Just this past year, with an assist from the International Olympic Committee, Mayor Mike Bloomberg gave up his idea of building a multi-use sports stadium on Manhattan’s west side. The New York Yankees and their owner George Steinbrenner had taken the hint long ago and had revamped their future stadium plans: forsaking Manhattan and rededicating themselves to the Highbridge neighborhood in the Bronx (see some data from the League of Conservation Voters) that they have called home since 1923. The Yanks are footing the $800 million bill and the city and state only have to fork over $300 million to create a new rail siding so Metro-North trains can bring the suburban and Manhattan masses to the Bronx with nary a subway panhandler to bother them. The Gotham Gazette provides a nice summary of the new Yankee Stadium plan.
But as New York Metro reports the High Bridge neighborhood and specifically Community Board 4 are of the opinion that the Yankees are still taking more from the community than they are giving back. In December, the Highbridge Horizon reports, Bronx Borough President, Adolfo Carrion, was treated to a tough time during a public meeting where he stated his support for the new Yankee Stadium project and forwarded it to the City Planning Commission.
At issue in the ongoing debate are three key things:
- Whether Yankee Stadium and the 80 plus baseball games that are played there each year contribute enough to the neighborhood so as to offset the fact that the Stadium stands empty for 275 days each year (on acres of prime commercial and residential real estate),the ball games disrupt business, residential life, and commercial traffic on 80 plus game days, and game days attract drunk, rowdy crowds and the petty thieves who thrive on easy marks.
- Whether the new distribution of park lands currently encompassed by Mullaly and Macoombs Parks will be good for the neighborhood.
- Whether the construction of the new stadium will bring enough jobs to the Bronx, even if only for a limited period, that the employment prospects make the project desirable
The answer to the first and third questions are the biggest ones and exactly the sorts of questions that every city contends with when siting a sports stadium. Because the Yankees are financing the construction of the stadium, there is no chance that the City Planning Commission would stand in the way of the project. What the neighborhood and the city have to contend with is how to make sure that the new stadium works well in Highbridge. The Community Board should make a big fuss over the parks are arranged: both that no acreage is lost but also that the parkland is mostly continguous and easily accessible. (Steinbrenner has gotten his rail siding, he cannot turn the parks on 161st Street into a gigantic parking lots.) The Community Board should also try to integrate a commercial plan with the larger stadium plan that could make 161st Street and River Avenue into a shopping destination. This would be a perfect opportunity to bring in one or two of those much reviled big box stores. In this case, trading a big box store for a few shops selling Yankee trinkets is not a great sacrifice, and the stores would bring in traffick and people when Yankee Stadium stands quiet and empty. This part of Highbridge needs an economic identity in addition to a sporting identity.