There are no "ifs" about it: the Atlantic Yards mega-project will dramatically change the neighborhoods of Fort Greene-Clinton Hill, along with the rest of Brownstone Brooklyn.

In fact, many of those changes are already apparent. Truck traffic on Classon Avenue coming from the Atlantic Yards site is up. Construction noise from the enormous project is now a 24/7 operation as crews race to get Barlcays Center ready for the soon-to-be Brooklyn Nets' 2012-13 season. And then there are the rats.

Here are our picks for the top 10 stories on Atlantic Yards this year:

10. Those "mysterious" vials of arsenic. Last April, construction workers at the Barclays Center site unearthed containers of that same toxic substance at the center of many an Agatha Christie mystery. A representative of the state agency overseeing construction at the site speculated that the vials were from a pharmacy located at the site roughly between 1926 and 1965.

9. The installation of stadium seating. This construction landmark, achieved in early June, gave at least this Patch editor the sense that the proto-Barclays Center was indeed a stadium and not some colossal post-modern steel-latticed sculpture.

8. A "small" legal victory for AY opponents. In July, critics of the mega-project relished State Supreme Court Justice Marcy Friedman's ruling that a 2009 change in the construction timetable was illegal. The judge ordered the Empire State Development Corp. to submit a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement that included the new 25-year construction timetable.

7. Drill snafu injures two. In June, a shower of golf-ball sized debris rained down on pedestrians and parked cars at Vanderbilt and Atlantic avenues, sending one man to the hospital with minor injuries. The rock, packed earth and metal came from a drilling rig malfunction.

6. Pedestrians, bicyclists react to AY Traffic Mitigation Plan. Announced last May and put into place over the summer, the creation of a one-way thoroughfare at Fourth Avenue between Atlantic and Flatbush avenues and the redirection of traffic on Pacific Street caused quite the stir among pedestrians, drivers and bicyclists.

5. Unions rage against FCR's plans for "pre-fab" tower. Hundreds of good-paying construction jobs seemed to disappear the instant Forest City Ratner CEO Bruce Ratner unveiled new plans in March for what would be the world's largest pre-fabricated housing tower.

4. Unemployed workers rally over FCR's "broken promises." They were mostly black and Latino, non-union—and all unemployed. In July, they fought back against Forest City Ratner CEO Bruce Ratner, who promised to make hiring of local workers a priority at Atlantic Yards. Yet even as Barclays Center flew up, only 38 workers employed at the site were from neighborhoods adjacent to the project.

3. Raging over AY's "rat tsunami." The stories coming out of Prospect Heights and Fort Greene were like something out of urban legend: Drivers finding rats in parked cars and even one crawling out of a local woman's toilet. Residents at meetings like one organized in June by the Dean Street Block Association and Councilwoman Letitia James blamed construction at Atlantic Yards for the "rat tsunami" swamping their neighborhoods. Forest City Ratner denied this; though the company did splurge on free rat-resistant trash cans for the community.

2. Jay-Z to kick off Barclays Center opening. It was a homecoming of sorts for the former Marcy Houses resident-turned-superstar rapper at this September press conference announcing a series of concerts kicking off Barclays Center's entertainment lineup. Another fun fact from the event: Spotted sitting near the front at the press conference at Atlantic Terminal Mall was Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov, who recently announced a longshot bid for the Russian presidency against Vladimir Putin (Correction, Dec. 29: Former Patch contributor Norman Oder pointed out this New York Times blog post stating that Prokhorov did not attend the press conference in question. We regret the error.)

1. Permit parking plan for AY-adjacent nabes floated by City Council. If Atlantic Yards created a wave of rats headed for Brownstone Brooklyn basements, this story generated a tsunami of comments from Patch readers—many of whom expressed grave concerns about the future of parking in the borough once the Barclays Center opens in September 2012.