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August 2, 2005
Rooftop Films to "Brooklyn Pravda:" Respectfully take our manifesto and shove it!
Q: When does a community-based non-profit film festival and workshop draft a policy statement on development in Brooklyn?
A: When approached by The Brooklyn Standard to be featured in a story in the next issue.
In an open letter, Rooftop Films not only turned down Forest City Ratner's offer for some free press, they then went a step further and stuck up for the community. Brooklyn owes Rooftop Films a thank you for having the guts to speak out.
An open letter to the editors and readers of The Brooklyn Standard:
July 28, 2005
Re: Isaac Dovere's request to publish an article about Rooftop Films in The Brooklyn Standard.
Rooftop Films is a community-based non-profit which works in various ways to strengthen the neighborhoods we work in. As an organization which works closely with the physical spaces we inhabit, we have strong views about building development.
Rooftop Films believes in small and diverse development, development which benefits more people and is less of a financial risk for the neighborhood than vast development by a single large corporation—one such as the Atlantic Yards Project. Rooftop Films believes the neighborhoods of Prospect Heights and Fort Greene would benefit from small, locally developed and owned stores, as opposed to franchises from international chains, as proposed in the Atlantic Yards project. Rooftop Films believes that the area around the project would benefit from increased foot traffic, achieved by creating more through streets, as opposed to a plan which creates more car traffic by shutting down streets.
Rooftop Films believes that in order to create sustainable low and middle-income housing which will invite low and middle-income people to live in their houses for a long time, to care about their houses and their neighborhood, and to give them the freedom to earn more money without fear of losing their housing, developers should build small housing units with buyer options as opposed to rent-controlled apartments in high-rises.
As such, Rooftop Films believes that our neighborhood, our organization, and other organizations like ours will suffer if the Atlantic Yards project is built—as the neighborhood and small businesses have suffered in the wake of Forest City Ratner Companies' other development projects, such as the Atlantic Mall, Atlantic Terminal, and MetroTech.
The Brooklyn Standard clearly states that it is published by FCRC to share information about the Atlantic Yards project. But the paper does not offer balanced and diverse opinions about the project. Rooftop Films is fundamentally at odds with FCRC and the Atlantic Yards project, and we do not wish to appear in a publication designed for the sole purpose of promoting that project.
Thank you for your time, but Rooftop Films respectfully declines to appear in The Brooklyn Standard.
Sincerely,
Mark Elijah Rosenberg, Artistic Director
Dan Nuxoll, Program Director
Sarah Palmer, Festival Director
Rooftop Films, Inc.
Posted by lumi at August 2, 2005 7:18 AM