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January 6, 2007
Brooklyn Matters: New Film Skewers Ratner, Albany, Gehry
Gothamist
The hard-hitting polemical film, Brooklyn Matters, lucidly articulates and amplifies the movement to stop Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards plan. Directed and produced by Isabel Hill, the film portrays the AY project as an outrageous scam to be perpetrated upon hoodwinked Brooklynites. Numerous interviews with critical residents, planners, critics, and elected officials portray a scenario in which a cynical developer and corrupt State agencies have hired gullible community allies and a star architect to conceal their true motives. The politics of the Brooklyn-based coalition, Develop Don't Destroy (DDD), are clearly imprinted on the film, although the work is presented as an independent documentary.Over two hundred people packed the Center for Architecture on LaGuardia Place for the public debut of the film last night. Released barely two weeks after the AY project received final approval from the State, the film may not be too late to catalyze a new wave of opposition. Several speakers in a post-screening discussion vowed that the AY project is "not a done deal," with two lawsuits currently pending and a host of practical uncertainties facing Forest City Ratner and the Empire State Development Corporation. Stuart Pertz, former member of the NYC Planning Commission, discussed the possibility that the project could stall before reaching fruition, in the manner of other aborted NYC projects over the past 30 years such as Westway (underground highway) and the West Side Stadium. The audience's largest laugh followed the film's recorded quote from Frank Gehry: "We're trying to understand what is Brooklyn, what is the body language of Brooklyn, and trying to emulate it without copying it." The 500-ft. Miss Brooklyn batted her steel eyelashes for a moment on screen.
Posted by amy at January 6, 2007 11:46 AM