Brooklyn Transformed, for Better or Worse?

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

Residents celebrated and demonstrated, made noise and complained about noise, raised a glass to Brooklyn's pulsing addition and, in some cases, kept on raising glasses into the early morning.

But for all the dueling ambitions of those who gathered Friday for the Barclays Center's opening night, one goal was common: to form a first impression of the city's newest nerve center up close, beneath the weathered steel that has been termed both an architectural wonder and, in the words of one passer-by Friday afternoon, “the ugliest thing I ever saw.”

Would the arena's opening event, the first in a series of concerts by the hip-hop star Jay-Z, snarl traffic as many predicted? Would the streets fill with drunken revelers? Would anyone ever again be able to walk three blocks along Atlantic Avenue without seeing a hat or T-shirt supporting the Brooklyn Nets?

Skeptics and believers coul d all find support in Friday's early returns.

Here was a procession of well-coiffed ticket-holders - thick heels and leopard-print flats, T-shirts emblazoned with Jay-Z's face and sneakers so white they appeared to have been bought on the way in the door.

And there was a man, stumbling along Flatbush Avenue, slurring deliriously as an officer led him into the backseat of a taxicab, pushing his head through the doorway as he might for a common criminal.

Watts Hopkins, 55, distributed light-up sunglasses to passing concertgoers. “We're ushering in a new era of entertainment for Brooklyn,” Mr. Hopkins said, as his partner hawked a flashing bow tie.

Bars and restaurants kept their doors open well into Saturday morning, ensuring that wayfarers in Nets regalia would have a place to continue the preseason party.

But at least one establishment seemed immune to the appeal of the neighborhood's unofficial new logo: Beacon's Closet, a clothing exchange store near Fifth Avenue and Prospect Place.

Tiffany Collings, the store's manager, was asked if the business would ever carry the team's apparel. “Only when it becomes vintage,” she said. “We've got 40 years.”