Freddy's Bar, Threatened by Atlantic Yards, Executes Dummy with Beer Cans, Vows Resistance

Mayor Bloomberg remains bullish, or should we say Nettish, on the Atlantic Yards project: "While the rest of the country wrings its hands about the national recession," he says, "we're building our way out of it." The patrons of Freddy's Bar, who last week showed resistance to their impending eviction to make way for the boondoggle by chaining themselves to the bar, are also building their way out of it, so to speak: This weekend they erected a guillotine made of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon cans.

The nine-foot killing machine was then used to decapitate a dummy marked "Eminent Domain." Photos are here; the dummy was highly abstracted and bore no resemblance to developer Bruce Ratner except spiritually.

In announcing the execution, Freddy's agents, the Fightin' Freddy's, lambasted Ratner, the Russian mogui who is expected to own the Nets, and ACORN, among others. "Billionaires Bruce Ratner and Mikhail Prokhorov are on the verge of using the State of New York to seize the neighborhood using New York State's outdated Eminent Domain laws," they said, "They hope to build a stadium named for Barclay's Bank, for the soon-to-be Russian owned N.J. Nets, and some housing to be operated by ACORN. We say the banks and foreigners have taken enough from America, and that ACORN needs to keep their paws off our bar and neighborhood."

At the event, a Freddy announced the dedication of a "lockbox" for collection of funds to buy "armor" for the beleaguered tavern and other renters and landholders threatened by the project.