by clairmont chung Barclays Center moored on Atlantic Avenue (Getty Images) The subway train shook me from my half-sleep as we jerked to a stop. It was as if it wanted to show me something. Then I read in bold letters on the station’s walls: Atlantic Avenue-Barclays Center. At first, I did not understand what was happening. This was some kind of trick, payback for the things I said about capitalism. Maybe I had made a mistake and taken the wrong train. I had never heard of a station by that name in New York or anywhere. The underground dimness looked familiar. Then the conductor’s cackle announced that we were on the “2 train to Flatbush”. I relaxed a little, even smiled. This was no mistake. Then he said the name of the stop, “Barclays Center, Atlantic”. It felt like a slap so hard that I did not hear the name of the next stop: Barclays-Bergen. I was fully awake then, but train sick. Imagine, not one but, two stops in Brooklyn renamed Barclays in 2012. Barclays Bank was n...
Dedicated to telling the history and sharing the culture of our diaspora...