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Yards foes to picket Ratner

By Dana Rubinstein
The Brooklyn Paper

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Atlantic Yards opponents — some of them Brooklyn Museum members — will picket the Museum’s April 3 gala to protest the institution’s decision to honor developer Bruce Ratner.

“Honoring Ratner is entirely inappropriate,” said Michael White, a Brooklyn Heights–based urban planner, Museum member and Yards opponent.

“Part of the job of public institutions with non-profit status like the Brooklyn Museum is to be a good neighbor,” said White. “You don’t accomplish that by honoring someone who has been a bad neighbor.”

Brooklyn Museum spokeswoman Sally Williams countered that Ratner had, in fact, been a very good neighbor.

“Bruce C. Ratner is being honored … in recognition of his longstanding support of this museum,” said Williams, in a statement.

Williams last week declined to provide precise financial numbers, and added that the award did not indicate the museum’s support for Ratner’s 16-skyscraper-and-arena project.

Brooklyn Bridge Realty

But that distinction was lost on project opponents.

“We’re not against the museum accepting money from Bruce Ratner, but we do have a big problem with the museum honoring and celebrating Bruce Ratner,” said Daniel Goldstein, spokesman for Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn, which is helping organize the protest.

©2008 The Brooklyn Paper

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