Does real estate have a memory? New York City has seen its share of bungled, back-and-forth construction projects that, once completed, become part of the urban fabric, their birth pangs forgotten. The Guggenheim, for instance, was once the target of the wrath of artists, who refused to display art in a building they considered a monstrosity; after the instant landmark opened, all was forgiven.

But while public sentiment seems to be swinging in favor of the World Trade Center rebuilding project, it's less certain whether the turmoil can ever burn off of another convoluted endeavor across the river: Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards. Just as Forrest City Ratner seemed to win over the last of the neighborhood's anti-construction holdouts, another canny local has slapped the developer with an arcane "air rights" lawsuit.

Peter Williams, a property owner who has a vacant lot on Sixth Avenue that overlaps the multibillion-dollar Atlantic Yards site, claims New York State somehow neglected to erase the volume of air he owned above the lot when it seized it under eminent domain. Williams, who agreed to be bought out by Ratner for his apartment on the site last month, apparently has found a new leverage point to either stall the construction project — which had been sold to the city with celebrated architect Frank Gehry at the helm, but which is now being steered by Ellerbe Becket and SHoP Architects due to cost overruns — or pry more settlement money from the developers.

Forrest City Ratner "simply cannot take property it does not own," Williams states in the suit. Well, it can, but not quickly. For the state to get rid of his air rights it would take about two years of bureaucratic gear-turning — two years that might be enough to make any remaining boosters fed up with the project.