Battle For Brooklyn
Battle for Brooklyn follows a group of people who come together to fight the Atlantic Yards Project, a massive real estate development that threatens to destroy their homes and neighborhood.
Situated at the juncture of two low rise-Brooklyn brownstone neighborhoods, it would place 16 skyscrapers and a sports arena on a 22 acre parcel of land.
Their fight to stop the project pits them against developer Forest City Ratner as well as other residents who are eager for the construction jobs and the additional housing that the project could create. Others are excited about bringing the New Jersey Nets basketball team to Brooklyn.
Daniel Goldstein's apartment sits at what would be center court of the new arena. A reluctant activist, Daniel is dragged into the fight because he simply can't believe that the government should use the power of Eminent Domain to take his property and hand it off to a private developer.
He and others form the group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn to pursue alternative plans to Ratner's proposal and to expose misconceptions about the project in the media.
Along the way, Daniel falls in love, gets married and starts a family. Compiled from almost 400 hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn is an epic tale of how far people will go to fight for what they believe in.
Directed by Michael Galinski, Suki Hawley