Park Slope businessman Harry Tarzian, whose hardware store is a fave of many joins the Advisory Board of Develop Don’t Destroy. Author and poet Phillip Lopate, another Brooklyn fave, is also on board. The DDDB press release fills in lots of biographical details on both.

BROOKLYN, NY — Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is pleased to announce two outstanding additions to the 49-member DDDB Advisory Board — author Phillip Lopate and mom ‘n’ pop business success Harry Tarzian.

“I’ve decided to join the DDDB Advisory Board because DDDB is asking the right questions and demanding a more appropriate plan for Brooklyn than the over-scaled Atlantic Yards. I would like to support any effort that would send the project back to the drawing board to bring about a development over the Vanderbilt Yards that would most benefit the people and neighborhoods of Brooklyn,” said author Phillip Lopate.

Phillip Lopate, is a renowned essayist, novelist, poet, teacher and professor, editor, film and architecture critid. He is a Brooklyn native.

Mr. Lopate currently holds the John Cranford Adams Chair at Hofstra University, and he also teaches in the MFA graduate programs at Columbia, the New School and Bennington. His most recent book is an urban meditation titled, Waterfront: A Journey Around Manhattan. In addition to his writing, he’s an occasional guest on WNYC radio’s Leonard Lopate Show, whose host happens to be his brother.

Harry Tarzian may be best known to Brooklynites as the scion of the Tarzian family, Park Slope’s nearly century-old purveyor of hardware and housewares. But he’s also an acclaimed photographer, whose work is archived in both the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and the collection of the New York Historical Society.

Tarzian Hardware epitomizes the mom ‘n’ pop neighborhood stores that drive Brooklyn’s commerce — the types of stores glaringly absent from Forest City Ratner’s Atlantic Center and Atlantic Terminal malls. In business since Harry’s father and uncle founded the original Tarzian’s in 1921, the hardware store is a Brooklyn icon.

One of Harry’s favorite pastimes is wandering Brooklyn’s neighborhoods, photographically chronicling the unrivaled spirit and energy of his hometown. For a look at some of his visit:
http://www.harrytarzian.com

“We’re very proud to have Phillip Lopate and Harry Tarzian join our Advisory Board. They’re support means a lot to us, and is further evidence that the opposition to the Atlantic Yards project is deep and wide,” said Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn’s spokesman Daniel Goldstein. “Their support native Brooklynites and newer-comers alike believe that the Atlantic Yards project is not in the best interest of the community and the borough.”