The great basketball swindle: a riveting new documentary takes on New York's shameful eminent domain abuse.

• Author: Root, Damon W.
• Position: Battle for Brooklyn - Movie review

IN DECEMBER 2003 Bruce Ratner, a real estate tycoon and part owner of the New Jersey Nets, held a press conference in New York City to announce his latest project, a 22-acre "urban utopia" called the Atlantic Yards. The idea was to transform downtown Brooklyn by erecting 16 office and residential skyscrapers, a fancy 180-room hotel, and a new basketball arena for the Nets. Standing by Ratner's side was the architect Frank Gehry, who said he was particularly excited "to build a whole neighborhood practically from scratch."

It was a revealing statement. After all, the Atlantic Yards wasn't going to be built on top of empty land. More than half of those 22 acres were privately owned, with the properties ranging from small businesses and modest brownstone apartment buildings to luxury condos that sold for $500,000 or more. To build the Atlantic Yards from scratch meant you first had to wipe part of an existing neighborhood off the map.

That is precisely what Ratner set out to do. But he didn't approach each property owner and make a handsome cash offer. He turned to his powerful friends in the government, including his old Columbia Law School buddy Gov. George Pataki, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Most important, Ratner reached out to New York's Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC), the state agency with the power to seize private property via eminent domain.

The depressing and infuriating story of what happened next is the subject of Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley's riveting new documentary Battle for Brooklyn. The movie tells the story of the Atlantic Yards land grab largely through the eyes of property owner Daniel Goldstein, who spent seven years trying and failing to save his home from Ratner's state-sanctioned bulldozers. Drawn from hundreds of hours of footage, Battle for Brooklyn gives audiences the rare opportunity to watch a massive swindle unfold before their eyes.

As the film makes clear, this was a textbook case of eminent domain abuse. Ratner wasn't building a bridge or a tunnel or anything else that might conceivably be described as a "public use" under the state constitution. It was a money-making deal orchestrated by a powerful real estate developer. And New York officials backed him every step of the way.

For its part, the ESDC conveniently declared the proposed Atlantic Yards site to be "blighted," despite much evidence to the contrary. Among the alleged evidence of...