“Those who come from Brooklyn know just what I’m talking…” MC Lyte

Developer Bruce Ratner has reached a tentative agreement to buy the New Jersey Nets for $300 million. As you have probably heard already, he would like nothing more than to move the team—originaly from Long Island—to Brooklyn. The Nets’ lease in New Jersey doesn’t run out until 2008, and Ratner faces a myriad of obstacles in getting a state-of-the-art facility built in Brooklyn. Still, the news has a lot of New Yorkers excited. The proposed arena would be built near the Brooklyn Academy of Music, which is at the heart of the borough’s recent gentrification, just a stones throw away from Fort Greene, and Park Slope. Mark McClusky links several good articles regarding the pro’s and con’s of the prospective site for Brooklynites. While I think the notion of Brooklyn having its own franchise again is romantic and fitting, the reality is too far off for me to get too amped up yet.