Forest City Ratner Arrests Footprint Resident

The Williams family owns a home in the footprint of the proposed Atlantic Yards project and allows Forest City Ratner to use their hallway as an emergency exit for their building next door. But when the family discovered that their neighbors had attached a security camera to their building, their son, Lars Williams, prompty took it down. According to the Brooklyn Papers, “Security cameras have been sprouting up all over the footprint for the proposed $4.2-billion office, residential, hotel and arena mega-project, but this is the first time anyone has claimed that Ratner is attaching them to privately owned homes.” On October 1, Lars was arrested for removing the camera, and spent a night in jail…

Last week, the Williams family sued Forest City Ratner, claming that the company had no right to install a video camera on the premises. The suit also names an “agent and/or employee” named Michael Machuch who incorrectly informed the police that Lars stole a camera from Ratner-owned property — but when the Brooklyn Papers called FCR and asked for Machuch, there were told that there was no employee by that name.
Camera Shy [Brooklyn Papers]
Photo by Gersh Kuntzman