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May 28, 2011
New documentary 'Battle for Brooklyn' details the fight over the Atlantic Yards project
Daily News
By Michael O'Keeffe
The Atlantic Yards documentary "Battle for Brooklyn" makes its U.S. debut this Friday at the Brooklyn Film Festival. This rundown of the film mentions unseemly behavior by some of the project supporters.
Forest City Ratner vice president Bruce Bender, pointing to a map as he tells the filmmakers which blocks will be seized for the project and which blocks will remain intact, comes across as dishonest and arrogant as the Bush administration officials who brought us the Iraq War. He's a man without empathy, completely unable to comprehend why residents and businessmen would be reluctant to step out of the way so his company could reap big profits.
Marie Louis of BUILD, a purportedly independent Brooklyn group that supported the project, continues to insist on camera that BUILD is a volunteer, grass-roots organization even after being confronted with tax records that show it received millions of dollars from Ratner.
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz reduces himself to a cartoon character as he invokes Junior's cheesecake and the long-gone Brooklyn Dodgers to explain why Ratner needs to take homes and businesses to build an NBA team. "He shed so many tears for the Dodgers going to La-La Land," AY foe Patti Hagan says in the film. "He's shed no tears for the one thousand people he wants put out of their homes."
Posted by steve at May 28, 2011 10:39 PM