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April 11, 2008
Protesters call Bruce’s honor a ‘dung deal’
The Brooklyn Paper's Gersh Kuntzman reports from inside and outside last week's Brooklyn Museum Gala honoring the controversial Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner.
I heard about [the Ratner honor] a couple of weeks ago, and I couldn’t believe it,’’ said Clem Labine, 70, who was dressed in robber-baron style: a black bowler and black tie. “Ratner is a totally divisive character, and I had to protest this decision by the museum.”
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Joining the protesters was Marilyn Gelber — a former city Department of Environmental Protection commissioner who worked with Ratner on the Metrotech office complex when she was chief of staff to former Borough President Howard Golden.
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Given Gelber’s connections and long support for the Museum, she could have been inside eating tuna martini, miso filet of beef and pineapple pillows for dessert rather than on the hustings, with the other Atlantic Yards foes.“I’m a big supporter of the Museum and have enormous affection for [Executive Director] Arnold Lehman. I was invited to be inside, but I told Arnold that given my views of Atlantic Yards, I’d rather be outside.”
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“We’re not involved in the politics that seems to be swirling around us,” Lehman added.Opponents pounced on Lehman’s apparent surprise that politics were “swirling around” the Museum. Indeed, those politics are quite inside the institution.
One of its board members, Joanne Minieri, is the president and chief operating officer of Forest City Ratner. Another board member, Robert Rubin, is an investor in Ratner’s New Jersey Nets.
In addition, the team’s CEO, Brett Yormark; rapper Jay-Z, another Nets investor; and Barclays Capital (which paid Ratner $400 million to emblazon its name on the publicly built arena), were members of the committee that put together the April 3 gala.
Posted by lumi at April 11, 2008 4:55 AM