How much has FCR given the Brooklyn Museum? At least $200,000, with more coming

How much has developer Forest City Ratner contributed to the Brookyn Museum, which is honoring CEO Bruce Ratner tonight at a gala that will be met by a protest and has already generated a lengthy letter of critique?

To the Brooklyn Paper, spokeswoman Sally Williams cited Ratner's “generous support of various activities of the Brooklyn Museum” but wouldn't provide specific numbers. (She similarly declines in today's Daily News.) She said the honor didn't indicate support for Atlantic Yards; indeed, unlike the Brooklyn Academy of Music, whose board Ratner once chaired, the museum did not comment formally during the state's AY environmental review.

Some numbers

Given that tables of 12 with premier seating at the gala are going for $50,000 to $75,000, and tables of ten range from $5000 to $25,000, it's a good bet that the honor for Ratner will draw significant sums. And it's not unlikely that Ratner and colleagues have made individual donations.

Those, however, are not a matter of public record. However, IRS filings by the Forest City Ratner Companies Foundation show a $100,000 donation on 7/1/05 and a $100,000 donation on 9/11/06. Donations from the foundation during 2007 have not yet been reported, but if the pattern has continued, the museum gained an additional $100,000.

The foundation is not the company, but its officers are company executives and its mission includes "directing and concentrating FCRC's own charitable activities."