stadium hysteria = 2 new NYC parks in 2009?

Isn't teh new Busch already doing this?

http://villagevoice.com/news/0546,demause,70002,5.html

And a follow-up today:

http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/powerplays/archives/002079.php

"Turns out the four new parking garages the Bombers want will cost not $70 million in state funds, as early reports had it, but rather $234.8 million, with the rest coming from an as-yet-to-be-picked private developer. And all parking fees will go not to the state, but to the developer—leaving the $70 million as a "capital subsidy," which is city bean counters' demure term for "money pit." Add that to the $374 million in tax and rent breaks discussed in this week's Voice, and Bloomberg's "no public subsidies" stadium would cost the public $444 million..."

He also chatted Monday on BP (stadia, contraction etc):

http://baseballprospectus.com/chat/chat.php?chatId=144

http://www.newsday.com/sports/baseball/mets/ny-spstadium1111,0,1997391.story

The New York Mets, along with State, City,
and Borough leaders, will hold the ceremonial
groundbreaking for the new Mets ballpark today
at 11:00 a.m.

Watch and listen to this historic event LIVE
on your computer by visiting mets.com

Attendees scheduled to appear include:
- George E. Pataki, Governor, State of New York
- Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor, City of New York
- Christine Quinn, New York City Council Speaker
- Sheldon Silver, New York State Assembly Speaker
- Helen Marshall, Queens Borough President
- Fred Wilpon, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, New York Mets
- Saul B. Katz, President, New York Mets
- Jeff Wilpon, Chief Operating Officer, New York Mets
- Willie Randolph, Manager, New York Mets
- Jose Reyes, Shortstop, New York Mets
- David Wright, Third Baseman, New York Mets
- John Maine, Pitcher, New York Mets

Taxpayers Footing Bill For Yankees' Lavish Spending, Group Says

The group, Good Jobs New York, accused Yankees officials of turning in to the city's Department of Parks and Recreation receipts for 2005 for expenses including crystal baseballs, postseason bar tabs, wool baseball caps and gifts for corporate clients.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=mlb&id=3048326

Buy your Mets walkway brick now, starting at $195 (the ones in St. Louis are pretty lame, as these will be without profanity or slander):

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/nym/ballpark/citifield_fanwalk_form.jsp

9/28/08: Mets-Marlins for Shea finale

http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/schedule/tentative.jsp?c_id=nym&year=2008

and I have my ticket for the Shea finale.

I rode past the rising Citi Field today on the 7; looks corny.

like in a Ray Kinsella cornfield way?

idk, I liked some of the renderings well enough but the materials make it look like a McMansion.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2296/1571631951_41339db060.jpg

Plus the fiery furnaces hang out there which makes it corny indie field
http://www.blackbookmag.com/images/pf_main_zone1.jpg

i'd like to take her mound

redcard.jpg

Matthew The Mod

More from Neil deMause:

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0813,as-new-yankee-and-met-stadiums-go-up-so-do-costs-and-disruption,389221,1.html/1

At the time of the two teams' ignominious exits last fall, the new stadiums were still little more than skeletons. Since then, decorative arches—granite for the new Yankee Stadium, brick for the Mets' Citi Field—have mostly taken shape, and the seating bowls are in place. Sharp-eyed fans will note the wide gap between the outer and inner structures: As in most modern stadiums (but not relative oldsters like Shea and Yankee), the façades are mere shells around the actual ballparks within, the better to fill the space in between with concession-y goodness.

The similarities, however, stop at the ballpark walls. The Yankees' project has gotten more attention not just because it's displacing more hallowed ground—the biggest controversy for Mets fans has been whether the team will preserve Shea's 1980s-vintage plaster home-run apple—but because it's far vaster in scale. Where Citi Field is going up in a parking lot, the new Yankee Stadium is being erected in the former Macombs Dam and Mullaly parks and, with its accompanying garages, is already transforming its South Bronx environs. It's one reason why the Yanks' costs are so much higher: nearly $1.9 billion, compared to the Mets' comparatively thrifty $850 million. Of that, taxpayers are covering almost half, mostly via tax rebates and other goodies; the latest estimates for total public subsidies, according to figures compiled by the Voice, are $833 million for the Yankees, $449 million for the Mets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/31/sports/baseball/31araton.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

"neighborhood"

http://gothamist.com/2008/06/12/yankees_wants_350_million_more_for.php

Disgusting.

It costs money to dig up buried jerseys!

What is wrong w/ New Yorkers? Even dumbass Seattle is refusing to foot the bill for this nonsense.

i think it is safe to say that the towns have a different level of interest in professional sports

I think it's safe to say that both teams are in last place.

"i think it is safe to say that the towns have a different level of interest in professional sports"

As usual you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

i think the difference may have something to do with the feasibility of moving the franchise to a different state w/o impacting their box office draw.

^^^ ding ding ding

Which means New York taxpayers should be even LESS inclined to give a shitload of money to these two teams than Seattle taxpayers are!

As usual you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

i have lived in both places. have you lived in either?

A better question is have you lived?

DNFTT.

I think a larger pct of NYers do not give a flying fuck about pro sports than Seattleites. And many of those that do know a RIPOFF when they see it.

A better question is have you lived?

spectacularly lame

I think a larger pct of NYers do not give a flying fuck about pro sports than Seattleites. And many of those that do know a RIPOFF when they see it.

Even if you were right, the vastly larger numbers of incredibly-sports-devoted New Yorkers make sports culture, and baseball culture especially, far more significant in NY.

http://tattoo.about.com/library/graphics/charlmotto.jpg

DNFTT!!!!

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/2008/09/16/2008-09-16_report_city_manipulated_evaded_law_for_1.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/nyregion/16stadium.html

Besides the free suites, the city will be allowed to buy up to 145 tickets to every Mets home game and up to 180 to every Yankees home game. (For these, the city will pay face value but will be able to reserve its tickets at least a day before they go on sale to the public.)

The rates for suites at Citi Field, where the Mets will play, are $275,000 to $500,000 a year, and the Yankees are charging $600,000 to $850,000 at their new stadium, according to published reports.

The city’s economic development chief, Seth W. Pinsky, said he did not understand all the fuss over the deal.

“Why is that relevant?” he said.

Mr. Pinsky, president of the Economic Development Corporation, said suites for politicians were nothing new in New York or anywhere else. The city has one at Shea Stadium, as well as at the ballparks of the minor-league Brooklyn Cyclones and Staten Island Yankees.

But the city has never had a suite at Yankee Stadium. Yankees and Mets executives declined to comment for this article. One Yankees official, who insisted on anonymity to avoid repercussions, said the city got the new suite simply because “Dan Doctoroff demanded a suite, like every other city.” Mr. Doctoroff, who now runs Bloomberg L.P., did not respond to requests for an interview.

So much for Rudy hob-knobbing w/ the hoi polloi. 9/16 changed everything RIP

so i have vouchers for rainout tix that can be used next year. does that mean i bought citi field tix at shea prices? or are they gonna shaft me on seating location or something?

We don't know. Follow your instincts.

you mean "use the Force"?

He means "use your brain", although since that's what led you to ask us I'm not sure that was the best advice.

"us"

"ask"

"gabbneb"

Why we shouldn't mourn Yankee Stadium

My sentiments exactly. I always thought that place was so dumpy and tacky. It reminded me of the "Yankee Harbor" section of Six Flags Great America.

Not that I think New Yorkers should be paying for it with taxes or anything, though.

anyone who remembers Murph's voice should be able to hear him while reading this transcript (4/17/64):

Well, hi everybody, this is Bob Murphy with Lindsey Nelson and Ralph Kiner, all set to detail every exciting moment of the historic opening of Shea Stadium as the New York Mets meet the Pittsburgh Pirates. Today's game is brought to you by Rheingold Extra Dry and Viceroy Cigarettes.

Well, we hope you have plenty of Rheingold Extra Dry on hand. You'll enjoy today's game even more wherever you're listening along the Rheingold beat. Rheingold is as good to your taste as it is to your thirst, Rheingold after Rheingold. Smoother, crisper, livelier....

You gotta hit a ball pretty high to spin it all the way to that upper tier.

And ringing around beautiful Shea Stadium, the five-tiered, twenty-five million dollar ballpark, we see many of the familiar "Let's Go Mets" banners.

I have a feeling that a lot of the airplanes in the area are taking a purposeful trip over the stadium today to give the people a chance to see it. And you can't blame 'em.

Now one and two the count on Roberto Clemente. Now Jack Fisher over the head, down comes the pitch, in the dirt, scooped out by Jesse Gonder, and the count even, two balls and two strikes....

http://faithandfear.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2008/9/25/3900082.html

Paul Lukas checks in (with lots of pix):

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=lukas/080926

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/2890833254_edebd355bb_o.jpg

The industrial confetti I love so much was removed after Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday bought the team in 1980, because they wanted to put their own visual stamp on the stadium. The original plan was to replace the panels with huge canvas sheets that would feature alternating images of the Mets' logo and the American flag, but that turned out to be too expensive. So they removed the panels and didn't do anything to replace them (but they left behind the panels' vertical mounting cables, which are still there today).

Damn, I have to remember to go to the Agee Seat!

i got to both stadia for the first time in decades this year, and have to say that while Yankee Stadium was fairly unpleasant, Shea was a little dumpy but charming

I was at this game:

http://www.baseball-fever.com/showpost.php?p=996070&postcount=29

NEW YORK -- Plans for a closing ceremony at Yankee Stadium have been scrapped.

The team had discussed organizing an event on the weekend of Nov. 8-9 that would have included remembrances of many of the non-baseball events at the 85-year-old ballpark, such as football and boxing.

"The Yankees were considering having a charitable event at Yankee Stadium for BAT [Baseball Assistance Team], however, the Yankees realized that the final event at Yankee Stadium should be a baseball game, which in fact took place on Sept. 21," spokesman Howard Rubenstein said Wednesday. "Accordingly, rather than having a fundraiser, the Yankees will be donating $500,000 to BAT."

Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen were among the artists the Yankees had reportedly sought for the event.

New York is scheduled to move into a $1.3 billion new Yankee Stadium. The first home game at the new ballpark is April 16 against Cleveland.

The decision to call off the ceremony was first reported by amNew York.

Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press

hey, i was at that game too!
xpost

ah shit, i misread that, i was at seaver's first game back at shea as a met, in 83 or whenever

yeah, I missed that one. Strangely, I don't remember any specific games I saw him pitch as a Met in person, just him going out to LF during the '73 playoffs (with Yogi, Mays and Staub) to get the fans to stop throwing shit at Pete Rose).

yeah i went to plenty of games 74-76 but don't have specific memories of seaver pitching either from that period. but i do remember benny ayala hitting a home run in his first major league at bat!

Kucinich BRINGS it!

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/newyork/ny-nyyank165885144oct16,0,7552879.story

Shea "lasts":

http://www.retrosheet.org/ballparks/shea_stad_last.htm

wow, I didn't realize no visiting pitcher had thrown a no-hitter there since Bob Moose in '69.

maybe it will be Jackie Robinson Stadium someday soon, after all....

Citigroup Inc.’s reduction of 52,000 employees announced on Monday is the second-largest job cut ever undertaken by any company on record, according to consulting firm Challenger Gray & Christmas. Only the 1993 bloodbath at Big Blue, when IBM let go 60,000 people, was larger. Put another way, the number of jobs being eliminated at Citi is equal to the total amount lost throughout the entire U.S. financial services industry in 2006, according to Challenger Gray.

The cuts figure to have a severe impact on the New York economy, considering that Citi is the city’s second-largest private employer behind only the New York-Presbyterian Healthcare System, according to Crain’s research. Citi had 27,000 staffers in the city in 2005, according to the most recent available data. That number has likely shrunk since then because Citi had already laid off 23,000 employees, or 6% of its worldwide workforce, heading into Monday’s news that it would sack another 20% in what it called “the near-term”—a phrase that seems designed to leave room for additional job cuts later.

http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081117/FREE/811179995/1048/INFORMATION

THE PURSUIT OF "BONDS"

Mets, Yankees ask NY for more bonds

NEW YORK (AP) — The Yankees and Mets are asking the city for $450 million more in public bonds to finance their new ballparks, on top of nearly $1.5 billion they were already granted, according to the city's Economic Development Corp.

The teams requested the additional financing in applications filed with the city ahead of a public hearing on the funding next month. The applications have not yet been made public, but the city shared details in response to questions from The Associated Press.

In the Yankees' application, the team is asking for another $259 million in tax-exempt bonds and $111 million in taxable bonds, on top of $940 million in tax-exempt bonds and $25 million in taxable bonds already granted for its $1.3 billion stadium.

The Mets are requesting an additional $83 million, on top of $615 million already approved for their $800 million park.

The city's Industrial Development Agency must hold a hearing before granting any additional public support for the ballparks, which are expected to be completed next year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other city officials have long insisted that the city reaps economic and other benefits from having the private stadiums.

As part of a deal still being worked out for the additional financing, city officials say the Yankees have agreed to some givebacks. Those could include putting money into public parks and infrastructure near their new home in the Bronx.

The original financing plans were negotiated in 2006, but both teams indicated earlier this year that they intended to ask for more help as costs began to increase.

The additional cost to the city resulting from the use of tax-exempt bonds is expected to be $16 million for the Yankees deal, but nothing extra for the Mets deal because that financing was already figured into the plan approved in 2006 as a "contingency."

The Internal Revenue Service recently updated its rules to limit the way tax-exempt bonds can be used to pay for sports facilities, but after lobbying from the city, the IRS said those regulations will not affect "certain projects substantially in progress," including the two new baseball stadiums.

When it first came to light that the teams intended to ask for more help from the city, lawmakers at the state and federal level argued taxpayers were being cheated by the deals.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat who heads the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has accused the city of misrepresenting the value of the Yankee Stadium land to get special tax deals from the IRS. Kucinich has said he believes there is "waste and abuse of public dollars" in the deal.

State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky is also investigating the projects. He believes the financing agreements were hammered out without taxpayer input.

NY Yankees 89 73 .549
Cleveland 81 81 .500

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/sports/baseball/19shea.html

r.i.p.

r.i.p. gabbneb

known shithole turns into shitpile

happily the two Temples of Divine Right are standing side by side in the Bronx

my feelings RE: Old Yanqui Stadium are similar to those RE: Shea

I will have Mike Lupica phone you then to explain why it is "the home office of baseball"

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2009/03/mets_tickets_fo.php

yeah, think i'll stay home and enjoy the platinum ownership experience 1M times

however, i did not pay any $6 per ticket fee that the VV blog describes.

When are they going to tear down the original Yankee Stadium?

summer or fall? apparently city & team are fighting about what to do with the piece$.

went to Citi field yesterday to see Georgetown vs. St John's. stadium was nice enough but felt so similar to Comerica and other parks that it didn'y feel new. I was also surprised that it didn't feel significantly smaller than Shea to me. Shake Shack was up and running though and that is good stadium food.

i'll be there Saturday for second Red Sox exhib...

we should have pooled our money and bought a Morbs brick

I gave money w/ ppl for a brick for our fanatical Mets devotee friend (quiz book author -- I'm a piker by comparison) who died a couple years ago.

PARTIAL VIEWS FOR THE PLEBES:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/sports/baseball/01seats.html

http://weblogs.newsday.com/sports/watchdog/blog/2009/04/loyal_reader_steven_gottesman.html

Ive got tix to see CC vs. Indians on the 16th ^_^

pithy comment on Neil deMause's review of New YS at BP:

I finally figured out the best way to describe new stadia in general after reading this article thanks to a casual phrase Neil dropped in: "the class segregation here feels both deliberate and complete". You know what new stadia are most like? Airplanes. They are designed intentionally to make it clear whom is in coach and whom is in first class so that the people in first class feel justified in paying what they are paying for those seats. The business model is the same too--it takes a lot of $25 tickets in the upper deck to add up to one $500 dollar seat at field level so you do everything you can to cater to the people in first class. It will be interesting to see how the stadium fills up over time--if it is like airlines, first class will be empty and coach will be overflowing. Probably not this year, but we'll see.

I think C*t* Field may be ruined for me: waiting at the front gate this morning, I saw Fred Wilpon enter with LARRY KING.

The park is basically Philly/Safeco/Jacobs below sea level.

I was able to catch the tail end of Bernie William's set at the Yankee Stadium Hard Rock Cafe. Quite a band surrounding him, the piano player from Phish, that old African guy from Arrested Development, a bunch of dudes from Rusted Root. Extreme jam bandage.

But the real star of the show were those darn hickory smoked baby back quesadilla poppers. Essential eating.

Michael Kay already calling New YS "the baseball cathedral in the Bronx"

die

the Citi good the bad etc

"Not only does security allow you to stand behind the field level seats without trying to herd you along—now you can easily sneak down to empty field-level seats with almost no restrictions. This was probably the biggest shocker. This is great. Remember the plebes couldn’t even get down to field level at Shea.

The whole place is more corporate than suburban Orlando. They even play commercials for corporations (Just for men hair products etc…) when shopping at the corporation team stores. (there’s a women’s “boutique” called Touch) Really offensive. It’s cool that they play the actual SNY broadcasts on monitors (with audible audio) everywhere.

The Jackie Robinson rotunda is not breathtaking. Nor does it give one pause or inspire fucking anything. Contrived bullshit."

http://www.cantstopthebleeding.com/?p=15971

3) Great views of Flushing

this is an oxymoron

there’s a women’s “boutique” called Touch

It's called Touch by Alyssa Milano

i'm interested in the nu-yanks spot 2.

I'm pretty sure I'm never setting foot in that fuckin place

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=1245

*vomit a little in my mouth*

I don't know, guys. On TV, both stadiums looked really nice to me.

VAYankee
(18596)

I have two children - 6 and 4 - whom I never got a chance to take to the old Stadium. For the last 6-9 months, I really regretted that they never saw a game there and that I had somehow cheated my kids of some special experience. However, Joe's last paragraph really struck a cord with me, and makes me think that in the end, given their age, it was perhaps the best. This will be their Yankee Stadium. I'll always cherish the old Stadium, and they'll cherish this one for all the same reasons I came to cherish the old. Thanks Joe.

http://www.threadbombing.com/data/media/2/Vomit.gif

Sheffield's homer was the 32nd in 21 games at Citi Field, a fraction of the 87 in 23 games at the new Yankee Stadium.

The last rubble of Shea Stadium was removed during the 10-game road trip, giving the Mets a full parking lot surrounding Citi Field.