Developer Bruce Ratner may be facing challenges to his Atlantic Yards project, but he received nothing but support from top New York politicians at a gala in his honor yesterday.

Rep. Anthony Weiner and the speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn — both likely 2009 mayoral candidates — as well as Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and the President of Brooklyn, Marty Markowitz, all lauded Mr. Ratner at a luncheon held by the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

“Bruce Ratner is someone who reminds us all the time that, even in difficult financial times, we need to be a city that continues to grow,” Mr. Weiner told an audience of more than 450 on the Upper West Side.

Mr. Ratner’s proposed $4 billion redevelopment of Brooklyn’s Atlantic Yards is currently facing delays and reported financial problems.

In recent months, it has become clear that the project — which would erect 16 skyscrapers, more than 6,000 apartments, and an 18,000-seat basketball arena at the corner of Flatbush and Atlantic avenues — may not have sufficient funding to move forward as planned.

Members of the Assembly and City Council have rallied with Brooklyn residents against the project and demanded the creation of a trust to reform it.

A coalition of community groups filed an appeal in the State Appellate Court last month, calling for a new environmental review of the project.

“How this man looks every day in a positive way at all the hate that’s been directed to him, I will never know,” Mr. Markowitz said of Mr. Ratner yesterday.