New documentary ‘Battle for Brooklyn’ details the fight over the Atlantic Yards project

Michael O'Keeffe, DAILY NEWS SPORTS WRITER

Daniel Goldstein lost his home after a long and bruising fight against the Atlantic Yards project, which includes a new basketball arena for the Nets that's supposed to open for the 2012-13 NBA season. But the Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn activist retained his soul and his integrity after the bruising seven-year battle over the sprawling Prospect Heights development.

"We didn't accomplish what we wanted to accomplish," says Goldstein, the protagonist of "Battle for Brooklyn," a 93-minute documentary about the fight over the Atlantic Yards project. "But I came out of it intact. We took a principled stand and I feel good about it."

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More than a year has passed since Bruce Ratner broke ground on the arena, and the developer and his supporters haven't held up as well. Ratner and his family business, Forest City Ratner, have become synonymous with eminent domain abuse and shady backroom deals. Ratner lobbyist Richard Lipsky and State Sen. Carl Kruger, one of Atlantic Yards's biggest cheerleaders in Albany, were indicted earlier this year on federal corruption charges. The Nets, perennial NBA bottom feeders, still stink.

"Battle for Brooklyn," which premiered at Toronto's Hot Docs festival to glowing reviews earlier this month, makes its U.S. debut on Friday at the Brooklyn Film Festival, and the timing couldn't be more perfect. More than a year has also passed since Goldstein and his family were forced to leave their Pacific Street apartment after a court ruling upheld the state's ability to seize their home and deliver it to Ratner. It's a good time to reflect on what will go down as an ugly chapter of New York City history.

"Battle for Brooklyn" is a riveting flick that shows how real estate developers use sports to seize other people's property and enrich themselves with taxpayer subsidies; it is about how corporate interests enlist their allies in government to get what they want, even if that means lying to the public and screwing people who lack deep pockets and political connections.

"I'm not much of a patriot, but it is un-American," Goldstein says in "Battle for Brooklyn" after he learns that Ratner intends to seize his home and his neighborhood without even consulting the community he intends to uproot. "Or maybe it is American. You know, it is American."

Directors Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky say they are not activists, and they had no interest in demonizing Ratner and his allies. "We're not Michael Moore," Galinsky says.

But Hawley and Galinsky didn't have to go out of their way to takes sides. They didn't have to make an effort to make Ratner and his friends look bad. All they had to do is turn on their cameras.

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."

The film ends with Goldstein and his wife, Shabnam Merchant, and their young daughter moving out of their home. DDDB, with an assist from the real estate bust and the Great Recession, came close to defeating the project before it was saved by Russian oligarch Mikhail Prokhorov.

Goldstein, his head on Merchant's lap, looks like he left everything on the field in his fight to keep his home. But in the end, a developer's money and political connections won the day.

"If the developer wants your home," Merchant says, "it's here for the taking."

[Editor's note: 'The Battle for Brooklyn' premiers this week at the Brooklyn International Film Festival, more info here. Theatrical release begins June 17, at Cinema Village. Showtimes here.

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Photo:'Battle for Brooklyn' directors Suki Hawley (l.) and Michael Galinsky (r.) flank Daniel Goldstein on site where activists dueled developers of the Atlantic Yards project. (Linda Rosier/NYDN)