC founders.”

By 2024, it stressed that “Building is better in Brooklyn,” which hinted at the way station aspect, and said it was “focused on supporting underrepresented founders,” without using the term “BIPOC.”

While the 2023 FAQ said “BK-XL is open to founders of early-stage startups whose racial identities are under-represented, e.g., Black, Indigenous or people of color (‘BIPOC’),” the updated FAQ says the program supports “underrepresented founders” but “is open to founders of all backgrounds.”

“Less than five percent of venture capital goes to founders of color, or all-female founding teams,” the SJF spokesman told me. “We started BK-XL to address this.”

That adjusts the original rationale, which was focused on race, and seemingly reflects the unusual number of female founders in the first round, as described below.

BK-XL 2023 recap reel, from the Social Justice Fund

Family office?

As I’ve written, the Social Justice Fund seems to be the philanthropic platform for the Tsais’ businesses, without necessarily much distance from them.

An April 5, 2024, post on LinkedIn from Harvard Business School Professor Archie Jones cited a “great discussion” with Wu Tsai and Bishop, covering the EXCELerate loan program and BK-XL. “Clara, Gregg, and Rich we appreciate you allowing us to learn alongside you,” he wrote. (That was, I believe, a reference to Udy Road’s Tao. I queried him, but didn’t hear back.)

If so, it’s another sign that the Social Justice Fund is a platform for the Tsais family office. (Besides Dayo-Kayode, who on LinkedIn said he was an investor for the Brooklyn Nets, the other co-lead of BK-XL for the second round, Chris Martinez, was a former executive at Blue Pool, the Tsais’ family office.)

What entity actually invested in the startups: The Social Justice Fund? The Tsai Foundation? I didn’t get an answer, but I was reminded that the “Social Justice Fund is a project of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, not a separate entity.”

OK, but the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation doesn’t report any grantmaking. It may be that the Tsais use Blue Pool, their family office—not their unfunded family foundation—for funding.4

Success story #1

I asked the SJF for success stories. Among the 17 firms, “ChurchSpace raised $1.2 million and announced a public-private partnership with the City of Detroit,” I was told.

ChurchSpace, dubbed “Airbnb for churches,” helps them monetize underutilized meeting spaces and commercial kitchens. It was founded in Houston by Day Edwards and Emmanuel Brown, two self-described PKs, or “preacher’s kids.”

The team’s compelling idea already had momentum before entering BK-XL. In June 2022, ChurchSpace was named to the inaugural cohort of the AWS Impact Accelerator for Black Founders, receiving a $125,000 equity-free grant from Amazon, along with additional assistance worth up to $100,000.

In September 2022, ChurchSpace was awarded $100,000, also equity-free, from the Google for Startups Black Founders Fund. In April 2023, it joined the first BK-XL cohort, gaining not a grant but an investment.

ChurchSpace raised $500,000 from BK-XL. In a July 6, 2023, article in The Guardian, This duo is finding new uses – and extra income – for houses of worship, ChurchSpace founders were said—less than a month after Demo Day in Brooklyn—to have decided to focus on churches around Dallas and Houston.5

Then they pivoted. Last May, the firm announced, “ChurchSpace Raises $1.2M, Moves HQ to Detroit, and Partners with City to Transform Churches into Economic Engines,” including micro-logistics and last-mile delivery centers. A Mayoral announcement noted, “ChurchSpace, which was founded in Texas, will relocate its national headquarters to Downtown Detroit.”

How important was BK-XL? It was surely worthwhile—the accelerator aimed to boost skills, connections, and credibility. The press release last year, though, didn’t even mention BK-XL. (ChurchSpace didn’t respond to my query.)

Success story #2

The other example: Highnote, self-described as an audio workflow platform that centralizes conversations, feedback, and assets, “successfully raised $2.5 million from Dropbox Ventures and other investors in 2024 and launched an integration with Dropbox,” according to the SJF spokesman.

Then again, Highnote had raised $1.7 million before even joining BK-XL, according to Crunchbase. So it had a head start on other companies that were truly “pre-seed.”

Dropbox tells users: “Create playlists, electronic press kits (EPKs), and interactive beat packs in one click. Highnote and Dropbox have teamed up to give you an all-in-one solution for storing, sharing, and discussing your audio projects.”

Success questions

“Three other businesses have now achieved six-figure revenue,” the SJF spokesman told me. That indeed validates those companies’ products, but doesn’t yet point to business growth. According to this expert, after three years, startups on a growth path should generate $2 million in revenue.

“There are several other unannounced or yet-to-be-announced fundraises from other BK-XL portfolio companies,” the spokesman added. So stay tuned.

Was the goal of BK-XL to have a direct social justice impact? If so, ChurchSpace might qualify, if it can help stabilize church budgets, albeit not necessarily in Brooklyn. If the goal was to potentially fund future SJF initiatives, a digital business like Highnote might scale faster.

More social justice impact might come from a second-round company, Ambessa Play, launched in the UK, which “designs educational STEM kits that offer hands-on learning experiences.” Founder/CEO Sara Berkai is an Eritrean and British social enterprise founder and STEM educator.

Eliding Black and BIPOC?

“Only 2.4 percent of all U.S. venture capital raised from 2015 to 2020,” BK-XL stated in the initial press release, “ was allocated to companies with Black or Latinx founders,” citing Crunchbase.

In a Dec. 6, 2022, New York Times article, Why the Owners of the Nets Are Funding Tech Startups, Acheampong noted that “only 3 and a half percent of New York City businesses are owned by Black entrepreneurs.”

The Social Justice Fund has leaned into supporting Black founders, such as in the tweet below, celebrating Black inventor Lewis Latimer.

However, BIPOC doesn’t necessarily translate as Black, nor does it make a distinction—as some do, not uncontroversially—between those who trace their lineage to slavery6 or Black descendants of more recent immigrants, or even residents of other countries.

For example, Congo-born Elijah Lubala, co-founder of Tuma, a software-based tap-to-pay point-of-sale system for African merchants, built his Attila Group in South Africa before moving to New York and headquartering the firm in San Francisco.

Was he an “overlooked founder”? Maybe in the United States, but he was named one of Africa’s top entrepreneurs by Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2017, as noted on his LinkedIn.

“With the backing of our investors, Joe & Clara Wu Tsai, Visa, and Visible Hands,” Lubala wrote on LinkedIn after the first BK-XL Demo Day, “we are propelled forward, more determined than ever, to transform the way people experience financial transactions worldwide.”

Asked by Forbes about BK-XL’s global reach, Wu Tsai responded:

The global cast is to spread awareness. We’d like as many people as possible to know about this as possible. It’s going to take time to build up the reputation of our accelerator. The key to this is pipeline, pipeline. I want to get the best businesses possible.

Well, they’ve apparently pivoted from that.

The Asian-American question

If Black or Hispanic founders raise the least capital, according to the original announcement, that implies that Asian-Americans--a broad category--might be over-represented.

So, did BK-XL, funded by an Asian/Asian-American couple, exclude Asian founders? Not quite.

The first round included no Asian-American men, who are over-represented in tech (but not venture capital), but five—by my count—Asian-American women, plus Sara Nesheim, who has a Vietnamese parent, and Tai Adaya, who describes herself as half-Mexican and half-Indian.”

They represent six of the twelve initial startups. Of the five firms in the second round, one is Afar, a Brooklyn-based savory bar business founded by Gene Zhu, an Asian-American man.

Using the Barclays Center

Leveraging its owners’ assets, BK-XL has used the Barclays Center for two “Demo Days,” during which entrepreneurs pitch their products to peers and potential investors.

The first Demo Day, as noted on LinkedIn, featured “a fireside chat with Clara Wu Tsai and special guest Andy Weissman from Union Square Ventures!”

As I’ve written, using the arena for Social Justice Fund events means that the Tsais pay themselves.

Sidebar: The 2023 inaugural cohort

The image below, from Visible Hands, introduces the inaugural cohort. The first row, left to right, includes (quoting the announcement text):

• Tai Adaya: Habit, a skincare brand making next-generation sunscreen products

• Emmanuel Brown, Day Edwards: Churchspace, an Airbnb-like booking platform for churches

• Jordan Bradley, Paulina Vo, and Chris Muccioli: Highnote, a cloud collaboration platform for audio files

• Sarah Lee, Tejasvi Desai, Anna Bailey: Relavo, a medical device for kidney failure patients to receive safer and more accessible home dialysis

• Elijah Lubala: Tuma, software-based tap-to-pay point of sale for African merchants

• Joy Fan: re/tell, a B2B retail booking platform

The bottom row, left to right, includes:

• Amadeu Tolentino: Preneur, a mobile-first management tool for solopreneurs

• Jacob Makuvire: SWYE 360 Learning, a machine learning tool to assess edtech ROI and outcomes

• Todd Baldwin, Sarah Nesheim: Crafted, a user-generated content platform dedicated to food and beverage brands

• Sergio Villasenor: Drooler, a web3 platform that enables merchants to sell & ship products worldwide with zero commissions

• Jen Chiang: Opal, a smart ring that provides discreet safety and protection

• Nash Ahmed: Undock, a calendar automation tool that syncs with email

Note that various co-founders were not mentioned.

Sidebar: 2024 companies overview

Ambessa Play

Ambessa Play “designs educational STEM kits that offer hands-on learning experiences.” Founder/CEO Sara Berkai is an Eritrean and British social enterprise founder and STEM educator. In December 2024, she was named to the BBC’s list of 100 Women.

Maraboo

Maraboo “connects UMOA [West African Economic and Monetary Union] globally with its platform, offering affordable, real-time international transfers.” Its LinkedIn says it’s based in Brooklyn, but Pitchbook says it’s based in Markham, Ontario.

Peepalytics AI

Peepalytics AI “identifies the exact signals around why talent leaves alongside an action plan for business leaders to retain their top talent.” According to Pitchbook, it’s based in New York.

Afar Foods

Afar Foods offers “a savory, crispy bar featuring globally-inspired flavors,” with just 3g sugar. Before BK-XL, in 2022, it raised early-stage venture capital through the accelerator program of Gold House Ventures, an AAPI (Asian American Pacific Islander) community for founders, according to founder Gene Zhu. It was founded and is based in Brooklyn, where it has a production facility.

NatML

NatML provides “a platform that enables developers to run AI and other compute-heavy algorithms on their users’ local devices.” Its product is now called Muna. According to Pitchbook, it’s based in New York.

Tailored Industry

In the original cohort was Tailored Industry, “an on-demand knitwear manufacturing company” based in Sunset Park.

After attending Demo Day, Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce CEO Randy Peers on LinkedIn saluted “six innovative entrepreneurs” and offered a “special shout out to Brooklyn Chamber member Tailored Industry.” I couldn’t get information about why it’s no longer considered part of the cohort.

2

The website, for now, states, “Applications for 2024 are now closed. You may still apply here to be considered for our rolling application.”

“We believe things should be presented as they are,” Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joe Tsai said in a December 11, 2015, interview with the South China Morning Post, the English-language Hong Kong newspaper that Alibaba Group had just purchased to re-orient coverage of China. “Present facts, tell the truth, and that is the principle that we are going to operate on.”

Of course, the changes Tsai promised were seen by critics as a “steady erosion of the [paper’s] journalistic independence.”2

From a Brooklyn lens, presenting things “as they are” has not always been a tenet of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund, which has rewritten its history to claim Clara Wu Tsai was its founder.

The pivot likely relates to a desire to separate Tsai, who, as a leader of a giant Chinese e-commerce and technology firm, has forcefully defended the Chinese regime, from his American wife, who has a less fraught record and a history of social justice support.

The strategy also helps them present the SJF as a more personal initiative, divorced from any geopolitical strategy, or recognition that the Tsais’ fortune largely derives from Alibaba.

It’s striking how thoroughly and quietly this “retcon” has been achieved.

(“Retcon” is short for “retroactive continuity,” which Wikipedia calls “a literary device… whereby facts and events established through the narrative are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work.”)

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A smooth story

Consider the statement by Gregg Bishop, Executive Director of the Social Justice Fund, in the video below: “For those who are not familiar with the Social Justice Fund, it was founded by Clara Wu Tsai in 2020 to invest $50 million in Brooklyn over ten years.”

Bishop spoke, misleadingly, at the June 3, 2025, symposium on “Ideas for Creating a Stronger and More Equitable Brooklyn”, convened by the Center for an Urban Future and Brooklyn Org.

First, it’s a stretch to say they’re investing “$50 million in Brooklyn,” given that their reporting is murky and some spending, notably investments in minority-led start-ups, has a tenuous connection to Brooklyn.

More importantly, despite Bishop’s casually authoritative tone, Wu Tsai did not, as implied, solely found the Social Justice Fund.

After all, an August 25, 2020, press release from the Brooklyn Nets, Clara Wu Tsai and Joe Tsai Unveil Action Plan to Support Social Justice and Promote Equality, credited “the couple’s commitment” to the Social Justice Fund, funded by the Tsais’ “charitable foundation.”

The SJF’s first grant was announced in a December 17, 2020, Barclays Center press release, Joe and Clara Tsai Announce First Five Black Leaders to Receive Grants From Social Justice Fund. The text cited “the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund.”

Retroactive continuity

Since then, sole credit for Wu Tsai has been repeated, for example, by the Vera Institute of Justice, the 2023 Aspen Ideas Festival, Bloomberg Businessweek, and the book The Power of Basketball: NBA Players, Coaches, and Team Governors on the Fight to Make a Better America, which includes a chapter by Wu Tsai.

In the clip below, from last September, the Barclays Center announcer stated, “As part of the ongoing commitment to the Brooklyn community, the Social Justice Fund, founded by New York Liberty Governor and owner Clara Wu Tsai, is proud to launch the 2025 Belong Brooklyn Initiative Violence Interruption Campaign.”

The website changes

Consider text from the Social Justice Fund’s website from 2021 and 2025 regarding the EXCELerate Loan Fund, which offered low-interest loans to Brooklyn businesses.

Though it originally credited a “ten-year, $50 million commitment by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation,” the page has been updated to claim a “ten-year, $50 million commitment by Clara Tsai.”

The claim is complicated by the logo below, which appears twice on the page; it reminds us that the Social Justice Fund is part of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation.

Similarly, while a December 1, 2022 version of the Social Justice Fund website, as shown at the bottom of the image below, credited the Basquiat in Brooklyn Schools initiative to “the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, who established a Social Justice Fund,” the website now says the “program was funded by Clara Wu Tsai.”

The official response

I queried the Social Justice Fund: “I noticed that, when the SJF was first announced, it was attributed to Joe and Clara Wu Tsai. Now it’s described as founded by Clara. Why the change?”

The response, from a spokesman at the public relations firm DKC: “The Social Justice Fund was founded by Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai. Clara, in collaboration with the SJF team of professionals, is the driving force behind the direction and decision-making of the Fund.”

Let’s repeat that: “The Social Justice Fund was founded by Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai.”

It makes sense for Wu Tsai to be “the driving force.” After all, she’s not trying to run Alibaba while also steering Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment. Plus, she’s an American citizen, without her husband’s baggage.

That, however, does not make her the founder or the funder.

We’re just supposed to forget about Joe Tsai’s extremely unusual ability to straddle China and the United States. In the United States, he’s a powerful sports team owner and, with his wife, a prominent philanthropist.

In China, the chief geopolitical rival of the United States, he now heads, as Alibaba Executive Chairman, a huge company, ranked 18 on the 2025 Fortune China 500 and 63 in the 2025 Fortune Global 500, that has expanded from e-commerce to tech, with a leading role in the development of artificial intelligence.

Beyond the Social Justice Fund

Wu Tsai gets credit within the couple’s suite of enterprises. Consider her biography, from the Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment website.

It calls her “Founder of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation,” says “[s]he established the Social Justice Fund,” and claims she “founded the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance.”

The last credit is even more of a stretch: the couple themselves are pictured as “founding partners” on the Alliance’s website.

In June 2021, the Social Justice Fund announced “EXCELerate, New Loan Program to Help Brooklyn’s BIPOC Small Business Owners Get on their Feet Post-Pandemic,” saying it was “Made Possible by Joe & Clara Tsai Foundation.”

“We know that there is no social justice without economic opportunity,” said Wu Tsai, who in that case was described as Co-Founder of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation.

The page for the loan fund initially credited a “ten-year, $50 million commitment by the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation.” Today, however, the page credits the “Social Justice Fund, made possible through a ten-year, $50 million commitment by Clara Tsai.”3

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Why the change?

The strategy started as early as June 24, 2021, with a New York Daily News headline: Clara Wu Tsai’s EXCELerate is a ‘win-win-win-win’ for Brooklyn and Black business.

A November 7, 2022, press release, Clara Wu Tsai, the Social Justice Fund, and Visible Hands Launch “BK-XL,” the Largest Accelerator Focused on BIPOC Founders, credited the project to “Wu Tsai, founder of the Social Justice Fund.”

At the time, I noted that Wu Tsai, unlike her husband, didn’t have a giant company to run, so it made sense for her to step forward. Wu Tsai “leads the couple’s philanthropy,” the Chronicle of Philanthropy on July 21, 2021, had observed.

Positioning Wu Tsai as the lead philanthropist took the focus off her husband. At the time, Tsai had faced a significant amount of backlash for his management of star guard Kyrie Irving, for failing to apologize sufficiently for posting and implicitly endorsing an anti-Semitic film.

Distance from controversy

As The Nation‘s Dave Zirin put it, citing ESPN’s report that Alibaba financially supported the “cultural genocide” of Uyghur Muslims, “For some reason Tsai is ‘fit to associate’ with the Brooklyn Nets.”4

The erasure of Tsai helps deflect scrutiny of his power as Chairman of Alibaba and his notable backing—contradicting the philanthropy’s support for progressive causes and even Human Rights Day—of authoritarian China, notably his intemperate “open letter” on Facebook, October 26, 2019, in defense of China. That came after an NBA figure tweeted support of protesters in Hong Kong, infuriating many in China and endangering the NBA’s financial ties.

ESPN on April 14, 2022, published a tough article, Brooklyn Nets owner Joe Tsai is the face of NBA’s uneasy China relationship. Mark Fainaru-Wada and Steve Fainaru saw a contradiction:

In the United States, Tsai donates hundreds of millions of dollars to combat racism and discrimination. [Note: the Social Justice Fund is a $50 million pledge, while undisclosed sums, for example, have gone to the Reform Alliance and the Asian-American Foundation; far more spending goes to science.] In China, Alibaba, under Tsai’s leadership, partners with companies blacklisted by the U.S. government for supporting a “campaign of repression, mass arbitrary detention and high-tech surveillance” through state-of-the-art racial profiling.

Tsai has publicly defended some of China’s most controversial policies. He described the government’s brutal crackdown on dissent as necessary to promote economic growth; defended a law used to imprison scores of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong as necessary to squelch separatism; and, when questioned about human rights, asserted that most of China’s 1.4 billion citizens are “happy about where they are.”

Notably, Tsai didn’t speak at the October 23, 2021, ceremony unveiling “Belong Brooklyn,” the neon signage (”You Belong Here” and “We Belong Here”) that serves as both art and advertising, purportedly an homage to the protests that took over the arena plaza after the police murder of George Floyd. If he had, perhaps that would’ve opened him up to charges of hypocrisy.

I’m not the only person to notice. As NetsDaily observed May 27, 2024:

So ... is it fair to suggest that there is some public relations strategy at work here? Are we so cynical to suggest that Clara is becoming more prominent while Joe, for a variety of reasons, has retreated, at least from the public eye.

Indeed, Wu Tsai has escaped a lot of the bad vibes husband Joe gets hammered for, whether it be U.S.-China relations or the team formerly known as the Big Three.

Now it’s a policy

Putting Wu Tsai front and center has become SJF policy. A Communications & Media Guidelines document, which apparently appeared on the SJF website within the past two years, offers guidance to grantees and other collaborators regarding “various communications matters.” (The document, since removed, is archived here.)5

When referring to SJF, collaborators were told to use “Social Justice Fund founded by Clara Wu Tsai” for the first reference and then “the Social Justice Fund” thereafter.

Indeed, the Social Justice Fund’s longtime collaborator, Brooklyn Org, formally the Brooklyn Community Foundation, last April 9 cited “our partners at the Social Justice Fund founded by Clara Wu Tsai.”

For recent galas held by the Prospect Park Alliance and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the list of donors includes the “Social Justice Fund Founded By Clara Wu Tsai,” as shown in the screenshots above.

The press complies

An October 7, 2024, interview on CNN credits Wu Tsai, as shown in the annotated screenshot, with several things she should share with her husband.

It calls her “New York Liberty owner,” claims “she launched” the Human Performance Alliance, and asserts that through “her foundation, We Tsai has donated over $200 million” for such research.

In reality, her husband is part of all of those.

History revised

The images below show how the Social Justice Fund has revised its website to promote Wu Tsai and omit her husband.

In the screenshot below left, the couple is pictured, quoted, and credited, along with the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, for the Social Justice Fund. That version persisted through at least August 17, 2024.

In the screenshot below right, the current website credits solely Wu Tsai.

As the pull quotes suggest, their rhetoric regarding race has changed, as I explain separately.

The Social Justice Fund’s leadership page, as shown below, shows similar changes, initially claiming the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation established the SJF, but now crediting it to Wu Tsai.

The NBA, too

The 2024 book The Power of Basketball: NBA Players, Coaches, and Team Governors on the Fight to Make a Better America, produced by the National Basketball Social Justice Coalition, featured Wu Tsai on the cover, though she’s not an NBA Governor but rather the Governor of the WNBA’s New York Liberty.

Wu Tsai’s essay, “The Business of Doing Justice” (with thanks to communications aide Erin Trowbridge), responds to a question she often gets: “Why do you spend so much of your time and resources on social impact initiatives?”

Her response: after witnessing so many injustices and being surrounded by righteous advocates, she can’t stay on the sidelines. “But it’s very personal to me,” she writes. “Social justice and a commitment to democracy are essential themes of my upbringing. They are part of my DNA.”6

Joe Tsai’s DNA

Unmentioned: they can’t be part of Joe Tsai’s DNA, given his political stances. He has Canadian citizenship and was born in Taiwan, but, as Bloomberg reported on January 22, 2020, in Nets Owner Joe Tsai Is Caught Between Brooklyn and Beijing:

“I’m Chinese,” Tsai says. “I grew up in a very culturally Chinese environment.” He spoke Mandarin as a child, and his parents talked about returning to visit the mainland. At the time, the KMT saw itself as China’s rightful ruler, a status then recognized by most of the West. “My upbringing is always that there is one China,” he says.

Steve Tsang, director of the University of London’s SOAS China Institute, told Bloomberg, “Once Alibaba became so big and became, in effect, adopted by the Chinese government as the next new champion… Tsai must realize that, whether he believes in it or not, he will have to show very clear commitment to the course of the Chinese party.”

That said, Tsai’s very much a bridge between the National Basketball Association and China, a crucial market.

Wu Tsai on the spot

“Economic opportunity is really what drew my parents to the United States from Taiwan,” Wu Tsai told Inside Philanthropy on July 12, 2021. “They were also really enchanted by the democratic ideals of freedom and justice for all… and I grew up believing that is what this country stands for.”

Last April, when Wu Tsai received Columbia Business School’s Botwinick Prize in Business Ethics, she observed that she “grew up with Midwestern values: a strong work ethic, and a real belief in the importance of education.”

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“But I should also say that I do also have a legacy of standing up for fairness and what’s right, from a very early age,” she added. “ My grandfather, who was the first democratically elected mayor in Taipei, fought on behalf of Taiwanese rice farmers during the Japanese occupation, during Japanese colonial rule. There were discriminatory policies against the farmers. And then my dad fought for Taiwanese independence and self-determination from abroad. And so from an early age, I had examples of how to stand up for people who didn’t have power, and really how you use your platform to do what is fair and right. So that affected me a lot.”

Later, she was asked by a student, apparently of Chinese heritage: “We’re blessed with values from Taiwan, from U.S., and from mainland China. I’m just curious, obviously these three values are clashing with each other now, just how you think about the world in the future, and how we can best appreciate all these values?”

“Well,” responded Wu Tsai, before pausing. “I think empathy is the most important value you can have. And, you know, do I think about Chinese values, mainland Chinese values, Taiwanese values, and U.S. values? I don’t really think about it like that. I think what I think about is Confucian values.”

“Like, I think about this whole filial piety, you know— should my parents be moving in with me… those types of things,” she continued. “Um, Midwest, I think I’m the most Midwestern, I would say Midwestern values are really what define me more than anything else.”

That somewhat dodged the question, since it didn’t acknowledge, for example, China’s pursuit of Taiwan, an example, as her questioner put it, of clashing values.

The value of separation

Surely, though, Wu Tsai could answer the question far more disarmingly than could her husband.

The posture continues. In a March 10 press release announcing a business loan program with The Asian American Foundation (TAAF), Wu Tsai was described as “founder of the Social Justice Fund and Governor of the New York Liberty.”

Her husband, by contrast, was described only as “TAAF Board Member and Governor of the Brooklyn Nets.”

The Social Justice Fund, as I wrote, now claims that Clara Wu Tsai was the sole founder, omitting her husband Joe Tsai, the source of the couple’s wealth. It even became part of a communications protocol.

That’s not the only “retcon,” or retroactive continuity, in which the past is rewritten to serve a new reality.

The Social Justice Fund, announced not long after the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 prompted racial justice protests, also has quietly cut down on explicit mention of race, without announcement or explanation.

The shift seems strategic, from more forceful, if not fully focused, “racial justice” to more strategic “economic mobility” aimed at the under-resourced, which still can target Black Brooklyn. It’s likely a better fit with the Tsais’ business background, and also appears race-neutral, helping avoid scrutiny.

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They’re not alone, adjusting their rhetoric, if not their actual performance, in response to a changing national climate.

So too has the NBA Foundation, funded by the owners of the 30 NBA franchises and also launched after the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests. It’s shifted its mission from “[f]urthering economic empowerment in the Black community” to “driv[ing] economic opportunity for under-resourced youth”.

Adjusting the mission

From the start, the Social Justice Fund’s homepage proclaimed, as Our Mission, “To Support Equitable Growth and Belonging for BIPOC Communities in Brooklyn.” That persisted, though, at least until Nov. 12, 2024.

At some point, but no later than Dec. 24, 2024, the Our Mission language changed: “To Support Equitable Growth and Belonging for Communities in Brooklyn.”

I submitted my analysis to the Social Justice Fund, citing the broader climate of pullback on DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). “I recognize this is a sensitive area,” I wrote, “but would rather hear your explanation than have to speculate.” No response.

The change may be more rhetorical than actual.

At an interview last April at the Smart Cities Expo 2025, Social Justice Fund Executive Director Gregg Bishop observed, “In 2020, a number of organizations made a number of promises, and literally we are now in a period where those promises are broken. I think, for the leadership, for Clara, and for Joe, we are still committed to diversity. Diversity is not a bad word.”

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The Social Justice Fund, however, is not necessarily pursuing diversity, at least as defined as “ensur[ing] representation among qualified persons across race” and other characteristics, “so that institutions reflect the communities they serve.”

Rather, it’s pursuing equity, defined as “dismantl[ing] the barriers that disproportionately harm marginalized communities” and inclusion, defined as ensuring that “those historically excluded can fully participate.” Or, perhaps, a version of reparations.

What’s the reason?

Is that a quiet accommodation to the second Trump administration, which has prompted corporate and philanthropic commitment retreat from DEI? If so, the Social Justice Fund wouldn’t be alone, given that numerous foundations—as described further below—adjusted their rhetoric.

As David Callahan wrote in The Nation last Nov. 17, “Since late January [2025], leaders at liberal foundations and donor networks have been preparing for a legal assault by federal agencies.”

Is it an acknowledgment that some activist language, circa 2020, was overbroad or overwrought? Perhaps.

Does it represent a major change in the Social Justice Fund’s work? Not necessarily, though there’s been some evolution.

While the SJF’s ambit has broadened somewhat, most of the programs and people funded still reflect the plan announced in 2020, to #BackBlackBK, as stated in the post on X/Twitter below.

While #BackBlackBK still appears in the Twitter/X bio of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation, the hashtag has not been used since June 17, 2021.

If it’s more strategic accommodation than a functional change, it’s a way to deflect scrutiny and potential legal challenge.

After all, a focus on supporting “economic mobility within communities” invokes both class and race, since communities are often coded by the latter.

It also reflects what scholars like Yale Law School’s Justin Driver consider legally defensible preferences, such as for those in “low-opportunity” neighborhoods.

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The term “economic mobility” also reflects the SJF’s focus on investing in businesses, those locally rooted and with larger ambitions. After all, smart business people don’t like to say they fund charity; rather, they fund “investment.”

Contrasting Wu Tsai biographies

The changes are also reflected in two versions of Wu Tsai’s biography, from the Social Justice Fund website.

The Dec. 3, 2021 version, below left, says Social Justice Fund would “address the systemic imbalances that produce racial gaps in education, health, and wealth, with a priority focus on Brooklyn.”

The current version, below right, states that the Social Justice Fund aims to “catalyze economic mobility in Brooklyn.”2

Each quote begins with this sentence: “When it comes to dismantling system racism and economic inequality in our communities, we want to lead by example.”

The earlier version, however, continues: “That’s why it is so important to us to invest in the Black leaders combating racial injustice from every angle right here in Brooklyn.” (That quote persisted on the website through at least June 22, 2024.)

Today, it more simply says, “That’s why we invest in Brooklyn’s leadership to combat injustice from every angle.”

Still, the leadership they invest in is predominantly Black.

Curiously, the Tsais’ original Social Justice Commitment Statement (archived version), with its 2020 language—“We stand in solidarity with the Black community, and all Indigenous people and People of Color, to end racism in our organization and in our society”—is absent from the Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment website, though it’s still present on the New York Liberty site.

Is that just sloppy, or a recognition that the Liberty’s constituency is more politicized?

SJF history and focus

The changes are visible elsewhere on the Social Justice Fund’s website.

The SJF’s Nov. 26, 2021, About page stated, “We will focus on the inequities here in Brooklyn and work to support economic mobility within BIPOC communities across the borough.” That was attributed to both Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai.

Today, as shown in the right panel, “We focus on identifying and supporting innovative solutions to systemic inequities in Brooklyn,” states Wu Tsai, with no mention of BIPOC or race. (Nor her husband, reflecting that other shift.)

In the left panel, the “Our History” segment cites a “commitment to fight for Racial Justice and to plan for the economic recovery of the Borough,” as well as an effort to “end racism in our organization and in our society.”

The “Our Focus” segment cites pervasive “racial injustice” and support for “anti-racist work.”

On the right, the “Our History” segment states that the Social Justice Fund aims “to support economic mobility within communities across the borough.” It does cite “programs that address racial gaps in education, health, and wealth.”

The “Our Focus” segment cites “innovative solutions to systemic inequities in Brooklyn,” but avoids race.

Another change: sometime between Aug. 17, 2024, and Dec. 12, 2024, so potentially after Trump’s election victory, “THE PLAN” below, referencing “community investments in Brooklyn’s BIPOC—especially black—community,” was deleted from the website:

The “How” changes, too

The “How” portion of the fund’s About page initially cited “systemic imbalances and root causes that produce racial gaps,” emphasized mentorship for “young men and women of color,” and said “access to capital for BIPOC and women-owned small businesses” would be an initial focus.

Sometime between Aug. 17, 2024, and Dec. 12, 2024, the text changed. The current website states, more generally, “We fund pilots and programs that are scalable, and which address systemic imbalances in education, health, and wealth.”

While the earlier COVID-19 reference is arguably dated, as is the citation of “initial areas of focus,” note that “racial gaps” became “systemic imbalances.”

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Official guidance

According to the SJF’s (archived) Communications & Media Guidelines, those wishing to describe the fund in more detail should use the following paragraph:

The Social Justice Fund’s mission is to bring people together around a shared commitment to inclusiveness, justice, and equal opportunity. Our goal is to promote a society where people of all backgrounds can acknowledge differences and share common values without fear.

That omits explicit mention of race. The page is relatively new, with the first Internet Archive save from August 2025, so there’s no previous version for comparison.3

The Social Justice Fund’s Manager, in different iterations of her LinkedIn profile, cited a commitment toward “Racial Justice and Economic Mobility,” then revised that to “economic mobility.”

Program expansion?

Initially, the SJF clearly focused on Black Brooklyn; hence, Black Voices for Black Justice, with awards for five changemakers. Oddly, it’s no longer visible from the website’s Initiative menu, though it’s searchable.

Also, the EXCELerate loan program, as the website states, aimed “to help Brooklyn’s BIPOC business owners get back on their feet post-pandemic and support equitable economic momentum in Brooklyn.”

Regarding the latter, the rhetoric has changed. As a Social Justice Fund spokesman put it, “EXCELerate provided no- or low-interest loans to help neighborhood businesses reopen or stay open during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with free technical assistance.”

(Emphasis added)

A change is visible in the website for BK-XL, the Social Justice Fund’s program to invest in start-ups. “Brooklyn-born. For BIPOC founders. Up to $500K per company,” the website initially stated, as shown in the screenshot below, describing the program as “focused on BIPOC founders and based in Brooklyn.”

By 2024, BK-XL said it was “focused on supporting underrepresented founders,” omitting the term BIPOC, even though the website elsewhere uses it.

While the 2023 version of the FAQ said “BK-XL is open to founders of early-stage startups whose racial identities are under-represented, e.g., Black, Indigenous or people of color (‘BIPOC’),” the updated FAQ stated that the program focuses “on supporting underrepresented founders” but “is open to founders of all backgrounds.”

They still focused on founders of color.

In 2024, the Social Justice Fund launched Revitalize Brooklyn, a grant program “designed to identify and support innovative Brooklyn-based businesses by providing growth capital to help them reach the next level.”

Many of those businesses have BIPOC founders, but their roles, in food and fashion, as I wrote, are “consonant with gentrification.”

The Just Brooklyn Prize

The Just Brooklyn Prize, launched in 2023 by the SJF in partnership with Brooklyn Org (Brooklyn Community Foundation), was, according to an April 21, 2023 version of the website, “awarded to five BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) changemakers annually who are dedicated to strengthening and building power within Brooklyn’s communities.”

See the graphic below.

That language persisted through at least March 29, 2025. The website today omits the term BIPOC, saying the prize is “awarded to five changemakers annually who are dedicated to strengthening and building power within Brooklyn’s communities.”

Both versions cite “the pursuit of racial and social justice.” The “Who is eligible?” question in the FAQ, though at least Dec. 25, 2025, stated:

This prize is for leaders who identify as Black, Indigenous, or other persons of color who have made noteworthy contributions to Brooklyn’s communities in pursuit of social justice and racial justice.

Now it says:

The prize is for leaders who have made noteworthy contributions to Brooklyn’s communities.

In practice, all the 2025 winners, celebrated at a Nov. 14 award ceremony, fit the BIPOC frame, including three Black women, one Latina woman, and one Black man. (In 2023, the winners were five Black women. In 2024, the winners were three Black women and two Black men.)

The Just Brooklyn Prize selection committee in 2025 included five Black women and one Asian-American woman, Jo-Ann Yoo of the Asian American Federation.

The two men on the committee were almost ex officio: Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso, who’s Dominican-American, and Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce CEO Randy Peers, who’s white. The Brooklyn Chamber has partnered with the Social Justice Fund on the EXCELerate loan program.

Part of a trend

The SJF is not alone. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) on July 14, 2025, published Hiding in Plain Sight: Are foundation website changes masking their values, or pulling off their masks?, citing changes in the websites of 773 of the country’s largest 1,000 grantmaking foundations.

Comparing the then-current websites with an earlier archived version from 2024, the NCRP concluded that 73% of funders were silent, with no public reference to changes in the nonprofit ecosystem during the second Trump presidency.

“One in twelve [8.33%] foundations,” the NCRP said, “seem to have censored themselves, having made changes to their websites since the 2024 election that removes language related to concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the social sector.”

The Social Justice Fund wasn’t mentioned. Nor could it have been included, since the parent Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation is more of a shell than a grantmaking foundation. It’s not part of the “Foundation 1000” assembled by the organization Candid.4

“These foundations may have good intentions, but self-censorship on this scale snowballs into a lot of harm,” said NCRP Research Director Ryan Schlegel.

In the case of the Social Justice Fund, the self-censorship—likely better seen as a tactical change—hasn’t significantly altered their strategy, though a new business loan program has emerged, thanks to an alliance with Asian-American organizations, including Asian Americans for Equality, where Yoo now works.

More findings

The NCRP report cited rewritten language, as in the chart below, or even deletions regarding diversity and inclusion.

Why the change? The report suggests several reasons, including risk aversion (to avoid losing donors or to avoid federal probes), to protect grantees, or out of relief at having “plausible cover… to renege on public commitments they felt compelled to make in the first place.”

The Social Justice Fund doesn’t have to lose donors, nor has it clearly reneged on public commitments, though it has adjusted them.

Rather, it seems part of a broad effort, as with the claim that Wu Tsai’s the “founder,” to control their narrative.

Notably, the $350 million requested (my coverage; Gothamist coverage) by developers Cirrus Real Estate Partners and LCOR to build a platform over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Vanderbilt Yard is still on the table.

We’re waiting to see the state budget emerge. We don’t even know if this is for the full two-block platform or just the first block. We don’t know what percentage of the budget it would be.

We don’t know the justification: how does that cost fit in with Atlantic Yards’ value, including a Cirrus principal’s claim that entering the project was a “no-brainer”?

We’re also waiting for a final version of the Community Engagement Report, which, when released in draft form, faced considerable criticism: see BrooklynSpeaks here, and public criticism here.

Will that report acknowledge, and respond to, criticisms about its reliance on unrepresentative respondents and fuzzy plans for accountability? Stay tuned.

Electeds press Hochul

In a letter March 30, several local elected officials, led by Assemblymember Jo Anne Simon, pressed Gov. Kathy Hochul and other officials regarding the pending Atlantic Yards plan. (The letter was shared by Simon in an update to her mailing list.)

The requests, focused on affordability and accountability, largely echoed those previously aired by the coalition BrooklynSpeaks, which Simon helps lead. They include:

• ensuring the delivery of 1,031 lower-income affordable apartments promised in 2005, in the nonbinding affordable housing Memorandum of Understanding, from existing approved project density, before addressing the new developers’ plans

• ensuring at least 35% affordability in units resulting from the developers’ increase in density, at 60% of Area Median Income

• New York State should pay $143 million to account for its decision not to collect the liquidated damages based on the previous developer’s failure to deliver the remaining 876 units of affordable housing by May 2025

• Current residents of Brooklyn community districts 2, 3, 6, and 8 as well as those displaced after 2006 should receive community preference in Atlantic Yards affordable housing lotteries

• Regarding the parcel known as Site 5, Pacific Street between Flatbush Avenue and Fourth Avenue must be redesigned as a slow shared street, and the building should have interior loading, as well as a setback from residential Pacific Street

• A future building must include indoor space for large community gatherings, to be administered by a non-profit steward not affiliated with project developers, consistent with the original intent of the Urban Room once promised at the prow of the unbuilt flagship tower

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• Future public open space must be designed through a participatory community design process, and be administered by the city or a nonprofit independent from the owners of project buildings

• The project must create and fund a Special Enforcement District bounded by a five-block radius around the Barclays Center arena, to manage the disruptions from ongoing development construction and arena event activity, able to respond to reported incidents in real time, a long-unmet community need

  [Note: BrooklynSpeaks has previously suggested that the arena operator pay for this, in exchange for gaining a permanent plaza, but the funding source suggested here is more vague]

• The new plan must be subject to independent financial review by a qualified firm to ensure feasibility, and the results shared with the board of the Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation (CDC) as part of an open meeting

• To ensure accountability, the project must be overseen by a newly created local development corporation with decision-making authority and meaningful representation by local elected officials and the surrounding community.

  [Note: that still leaves the governor in charge]

Besides Simon, signatories included her colleague Phara Souffrant Forrest, State Senator Jabari Brisport, Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso. and Council Members Crystal Hudson and Shahana Hanif. Missing was Assemblymember Bobby Carroll.

I’d note that the elected officials, at least so far, seem to be taking a pass on the developers’ request for additional bulk, which would create a notably dense project, and on their failure to disclose any images of the project they envision. That’s why I commissioned the unofficial rendering above.

Some answers from ESD

I finally got some answers, not always illuminating, from Empire State Development (ESD), the state authority that oversees/shepherds the project, regarding questions I submitted a while ago.

When ESD held community workshops at the Brooklyn Basketball Training Center (Nov. 18) and then the Barclays Center practice court (Dec. 8), did it have to pay?

The answer was no. I understand why the state would prefer to save on costs. But Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which operates both venues, is a business, so if they don’t charge, they expect something—a cordial relationship with the state?—in return.

Remember, as I’ve suggested, ESD could require Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment to pay for gaining a permanent plaza outside the arena.

ESD has commissioned a financial report on Atlantic Yards from the firm BJH Advisors. What’s the timing? Will it be released publicly?

“ESD continues to work with its financial advisory consultant to evaluate development proposals,” I was told. “This work will be ongoing during the MOU [Memorandum of Understanding] and subsequent approvals process and transaction document negotiation.”

That didn’t answer the question about public release. So we don’t know whether the report assesses not only the project’s viability but also the developer’s costs and profit expectations.

ESD Board Materials indicated that the advisory Atlantic Yards Community Development Corporation had spent only 9.37% of its annual $250,000 operating budget, three-fourths of the way through the last fiscal year. Was the budget fully used?

“The AYCDC operating budget is funded at $250,000 annually through an agreement with the current developer, running through 2035,” I was told. “That funding structure remains in place.”

“The budget supports a portion of staff salaries for employees working on this project. As with other ESD subsidiaries, a portion of the AYCDC budget supports staff salaries. As work on Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park has increased, we anticipate that staff time devoted to the project may exceed what this budget covers.”

In other words, not a complete answer.

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The next two Atlantic Yards buildings planned would have 25% of the units serving households at 60% of Area Median Income (AMI), which one state official called “485-x level of affordability,” referring to the state tax break.

Does that mean that the buildings at Site 5 and B6 would participate in the 485-x tax break? Or would they get a synthetic version of that tax break? Or something else?

ESD told me the options are under evaluation.

Avoid Flatbush Avenue, OK?

Remember the plan to add bus lanes to the northern part of Flatbush Avenue, between Livingston Street and Grand Army Plaza?

Well, Gothamist reports that work on the main stretch will restart the week of April 27, assuming weather permits.

“Transportation officials said the construction will last about six months, and urged drivers to avoid the stretch of Flatbush Avenue during that time,” Gothamist reported.

OK, but how does that affect traffic to and from the arena? Are all drop-offs going to be along Atlantic Avenue? Stay tuned.

A neighbor’s lament

When WNYC radio host Brian Lehrer on March 9 hosted a segment on the emerging Sunnyside Yards call-in, one caller, Pia Rahman said she’d move to Queens after living on Pacific Street “in front of Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn,” saying that traffic and construction had become unbearable.

Rahman, who is also a candidate for State Assembly in Western Queens, told me she’d lived at 670 Pacific Street, an 8-story building that opened in 2016 just east of the B15 parcel, which later became 662 Pacific Street (aka Plank Road).

She said residents would get last-minute emails warning of drilling-related noise, which was disruptive, and witnessed disputes between drivers, with much honking due to construction congestion. Later in the day, congestion and noise were caused by drivers seeking to park near the arena.

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“Because that building is so transient and rental, I think no one really pays attention to what’s happening across the street,” Rahman reflected.

Her comments were a reminder that, while many may want to build as quickly as possible, the burdens of after-hours work and excess congestion are borne by neighbors.

It also reminds us that the state has an obligation to both alert neighbors of project impacts and to address real-time reports of such impacts.

Below, I have collected my coverage over the last six weeks, first in this Substack newsletter and then in my Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report blog.

But scroll to the end for a bonus.

From this newsletter

From Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report blog

As some readers may know, I started publishing a blog in 2005 on Blogger, and, in the last two years, have published my longer articles in this newsletter, while still keeping my Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park Report blog for “smaller” or less complicated articles (or, frankly, a place to sometimes publish press releases, with commentary).

I’m still thinking through the division. I may end up publishing everything here, but choose not to share each article by email. Here’s what you missed.

Feb. 28: Barclays Center releases March 2026 event calendar: 15 ticketed events: eight Nets games, five concerts, plus women’s & Latin basketball.

March 5: ESD schedules fourth Atlantic Yards workshop March 19 (late), promises Draft Community Engagement Report.

March 11: Expanding its ambit, the Tsais’ Social Justice Fund joins Asian-American groups & NYS in funding (w/$1M) new citywide business loan program. Barclays synergy, too.

March 13: Atlantic Yards CDC meeting scheduled for afternoon of March 19, hours before public workshop. Topics surely will include Draft Community Engagement Report.

March 16: Before Draft Community Engagement Report, ESD posts copy of online survey questions: “Help Inform the Future of Atlantic Yards!”

March 16: Foregone property taxes on Barclays Center now estimated at $122.7M, tiny decrease. Other venues see growth. PILOTs pay off tax-exempt construction debt.

March 18: Atlantic Yards CDC agenda: Executive Session should include details of developers’ subsidy request. Routine budget approval invites scrutiny of annual spending.

March 18: BrooklynSpeaks responds to Community Engagement draft: respondents’ skew affects affordability; open spaces praised are public, not private; subsidies ignored; accountability sought.

March 25: Jay-Z: the Nets “actually relied on me heavily to get to Brooklyn.” Yup.

April 2: Barclays Center releases April 2026 event calendar: 11 ticketed events, and no playoffs for the Brooklyn Nets.

April 4: Arena company announces “Brooklyn Art Encounters,” new public and interior art program with big names (& Social Justice Fund claims).

Reader bonus: free tours

Registration for this year’s free Jane’s Walks, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society and inspired by the legacy of the urbanist Jane Jacobs, opens tomorrow morning to the public, probably on the early side. (It opened Wednesday for MAS members.)

I’m leading tours of Atlantic Yards on Friday, May 1, at 6 pm and Saturday, May 2, at 9 am. They should last between 90 minutes and 2 hours. They “sell out” every year.

I’ll also likely lead free tours (well, there’s a registration fee) in mid-October as part of Open House NY Weekend.

I lead paid tours for classes periodically and may offer a public Atlantic Yards tour (for up to 15 people, a smaller group than the free tours!) for a reasonable fee at some point.

If you’re interested in a paid tour (including a privately scheduled one), you can post a comment, message/email me, or just stay tuned.

When I walk visitors around the Barclays Center, I ask what they make of the complementary “You belong here” and “We belong here” neon signs, installed at the top of the transit entrance on the arena’s Ticketmaster Plaza.

I don’t say I consider it as much advertising as art, cloaked in the fuzzy notion of “social justice.” Or that using art is a strategic move, almost akin to arena developer Bruce Ratner making Jay-Z a Nets/arena frontman, helping the Tsais gain business and civic clout.

Or that last year’s Liberty Portraits installation on the plaza, honoring the 2024 WNBA champions, has been retroactively framed as social justice.

Often, the visitors are confounded. Their answers include:

• a photo op for people tagging the Barclays Center

• a sign of a gateway

• a rebuke to project critics (since “we” means the arena or the teams)

• a message of inclusivity, perhaps for immigrants or gays & lesbians

• a symbol of tackiness

Very few conclude it’s art, much less art with a message from the 2020 #BlackLivesMatter protests that converged on the pandemic-shuttered arena, creating what I called Brooklyn’s Accidental New Town Square.

The most common early response to the “You Belong Here” signage, as I wrote in 2021, was suspicion—even from arena workers—that it aimed to nudge ticket buyers. (“You belong inside here.”)

“We Belong Here” gets extra oomph when paired with advertising for the Liberty or the Nets, which has appeared above the stairs leading to the transit entrance, which the arena operator controls.

Also consider the image from a Brooklyn Nets superfan (and NetsDaily editor), affirming “We belong here” after 19 years as a season ticket holder.

An ambiguous explanation

The signage, unveiled in October 2021, was an early initiative of the Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation’s Social Justice Fund (SJF). A small plaque at the transit center entrance, crediting Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan for “Belong/Brooklyn, 2021,” states:

Brooklyn is the vibrant center of New York City, a refuge for explorers and immigrants the world over. Belong/Brooklyn (2021) is an affirmation for this complex and ever-changing community. These three simple words—YOU, WE, and BELONG—invite every viewer who enters the site to celebrate the present moment, and to consider fundamental questions about who belongs where, and why.

Is that deep thinking, double-talk, or both?

Hmm—to “celebrate the present moment, and to consider fundamental questions about who belongs where, and why.” OK, why is the signage there? Who’s responsible—some random art angel?

Pending questions

The plaque doesn’t credit the Tsais or the Social Justice Fund.

Nor does it explain that the fund was established by the couple behind the Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment holding company, part of a promised ten-year, $50 million social justice commitment in response to the police murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests.

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How much did the signage cost? How much does that count toward the SJF’s claimed—but impossible-to-verify—$5 million a year in philanthropic investment? We don’t know.

Charity, or strategy?

How does this “address systemic imbalances and root causes that produce racial gaps in education, health and wealth,” a central SJF commitment?

Heck, is it even charitable spending? The Liberty CEO described it as “Clara Wu Tsai's sign, vision, and mystique,” helping inspire business success.

Indeed, how can “You belong here” not sound like an invitation to paying customers?

The image above, the 10th anniversary photo mosaic created by the arena company, centers the Barclays Center and foregrounds the signage.

So it’s tough to disentangle a claimed philanthropic initiative from a promotional effort. After all, from inside the arena, “We belong here” looms, as in the photo below.

No wonder the Barclays Center has proudly said it “integrates contemporary art into the arena experience.”

Commemorating a protest?

Social Justice Fund Executive Director Gregg Bishop, interviewed July 16, 2024, offered the standard explanation: the initiative was “part of recognizing that the plaza was a central sort of organic town square during the racial justice protests of 2020.”

He was interviewed by The Local W, a women’s sports site, in advance of a public ceremony hosted by the Liberty and the SJF to honor the fund’s grantees.

(My future coverage will address the SJF’s array of initiatives, which include support for nonprofits, a small business loan program, and investments in BIPOC-led start-ups.)

The SJF website says it commissioned Strachan’s work “in part to reflect Barclays Center’s role as a hub for community activism and the continued fight for racial equity, and to honor the risks taken by Brooklynites—and all New Yorkers—who demand better for themselves, their families, and their neighbors.”

(Emphases added throughout)

Does “in part” acknowledge that the signage does double duty? After all, the official photo above left strategically pairs “You belong here” with “Barclays Center.”

Your space, or ours?

The neon sculpture, Bishop said, was “a constant reminder to the community that this is your space.”

OK, but how does that square with Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment’s ability to block off a seemingly public plaza for its own use?

The plaza is constrained by the arena’s operational needs. When organizers in May 2021 planned a protest on the anniversary of Floyd’s killing, they were shunted across the street, as a Nets playoff game took precedence.

The space is regularly limited before events—often hours beforehand—because it’s not truly public but an “interim use” granted by New York State, which leases the arena site to Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment.

A tower, dubbed “Miss Brooklyn” by architect Frank Gehry, was once planned to loom over the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues, with an Urban Room atrium that would’ve served the arena, the office tower, and the transit hub below.

Now, the plaza serves the arena, while providing a canvas for advertising and promotion. Some crowds even overflow the plaza onto the surrounding sidewalks.

Going permanent

The unbuilt tower’s bulk likely will be shifted across Flatbush Avenue to a parcel known as Site 5, enabling a much larger development than previously approved.

Making the plaza permanent would be hugely valuable for the arena operator, avoiding the intrusive construction and operation of “Miss Brooklyn.”

An affirmation for the community?

As to an “affirmation for this complex and ever-changing community,” what role has the arena—and the larger Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project—played in creating community, or dividing it? In displacing people or inviting them?

Those questions linger.

Consider the Brooklyn Crossing tower (B4, 18 Sixth Ave.), said to be “Now Leasing” in the 2022 image below, with all the “affordable” units aimed at middle-income households, most earning six figures, and the market-rate units even pricier.

Yes, the overall Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park project, with the arena and 15/16 towers, no longer has one owner. Still, it was sold to the public, including with public subsidies, as a package deal to deliver public goods like affordable housing.

Today, the arena and teams are big financial successes for the Tsais, while the $5 million a year designated for social justice, as I’ve written, is dwarfed by the arena’s annual property tax exemption, most recently $122.7 million.

(Also, we don’t know exactly how they’ve spent the money, though I’ll have some more details in future coverage.)

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Airing the contradictions

Potential contradictions rarely get aired. One anomalous moment of tension emerged at a Yale University panel discussion, including Strachan and Wu Tsai, described in the Feb. 22, 2023 Yale Daily News:

Through its words, Strachan’s installation attempted to directly address this concept, telling passersby that they belong. However, as a member of the audience — who claimed to be “very confused” about the piece — pointed out, the construction of the Barclays Center displaced many Brooklyn inhabitants, creating a dichotomy between the work’s message and the place it is situated in.

Wu Tsai acknowledged this displacement and noted that the work was made to pay homage to organic protests.

“I think it’s a perfectly fine position to have to not get it. I think it’s a part of public discourse,” Stratchan added.

Has Wu Tsai at any other point acknowledged any untoward effects from the arena? Or that the protests, however organic, were imposed on the arena, not invited by it?

Another way to think about it

The art helps distract from criticism, for example, of the arena’s rising ticket prices or of the extensive public support—tax-exempt financing, zoning overrides, and the ability to sell naming rights—that far exceeds the announced charitable spending.

However, in mounting a social justice art project that also masquerades as arena advertising and reputation enhancement—or is it the other way around?—the billionaire Tsais inoculate themselves against potential criticism.2

Consider how Wu Tsai’s portrait on the Social Justice Fund website, in the screenshot below, depicts her in front of “We belong here,” while the ad in the background hails the Brooklyn Nets.