The Bride, Until Last Month, Resided In A Building On Pacific Street . . .

This may be one of the few examples of the Sunday Styles vows section as clever political protest*:

It’s getting damn close to the end times for opponents of the Atlantic Yards project, the massive basketball, housing, and retail complex slated to rise up on the rail yards between Fort Greene and Prospect Heights. With two lawsuits drawing to a close in the next few months, lead anti–Atlantic Yards organizer Daniel Goldstein has been dreaming up every way possible to rally support for his cause. When the development company Forest City Ratner started offering lucrative buyouts to the owners of the condo building where he lives, Goldstein was the lone holdout. He’s since spent two years living alone in his 31-unit building, right where the New Jersey Nets will theoretically hit their jumpers.

Now, loner Goldstein has found romance with fellow anti–Atlantic Yards activist Shabnam Merchant, and the two plan to get married next month. And they’ve even cooked up a scheme to use their wedding to advance the anti-Ratner campaign. They’ve submitted their nuptials to the New York Times Sunday wedding-vows section, in the hope that editors will find the concept of NIMBY love too irresistible to pass up — and give the Atlantic Yards campaign a little free publicity to boot.

“I kinda doubt they would run it,” Goldstein says, even as he squirms at the prospect of his personal life bleeding into La Causa. “They get tons of submissions. But I don’t think there’s a more interesting wedding occurring this month.” If they give him a pass, he adds, he wouldn’t be surprised. After all, his arch-nemesis Ratner built the Times’s new headquarters.

*Not counting the Times’ decision back in 2002 to include gay and lesbian unions.

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.