Fed up, the LPC is suing the owner for the full value of the property to make an example of those who buy these properties then let them deteriorate, leaving them the commission to clean up the mess. Brownstoner has photos of the disgusting state of the property before the demolition.

Meanwhile, a two-alarm fire broke out at 4:30 this morning at Concord St. in Boerum Hill, leaving two firefighters hurt. The residents escaped unharmed, but their home was gutted by the blaze.

UPDATE: YOU CAN FIND MANY MORE PICTURES FROM THE SCENE AT OUR LIVE BLOG.

So many chairs, so neatly set up. (Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink)

This food is blurry, but it looks very tasty. (Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink

Barclays Center, the arena where the Nets will play, has a swanky Web site celebrating the arena’s eventual arrival in Brooklyn. It has Jay-Z on it and everything. Today, it’s been fitted out with a clock to count down to the official groundbreaking. (They’re really excited!) Of course, they have to include this fine print at the bottom: “The Nets move to Brooklyn is pending NBA approval.” Here’s a link to some more renderings of how the arena will look.

And you might have been wondering why today’s protesters are gathering at Freddy’s Bar. Wonder no more! The bar is a longtime community dive and haunt, and it is set to be demolished by the government to make way for Atlantic Yards. Freddy’s has, understandably, been fighting the closure.

10 AM: There is already a police presence consisting of two squad cars and five police officers along Atlantic Ave. near 4th Ave. Industrial CAT shovels are busy digging into the earth at the construction site. Pacific Street, between 6th and 5th Aves., has been cordoned off and listed as a ‘private street.’ Nearby, just outside the Atlantic Yards Community Liason office, day laborers have assembled, looking to score work on the Ratner project. ‘We want a piece of the action,’ said Bran Williams, 35, an immigrant from Jamaica.

10:56: Police officers along Atlantic Avenue said they don’t know how much, if any, protesting will take place today. Three more squad cars and what appears to be a police mobile command unit, about 20 in length, have stationed themselves on 6th Avenue between Pacific and Atlantic. A silver link chain has been festooned along the countertop at Freddy’s Bar, the site of this afternoon’s protest. No crowds have gathered yet.

12:00 PM: Two updates. Yepoka Yeebo, who is also at the ceremony, tells us that workers and construction equipment are already lined up to start working as soon as the ceremony gets through. She sends this picture of the shovels that the bigwigs will use to formally break the ground, and one with the seats reserved for Mike Bloomberg, David Paterson, Bruce Ratner and Marty Markowitz:

Which VIP will wield which shovel? (Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink)

Photo: Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink

Vinnie has this further update, on a conversation with a Brooklyn resident:

At 11:30 this morning, a small band of locals looked on at the white tent where the ceremony was set to take place. Patrick Brown, a man from Crown Heights, expressed support for the project. “It’s going to bring jobs, it should be done,” he said.  Asked for his opinion on the displaced residents and store owners in the immediate area who oppose the arena’s construction, Brown said: “In this country it’s all about survival. A handful of people can’t beat the majority.” But he also said that the people losing their property should have been made shareholders in the project: “they shouldn’t have just been bought out.”

12:20: More pictures, this time of the protests that are just beginning, and another update from Vinnie:

At 12:07, two medium Peavey amplifiers and a harp were produced outside Freddy’s Bar. A man wearing an oversized Marty Markowitz mask walked out of the bar’s front door, hamming it up for the reporters at the scene. (At this point, the press outnumbered the protesters.) A plastic bag full of dirt was brought out and dumped in front of a poster reading “Groundbreaking to bury the soul of Brooklyn: Here Lies Brooklyn’s Soul, 1896-2010.”

Photo: Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink

Just a few of the protesters' targets. (Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink)

"Bloomberg" and "Paterson" talk to the press. (Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink)

1:01 PM: The protest has been going on for about a half-hour now. We’ll be getting you updates as soon as possible, and we’ll be bringing you a video report, a written report and a story that places the entire Atlantic Yards project in historical context. Just keep checking in!

1:13 PM: More from Vinnie, at the protests: At 12:30, a thoroughly sarcastic press conference held in front of Freddy’s bar began. Men and women wearing bobblehead poster masks of Borough president Marty Markowitz, Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and others, gave faux speeches to a group of 40 to 50 protesters. Daniel Goldstein, of Develop Don’t Destroy, took the mic. He wore no mask. “This is a 22-acre, no-bid land grab,” Goldstein said. “This is a celebration of eminent domain, a money-losing arena, a bait and switch…this is a celebration of everything that should not be celebrated.” After Goldstein’s speech, the protesters made their way down to the dignitaries’ entrance to the groundbreaking ceremony at 6th Ave. and Pacific and began chanting, “Shame on you.”

1:34 PM: Yepoka Yeebo says that, as the groundbreaking ceremony officially begins, the protest has heated up, with hundreds of people in the streets. People are right behind the fence where the dirt mound for the groundbreaking has been set up, and traffic has been completely tied up. Vinnie caught a debate between two Brooklyn residents a little earlier, and sent this along:

Outside the dignitaries’ entrance, a shouting match broke out between a Brooklyn-born black man and a protesting white woman who had moved to Brooklyn from elswhere. “I speak for a place I’ve lived 15 years in,” the woman said. “We’re getting our jobs back,” the man countered. “We’re the Brooklyn born. You just moved over here.” Pulled aside for an interview, the man, Athony Taylor, a 50-year-old Crown heights resident, further explained his gripe with the protestors. “They don’t know the whole story,” he said. “We’ve lost thousands of jobs in the past: the Daily News, the chocolate factory, even the meat market we lost. The city said were gonna get those jobs replaced. Now it’s time.”

Photo: Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink

Photo: Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink

Photo: Yeebo/The Brooklyn Ink

2:06: While the Ink is outside with protesters, the actual ceremony is happening inside that swanky tent we showed you earlier. We couldn’t make it back into the event, because we didn’t have the proper credentials. (Insert grumbling about the Man here.) But local blog Curbed does have a front row seat, and their very entertaining take on the proceedings is here. Every politician is making a speech, and Jay-Z has a row of seats reserved entirely for him.

The project has always attracted acres of press coverage, and this morning is no different. Daily News columnist Errol Louis has a piece in today’s paper, voicing support for Atlantic Yards. Though he says that “nearly no one on either side of the debate…thinks the process was fair, balanced and rational,” he still thinks the project can be a “marvelous benefit” for the borough.

On the other side, New York’s Chris Smith calls the project a “loser” for the city, noting that the state’s Independent Budget Office estimates that the city and the state will lose $219 million on the Yards over the next 30 years.

Rest assured, the Ink is all over this one. We will have reporters at both the protest and the groundbreaking, and will be updating throughout the day on the latest developments.

The big news of the day: the massive, and massively controversial, Atlantic Yards project is set to officially begin today, changing the fabric of the borough forever. There’s a ceremonial groundbreaking this afternoon, and protesters are sure to make their views heard. The Ink will be bringing you exhaustive (but not exhausting) coverage of this pivotal moment in Brooklyn history.

In other news:
The city is formally taking control of the long-awaited Brooklyn Bridge Park development project.

Three people, including a firefighter, were seriously injured by a fire that broke out last night in Ocean Hill.

A woman has been charged in a Brooklyn hit-and-run that injured a mayoral aide.

A Brooklyn pol wants to ban the use of salt in New York restaurants. Chefs, predictably, are telling the Brooklyn pol that salt is kind of, you know…important to a meal.

Check back often, because we’ll be following the biggest and best stories all day.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a 3-foot-tall bobblehead, according to a press release distributed by Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, a coalition that opposes the Atlantic Yards megaproject and that plans to protest during the ceremonial groundbreaking on Thursday.

The coalition, which consists of 21 groups, is working with 30 other community organizations to oppose the Forest City Ratner plan for the development.  The group will have its own event, Groundbreaking to Bury the Soul of Brooklyn, one hour before the official groundbreaking.

“The community is angry, pissed off, livid about this project and the way it went down,” said Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for the organization. He added that community members need a place to show their anger to Bloomberg, Gov. David Paterson and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.

After a State Supreme Court ruling on March 1 granted Forest City Ratner the right to eminent domain, the $4.9 billion much-delayed Atlantic Yards megaproject is scheduled to rev up construction immediately.

Since the court ruling, opposition groups have begun mobilizing in anticipation of the groundbreaking. The project, they contend, has become the collective bane of a community unhappy with the development plans, which they say have changed dramatically since 2006. The new plans, they say, have largely dropped assurances to protect affordable housing and create jobs.

Forest City Ratner says that’s not the case. According to a fact sheet sent from Dan Klores Communications, a public relations firm representing the developer, the project will generate more than $5.6 billion in new tax revenues over the next 30 years and create a net positive fiscal impact of more than $1.3 billion. The fact sheet also states that the project will uphold the promise to ensure affordable housing units and create 8,000 permanent jobs. A spokesman for the real-estate group was not available at press time. The representative from Dan Klores Communications said he could not speak on specifics concerning the project.

Representatives from Brooklyn Speaks, a collective of nine local organizations that have been critical of the project see it otherwise. The coalition, created in 2006, aims to ensure ongoing decision-making that is transparent and accountable and that involves the public.  In a March 2 meeting at the Fifth Avenue Committee on Degraw Street, the group discussed its views that the development will affect local tenants, that closed-door negotiations have undercut the public interest and that there has been a lack of transparency by the government and the developer.

In 2006, the Atlantic Yards project, approved by the Public Authorities Control Board, included 2,250 units of affordable housing. The current master agreement cuts  that number  to 300, according to figures from Brooklyn Speaks. The annual savings over market rates would have totaled $34 million; today that figure is  $29.7 million.

Brooklyn Speaks also claims that the total number of residential units was decreased to 1,005 by 2022, from 6,430 by 2016.

“The housing that was promised as affordable housing should be built,” Deborah Howard, executive director of the Pratt Area Community Council, said, calling it  “the most important promise that this project made.”

The Forest City Ratner fact sheet maintains that the developer will build 2,250 affordable and middle-income rental units, 10 percent of which will be for senior citizens. The developer has also made an agreement with the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now to build between 600 and 1,000 affordable homeownership units.

Four hundred units of housing, including an 88-unit homeless shelter, have already been removed to make way for the 22-acre project in Prospect Heights. The expansive development, which may take years to complete,  is set to include a basketball stadium — for the  Nets, the N.B.A. team that is moving to Brooklyn from New Jersey — 16 luxury high-rise buildings and mixed-use space.

Though developers have promised the project will create jobs and provide a lift to the city budget, organizers said  the project would yield negative dividends to the economy over the next 30 years. While the December 2006 plans projected a $25 million economic benefit to the city, the new plans decrease that number to minus $8 million, Brooklyn Speaks representatives say.

Brooklyn Speaks contends that lack of transparency in the decision-making process for the project has allowed  vast amendments to the original plan to be  made  over the past few years.

“Every public hearing has been a theatrical event, of sorts,” said JoAnne Simon, Democratic district leader of the 52^nd Assembly District, representing a number of Downtown Brooklyn neighborhoods who condemned the project that she says has excluded local elected officials, community boards and community groups from the planning and approval process.

Howard said many of the plans for Brooklyn Yards were made and approved by select political insiders who have something to gain from the project and not by the people of Brooklyn or groups that directly represent the area such as Community Boards. Because of this, she says, the project gained endorsement although it was widely unpopular with the citizens it is meant to serve. “The accountability is really to the people,” she said.

Gib Veconi, board member of the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council, an organization that addresses housing and economic development concerns in the area, agreed. “It is a public/private partnership where the public has not been represented,” he said while addressing the audience at the Brooklyn Speaks meeting.

For all of the quarrel surrounding the project’s eminent domain standing, Forest City Ratner claims that most of the  land needed to for the project was made up of a Long Island Rail Road storage facility, empty lots, gas stations, auto repair shops and underused  or vacant industrial and manufacturing buildings. The developer said it had acquired 85 percent of the land needed for the project without use of eminent domain and has promised housing in the planned facility to relocated  tenants for the same rent they pay now.

Though resistance to the Atlantic Yards development has not delayed the groundbreaking, Brooklyn Speaks isn’t ready to concede defeat.  This past December seven of the Brooklyn Speaks member groups filed a lawsuit against the Empire State Development Corp. and Forest City Ratner in objection to amendments made to the general project plan. Litigation continues.

“We will all still be here and we will be living with this,” Howard said of Brooklyn residents. “There are principles that are ongoing; principles that outlive controversies.”