September 28, 2012: The Barclays Center Opens

September 28, 2012, 10 years ago: The Barclays Center opens, at the eastern edge of Downtown Brooklyn. It is bounded by Atlantic Avenue on the north, 6th Avenue on the east, Dean Street on the south, and Flatbush Avenue on the west. The official address is 620 Atlantic Avenue.

It is across from the Atlantic Terminal of the Long Island Rail Road, and the Atlantic Terminal Mall. It is thus accessible via the LIRR. For this reason, it was the site chosen by Walter O'Malley in 1954 for the new home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a domed stadium he was calling the Brooklyn Sports Center. It never happened, because Robert Moses, who controlled several City and State agencies, and had to decide whether or not to give the order to clear the land necessary for the stadium, decided not to. This became O'Malley's excuse to take the Dodgers out of Brooklyn.

It is also accessible by Subway: The Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center station on the 2, 3, 4, 5, B, D, N, Q, R, and W Trains; and the Bergen Street station on the 2, 3 and 4 Trains.

It was part of the Atlantic Yards project, built by real estate developer Bruce Ratner, who had bought the NBA's New Jersey Nets in 2004, at the height of their success: A 3rd straight Atlantic Division title, and the 2 previous Eastern Conference titles. He said he would build an arena at the site, and move the Nets there.

Delay after delay happened. Not only were the Nets a lame-duck team even longer than baseball's Montreal Expos were, but they ended up moving in the interim, in 2010, from the Meadowlands Arena to the Prudential Center in Newark. I had hoped that the crowds in Newark, a good basketball city, would impress Rather so much that he would keep the Nets there.

Instead, the crowds were every bit as sparse at The Rock as they were at the Meadowlands. And Ratner lost so much money on the project that he had to sell the Nets, to Russian businessman Mikhail Prokhorov. Contingent on the sale was agreeing to move the team into the Barclays Center as soon as it was ready.

The 1st event at the Barclays Center was a concert by Brooklyn native Shawn Carter, a.k.a. rapper Jay-Z. Within its 1st year, the new building had surpassed its intracity rival Madison Square Garden to become America's highest-grossing venue for the category of concerts and family shows.

The Nets' 1st regular-season game there, originally intended as November 1, 2012 against the New York Knicks, was delayed due to Hurricane Sandy. Instead, it was November 3, against the Toronto Raptors, and the Nets won, 107-100.

The Nets have played there ever since. Long Island University, based a few blocks away (Brooklyn and Queens are part of Long Island geologically, if not politically or culturally), have used it for some home games since then as well. The NHL's New York Islanders used it from 2015 to 2020. And the WNBA's New York Liberty started using it as their home court in 2021. Seating capacity is 17,732 for basketball, and 15,795 for hockey.