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The Barclays Center's controversial history is revisited at a free event in Red Hook
By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Feb 16, 2025
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By
Hannah Frishberg
Published Feb 16, 2025
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Though Barclays Center is a fixture in Prospect Heights today, its development was controversial from the moment it was announced in December 2003, igniting a yearslong debate between developers and locals.
Pioneer Works in Red Hook will revisit this conflict on Feb. 28 with a free screening of the documentary “Battle for Brooklyn” and a panel discussion with some of the activists who protested the Atlantic Yards project, which includes Barclays Center and has since been rebranded to Pacific Park. Billed as the 20th anniversary of the “resistance" to Atlantic Yards, the evening is organized by the neighborhood advocacy group Resilient Red Hook and the Brooklyn Public Library.
A July 2006 rally against the development in Grand Army Plaza.
Courtesy of Daniel Goldstein
The Atlantic Yards project was debated almost from the moment the 22-acre, $4.9 billion initiative was unveiled more than 20 years ago on the steps of Brooklyn Borough Hall by then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg and developer Bruce Ratner with Jay-Z and celebrity architect Frank Gehry.
The most contested aspect of the project’s history was the use of eminent domain to seize buildings, displacing businesses and hundreds of residents.
Forest City Ratner — which Ratner co-founded — had vowed to build an arena and multiple market-rate residential buildings. It also made a series of civic promises, including that 2,250 units of its new apartments — many of which were set to be constructed above Vanderbilt Yards, to the east of Barclays — would be affordable. So far, a little more than half that many, 1,374 affordable units, have been built.
Signs protest the development in June 2004.
Courtesy of Daniel Goldstein
In 2003, local filmmakers Michael Galinsky and his wife, Suki Hawley, lived in nearby Clinton Hill and were alarmed by news of the project. They proceeded to spend the following seven years filming “Battle for Brooklyn,” documenting the experiences of area residents affected by the development. A central figure in their story was Daniel Goldstein, who continued fighting to keep his seventh-floor Pacific Street apartment after all his neighbors gave up.
A view of the Downtown Brooklyn skyline from Goldstein's roof, the day before he moved out in 2010.
Courtesy of Michael Galinsky
“If I had to do it all over again, I would do the same exact thing,” Goldstein says at the start of the film, as a camera pans over the razed blocks where the Barclays Center would eventually rise. “If I wasn’t going to fight this project that was hitting my home and my neighborhood, what would I ever fight?”
A Brooklyn building covered in signs protesting the development in June 2004.
Courtesy of Daniel Goldstein
Ultimately, Goldstein's obstinance was handsomely rewarded. Forest City paid him $3 million in 2010 to leave, quite a raise from the $510,000 the company initially offered him for the apartment,. He'd paid $590,000 for it in 2003.
But Goldstein — who was a ubiquitous and committed presence at project protests — said in a phone interview Tuesday that he stayed not for the money, but in hopes he could keep his home to “stop or meaningfully revise the proposed project.” Also, despite the stress and anxiety, he said, joining a community “to work towards one purpose was very rewarding and uplifting.”
In addition to the contested use of eminent domain, critics note that today, 22 years after the project was initially announced, many of the project’s civic pledges remain unfulfilled. Vanderbilt Yards remains an open railyard and has not been developed. The project's initial 10-year timeline has proved wildly inaccurate as construction has been delayed by years. Frank Gehry’s designs were never used and he was ousted from the project in 2009. The original developer, Forest City, was dismantled and sold, ownership has changed and construction has stalled. Political questions remain about the project’s many unfulfilled promises.
According to Norman Oder, a tour guide who maintains a devoted watchdog blog about the development, Atlantic Yards has failed “to fulfill [its] transformative promises of jobs and affordable housing.”
“All of the promises were empty,” added Galinsky in a phone interview.
Organizers of the upcoming event say the film is more relevant than ever. Victoria Alexander, interim Chair at Resilient Red Hook, said it offers lessons “as we continue to face challenges related to displacement, environmental justice, and resilience.”
“We fight these fights not always to win, but to lay the groundwork so people can step on our shoulders,” Hawley, one of the filmmakers, said. “It's very important to continue fighting and to show people that it's possible and that they can do it too.”
“Battle for Brooklyn” and an accompanying panel discussion will take place at Pioneer Works on Friday, Feb. 28 at 6:30 p.m. Admission is free with RSVP.
Tagged
housing
brooklyn
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Politics
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Hannah Frishberg
Hannah Frishberg covers New York City arts and culture. Got a tip? Email Hannah at [email protected].
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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