Coming to theaters just as the Barclays Center emerges from
behind partitioning at the northern tip of Prospect Heights, Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's Battle
for Brooklyn recounts the tireless anti-Atlantic Yards efforts of Develop Don't
Destroy Brooklyn co-founder Daniel Goldstein. The documentary opens with a
title-card definition of eminent domain," and a scene of last holdout
Goldstein standing up to the goons patrolling his condo building's rooftop.
Instances of project-proponent doublespeak follow: Podium-banging Nets owner/AY
developer Bruce Ratner invokes "the royal
'I'"; Sen. Chuck Schumer says job creation "enervates." [sic] him; a ForestCityRatner
VIP appears to spin displacement as a grand American tradition. Goldstein and
friends propose less invasive alternative footprints,
and then contest the legality of the state seizing their "blighted"
property, at seven years' worth of rallies and hearings. Back at his Pacific Street HQ,
overlooking the crater of the Vanderbilt Railyards,
Goldstein calls off an engagement, and later starts a family with a fellow DDDB
member. Battle for Brooklyn provides a useful primer on the opposition to
Atlantic Yards, but figures who might have made more compelling documentary
subjects than the always on-message Goldstein -- such as the often-combative
leadership of Brooklyn United for Innovative Local Development, a community
group whose tax filings reveal ties to Forest City Ratner;
or City Councilwoman Letitia James, seen opposing AY
both off-the-cuff and in rehearsed political tear-jearking
-- crowd the sidelines. http://www.laweekly.com/2011-08-18/film-tv/battle-for-brooklyn/
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Keep up to date on the fantastic
- ATLANTIC YARDS WEBSITE -
This watchdog blog offers
analysis, commentary, and reportage about ForestCityRatner's
planned $4.9 billion Atlantic Yards project, to build the BarclaysCenter
basketball arena and 16 high-rise buildings. (Precursors were my 9/1/05 report
on New York Times coverage of the project and the TimesRatnerReportblog, linked below.)