Opening this Saturday at the Cable Car Cinema — the documentary Battle for Brooklyn, a film about overly ambitious developers, greedy politicians in search of a luxury box to call their own, and the perverting of eminent domain’s original intent.
After searching for more than five years, graphic designer Daniel Goldstein finds the perfect place to call home in Brooklyn. Within months of moving in, however, he discovers that a new arena for the New Jersey Nets is slated to be built where his condo stands. The densest real estate development plan in US history, the Atlantic Yards project seeks to replace the existing neighborhood businesses and residences with 16 skyscrapers and a sports complex. Daniel becomes a reluctant activist when the government begins using eminent domain to force locals out, handing their property over to a private developer.
The reviewer for the New York Times concludes,
The film is full of bombastic promises about jobs and other benefits from [developer] Mr. Ratner and the politicians who support him. With the project now a shell of its former self, they seem particularly outrageous. But it will be years yet before the definitive story of this exercise in urban reinvention can be told.
These sports arena projects are not turning into great revenue generators for their cities, in fact just the opposite is true in many cases. Just ask the taxpayers of Cincinnati about their swell new arena (WSJ 7.12.11). Happily, ideas for plopping the Patriots right down in the middle of Providence never got any real traction. Only two showings of this movie are scheduled so far — Saturday at noon, and Sunday at 4pm.
Saturday and Sunday, August 6 and 7, Cable Car Cinema, 204 South Main Street, 272.3970