In our nearly 6 years of working on a film about the Atlantic Yards project we have taken great pains to avoid using our work to influence the situation. While we are not activist filmmakers we are also not journalists and it has has not been our goal to cover the story from a “news” perspective. Instead we see ourselves as working in the tradition of the verite documentary filmmakers like the Maysles Brothers or Fredrick Wiseman.

However, we have been covering a politically charged story and have often struggled to hold our tounges, and our footage, as major news stories have come and gone. With the recent brouhaha over ACORN exploding into the press, and bleeding over into the issue of the Atlantic Yards we thought it was relevant to post a scene from our upcoming film that sheds some light on the relationship between, ACORN, the developer, and the community surrounding the Atlantic Yards project.

This scene comes about 40 minutes into the film. By this point the audience has witnessed the announcement of the project as well as growing community opposition to it. In addition, the vast majority of condo owners in the footprint of the proposed project have sold their apartments to the developer in order to avoid having them seized via eminent domain. The main character of the film, Daniel Goldstein, has refused to sell and has become one of the main organizers trying to stop it.

In this scene, Daniel attends a press conference announcing an agreement reached between Acorn and Forest City Ratner - in which the developer has agreed to make half of the units in the proposed project “affordable”. Further, it is agreed that Acorn will be involved in monitoring the project as well as marketing the “affordable” units. For this work they will be paid.

At the press conference on May 19th, 2005 Bertha Lewis, the head of NY ACORN (currently the head of the national organization), declares that ACORN is working with the current tenants to make sure that they are not pushed out and treated fairly by the developer. Answering a question she further states that there will be apartments set aside for those displaced by the project.

After the event, Daniel Goldstein confronts her with the fact that tenants are already being pushed out. She admits that ACORN hasn’t actually talked to any of the tenants yet. She then argues that the developer has nothing to do with greedy landlords forcing out tenants before they buy the property.

This is not a gotcha moment, but instead a small part of a complex tale. We feel that it is relevant to follow up on published reports that call into question the relationship between the developer and ACORN. At issue is the fact that the developer gave a $500,000 grant and $1,000,000 low interest loan to ACORN in the midst of a previous scandal when many long time donors refused to continue supporting them. The financial relationship between the developer and the community group calls into question this arrangement.

As much as my life is defined by my role as a father I will be the first person to admit that I am by no means a perfect one. In fact I’m a lot more imperfect than I’d like at times. Our older daughter is “spirited” beyond belief. Honestly she acts like a 13 year old more than a 7 year old and we struggle with maintaining balance when dealing with her. Unfortunately a lot of our strategies don’t work and we shift them more than we should. We are very aware of the idea that we want to have our daughter recognize that her behavior is unacceptable, not her when we are having issues, but that line often gets blurred.

One of the most important things that we work on is communication, but sometimes I know I don’t hold up my end. My daughter is a font of want. I’ll often point out to her that the only thing she’s discussed with me is the things that she wants. I understand that there are deeper forces at play with the intense sense of need she has, but I don’t always have the patience to calmly explain why she can’t have an ice cream at 10 am, or a donut, or new shoes, or a new backpack (this isn’t an exaggeration and all of the requests came with in minutes). As such we often slip into patterns of reward and punishment that we recognize probably aren’t the best strategy long term, but feel necessary to get a handle on our situation. There was an article in the NY Times yesterday that put these practices into troubling perspective.

After reading it, I did a bit better today. I just hope I can keep it up.

For the past two weeks my kids have had no camp or day care. My wife and i have swapped time mostly, so that one of us can get some work done. Last week we stayed in upstate NY. My wife typically gets up with the kids first and then wakes me after an hour or so and goes back to bed.

We are trying to move forward on our film about the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn so my goal was to give her as much time as possible to work. At the same time, I was trying to paint our house. I’ve found that when I’m just with my two kids, ages 3 and 7, they tend to really get on each others nerves. So I sought out some friends for them. One family that we hang out with has three kids and the mom was busy fighting mold that had creeped into her house. I ended up taking 5 kids to a river to swim. It was actually easier than bringing just my two- but it was still exhausting. My younger one is a bit needy and wants to be held all the time. By the end of those days I was exhausted.

I’ve also found that the kids respond really poorly to having no structure like camp or school to give them a focus. As much as i try to keep things scheduled I can’t seem to keep up a momentum.

“Hey, let’s get going to the river”

“NOOOO” they respond.

it always goes like that. At some point I lose my patience. I can stay calm for a long time. After a while my calmness and patience seems completely ineffective- and when I realize how ineffective it is I often just… explode

“All right let’s go go go- get in the goddam car- we’re leaving now!!!!”

unfortunately that’s often much more effective than calm gentle pleadings.

There’s only a few more days till school starts and both my wife and i are shot.