Protesters Slam Real Estate Summit At Brooklyn Museum: "It's Like Vultures Descending On The City"

Hundreds of real estate developers and investors streamed into the Brooklyn Museum on Tuesday morning, past a 65-foot cloth banner proclaiming "Brooklyn Is Not For Sale!" Nearby, dozens of local artists and community activists shouted "Greedy! Greedy!", protesting the institution's decision to host thesixth annual Brooklyn Real Estate Summit.

"White dudes in fancy suits is all I see," said Olivia Fox, a performance artist from Queens. Fox, who was holding up one end of the banner, is a member of the Brooklyn Anti-Gentrification Network (BAN). "The Brooklyn Museum is supposed to serve Brooklyn, and it should be serving its most vulnerable population first and foremost," she added.

A BAN petition with more than 1,000 signaturesas of this writing implored the museum to cancel the event—hosted by Green Pearl—citing record rents and a near-record homeless population—more than 56,000 New Yorkers were enrolled in city shelters as of August.

Undeterred, and for $500 per ticket, participants in today's summit sat fordevelopment-friendly panels like "Next Stop, Opportunity! How Developers and Investors Take Hints from the Subway Map." The bulleted agenda was more blunt, covering the merits of mixed-use developments that "capture the hearts, minds and wallets of the new Brooklyn residents" and the potential value in "overlooked neighborhoods."

Summit participants have already changed the landscape of Brooklyn in significant ways, like AptsandLofts (the broker for Brooklyn'svery own colonizers) and Forest City Ratner, the developer behind Atlantic Yards.

"It's literally like vultures descending on the city saying, okay, what neighborhoods haven't been gentrified yet?" said Faith Pennich, a filmmaker from Lefferts Gardens. Meanwhile, "Everything is becoming more expensive, like going to a museum. Either I hold on to my apartment for dear life or, if it crosses a threshold, I'll have to leave."
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