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January 26, 2009
Sports of The Times: Tear Down Stadium and Build Up the Bronx
The New York Times
by Harvey Araton
Araton's scathing column appeared in Sunday's Times. Once again we ask, why do the sports beat writers and columnists see through the stadium swindles while the metro and editorial desks get writer's block?
Months after its rousing and official farewell, old Yankee Stadium stands strong, proud and in one piece, shuttered but not altogether silenced.
Twenty-two days until pitchers and catchers, its message board atop the outer wall reminded passers-by last week — one day before the Yankees finally left the building. Humble sorts they are, they made a publicized show of an administrative schlep across the street Friday that was months overdue, like the demolition of a ballpark so beloved that it almost sounds sacrilegious to ask, why is it still here?
A civic conscience trumps sentimentality, however. Enough is enough. To paraphrase Ronald Reagan: Tear down this stadium, Mr. Bloomberg!
“That’s going take at least two years because the city’s priority is the Yankees, not the neighborhood,” said Joyce Hogi, a member of the Community Board 4 parks committee.
She and her colleagues fought a long, losing battle of preservation best evidenced by two stadiums at the expense of cherished parkland, to be replaced here and there and on terms mostly beneficial to a private enterprise already worth in excess of $1 billion. All while the old and the new stand side by side, towering over what is commonly called the nation’s poorest Congressional district like some supersize baseball mall.
...The city and the Yankees say the area will benefit in economic development. Hogi said: “The Yankees have been there for 80 years and what’s been developed? The only thing they are building now is a fortress so the people coming in will never have to step foot in the neighborhood.”
NoLandGrab: Joyce Hogi raises a very good point. If the Yankees are so good for the people of the Bronx, why is this "the nation’s poorest Congressional district" after 80+ years of the Yankees?
Posted by eric at January 26, 2009 10:18 AM