Last Atlantic Yards Holdout Settles for $3M

Daniel Goldstein was, until this morning, the spokesman for Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn, formed in opposition to the Atlantic Yards development project, sponsored by Forest City Ratner.  Maybe I'm partial to this issue because I live down the street, or maybe because I've read Kelo v. City of New London a few too many times and it still doesn't sit right.  Whatever the cause, the breadth of the powers of eminent domain never ceases to amaze me.  Describing this as a David versus Goliath fight seems very fitting.  Even if you don't necessarily believe that Daniel Goldstein was ever the little guy, the principles he stood for certainly were. 

He wielded a bullhorn and had a lightning-fast e-mail response to every incursion by the developer Bruce C. Ratner on the 22-acre project site at Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues. As the project advanced, and every one his neighbors abandoned his building on Pacific Street, Mr. Goldstein remained with his wife and child, vowing never to be dislodged from their seventh-floor condominium.

In a thoughtfully crafted statement to anyone who's still paying attention the Atlantic Yards debacle, Goldstein had this to say regarding his eleventh hour change of heart:

I did not sell my home today. I had no home to sell as the state took my home on March 1st. Contrary to what Ratner and ESDC might want people to believe, eminent domain was used on me and many others. My home was seized by the government to give to a private developer.

What I did do was agree to leave my home rather quickly in return for a payment. What I did do was what I needed to do as a responsible husband and father to make sure that my family could make an orderly transition to a new home in Brooklyn. I was left with no good choice by the ESDC or Judge Gerges.

I kind of wish he had promised to put some of that $3M into the DDDB legal fund, but after seven years, maybe that's too much to ask.